Awesome. My first question was, "How old are you?" Then I see your age under your profile is 29. You are VERY far ahead of the game. Not sure if wife/kids are in your plan, but it might reduce some of that down the road.
My husband was very much like you at age 24. Maxing out his 401k and other savings. Then he married ME and had three kids by age 31. We had a few years there where he had to reduce his retirement savings down to just the employer match. Fortunately for him I was frugal, and we stayed on track.
Fast forward to 2014. He's 45 and "retired". He started his own business - aka self employed sole proprietor - and works when he wants to. If no work comes in...he spends time with the kids, chaperones all the field trips, or volunteers at our church and Habitat for Humanity. His 'salary' has been cut in half, but his investment income more than makes up for it. He still contributes the max to his ROTH each year, but that's it.
I still work full-time (five years younger than him) and therefore carry the health insurance through my employer. I also contribute the max to my ROTH plus $17,400 into my 403b.
It's been a year since he left the workforce and friends and family still wonder how we do it. Sometimes it's embarrassing because we're private and don't like to openly discuss our finances w/people; however, they're all so damned curious how a 45 year old is able to just walk away from it all.
Keep it up man, you're doing great. My only advice is...if you find love and want kids - DO IT. You can still retire early - especially if you have a wife who shares your core values.
P.S. Our net worth is $730,000. I'll retire when we hit about 1.5 million ;)
Cheers!
THANK YOU for all that you wrote!! I really enjoyed reading your story. I love hearing how other people have made it, and with a net worth of $730,000, you've certainly made it!! :)
As a minor point of clarification, I am actually a female. :) I live with my boyfriend of three years. We currently keep our finances separate, partly because we aren't married and partly because I jumped on the MMM bandwagon before he did. But, since this is the "share your badassity" forum, I have to tell you -- when I discovered MMM, my boyfriend discounted it right away, saying it would never work for him. He's since ENTIRELY changed his tune, and in the past seven months he: became a Master electrician, negotiated a $5/hour raise, maxed out his SIMPLE IRA, maxed out his Traditional IRA (for 2013 AND 2014), and opened a Vanguard taxable account into which he now also makes monthly contributions. And he cuts his own hair, does his own oil changes, and reminds me to shut off the lights when I'm not in the room. I freaking love this man!!
As far as kids go, he's 27 and I'm 29, so in my mind, we're still kids ourselves. But the tentative plan is to save, save, save until I hit 34ish, and then have a kid. I would go part-time at work, we'd live off my paycheck, and he would be a SAHD. The goal would be to ignore the money we've saved thus far and just live off my income. But at this point, we're still crunching numbers and having nightly discussions about children, as I want to be 100% sure it is the right path for us.
Sorry for the long post! And for hijacking my own thread, ha!
