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.