Hi, new to this community and the overall site though not unfamiliar with Herr Mustache (I'm feeling German today.) Short as history as possible, hope this is the right place to put this.:
-- I'm 53, she's 42. No dependents: my daughter is out of college, our cat just died after 18 1/2 happy (and probably very Mustachian) years. We just moved to Bay Area in October after being laid off in New England, wife and I found jobs in Jan/Feb. Love living here. Her job, in social media she likes a lot. I'm in PR, working for an agency, and meh ... it's work, learning a few new things in the social media/data analytics space as I go, so it's not a worthless experience from the happiness perspective. But, yeah, meh on the actual duties/job/company, at least so far.
-- Though SF area is expensive we both are very fortunate -- net income around $370K a year. Taxes will take out nearly half of that. We also tithe 10 percent off our gross income, so we will donate to church and charity this year somewhere near $40K.
-- We're both doing 10% to 401(k), companies match dollar-for-dollar to 3 percent. (Because of my advanced age, I get to do a little more in 401k under the "catchup" rules. No word on whether there is a mustard rule.) IRAs etc are about $400K so far.
-- We rent our house at $6K a month. Yeah pricey, probably could downsize a bit though I do love the house and I've moved the wife three times in last three years and I'm loathe to do that again soon. We have about $90,000 saved that we could use for a house purchase should we want to do that. We don't feel a compelling need to own, though, to be honest, and given that we just moved here and just got new jobs, we are putting that off for a year or two.
-- We have emergency savings of about $50K.
-- We have no debt. One car, a 2003 Audi which we paid cash for when I got a bonus in 2008. It has 160K miles on it. Seems to be doing OK, might need to replace at some point but wife seems happy with it. I walk to train from home and then walk 1.2 miles from train to office. Periodically it seems like we need two cars, but am also thinking ZipCar might be a better option for the one or two times a month I need to either drive to a work function or we have competing demands for car trips. No way am I driving to work every day, which is why I'm thinking Zipcar might be a more Mustachian way to go. I have about $14K saved for a car, though I could just keep that on hold for a while.
I don't see moving out of the Bay Area as an option anytime soon, especially since the wife feels very rewarded in her job right now.
I guess I'm not looking as much for budget advice -- I have a budget, and it has too much in travel, restaurants, groceries and those silly sports packages we like too much on the tellyvision -- as much as I am for thoughts and guidance. I don't feel a need to work at a job until I'm 65, and I'd rather not. My Dad worked hard to build up enough to retire, and then he died at 57. I want personal/financial freedom as early as possible.
What's a realistic number goal? What's a realistic age for me to shoot for? What other thoughts might you have? I appreciate the efforts people go to here in the forum and I'm quite interested in the perspectives of people who are headed in the right direction for their own personal/financial freedom goals. Thank you very much.
Gary
(P.S. I used to freelance for a newspaper in the 1980s, right after college, and they paid me $1 an inch. I guess this post might have been worth something if I monetized it. :-) )