Hi Everyone!

[happydreamer]

Hello there. I am a 29 year old who is trying to prepare for retirement. I live by myself and currently rent a one bedroom apartment. I have no kids, husband, cats, etc. I found the Retire Early Homepage several years ago and that gave me more motivation to save/invest more of my cash instead of spending it on material items. I try to live like a college student (I have a lamp on a milk crate!) I have read Rich Dad, Poor Dad, The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need, Your Money or Your Life, and several others.

I do not have a set age in mind currently of when I expect my retirement to be, I just know that I want to prepare for it as quickly as I can. I put in the maximum amount into both my Roth IRA and my 401K each year. I am a big believer in index funds and with stocks I am a buy and hold investor.

I have around 92K saved in my Roth, 401K and non-sheltered (regular brokerage) accounts. My salary is around 50K. I have NO debt. I should have a little over 100K by my 30th b-day. (Yay!) I am also preparing to buy a house sometime in the next few years. I have saved around 29K for the house. I find it hard to both save for a downpayment and save such a large percent of my salary. Does anyone have any thoughts or advice? Do I appear to be on a decent path with my wealth accumluation? I think I am doing alright but I certainly value and would greatly appreciate your opinions. Thanks!

[mountaintosea]

Welcome to the board. This is a great site. I suggest you read John Greaney's profile. He's like the father of these early retirement boards. He retired quite young. He has a philosphy of renting rather than buying. A lot of people on this board have read Your Money Or Your Life! I've read it and it's a good start. At 29 you are really going great guns. I was still trying to decide what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, much less thinking about retirement. I didn't start thinking about that until 45! Buying a house might postpone your retirement a bit. There's always things that need to get fixed. In fact that's what I'm doing at the moment, maintenance. I have a lot of delayed projects.
I intend to finish them before I retire, but it's not cheap AND not fun!

[OKLibrarian]

Hi! Another YMOYL-inspired person here (except for the investment stuff). It was the book that got DH and I thinking that two normal people with middle-ish class careers could escape the hamster ball before 50. And I'll see your milk crate and raise you a cardboard box coffee table! (covered by a nice throw, who would guess?)

[chris2008]

One more for YMYL.
You might like the part that talks about calculating the "real" income per hour and applying this to your purchases. For example, when you figure out that one hour of your lifetime gets you 10$ (after deducting commuting time and job related expenses) is a certain purchase really worth it?
Lots of good ideas in that book, even if you do not want to apply each of them to the max. In the related forums of www.slnet.com there is a discussion about "buy or rent" going that might be interesting to you as well.
When thinking to buy, I would carefully estimate all related expenses from tax over heating to increase of furniture or decoration and cleaning. If you do not need the space it might not be worth buying.

[Coach]

Happydreamer, I think you're doing great! IMO the most important thing at your age is LBYM and you've got that down pat. And you're researching, reading and thinking -- how many of your friends have even given retirement a thought?

I think you would really enjoy The Millionaire Next Door -- a book I wish I had read when I was younger.

Keep saving, invest for the long run, enjoy being young!

Coach