Webzter
Full time employment: Posting here.
- Joined
- Jun 29, 2007
- Messages
- 567
Apologies... it's long winded, but it's theraputic. The summary is at the bottom!
Hi, my name is Ben and I made it to this stellar forum by way of Passion Saving. My wife and I have been trying to save like mad for several years now but things are really just now coming into focus; we're continuing to answer the 'why do we save?' question.
I turn 30 this year, which is disappointing on some level. I wish I could go back to my 20 year old self and hit me upside the head. My wife is 28 and we've been married for six and a half wonderful years (except during some budgeting sessions).
I first realized I needed something different in my life at my last job. The pay was great! If you didn't think too hard about the 60-80 hour work weeks that is. After three months of working 110 hours and ending up with a trip to the ER to see if I was just stressed out or having a heart attack (at the urging of others, but don't worry, it was just stress), I decided it was time to start changing. The first order of business was to at least right-size my job. I took a 20% pay cut but I only work 38 hours a week now. So, nominally, I guess I'm actually much better off.
We're currently saving between 21% and 27% of our gross income. I actually have a second job as a freelance programmer. All of that money, after taxes, is invested... so, projecting what I'll most likely bill for the year, that gets us to 27%. That seems like such a pitifully low number, though. We've got goals and dreams we want to reach after all! We're working to 40% while still enjoying life (I love the point that Rob Bennett makes on passion spending / passion saving).
We also just fired our Amerprise financial advisors
. While they didn't churn us out of our life savings (unlike some of the horror stories I've heard), we just never saw eye-to-eye on life. So, we're going it alone now. Well, I guess that's not really true, though. I've got you guys and the Fool. It's probably more fair to say that we're finally taking control of our financial future. It's a combined feeling of exhilaration and dread. I don't know why it's so scary, though. After all, the worst that can happen is that we end up broke and living on the street when we're 60. What's scary about that?!
In the next few years, we want to find a nice piece of land and build a small homestead where we can explore sustainable living and farming. Right now, I think we can FIRE in 25 more years. That's way to far out for me, though. I'm hoping I can get FIREd (sorry, I just love that acronym) in 12 years.
Short form version of everything you do and don't need to know about me:
Hi, my name is Ben and I made it to this stellar forum by way of Passion Saving. My wife and I have been trying to save like mad for several years now but things are really just now coming into focus; we're continuing to answer the 'why do we save?' question.
I turn 30 this year, which is disappointing on some level. I wish I could go back to my 20 year old self and hit me upside the head. My wife is 28 and we've been married for six and a half wonderful years (except during some budgeting sessions).
I first realized I needed something different in my life at my last job. The pay was great! If you didn't think too hard about the 60-80 hour work weeks that is. After three months of working 110 hours and ending up with a trip to the ER to see if I was just stressed out or having a heart attack (at the urging of others, but don't worry, it was just stress), I decided it was time to start changing. The first order of business was to at least right-size my job. I took a 20% pay cut but I only work 38 hours a week now. So, nominally, I guess I'm actually much better off.
We're currently saving between 21% and 27% of our gross income. I actually have a second job as a freelance programmer. All of that money, after taxes, is invested... so, projecting what I'll most likely bill for the year, that gets us to 27%. That seems like such a pitifully low number, though. We've got goals and dreams we want to reach after all! We're working to 40% while still enjoying life (I love the point that Rob Bennett makes on passion spending / passion saving).
We also just fired our Amerprise financial advisors
. While they didn't churn us out of our life savings (unlike some of the horror stories I've heard), we just never saw eye-to-eye on life. So, we're going it alone now. Well, I guess that's not really true, though. I've got you guys and the Fool. It's probably more fair to say that we're finally taking control of our financial future. It's a combined feeling of exhilaration and dread. I don't know why it's so scary, though. After all, the worst that can happen is that we end up broke and living on the street when we're 60. What's scary about that?!In the next few years, we want to find a nice piece of land and build a small homestead where we can explore sustainable living and farming. Right now, I think we can FIRE in 25 more years. That's way to far out for me, though. I'm hoping I can get FIREd (sorry, I just love that acronym) in 12 years.
Short form version of everything you do and don't need to know about me:
- Ben
- Software programmer in Minneapolis, Minnesota
- Married
- No kids, one dog
- Aspirations of being a farmer
- Likely a hippy at heart
- Plans to get a phd in a field I know nothing about
- Convinced we could save more if we could just figure out how to recycle our dental floss a little more
