Hey there mustachians!
I just recently found MMM through random googling of finances, retirement, and future planning and have to say that I absolutely LOVE his stuff. I'm definitely interested in getting into the community here as I believe it may be of great benefit to my own personal financial future. His blogs are informative, humorous, and needless to say - chock full of great advice. To my surprise, I've been implementing a lot of his strategies already! I'm a natural mustachian!
To tell you how I see myself: I'm a newly 23 year old (as of Sept. 2012) male with a desire for early retirement as soon as 45 (or earlier, if possible!) I'm somewhat of a minimalist. I don't buy junk... but when I do make purchases, they are usually big ones like a new computer or TV or toys that I enjoy such as my motorcycle (which I bought off of craigslist... in cash... for dirt cheap). Not but a year or so ago, I could fit my entire life into the back of a Ford Explorer (Yeah, a gas guzzler, I know, but it's paid off and cheap to upkeep). I have a pretty decent job that pays comfortably for the cost of living in my area, though it's a "tipped wage" job so there really isn't any chance of me getting a raise. Right now I rent an apartment that is dirt cheap - approx. $500/mo. includes water, electric, cable, internet, and two roommates. I also have a pre-paid phone plan that adds up to $48.15/mo. after tax., car insurance every six months at $500, car/motorcycle registration at $150/year total, a gym membership at $50/year and an xbox live membership at $50/year. I do get fast food a lot as a lazy bachelor who doesn't really know how or have the desire to cook, but other than food and filling up for gas every couple of weeks, I have no real big committed expenses.
I have a current savings plan of $2,000.00/mo. that goes into my money market account with my local credit union (though I just shoved $5,000 of it into a brokerage account ROTH IRA with scottrade) but it's kinda empty right now due to a few bigger slurge purchases and only having my job for only 7 months so far. Still, adding it all up, if I were to continue saving like this without any more splurge purchases, I'm saving very aggressively at 48.6% of my net income. (60.75% if you include the extra $500 I save every month dedicated exclusively to vacations).
I'd like to believe that I'm on track to retire by 45, but I know that I'm going to need to do more than max out my ROTH every year. (I figure after 20 years at 10% compounding, I should have about $328k locked up) I plan to contribute the maximum to my company's 401k plan when it becomes available to me in five more months of work and anything else that I can save beyond that I plan to shove into a taxable account to hopefully grow.
I'm joining the forums as another way to hopefully learn how to succeed in my goals to have that early retirement and travel/enjoy life to the fullest on that 4% of my (eventual) nest egg (which I'm guessing would probably need to be at least 1.25mil for a 50k/yr retirement). So hi, I'm Vitai. Nice to meetcha. :)
