FocusedInfinity
Dryer sheet wannabe
- Joined
- Nov 12, 2010
- Messages
- 20
Figured I should probably introduce myself as I've been lurking on the board for about half a year and learned a lot. Sorry about the long winded post and excruciating detail, but I hope to re-visit this over the years and see how things have changed.
I'm a 29 y/o, working towards getting out of the rat race. I've had a job in one form or another since the age of 15 and don't intend to keep that up until I hit the grave. I'm not into extreme LBYM as I do like nice things but I'm still fairly thrifty. I've had some considerable income growth over the last 5 years and currently have a salary of about $100k. I don't expect much in the way of increases from here. I also receive $15k of rental income, but this property is cash-flow negative (see below). I tend to spend about $30k a year minus savings/debt repayment.
I have accumulated $150k in retirement assets and $25k in cash. No fixed assets worth discussing as I won't be selling them anyhow. Some of that $25k is going to be used for a wedding in the near future and I'm looking for her to tell me how much. I am maxing out my 401k, Roth IRA, and HSA. I don't know how many people view their HSA as 'retirement' but I keep enough in cash to cover my HDHP deductibles for 2-3 years and can't bring myself to pull anything out of it.
On the liabilities side, I have a $230k mortgage on the rental, $14k car loan, and $8k in student loans. As soon as I know what the wedding is going to cost, I'm going to once again start to aggressively pay off this debt. Depending on the random expenses/bonuses/ESPP, I can typically allocate $15-20k a year to this.
Housing wise, I bought a condo when I first started dating my fiancee in an ideal location for me. Near my family, in a good school district, ample access to parks, etc. Due to her work situation, she needed to get one closer as there's the bridge of doom between the two which can alter the daily commute by 1-2 hours. I wasn't exactly happy with my job at the time, found employment closer to hers, and moved in with her. I'm justifying holding onto it as I like to think we might move back into it in a couple years. For now, it's rented and the equity is building to where it hopefully won't be upside down.
About my fiancee, she's a MD currently in her residency. She has about a year to go at which point, she'll usurp me as the primary breadwinner. She'll be bringing a lot of debt (student loans + mortgage), no assests, and a large income. I've specifically excluded her financial info at the moment until we are hitched. She's not into personal finance like I am and trusts me to make these decisions so long as I let her know what's going on. Currently, we're of like minds when it comes to expenses and will hopefully stay that way after this large influx of additional income.
We get along with each others families although occasionally I get asked something random like “So, could you get a second job or overtime?” I take it light heartedly and retort that taking care of my fiancee is my second job and that there's plenty of unpaid overtime at my current job. They know less of my finances than anyone reading this post.
Being relatively young yet, there's going to be a lot of challenges. Once we get past the wedding, there's the question of kids. If we have kids, how do we raise them? Does one of us scale back our work, if so, who? Daycare? Co-opt the parents? Etc. Thanks to my sister, I have recently discovered that my parents are high conservative and strongly believe that the wife belongs home with the kids.
Although thankfully, my family seems to be doing pretty well, I've discussed concerns about my fiancee's family with her. Relatively, they're in poorer health and at first glance do not appear to be in good shape fiscally. She also has a few siblings that are not totally self-supporting. One in particular, I haven't met and won't meet for several more years due to his life choices. We've discussed plans for how we would handle various scenarios, but she has a big heart.
Thanks to anyone who actually made it this far for reading! I'm definitely looking for advice on how to best structure an after-tax portfolio, tax management in general, organizing my information for my soon to be spouse in case something were to happen to me, and learning from others about kids/life in general.
I'm a 29 y/o, working towards getting out of the rat race. I've had a job in one form or another since the age of 15 and don't intend to keep that up until I hit the grave. I'm not into extreme LBYM as I do like nice things but I'm still fairly thrifty. I've had some considerable income growth over the last 5 years and currently have a salary of about $100k. I don't expect much in the way of increases from here. I also receive $15k of rental income, but this property is cash-flow negative (see below). I tend to spend about $30k a year minus savings/debt repayment.
I have accumulated $150k in retirement assets and $25k in cash. No fixed assets worth discussing as I won't be selling them anyhow. Some of that $25k is going to be used for a wedding in the near future and I'm looking for her to tell me how much. I am maxing out my 401k, Roth IRA, and HSA. I don't know how many people view their HSA as 'retirement' but I keep enough in cash to cover my HDHP deductibles for 2-3 years and can't bring myself to pull anything out of it.
On the liabilities side, I have a $230k mortgage on the rental, $14k car loan, and $8k in student loans. As soon as I know what the wedding is going to cost, I'm going to once again start to aggressively pay off this debt. Depending on the random expenses/bonuses/ESPP, I can typically allocate $15-20k a year to this.
Housing wise, I bought a condo when I first started dating my fiancee in an ideal location for me. Near my family, in a good school district, ample access to parks, etc. Due to her work situation, she needed to get one closer as there's the bridge of doom between the two which can alter the daily commute by 1-2 hours. I wasn't exactly happy with my job at the time, found employment closer to hers, and moved in with her. I'm justifying holding onto it as I like to think we might move back into it in a couple years. For now, it's rented and the equity is building to where it hopefully won't be upside down.
About my fiancee, she's a MD currently in her residency. She has about a year to go at which point, she'll usurp me as the primary breadwinner. She'll be bringing a lot of debt (student loans + mortgage), no assests, and a large income. I've specifically excluded her financial info at the moment until we are hitched. She's not into personal finance like I am and trusts me to make these decisions so long as I let her know what's going on. Currently, we're of like minds when it comes to expenses and will hopefully stay that way after this large influx of additional income.
We get along with each others families although occasionally I get asked something random like “So, could you get a second job or overtime?” I take it light heartedly and retort that taking care of my fiancee is my second job and that there's plenty of unpaid overtime at my current job. They know less of my finances than anyone reading this post.
Being relatively young yet, there's going to be a lot of challenges. Once we get past the wedding, there's the question of kids. If we have kids, how do we raise them? Does one of us scale back our work, if so, who? Daycare? Co-opt the parents? Etc. Thanks to my sister, I have recently discovered that my parents are high conservative and strongly believe that the wife belongs home with the kids.
Although thankfully, my family seems to be doing pretty well, I've discussed concerns about my fiancee's family with her. Relatively, they're in poorer health and at first glance do not appear to be in good shape fiscally. She also has a few siblings that are not totally self-supporting. One in particular, I haven't met and won't meet for several more years due to his life choices. We've discussed plans for how we would handle various scenarios, but she has a big heart.
Thanks to anyone who actually made it this far for reading! I'm definitely looking for advice on how to best structure an after-tax portfolio, tax management in general, organizing my information for my soon to be spouse in case something were to happen to me, and learning from others about kids/life in general.