I'd really love to connect with other business owners who are self-employed full-time (aka. people who rely on their business 100% for their livelihood--not as a side gig). I'd like to hear about what you do, what your retirement/health insurance plans are like, and if your perspective towards money and FI is different than the other MMers.
I am 7 years self-employed. My husband also works full-time for the business and we have 2 full-time and 2 part-time employees. We both have a SIMPLE IRA plan that we fully max out and a group major medical health plan for $250 a month with HSA. As business owners, I believe that we are a bit more focused on growing our income by expanding our business rather than being overly frugal. We are hoping that by growing our business we could speed up our FI, reaching our goals within 5 years rather than 10 and that our exit strategy will allow for our employees to buy-out the business giving us some passive income.
I would love to know your plans for your business and goals to reach FI!!!
FT business owner here :), in the tech/internet space.
I've had two big exits and a few smaller ones so at this point I am "retired". I work purely for love/fun/challenge rather than just the money (the money is nice too, i view it as a symptom of a job done well). I was pretty dang lucky and had my first big exit at ~26 and I had a good accountant who got me started with an IRA and the basics.
My retirement plan is a bit weird, I love what I do and plan to do it as long as I am mentally able (that could change but I doubt it). When I have a 401k program available I max that out plus any personal IRAs (but I often have to return ~70% of the money from the 401k due to my status as a share holder / controller and some of those rules). I have not had an entity where I can do the self employed IRA but maybe soon with a side gig i am doing this year. After the last exit I moved a big chunk of money to our retirement so we are set and do not have to contribute any further for FI if we wanted. We also own our house outright. The money I receive now is just to build a bigger war chest to allow me to start new businesses, try riskier things, and move faster if I want.
Medical is usually covered by the business, but I just had an exit and I am taking the rest of the year off to hang out with my family and play with some side gigs (and researching some long shot ideas). So currently I am paying ~$1400 a month for A Cobra Family health plan plus dental. It is expensive and a drain on cash flow but important given some health challenges we have. I have a pre existing condition, so my backup plan if the ACA is repealed or screwed up is to move to Costa Rica or Europe until the USA gets to single payer or similar system where it is handled by the gov and far more efficient.
My perspective on FI is that I want control of my time and not to work for anyone else, which meshes pretty well with being an entrepreneur. I grew up lower middle class, and I am not into stuff so I live pretty cheap. Not Mr. Money Moustache cheap but we aim to live on $60k to $100k while saving 20% to 30% of our income (1 child so far). We love to travel so that is one of our big expenses beyond good food and child care. I don't want my kid to growing up wealthy and a little shit too :).
Totally agree on growing the business income, that can have such larger benefits :).
Hope that helps!