The Money Mustache Community
General Discussion => Share Your Badassity => Topic started by: dividend hamster on March 16, 2016, 03:56:33 AM
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Long story short, we went from saving 0 Euros to saving 7,000 Euros a month. I started my own business 7 years ago and my wife is a self-employed midwife. We live in Germany and together we're making 10,000 Euros net. That's quite a number in Germany because health care, child care and everything is taken care of already.
For at least 3 years we blew all that money. Don't ask me how we managed to do that. I couldn't get myself to do the math because it's just too painful. But I did manage to clean up the mess at record speed. We got rid of two expensive cars and a boat, started cooking instead of eating out which we used to do at least 8 times a week (incl. work lunches). I cut my credit card in half and stopped ordering expensive toys on amazon which I did two to three times a week. You name it, I bought it. Worst of all, we're living in a rural area, so I can't even blame high rent and general high cost of living. We were just living the life of Riley and pissed away 10k every single month. There is no other way to put it.
A year later, we live comfortably on 3k a month, invest 7k and keep growing our businesses. At least we don't have any debt other than our mortgage which we pay off slowly because it's at 1,12% interest. I haven't thought about the whole FIRE thing, but it's next on my list.
Thanks MMM for helping us out of that hell hole.
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Nice!
Feels good when you realize all of the material things are not the sole provider of happiness in your life.
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Congrats man! You're def on the right path.
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Amazing progress, you will be FI in ~7-8 years at that rate!
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Wow!!! Awesome story. You are going to be so rich.
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Congratulations! Way to go taking action instead of just reading about it! It is amazing how one blog can make such a huge difference in people's lives, especially when people are willing to take action!
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Wow, huge change! Well done! 7000 Euros a month invested is amazing!
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That's crazy, and awesome. Hebammer (sp?) is a pretty popular career choice over there, from what I can tell. Very different from here.
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We were just living the life of Riley and pissed away 10k every single month. There is no other way to put it.
Thanks MMM for helping us out of that hell hole.
As hell holes go, yours sounds like it was rather pleasant. The only problem is that it had no future. And congratulations on turning your lifestyle around for the better.
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So inspiring! Man, I thought I was doing well at $2,000 per month. And at your monthly spending rate, you'll be FI so quick!
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Congratulations dividend hamster from Germany! I understand how being able to invest 7k a month is a very big deal here ;) May I kindly ask what you are doing as a business?
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I couldn't get myself to do the math because it's just too painful.
Haha, I know exactly what you mean! I did that for years and years and years. Going through an extended layoff forced a few changes on me, but things didn't really get better until MMM. I am right there with you - cleaned up stuff in record time.
Since you've got so many parallels to my own story, let me ask you something. What was the most powerful part (mentally) of the whole process? For me it wasn't actually saving the $$ every month, even though that is awesome. No, for me it was when I realized that I could live indefinitely on $45k per year, and not the $100k I'd been living at for so long.
Man, having a high income and then having nothing to show for it every year? That was so demoralizing because I was always on the edge of catastrophe. Nowadays I know (KNOW!) that things could go south quite a bit and I'd be just fine. Maybe not saving a lot of $$, but certainly not going bankrupt, either.
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THAT is so cool. I joined mmm recently.. i went from following consumer blogs- fashion, beauty etc, to mmm.. big shift in what i feed my mind, big shift in what i do with my money!
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THAT is so cool. I joined mmm recently.. i went from following consumer blogs- fashion, beauty etc, to mmm.. big shift in what i feed my mind, big shift in what i do with my money!
I agree! This has become my number one priority in life now. I used to be drawn to shopping and other spendypants things, but I don't even have a desire for it now. When I see other people giving in to temptations, I think, "How can you even THINK of buying that when you haven't maxed out your IRA for the year??"
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Thanks guys! Yes it does feel great that I'm no longer a slave to my stuff.
That's crazy, and awesome. Hebammer (sp?) is a pretty popular career choice over there, from what I can tell. Very different from here.
Hebamme without the "r" is the correct spelling ;-) It's popular over here because pregnancy and giving birth are seen as a natural part of life instead of being handled like a disease. The law says that no doctor is allowed to oversee labor without a midwife present unless there's no midwife around. My wife isn't into the whole home birth thing though. But in a rural area with the next hospital 15 to 20 minutes away it would be too risky anyway.
As hell holes go, yours sounds like it was rather pleasant. The only problem is that it had no future.
This a thousand times. It didn't have a future and felt wrong after all those years of reckless consumerism.
May I kindly ask what you are doing as a business?
I'm a physical therapist and just hired my fifth employee.
Since you've got so many parallels to my own story, let me ask you something. What was the most powerful part (mentally) of the whole process?
I haven't thought about FIRE and that is starting to feel a little strange. We're both still young. I'm 32 and my wife is 28. She just hired a midwife as her first employee and it feels like we can at least triple our speed in the fast lane. That's why I keep thinking why FIRE with 3,000 Euros a month if you can do it with 5k, 6k or even 10k in a reasonable amount of time? I wouldn't buy so much useless stuff again because it's experiences that really matter and stay with you. But more money is always good, isn't it?
To change my consumption habits, I used a concept that I like to call stock market consumerism. I made sure I wouldn't fall for home bias in the stock market. So I thought about my ETF allocation (MSCI WORLD, MSCI Emerging Markets, Small Caps EU+USA+EM, a little value and some dividend aristocrats mostly from the US) and printed out the lists of the holdings. Instead of browsing amazon for new toys on a daily basis, I look at these lists and think about all the great companies that I own a part of. And then I keep buying more. It's fun to find out that you own part of a great company in Brazil that you've never even heard of.
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Good for you!!! Your friends must be jealous....:)
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Inspiring, thanks for sharing