Planning Financial Independence

[Skylark]

Hello, new member here.

I'm just getting started on a retire early plan. I was investing about $400 a month in a 457 plan (like 401k but for local govt. employees). Then I started figuring out that I really needed a lot more if I wanted to take early retirement. Now I am up to investing $1000 a month and my goal is $1500.

I looked around the net for help on how to budget and how to get some control over the household budget. I didn't really find anything that applied to my situation so I wrote an article. It is really a reference for myself, it has a somewhat complicated budgeting strategy. I figured that there must be other people looking for help on how to get their budget under control so I made a website out of it.

I am just starting out with this budgeting system so the article might be a little optimistic. One thing that it is very good at is making you decide where you should spend your money. You have to balance saving for major purchases with paying off debt, it makes you think about the best strategy. In addition to the budgeting system there are some general thoughts and philosophy on how to live well on a budget.

I would appreciate hearing what people think about this article and budgeting strategy. I will be trying it out and I have high hopes. It is based on some of the budgeting I do as a muncipal construction project manager. I try to use some of the same concepts but apply them to the household budget.

Take a look here: http://cruisenews.net/independence/

I am making this article public here for the first time, so you folks are the first ones to read the article.

Also, I have a homepage on sailing and there is a lot of good information on how to retire on a sailboat on my main website:

http://cruisenews.net

Skylark

 

[John Galt]

I am a big believer in budgets, maybe due to my
background in accounting. However, they never really worked for me, other than the 3 years when I was
single (1998-2001). Maybe it's just easier with only
one person involved, or maybe I had more time to
spend on it. Anyway, I have not used even a
crude budget lately. If I wasn't so lazy and/or
thought it was a problem (no budget) I guess I
would keep one. Bottom line is that it seems too
much like work to me.

John Galt

 

[unclemick]

Applying your work skills to your ER budget makes senses to me. One thing that I keep handy for years was a hand drawn compound interest curve (8% and 10%) to remind me of the importance of $ invested as early as possible. Not everyone (me included) will go to your level of detail but whatever means gets someone to identify areas to be more 'frugal' and try some things outside the box is good.

Eleven yrs. in ER and still having fun.