32 year old, shooting for 35?

[HI Bill]

No.

I have several friends who moved to Maui to retire at around age 50. The realtor went back to work selling homes after building his dream home. The software engineer proceeded to buy and manage more rental properties on Maui. The medical devices person went back to the company after the key person died, and they offered her twice her former salary. The policeman did IT consulting part time; his wife did massages part time. They were all scuba divers, but that wasn't enough for them, apparently.

 

[rb35]

Congrats and enjoy. I hope you still post from time to time so we can hear how the next stage of your life is going!

Thank you! I’ll try to update this thread at least annually. Future posts should be more interesting and not just about boring numbers [emoji51].

 

[thumbs]

Great thread! I love these "years long" updates. Thanks so much for starting it rb35, and for coming back to it for the annual updates. If you don't mind me asking, where do you want to travel to first when you call it quits? Travel is, and will be, a big part of our lives. There is so much to see in this big beautiful world.

 

[rb35]

Great thread! I love these "years long" updates. Thanks so much for starting it rb35, and for coming back to it for the annual updates. If you don't mind me asking, where do you want to travel to first when you call it quits? Travel is, and will be, a big part of our lives. There is so much to see in this big beautiful world.

Thanks, Thumbs! Our first major trip will be a 2-3 month trip through Europe (6-7 countries) later this year. Given intra-Europe trips are so cheap and there are so many different countries/cultures in a relatively small geographic location, we wanted to do that first. We have some smaller domestic trips planned too before we do that.

Where are some of your favorite places that you’ve been or some bucket list places you’ve yet to visit?

 

[thumbs]

Thanks, Thumbs! Our first major trip will be a 2-3 month trip through Europe (6-7 countries) later this year. Given intra-Europe trips are so cheap and there are so many different countries/cultures in a relatively small geographic location, we wanted to do that first. We have some smaller domestic trips planned too before we do that.

Where are some of your favorite places that you’ve been or some bucket list places you’ve yet to visit?

Great idea! My wife and I will likely take a trip to Italy next year (1 week). Japan is a couple years out, as we would really like to go for 3 weeks or so, and getting that time off work right now would be tough. I hope you have an awesome time! Enjoy yourselves...you've earned it!

 

[rb35]

Time for my annual update. I can’t believe it’s already been a year since I pulled the plug. Simply put, life is amazing and I have zero regrets.

Financially, all is going as planned. Our passive income supports our spending by a healthy margin. We budgeted 150k of spending per year and we were right there last year. That included 3 months of international travel, a cross country relocation and some home improvement projects. Going forward, I think we’ll easily be well below 150k/year.

One surprise is that I had expected we would travel multiple months every year. While we loved our travel last year, now that I no longer have a job I’m eager to escape from and we love where we live, I feel very little desire to travel. In fact, a multi-month trip seems exhausting. So I think we’ll spend well less than the 25k/year we had budgeted for travel.

I thought it might’ve been difficult to adjust from going 100mph to 0mph, but it really hasn’t. All my life, I felt like I was deferring happiness because there was always another goal that had to be achieved. Now, I’m just enjoying life in the present and it feels great. Some of the best moments are just doing something fun with friends on a weekday and thinking how lucky I am not to be in an office. Not having to answer to anyone else regarding my schedule is priceless.

Thanks for reading. Not sure I’ll have much to update going forward as I expect things to be status quo from here on out.

Good luck to everyone in their own FI journeys!

 

[everycentmatters.com]

No.

nope, the freedom to do whatever you'd like with your day is amazing. Also, turning a hobby into an income stream is fun.

 

[socca]

One surprise is that I had expected we would travel multiple months every year. While we loved our travel last year, now that I no longer have a job I’m eager to escape from and we love where we live, I feel very little desire to travel. In fact, a multi-month trip seems exhausting. So I think we’ll spend well less than the 25k/year we had budgeted for travel.

I hear ya!

I like the idea of travel, but the actual mechanics are (sometimes) sufficiently unpleasant that lounging on my porch instead (admiring the view, watching the birds, letting the world just pass me by) often has greater appeal. I'm lucky to be able to live as I do; why rock the boat?

 

[nwtractor]

Very impressive story rb35!! I am currently 28 and hope to be FI in the next 5-10 years. I would love to hear more about your real estate investments as I have been perusing to find a rental property. I would love to hear if you think it is worth adding real estate to your portfolio. I recently listened to Set for life by Scott Trench and it advised that if you can get more than 10% return you would be better of in an index fund. I would like to hear your thoughts on the subject and what you would expect for a return.

 

[rb35]

Real estate investing has been great for me, but I’m reluctant to recommend it to just anyone. If you’re organized, decent with numbers and don’t mind managing managers, it could work out well.

I’d also only recommend it if you’re in a position to scale. There’s a decent amount of education, time and effort required whether you have one rental property or many. If you’re going to put the effort in, then you should make it worthwhile by having multiple properties.

As far as Scott Trench’s book, I haven’t read it, but have heard good things about it and like BiggerPockets as a source of reliable RE info so I trust the advice in it is sound. I would tend to agree that if you’re not getting more than 10%, then you should stick to index investing. Getting those types of returns in RE is not easy nowadays, but I think there are pockets of opportunity like in short-term rentals where it is possible. If you’ve done your homework and think you can get >10% which is a phenomenal long-term return, then I’d say go for it.