On the way to Re. Thanks MMM

[BJC]

So,  I found this place a couple of months ago,  and while I always knew saving was important,  I had never tied it to a goal. Now I am goal oriented...  Retire by 52!
I am 39 with a 5 year old, 12 years left on my mortgage,  and my wife who is older than I,  can get a pension in 7 years.

How has MMM helped me?
In the past couple of months....
1- I started getting my wife on board.  She loves shopping and doesn't really appreciate money,  but happily she is coming along (she got her nails done for $45 instead of 70...baby steps) .
2- I opened a vanguard account and moved 25k from zero interest checking into vanguard admiral shares.
3- raised my wifes tda contribution to 38% of her salary to take advantage of a guaranteed 7% interest rate through her job.
4-I cancelled cable and signed up for streaming TV. We still will pay a fair amount for the streaming bundle,  but I have to go slowly to keep the wife on board.  Even do,  the switch will save $60/month.
5- I will soon cut the home phone and save another 20/mo.
6- called Geico and saved $250/year by fine tuning our coverage.
7- Explained to wife and step daughter that we can't buy my son so much crap for Christmas this year. He has so many toys he's never even opened.
8- Had dinner with friends the other night and I suggested something affordable. This may not seem like a big deal,  but it may be the toughest. Two of the friends have a lot of money,  the others don't care about spending (while they are Not the rich ones, they both make $250k/year).  In the end we went to Chili's and spent $40 each.  Obviously this is not MMM cheap,  but I was very happy as we often spend 75-100 when we go out.
9- finally,  don't know if this is really a savings thing,  but I bought a video game system. I bought a used Xbox 360 with 15 games for $110. My son loves it and it's a great value compared to getting a new system.

Well,  this is the start. Hopefully I can continue to get the buy in of everyone around me... There is still a ton of fat to trim.

[DailyGrindFree]

So,  I found this place a couple of months ago,  and while I always knew saving was important,  I had never tied it to a goal. Now I am goal oriented...  Retire by 52!
I am 39 with a 5 year old, 12 years left on my mortgage,  and my wife who is older than I,  can get a pension in 7 years.

I sometimes kick myself for not finding about FIRE early in my life. :-) It feels like we wasted boat load of opportunities and time to retire early. I am planning on reaching FI @51 - middle of 2020. Gotta work hard and get creative to get there in a short period of time. I am already vested and will also be eligible to draw some $ from my pension in 2029.

How has MMM helped me?
In the past couple of months....

Seems like we have done similar things so far:
1 - Yep, it took some convincing to get the wife on board. It takes two to tango.
2 - Yep, I also opened up a Vanguard account and moved 18K from 0% checking. In addition, I set up automatic weekly contributions.
3 - Hmm, currently, my wife is a stay at home and hoping to go back to work for a few years. In the mean time, she is looking into selling items on EBay. We need to find a way for her to generate $$ and open a retirement account for her. She doesn't have one yet.
4 - Yep, canceled the cable. Only have internet and Netflix.
5 - Yep, I think it has been at least 10 years since we got rid of our land line.
6 - I definitely need to do this. But I think I need to wait for a few months though. My teenager totaled a car and they will update/adjust the policy when the next one starts. I am planning on calling around right before they jack up the prices with the new policy. Adding another teenage driver in about 6 months is not going to help either. :-)
7 - Yep, we don't buy things just to buy things anymore. All those years, we bought so many things for our kids. They didn't care about many of them. We donated or gave away many almost new or not used toys, games, books etc... Now, the house looks much better without all that clutter.
8 - Yep, what we do is to be the one who suggests where we meet. We don't have to go out every time and spend a lot to have fun. Also, meeting @ coffee shops rather than restaurants and bars helps to lower the bills.
9 - Yep, I say it is. For the longest time, I didn't think much about buying used items. Reusing someone else's items didn't seem appealing. But it started with big items and we didn't wanted more things to go to landfill. Now, I personally don't want to own anything when I retire. I would like to be able travel, go wherever I want and whenever I want. I don't one things to weigh me down.

Additional Items:
10 - I started carpooling to work. Good for the environment and good for our pockets.
11 - In september, everyday, I brought my lunch to work  and managed not to have lunch out - not even once.

What else I would like to do?
* Find more ways to generate money. Side hustles? Side business?
* Find more ways to save money
* Consolidate my retirement accounts as much as possible. Stop paying high fees.
* Start working on a detailed plan to road map our journey to FIRE. This will help me to make myself accountable.
* Start eating healthy & lower my alcohol intake
* Start exercising more
* Continue to read and educate myself on investing & personal finance
* Explore the possibility of being a landlord. This scares me a bit because my dad had a lot of issues with his tenants.
* Learn to say NO to people and don't let the naysayers bother me. :-)

And here is where I stand as of today: http://www.dailygrindfree.com/net-worth/. Good luck with your journey.

[sisto]

I can totally relate to you. I had always planned to retire by 55, but never had any real plan to make that happen. It always seemed so far in the future and I was putting away a good chunk so I assumed I'd just hit that goal. After finding MMM, I realized I could pull that in by 3 years. I have always been fairly frugal about things except for buying crap. I have this weird problem where I hate spending money on services and things like hotels, but I have no problem blowing it on buying stuff. In my mind I've always justified it by "having something to show for my money". After I found MMM I realized the flaws in my thinking more and started doing a better job of evaluating my needs vs my wants. I think you are taking the right approach, making these small changes makes it easier to accept the new way of life and seeing the impact that it makes on finances helps make it easier to tighten up even more. I too wish I'd found MMM sooner. I would definitely be retired already. Keep up the great work!

[EnjoyIt]

Keep a spread sheet on your savings and progress. This way you have something to show for your spouse in 6 months to a year. Make projections on how that savings will look in 5,10,15 years from now. It might make it easier to cut down spending even more when your goals are getting closer and closer.

If possible I would try and shoot for 7 years from now to semi retire. Since you will have a pension coming in. I bet it is possible if you play your cards right.