Just wanted to share my progress somewhere! I discovered MMM just over a year ago and have made so many big changes. My hubby is already retired as a stay at home dad, now I can look forward to joining him in a few years despite massive student loan debt and years of terrible financial decisions!
In the past year we have...
-opened and maxed out 403b, 457, Roth IRA for 2014 and 2015
-switched to high deductible health plan and opened and maxed out HSA
-bought a new smaller and cheaper house that allows us to walk our kids to school every day and shortens my commute by 2 miles
-embraced biking, I started biking to work almost daily
-sold a 2011 car bought brand new and bought a 2005, eliminating a car payment
-reduced food waste at home and cut back on dining out
-refinanced mortgage to a 10 year, reducing interest rate by a full percent, then saving even more with the new house and a mortgage at even lower interest
-cut cell phone bill to about 1/3 of what we were mindlessly paying
-closed low/no-yield whole life insurance plans
-cancelled the cable we rarely watched (don't miss it one bit!) and called around to get an amazing deal on internet service
-cancelled a super expensive gym membership we never had time to use
-canceled credit cards for airline we don't fly on, switching all our monthly spending to cash back cards
-signed up for new credit cards just for the miles - which we will use on an amazing trip next year (surprising the hubby!)
-brought our net worth from what was probably a negative number a year ago up to six figures
-introduced many friends to MMM and hopefully encouraged them to make some positive changes as well
-even with all above changes, have found plenty of room in the budget for me to cut back from 100% to 80% at work, allowing me to spend more time with my family starting in January 2016
-found a purpose for our money! I have a high salary and truly was spending money just to spend it, constantly looking for new ways to spend! I can't say we are perfect by any means (certainly not by the standards on this forum) but having the ER goal has changed our viewpoints and spending habits for the better by far!
Thanks for reading! I'm so proud of all the progress we've made, love seeing it all listed here and I'm sure I've forgotten a few things as well. Wish me luck as we continue to work towards our FIRE goal!
