This is pretty cool. Just this year, I've seen RootofGood and GoCurryCracker featured.
Here's a link to the article. Forbes can be weird with links, so I'll copy and paste the article here as well.
How One Man Curbed His Extreme Spending And Will Retire By 35 To Travel
Steve Adcock used to be that guy. The one driving a tricked out Corvette convertible with a supercharger and red calipers down the freeway at eighty miles per hour. All the while thinking to himself how great he was.
No more. The man who once sunk half his salary into making sure he had the loudest and fastest car on the road doesn’t even pay for ESPN these days. And it doesn’t bother him one bit.
Instead, the 34-year-old is socking away money so he and his wife can retire early. By this time next year, they plan to have sold most of their earthly possessions and be spending their days roaming the country by RV, with no timetable.
The couple isn’t so much running away from their jobs as they are chasing the notion of freedom. Freedom to explore, to create and to drink a cup of coffee in peace every morning. Both have climbed the ranks in their respective careers and make handsome livings. Courtney, 30, is a systems engineer at Raytheon Missile Systems. Steve is a senior IT consultant at a database company.
“It does pay well but it’s definitely not something I want to do for the rest of my life,” says Steve, who has been in IT since he graduated from college. “In many ways, it drains the life right out of you.”
Steve found a partner in crime with Courtney, whom he met on an online dating site two years ago and married shortly thereafter. Neither really had considered retiring while still young. They had assumed they’d keep working and, if the stock market cooperated, retire around 60. On the early side, but conventional.
“When we put two salaries together, the initial thought was we could live the high life,” says Steve. “Then I realized I had done that already and it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.”
As a bachelor, Steve didn’t get nearly as much joy as he thought he would from his expensive toys in the garage or eating out every day. As a couple, they found their 1700-square-foot house with a backyard pool and mountain view excessive, with multiple rooms they never used.
So they began talking about what might happen if they prioritized their future over their present and started saving serious cash. If they buckled down, they could quit the rat race much earlier than normal and take advantage of what the world had to offer. Steve imagined having more time for his photography; Courtney is a voracious reader and would have more time to knit. They could travel. They’d no longer have to worry about putting in long hours at the office or schmoozing with the right people.
They had also decided they didn’t want kids. Their desire to be in control of their lifestyle and use their dual incomes to pursue financial independence outweighed their desire to start a family. In short, they felt they couldn’t go all-in on the commitment. Instead, they’ll settle for spoiling their two nieces, perhaps inviting them to spend part of the summer in their RV or helping pay for college.
Steve can’t claim the idea to retire early and travel as entirely his own. In fact, they have Steve’s parents to look to for inspiration. After Steve’s dad retired early at 49, his parents spent 13 years traveling around the country in an RV and loved it.
With that example in mind, Courtney and Steve vowed to save as much as humanly possible and celebrate retirement before their 40th birthdays. To help keep themselves accountable, Steve began blogging at ThinkSaveRetire.com.
At Steve’s dad’s suggestion, they started by socking away Courtney’s income and living entirely off Steve’s salary. Then they began jettisoning expenses. The first thing to go was Steve’s Corvette. Then it was the pricey cable TV and their unlimited data cell plan. And the frequent eating out. “One by one we went to mold our budget to where it needed to be,” says Steve.
A crucial component of their plan has been keeping the conversation at the forefront. For instance, they decided each of them would run every purchase by the other. When pressed about what was too small to require spousal approval, Steve says it’s not a hard and fast rule, but they’re often together when out shopping and neither wants to jeopardize their plans.
When they take their dogs for a walk or do the dishes, they’ll talk about the excitement their future holds. That’s a good way to stave off impulse purchases. For instance, they’ve realized it’s okay to go to a store and leave empty-handed. Before they would have considered it a waste of time. Now they ask if it’s worth compromising their early retirement. Put that way, leaving a store without buying anything is a no-brainer.
They’ve also learned from past mistakes. When Steve was younger and tried his hand at a budget, he let the category amounts roll over from month to month if the funds hadn’t been spent, which meant he could ultimately buy what he wanted to buy. “In the end, I was just cheating myself,” he says. Now the categories don’t roll over, and they both know that being too lax with their budget will only postpone their retirement date.
The result has been a smashing success—last year Steve and Courtney saved 70% of their income, and lived off the remaining after-tax income of $54,000.
“I haven’t missed much,” says Steve, who now catches sports highlights online or on the radio, since he quit paying for ESPN. ”That’s probably the thing that surprised me the most. My definition of enough keeps getting lower and lower and I keep getting happier and happier.”
They even spend less of their budgeted ”fun money” than they used to. Steve will spend a little here and there on tripods, lenses and the like to feed his photography hobby. But he no longer shells out for cigars, for instance. Courtney typically reserves her spending money for knitting, whether it’s good yarn or the occasional knitting conference.
The fact that they’re getting ready to move into a small space helps combat the desire to accumulate more stuff, too. Where they’re going, there won’t be much storage space at all. They currently have their eyes on an Airstream, a brand of travel trailer first made by a Stanford grad in the 1930′s, in which their living space will probably span 200 square feet.
Once they sell their homes (the one they’re living in, plus Steve’s place from before they were married), they’ll pack up and relocate to the RV with their two rescue dogs. First on the travel hit list: Arizona, where they live now, Idaho and Washington. Maybe down the road they’ll take a year to travel from Maine to Key West, Florida.
They have $600,000 in investments right now, a sum that will surge once they sell the two homes, plus an Ally savings account with their emergency fund and enough to cover their first year in retirement expenses. They plan to give themselves an annual budget of about $30,000. Certain expenses will rise (like the cost of gas) and they’ll probably have to sign up for Obamacare, but they’ll be without their hefty mortgage payments. In fact, they plan to boondock a lot of the time, staying in the middle of nowhere for free.
If they get in a financial pinch (or even if they don’t) they figure they can work part time at campsites in exchange for free parking. If they have reason to believe they’re headed for financial straits or realize they don’t like all the free time, they’ll relocate somewhere and get jobs. That’s a real possibility, they acknowledge, but not much cause for concern.
“If you’re a skilled worker, you will be able to find work somewhere,” says Steve. “Even if there’s a gap in your resume. Because then you have quite a story to tell about traveling.”
