Delurking…
Hello, TickTock here!
I’m 40, DW is 41. Double income, no kids.
About five years ago we got aggressive with saving – we don’t budget as such, but we’re LBYM types – living expenses about 3/8 of income, savings about 3/8 of income, taxes about 1/4 of income. (I’m not comfortable with posting actual numbers at this time.) We have about 3.8x income in investments and another 1.0x income in home equity.
As far as investment philosophy goes, I’m pretty much a Vanguard poster child; passive investing, asset allocation, buy-and-hold, rebalance, low costs. My investing library is Armstrong, Bernstein (both Four Pillars and Asset Allocator), Bogle, Brennan, Siegel, Swedroe...
Asset Allocation: 80% equity / 20% bonds & cash (cash portion is our money market emergency fund. In equities, 15% each: US large, US large value, US small, US small value, 10% REIT, 30% Total Foreign. Rebalance once a year. Fully fund 401(k)s and Roth IRAs.
Both DW and I have been getting less tolerant of the frustration that our j*obs entail. When would we like to ER? TOMORROW!!! But we don’t have the assets yet. Really, it’s a time vs. standard of living trade-off.
So far I’ve been focused on the accumulation phase, not so much draw-down, so I’ve got thoughts and questions on that (which will be started in other threads). I recently purchased both Your Money Or Your Life and Work Less, Live More. Interesting reading.
I will start tracking expenses November 1st to get a better handle on where our money’s actually going, and to better estimate ER income needs. Paying off the mortgage will free a goodly chunk of expenses (PITI plus a bit extra principal is ~36% of expenses, looking at maybe 11 years to payoff, or less if we downsize the house. Decisions, decisions )
Looking forward to interesting discussion on these forums!
Hello, TickTock here!
I’m 40, DW is 41. Double income, no kids.
About five years ago we got aggressive with saving – we don’t budget as such, but we’re LBYM types – living expenses about 3/8 of income, savings about 3/8 of income, taxes about 1/4 of income. (I’m not comfortable with posting actual numbers at this time.) We have about 3.8x income in investments and another 1.0x income in home equity.
As far as investment philosophy goes, I’m pretty much a Vanguard poster child; passive investing, asset allocation, buy-and-hold, rebalance, low costs. My investing library is Armstrong, Bernstein (both Four Pillars and Asset Allocator), Bogle, Brennan, Siegel, Swedroe...
Asset Allocation: 80% equity / 20% bonds & cash (cash portion is our money market emergency fund. In equities, 15% each: US large, US large value, US small, US small value, 10% REIT, 30% Total Foreign. Rebalance once a year. Fully fund 401(k)s and Roth IRAs.
Both DW and I have been getting less tolerant of the frustration that our j*obs entail. When would we like to ER? TOMORROW!!! But we don’t have the assets yet. Really, it’s a time vs. standard of living trade-off.
So far I’ve been focused on the accumulation phase, not so much draw-down, so I’ve got thoughts and questions on that (which will be started in other threads). I recently purchased both Your Money Or Your Life and Work Less, Live More. Interesting reading.
I will start tracking expenses November 1st to get a better handle on where our money’s actually going, and to better estimate ER income needs. Paying off the mortgage will free a goodly chunk of expenses (PITI plus a bit extra principal is ~36% of expenses, looking at maybe 11 years to payoff, or less if we downsize the house. Decisions, decisions )
Looking forward to interesting discussion on these forums!
Last edited: