Author Topic: Celebrations Thread  (Read 1648259 times)

arebelspy

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #700 on: August 11, 2014, 08:36:36 PM »
Congrats!  What a great feeling.  :)
I am a former teacher who accumulated a bunch of real estate, retired at 29, spent some time traveling the world full time and am now settled with three kids.
If you want to know more about me, this Business Insider profile tells the story pretty well.
I (rarely) blog at AdventuringAlong.com. Check out the Now page to see what I'm up to currently.

Daisy

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #701 on: August 11, 2014, 10:29:31 PM »
Congrats!  What a great feeling.  :)

Thanks! Your comment has just now inspired me to adopt a FIRE theme song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILWSp0m9G2U

I may or may not have recreated the studio dance scene in my home just now...

kittystache

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #702 on: August 14, 2014, 12:22:10 PM »
New Mustacian here! 

I discovered the blog a couple of months ago and it has inspired some MAJOR changes in my house with more to come.  Why is this a big deal?  Because my husband and I are both well-employed and fall for the whole - "We can afford it" thing or "Time for money" thing hands down.  But what I am finding is that making these changes is really propelling us to get our values in order, communicate more and allow for better quality of life!  Money does not buy happiness.  Badassity breeds happiness and Happiness breeds happiness. 

Now ER and FI is a real goal that we can both work towards.  MMM has improved our marriage and family life!

Our recent changes:
  • No more cable.  Duh!  Don't make fun of us for having cable.  We are new here remember?  We have been asleep.  We were on auto-pilot here - at $100 a month (Bought a Roku - is definitely awesome-er)  I was punching myself in the face with that stupid bill.  WE NEVER EVEN WATCHED IT!!! 
  • Starting bicycle commuting - almost everywhere.  We bicycled to a kiddy b-day party last weekend in perfect weather.  It was 14 miles round trip and we were the talk of the party.  People acted like we were from another planet.  It was awesome!  Kids had fun - we had fun.
  • Starting bicycle commuting to work - 6 miles round trip.  I lost weight.  People have noticed that I look "better".  Healthier and happier maybe?   I feel better and best of all, I feel like a kid going to elementary school.  I forgot how much fun traveling somewhere can be.
  • Fired the cleaners.  OUR HOUSE IS ACTUALLY CLEANER NOW We have made everyone a bit more responsible for housecleaning.  The funny thing is - We don't feel it at all.  I mean AT ALL.  When you outsource everything, you just get lazy.  So the house was always messy - even though we had twice a week cleaning.  OMG what a freaking realization!!!!
  • My husband is doing yard work and other handyperson jobs for the first time ever.  I was raised in a DIY family - he was not.  This is new.  While I have always (10+ years) advocated for DIY at times, he has mostly talked me out of it with the Time for Money argument. This, and fact that that I got really tired of doing these things by myself.  The issue was that were not actually making money with the extra time.  We were just sitting around not learning new skills.   
  • We have made some serious investment changes, we are branching out into real estate and have added another $10k a year in income.   
  • I am taking my lunch to work. Healthier, happier, lost weight... see above.   Has improved self-esteem and health and marriage.  Children have FUN cooking with me.  Children are making their own lunches.   
I have passed the blog around to my friends and family - we'll see who wants to be in my new mustacian discussion club!
« Last Edit: August 14, 2014, 12:40:27 PM by kittystache »

NinetyFour

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #703 on: August 14, 2014, 01:44:48 PM »
Wow--those are some huge changes!  Congrats on the complete turnaround in your attitudes!!  Keep up the great work!

arebelspy

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #704 on: August 14, 2014, 07:27:53 PM »
Congrats kittystache, and welcome to the forums!  Those are some awesome changes.  :)
I am a former teacher who accumulated a bunch of real estate, retired at 29, spent some time traveling the world full time and am now settled with three kids.
If you want to know more about me, this Business Insider profile tells the story pretty well.
I (rarely) blog at AdventuringAlong.com. Check out the Now page to see what I'm up to currently.

iris lily

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #705 on: August 14, 2014, 09:21:54 PM »
great post, kitty. It really IS about values, isn't it?

JoJoP

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #706 on: August 16, 2014, 09:30:07 AM »
New Mustacian here! 
  Money does not buy happiness.  Badassity breeds happiness and Happiness breeds happiness. 

Now ER and FI is a real goal that we can both work towards.  MMM has improved our marriage and family life!

Our recent changes:
    !
Great and inspiring first post!  Congrats!  It is amazing how not kowtowing to the man leads to a happier life!  It's all about deciding what works best for each of us-- and doing it, not just robotically setting out on the path that most people follow... the lemming mentality.

It's funny how in the 60"s "dropping out and turning on" and "doing your own thing" was such a mass movement, and in the 70's "looking out for number 1" was the MO of society.  But there just has not been a huge cultural movement to "do your own thing" financially-- and turn off the cable tv or bike to work, etc.     It sometimes seems that since so many people are just a train wreck financially, there is a stigma to being financially independent.   [/list]

kittystache

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #707 on: August 18, 2014, 08:26:09 AM »
Wow Jill P! What a deep post.  Yes - doing your own thing by dropping out of consumer culture is seen as crazy or not cool to say the least.   

My co-worker has a new BMW (lease!!) got her son a new car (also a BMW lease!!!) has a second home in Florida (occupied 2 months out of 12 - and NEVER rented out) and people view her and her hubby as successful because they can "afford" all that!!  Wow.  Talk about conspicuous consumption.  They are successful because the tap never turns off on their wallet spigot.    I think that she is emptying her own wallet - it is the height of stupidity.  She could stop that nonsense, quit her job TODAY and travel the world with her husband with just a few changes.  But instead she comes into a mediocre corporate job every single day. 

This is especially heinous as she has a severely disabled daughter, who is an adult, and she worries about wanting to leave money for her care when she is gone.  Then why the crazy wallet tap?  I just don't get it.  It is like there is no connection between all of this stuff in her head.

« Last Edit: August 19, 2014, 05:28:25 AM by kittystache »

bleumanchu

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #708 on: August 18, 2014, 05:23:53 PM »
I’ve been more or less lurking since April, and had to finally share a little bit. 

I biked to work today for the first time. My commute is only 4-5 miles each way, so the savings if I biked every single day would only be about $600 annually, but it’s still a nice little change. (I have to drive off-site just often enough, and I don’t live anywhere near a Zipcar or the like so I can’t actually get rid of the car altogether).

Other changes:

- DW and I moved in July.  Our rent decreased by $400/month, and my commute went from 30.8 miles round trip to the above cited 4-5 miles.

- I’ve massively accelerated my student loan payments, and have paid over $34,000 towards my loans since May 1st. Still a long way to go (medical school, out of state), but I anticipate having them paid off by late 2016.

- DW agreed to trade in her gas hogging luxury SUV for  a much more fuel efficient wagon. We  traded in her old car and pocketed almost $8000 cash in the process.

- We were already maxing out our 401Ks, but I’ve started setting aside money to do a traditional IRA to Roth IRA conversion (“backdoor Roth”)--many thanks to the White Coat Investor site for plugging me into this.

- I picked up a side gig that looks like it may end up equating to about a 5-6% raise in gross income for me for a fairly all amount of time and extra work.

- I’ve also become hyper-aware of our spending, and have drastically cut back on unnecessary expenditures.  We're currently trying to get a handle on our grocery budget--too embarrassed to share what our monthly expenditures are, but let's just say there is room for improvement.

Still a work in progress, but we’re gathering steam!  Thanks to everybody in this community for the information and inspiration.




Sent from my mobile using Tapatalk

kittystache

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Re: bleumanchu
« Reply #709 on: August 19, 2014, 05:31:11 AM »
Good start!  It feels good to start taking steps in the right direction.  Congrats on the move and the car sale those are huge steps that are really difficult.

I had over $100k in student loans 5 years ago and paid them off within a year.  We lived on basically 1 income and all of my salary went to those loans.  When it was done, it felt great.   Our grocery bill is also embarrassing, trying to find ways to deal with that!


boy_bye

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #710 on: August 19, 2014, 05:38:27 AM »
it's very close to the 20th anniversary of when i started college, and i finally paid off my fucking student loans!!!

today i go and set my 401K contributions to 35% so that it'll be maxed out this year.

now we save for the future instead of paying back the past! amazing!!!

rax

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #711 on: August 19, 2014, 06:49:38 AM »
Yesterday I managed to explain it all to a friend. With graphs, saving rates, interest rates and all. And he got it.

This was a triumph.
I'm making a note here, huge success.
It's hard to overstate my satisfaction.

I'd be very interested in seeing those graphs and what not. I have a relatively solid method which is just a spreadsheet, but it lets me figure out if they understand it or don't. Was this person resistant to the idea and you turned them, or neutral, or what? I love hearing stories like this, and details would be awesome.

I have really nothing, just tried to make him understand a small set of key ideas using a pen and a piece of paper as support.

The first one of these ideas was that "the rewards for saving grow exponentially but they are hardly noticeable unless you stay north of 50%". At this point I used the paper to illustrate what happens over time when you save 10%, 20%, 50%, 66%, 75%, 80%, 90% and 95%  of your income. Notice that this is just a simplification of The Shockingly Simple Math Behind Early Retirement, a post from MMM that absolutely blew my mind at the time.

Once he was hooked we moved towards the concepts of annuity and SWR, then used the pen and paper to do some back of the napkin calculations to find out his "number" and how long would it take him to reach it using different variations for expenses, interest and savings rate.

IIRC the thing with what he struggled the most was thinking of his savings in terms of "years of expenses saved" and understand statements like "with a 4% interest rate you need 25 years of expenses to retire" instead of thinking in absolute numbers, but he eventually got it.

When we met again after a few days he told me he had been having trouble sleeping at night, thinking about all the implications of what I taught him :)
Have to admit though that he was actually interested in what I was up to and approached the whole thing with an open mind. Unfortunately you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.
« Last Edit: August 19, 2014, 07:24:44 AM by rax »

WESTOFTHEHUDSON

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #712 on: August 19, 2014, 09:53:52 PM »
We recently sold our car and upgraded to an older one that accommodate the increased number of carseats we'll need this fall.

We made money on the transaction and just made a sweet $4,500 extra payment on the mortgage.

I am grateful to the Mustachian ways for helping me convert my husband that we did not need a new car with a payment and warranty.

Verdo

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #713 on: August 22, 2014, 07:50:44 AM »
Just made my last payment this morning on my school loan.  Tackled the remaining 12500 since June 1st. 

Only debt left is the mortgage!


Emerald

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #714 on: August 25, 2014, 06:03:02 AM »
I just hit $200K in retirement.  I finally feel like I'm making real progress.  Woot!

Silvie

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #715 on: August 25, 2014, 07:13:58 AM »
Just made my last payment this morning on my school loan.

Only debt left is the mortgage!

This. Except it was a personal loan from my dad. Have been paying him back for almost 2 years (30,000 euros). This morning I paid the last 1000. Yaaaay!!!

G-dog

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #716 on: August 25, 2014, 04:58:45 PM »
I'm been on a fixing kick lately, so in celebration of my new skills, I've repaired: my flat rear tire on my bike, my leaking washing machine door, and my kitchen aid mixer! Next up, I'll see if I can tune up my sewing machine (which is from like 1998). :)

I want to move in this direction too, do some minor repairs in the house, etc.  I am still a bit scared I'll screw things up and have to pay to fix my fix! But I will get there!

Joggernot

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #717 on: August 25, 2014, 07:39:50 PM »
I think I succeeded in teaching one son about saving for retirement.  I received this email from him today.  Too bad his walking buddy doesn't really have a clue.
Quote
I e-mailed my old walking buddy from IT and asked if he had switched from putting his money into a regular 457 (like a 401k) and was now putting it into the Roth 457.  He didn't see the logic in it (he's the one who's net worth is over $2M now, from hard work and saving, but is still worried about running out of money).  So, I put together a little spreadsheet showing that since he is hoping to retire to Hawaii, the 8% income tax he'd pay, along with the decrease in SS & other benefits he'd have from having a high income, makes it a no-brainer to use the Roth now.  He was really surprised, and had thought he'd be in a lower tax bracket when he retired.  So then he sent me this logic:

When he retires, he hopes to have a pension of $6k/month.  His wife has a pension from XYZ Co. which will be about 2K per month.  They plan on holding off on SS until age 70, at which point they both will get 3K/month (they both make a little over 100k now).  So, adding up 6+2+3+3 = $14,000/month.  That's before any withdrawals from their retirement savings.  I told him he didn't have to worry about eating cat food when he was older.  It'll be a little tight between age 57 and 70, but I think they'll manage.

peppermint

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #718 on: August 26, 2014, 03:23:47 PM »
Just paid off my car loan. Boom!

G-dog

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #719 on: August 26, 2014, 06:38:18 PM »
So close! Almost to $1MM not counting the house.  Need about another $45k - I hope to cross the line thus year (even temporarily...).

Wow! It is exhilarating!

V

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #720 on: August 28, 2014, 07:58:08 AM »
I just got an 18% raise and because we save my entire paycheck our savings just increased by 18% too!

Dicey

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #721 on: August 28, 2014, 09:25:40 AM »
I'm been on a fixing kick lately, so in celebration of my new skills, I've repaired: my flat rear tire on my bike, my leaking washing machine door, and my kitchen aid mixer! Next up, I'll see if I can tune up my sewing machine (which is from like 1998). :)

I finally broke out the pre-1998 sewing machine this week after not touching it for years. I wasn't sure if I was threading it correctly, so I *gasp* checked the manual. I was surprised to see how helpful it is. I know, what a shock. There are a ton of trouble shooting tips, because most older machines are fairly simple and tend to have similar problems. If you don't have the actual manual, you can find it on line. Your other repair victories (Oh, a rear tire, extra credit for that one!) indicate you have the skill set to handle this. Also, small screwdrivers are a must. If you still have the small box that came with the machine, there may be some in it. Good luck!

Sarita

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #722 on: August 30, 2014, 02:48:27 PM »
I've made a LOT of changes since finding MMM but have procrastinated with switching on my phone plan.  Wanted Verizon network, looked at Pageplus, still had Verizon contract (now expired), wanted to keep my Droix Razr Maxx phone but it didn't seem to easily port over blah blah blah.

Finally resolved to change over to P+ today, and then (thanks friends!) read here that they will be shifting to allow for 'modern' phones in a few months.  So looked at Verizon to see what was currently available, and called Verizon and was able to lower my monthly rate from $103 to $38 for no contract, 1.75 GB, unlimited talk and text.

May still switch to P+ at some point, but was chagrinned to see once again how much you can lower your costs by simply calling the company.

1967mama

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #723 on: August 31, 2014, 05:54:36 PM »
Haven't eaten out in 15 days!  This is a huge victory for us because we usually eat out 2-3 meals a week (some being drive thrus and maybe a weekend date night).  Bank balance and waistline will be better for it.

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #724 on: September 01, 2014, 10:32:52 AM »
Ah, work holidays! Love them. When I am FIRE everyday will be a work holiday!

Squirrel away

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #725 on: September 01, 2014, 10:53:30 AM »
I'm feeling down today so I thought I would try and cheer myself up with some of our recent accomplishments.

- I cancelled Amazon Prime as £79 is too much money.

- We reduced our grocery budget by half.:)

- We have reduced our mobile phone contracts to £7 a month each.

- Our Net Worth is now over £500k.


iris lily

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #726 on: September 01, 2014, 10:55:40 AM »
I finally broke out the pre-1998 sewing machine this week after not touching it for years. I wasn't sure if I was threading it correctly, so I *gasp* checked the manual. I was surprised to see how helpful it is. I know, what a shock. There are a ton of trouble shooting tips, because most older machines are fairly simple and tend to have similar problems. If you don't have the actual manual, you can find it on line. ..

I know! Some years ago I was having continual trouble with getting my sewing machine to sew a straight line, so I symbolically cleared my head of everything I thought I know about threading it. Then I sat down and read the manual, slowly, carefully, and followed instructions to the letter in threading the bobbin and in threading the needle. Voila, it then worked perfectly!

Also, I bought new bobbins on Ebay, ones that were not bent.

I've got a Singer Featherweight machine from the 1950's and when you treat it right, it does good work.

bdoubleu

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #727 on: September 04, 2014, 10:56:58 PM »
Went through some totes/boxes in spare bedroom, came up with 5 very full bags of clothes to donate.  Gave the father-in-law the idea to go through his stuff, and he came up with 3 bags of clothes, 2 full sets of dishes, and some glassware.  We also donated some old bicycles (we "upgraded" this year) to a place that fixes them up and gives them to people who are in need, specifically to provide them transportation to/from jobs/interviews/home/etc.  Such a huge weight off our shoulders, and hopefully someone will enjoy the stuff we weren't using anymore!

Then smugly (working on this, maybe it would be a celebration post of its own!) laughed to ourselves about bro/sis-in-law, who just moved themselves (and a literal shit-ton of junk - with our advice of "this is a perfect time to get rid of shit you don't need!) to a new house, in which the basement full of said junk proceeded to flood. And they're trying to salvage all that they can, even though all the stuff down there was stuff they hadn't used for 5+ years (think, random holiday decorations, a ping pong table(?), boxes of clothes (boxes got wet = a million dryer loads of clothes), etc.

givemesunshine

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #728 on: September 08, 2014, 06:42:13 PM »
Hi all,

I have a couple of things I want to celebrate - but can't share with anyone in real life, too many people who think being interested and educated about money is dull and boring! At the beginning of the year I got a long overdue promotion and am now finally earning a fair wage. I couldn't celebrate this too much either except with my family (overseas) as it may have led to some resentment from workmates who are less qualified/experienced but think they also deserve higher pay. Hard to have kept that to myself - so I'm telling you all! The increased income has meant I have paid off my student loans (yay!), increased my superannuation (pension) contributions, savings rate (to 33% from 12.5%, which is a huge increase) and my net worth has increased $47K in 12 months - and I have reached 6 figures!

I have a long way to go - I only rent at the moment and property is expensive where I live - but I am being very concious of my spending and hope to see my resources continue to grow.

Thanks all for a great forum - and for somewhere to celebrate, it's hard keeping it all to myself!

arebelspy

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #729 on: September 08, 2014, 08:37:05 PM »
Hi all,

I have a couple of things I want to celebrate - but can't share with anyone in real life, too many people who think being interested and educated about money is dull and boring! At the beginning of the year I got a long overdue promotion and am now finally earning a fair wage. I couldn't celebrate this too much either except with my family (overseas) as it may have led to some resentment from workmates who are less qualified/experienced but think they also deserve higher pay. Hard to have kept that to myself - so I'm telling you all! The increased income has meant I have paid off my student loans (yay!), increased my superannuation (pension) contributions, savings rate (to 33% from 12.5%, which is a huge increase) and my net worth has increased $47K in 12 months - and I have reached 6 figures!

I have a long way to go - I only rent at the moment and property is expensive where I live - but I am being very concious of my spending and hope to see my resources continue to grow.

Thanks all for a great forum - and for somewhere to celebrate, it's hard keeping it all to myself!

Those are some awesome milestones zinny! Way to go! 
I am a former teacher who accumulated a bunch of real estate, retired at 29, spent some time traveling the world full time and am now settled with three kids.
If you want to know more about me, this Business Insider profile tells the story pretty well.
I (rarely) blog at AdventuringAlong.com. Check out the Now page to see what I'm up to currently.

happy

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #730 on: September 09, 2014, 03:47:09 AM »
Happy dance for Zinny1!

givemesunshine

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #731 on: September 09, 2014, 03:47:16 PM »
Thanks arebelspy and happy for your support - much appreciated.

Public Hermit

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #732 on: September 10, 2014, 09:06:03 AM »
I guess you could say this is a "celebration".

I just made a $4,900 student loan payment, or more than 50% of my entire student loan balance.

Just a few more months and my student loans will be paid off. I am projecting by late January 2015.

Sister C

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #733 on: September 13, 2014, 07:11:04 PM »
I love this thread! All these successes are an inspiration.

My mini-celebration is posting my wedding dress for sale online. It's the first thing I've ever sold online-- before this I have always donated/swapped/gifted.

Napalok1

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #734 on: September 19, 2014, 04:16:24 PM »
Paid off my car today.  Sold it for a small profit and invested the equity in Exon stocks.  I now live in a boarding house 2 blocks from work and can Bike to survive.  I earn over 60,000 a year and am debt free.  I can now save more than 50 percent of my income and I do have a defined pension plan.   Thanks Mr. Money, Jacob Early Retirement Extreme, Your Money or Your Life, The Millionaire Next Door. 

Napalok1

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #735 on: September 19, 2014, 04:21:03 PM »
I Forgot to say I received a ten thousand dollar a year raise.  To fight Hedonistic adaptation I downsized from an apartment to a rooming house, sold my car  and got a bicycle.  My co-workers and fellow tenants think I'm on my last legs.  They have no idea I'm on my way to freedom.  No debts, IRA Defined Pension Plan, Savings account , Brokerage account and Annuity.

iris lily

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #736 on: September 19, 2014, 11:31:55 PM »
I Forgot to say I received a ten thousand dollar a year raise.  To fight Hedonistic adaptation I downsized from an apartment to a rooming house, sold my car  and got a bicycle.  My co-workers and fellow tenants think I'm on my last legs.  They have no idea I'm on my way to freedom.  No debts, IRA Defined Pension Plan, Savings account , Brokerage account and Annuity.

Now that is badass! Get a huge salary increase, decrease your consumption/ Great formula for FIRE.

Helvegen

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #737 on: September 22, 2014, 11:58:00 AM »
My husband is finally starting to come around to the idea of moving back east in a few years in order to buy a house and be closer to family (we have none out here). I brought this up about two months ago and he was fairly resistant. I understand why. There are a lot of good points to living in the PNW that can't be found in the Midwest/Great Lakes, which were why we moved out here in the first place a few years back. But a lot about our situation has changed over the time we have been here and moving back looks more and more of an attractive option. Yesterday, he finally saw what kinds of opportunities we are missing out on by living here and he is becoming more convinced. Particularly helpful was a friend chatting to him recently about the very nice house he just bought for $130k. You can't even get a teardown here for that!

Joggernot

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #738 on: September 23, 2014, 02:34:36 PM »
We had guests two weeks ago and one thing we learned was that the guests turned on the fan in the bathroom with every visit and forgot to turn it off.  We'd come home from showing them around town and notice that the fan was still on.

This is a small town so none of the stores in town carried a timer switch; Lowes in the next town over didn't have any either, so ended up going to Amazon to purchase two timer switches.

They arrived and I was able to install them myself, even though I don't like working with electricity and normally have someone do it for me.  Only problem came when the original wire wasn't long enough to let me just install the timer, so I had to go to the hardware store (on electric golf cart) and buy 2 feet of wire (lots extra) to finish the installations.

They work perfectly and look good, too.  Now the timer will turn the fan off even if the guests forget.  Probably just a mini-celebration.
« Last Edit: September 23, 2014, 02:37:35 PM by Joggernot »

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #739 on: September 23, 2014, 04:06:01 PM »
We had guests two weeks ago and one thing we learned was that the guests turned on the fan in the bathroom with every visit and forgot to turn it off.  We'd come home from showing them around town and notice that the fan was still on.

This is a small town so none of the stores in town carried a timer switch; Lowes in the next town over didn't have any either, so ended up going to Amazon to purchase two timer switches.

They arrived and I was able to install them myself, even though I don't like working with electricity and normally have someone do it for me.  Only problem came when the original wire wasn't long enough to let me just install the timer, so I had to go to the hardware store (on electric golf cart) and buy 2 feet of wire (lots extra) to finish the installations.

They work perfectly and look good, too.  Now the timer will turn the fan off even if the guests forget.  Probably just a mini-celebration.

I had just found out about these, and they seem awesome. Good for you!! And electricity is not that scary, as long as you don't get electrocuted.

10dollarsatatime

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #740 on: September 27, 2014, 09:47:30 PM »
Paid off another student loan this month.  :)

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #741 on: September 29, 2014, 10:50:36 AM »
Offer accepted to purchase our first rental house!

Actually, we are getting 1.25 rentals out of the deal because we will convert our current home into the full rental, and the new place will be our primary home with the basement rented out!

The double bonus is that we will get to ditch the car completely since our commutes will be entirely on side roads or bike paths!

arebelspy

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #742 on: September 29, 2014, 12:39:20 PM »
Offer accepted to purchase our first rental house!

Actually, we are getting 1.25 rentals out of the deal because we will convert our current home into the full rental, and the new place will be our primary home with the basement rented out!

The double bonus is that we will get to ditch the car completely since our commutes will be entirely on side roads or bike paths!

Nice, congrats!
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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #743 on: September 30, 2014, 12:20:00 AM »
Finished the front strut replacement on our 2003 Golf TDi (w/ ~190k miles on it) this afternoon/evening. Four corners suspension refresh is coming out to about $400 including the couple of tools we didn't own already, and those will see future use as well (bringing down the cost of future maintenance)!

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #744 on: September 30, 2014, 12:30:59 PM »
This seems like the best thread for this post.  I found this blog at some point last year and read all the posts and started to really think about what we spent money on and what we actually needed.  We've come a long way since, and by the end of this year will be debt free except for student loans and a mortgage, which is a huge improvement but we're still not close to being real  Mustachian's like so many of you. 

The best part of this continuing journey was the feeling I had last week.  My boss let me know that upper management was probably going to "change their minds" and change the requirements and experience required for my job and that I had something like 3-9 months before they would let me go.  It was the first time I've been in that situation where I wasn't in a panic, wasn't worried, and didn't immediately feel like throwing up.  I felt .. fine!  We've simplified our life, reduced our expenses, and are relatively debt free which means I don't need to panic and I can take the time find a job on my terms and not scramble for just "anything". 

Thanks for all the posters in this forum, as a lurker and someone who rarely posts, this forum is very helpful and inspiring.

arebelspy

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #745 on: September 30, 2014, 12:57:42 PM »
This seems like the best thread for this post.  I found this blog at some point last year and read all the posts and started to really think about what we spent money on and what we actually needed.  We've come a long way since, and by the end of this year will be debt free except for student loans and a mortgage, which is a huge improvement but we're still not close to being real  Mustachian's like so many of you. 

The best part of this continuing journey was the feeling I had last week.  My boss let me know that upper management was probably going to "change their minds" and change the requirements and experience required for my job and that I had something like 3-9 months before they would let me go.  It was the first time I've been in that situation where I wasn't in a panic, wasn't worried, and didn't immediately feel like throwing up.  I felt .. fine!  We've simplified our life, reduced our expenses, and are relatively debt free which means I don't need to panic and I can take the time find a job on my terms and not scramble for just "anything". 

Thanks for all the posters in this forum, as a lurker and someone who rarely posts, this forum is very helpful and inspiring.

What a freeing feeling.  Congratulations!  :D
I am a former teacher who accumulated a bunch of real estate, retired at 29, spent some time traveling the world full time and am now settled with three kids.
If you want to know more about me, this Business Insider profile tells the story pretty well.
I (rarely) blog at AdventuringAlong.com. Check out the Now page to see what I'm up to currently.

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #746 on: October 02, 2014, 06:37:48 AM »
Even with the downturn in the market the last few days my September net worth (as of 9/30) went above $300K for the first time ever!! Granted by the end of 10/1 it was back down to $298K. Hoping to get back above and stay there in the next month or three! Yay!

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #747 on: October 03, 2014, 05:53:42 AM »
Went from two cars to one!


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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #748 on: October 04, 2014, 10:30:08 AM »
We spent $84 on food last month. I told a few co-workers and they were flabbergasted. "What do you eat? DO you eat?"

It's really low, even for us (normal is $150-200/mo), so I was amazed when we tallied up all the receipts the other night. And included in that $84 is $13 of guacamole that was totally a splurge, which makes "actual" food costs closer to $71.

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #749 on: October 04, 2014, 08:24:09 PM »
I got a great job offer on Friday. In addition to getting to work with someone who is a legend in my field on a small team, I was offered a title bump and a terrific salary hike. I thanked her profusely, talked about how excited I am, said I'd like the weekend to speak to my husband, although I already knew what my answer would be. I'm non-confrontational by nature but I screwed up my courage at the last minute (thanks in no small part to reading these boards daily and knowing I really, really should) and asked if there was "any movement in the starting salary, since this is the big career jump and I hope to be there many years."

That one half-sentence improved my already generous offer by $5000, and I plan to accept tomorrow.

I read all the time but post rarely and I'm so grateful for all the expertise and cheerleading that goes on here. I knew I'd feel like a really wimpy mustachian if I didn't at least ask and I'm glad I did!