I'm new here.

[Time2]

Hi all,
I was sent to a thread here, after asking about Medicare, from MMM where I have been a member for just over 4 years.
My wife and I lived under our income, for 37 years with an inflation adjusted average income of about $71,000 a year. Do note that $71k is inflation adjusted and many of those 37 years where below $25k a year.
I married an immigrant that thought a little different about money, Our first year we grossed $18k and saved $6k, I'm fudging a little because with wedding gift money we started with $560! Before then, I never had $6k.

I was a Bob Brinker listener early on where I learned about mutual funds and low costs. I started putting money in Bob's recommended portfolio until I just got tired of having paperwork from 6 or 7 different mutual funds and went to all Vanguard funds. I never had thought about early retire until I started reading MMM 4 years ago. I took me a little while to find FIRECALC and run it enough to realize, we could spend more in our retirement than we did in our working years.
We had accumulated $1M by the end of 2011, by 2016 I realized we could retire anytime, We edged over $2M by the end of 2017, but I could not convince my wife (we were self employed at the time) to stop working, but I pretty much did quit work at the beginning of 2018. I worked about 1 day a week just to give her a break. Hurricane Michael came on Oct 10, 2018 and blew away our business. There just wasn't enough of me to work on the house and rebuild the business and she let go, knowing we will be fine. We have spent the last year getting our home back into good condition after Michael and I did finish all of that now as far as the insurance company is concerned. There are a couple of things I want to get done, but no hurry on any of it. So, we retired a little earlier than most Americans, we retired with more assets most and we are doing fine.
I don't know that we could have done it much faster, with our pretty much median income or just above, ya we probably didn't need to save as much as we did, but that would be considered a real first world problem.

Just about time to sign up for Medicare for me the young bride still has several years.

 

[Gumby]

Welcome aboard, Time2. Sounds like you've got things well under control. I look forward to reading more about your journey so far and your plans for the future.

 

[rodi]

Welcome to the forum... Your story (minus the hurricane) sounds like many of us here.... Working, saving, and having a good life without spending all of our income.

 

[Dtail]

Welcome Time 2 to our wonderful forum.
Feel free to ask questions to many wonderful smart folks on this site.
Looking forward to your future posts.

 

[Time2]

Just to add to my OP, We also have two kids both still in college. Will they ever get off the dole? Just kidding, (a little) my oldest graduated college worked and did well for about three years, the company she was with then merged with another and there were just to many changes, micro managing (she's a self starter) bonus and commission cuts, did I mention she's a self starter? because of that she did very well with bonuses and commissions, but they cut them. So with that writing on the wall she decided to go back to college and become a dentist. About 2-1/2 years to go. My son, more like me, laid back, not highly motivated and we are just very happy he is in his last term before he gets a Chemical Engineering degree.

My daughter sees the way we live, but has not really taken it to heart yet.
My son lives a very frugal life never asks us for money and is just keeping his head down and is getting excited about his studies.
I will add one thing, for any of you that watch TV, there is a commercial running now selling a financial product. The daughter gets a letter saying she got into college and throws it in the trash knowing her mother can't afford to send her. Mom confronts the daughter with the letter and asks, "when were you going to tell me?" She says mom, I know you can't afford
it. OK, we have never bought a new vehicle, our oldest is 21 years old, our newest is 11 years old. The mother says, why do you think I drive this old car. This brings tears to my eyes, it's a good feeling every time I see it, we are paying for my daughters dental school tuition of over $250k, so she will not have that debt to start her work career.
Hopefully that will wear off or the commercial will go away

 

[Jerry1]

Welcome aboard! Glad to have you here. Enjoyed reading your posts. One comment made me laugh:

Will they ever get off the dole? Just kidding, (a little)

No, they don’t ever really get off the dole, but it’s fine. Another first world problem. It’s great seeing them grow and eventually, the money you’re spending on them does become more discretionary. And then come grand kids. Circle of life. A good life.

Hope you enjoy this forum.

 

[Time2]

Welcome aboard! Glad to have you here. Enjoyed reading your posts. One comment made me laugh:



No, they don’t ever really get off the dole, but it’s fine. Another first world problem. It’s great seeing them grow and eventually, the money you’re spending on them does become more discretionary. And then come grand kids. Circle of life. A good life.

Hope you enjoy this forum.

Ya, it was meant in jest, glad it came a cross. I used to joke with them by telling them when they start working they need to send 10% back home to their parents. I' still haven't seen a check!

 

[Mdlerth]

If Engineering were easy there would be more engineers

My son, more like me, laid back, not highly motivated and we are just very happy he is in his last term before he gets a Chemical Engineering degree.

Yeah, those Chem E's just lounge around for 4 years, slouching through trivial courses like DiffEq and Thermo and Pchem and Separations. No motivation required.

Seriously, you are right to be happy over your son's accomplishment. He will have excellent job prospects and should be set for life.

 

[Time2]

Yeah, those Chem E's just lounge around for 4 years, slouching through trivial courses like DiffEq and Thermo and Pchem and Separations. No motivation required.

Seriously, you are right to be happy over your son's accomplishment. He will have excellent job prospects and should be set for life.

I hear you LOL! It took him about three years before he decided, nothing happens if I don't do it. This was after he took a year off. When he went back he was more involved. He is one of those kids that is very smart, and didn't have to study and still got very good grades all through high school. However, I think he didn't get some of the basics didn't get pounded in, so when college came he found it didn't come easy. But he finally got his head on straight and takes a little smaller class load and is doing well now, and as I said one more term and he gets that degree.
My daughter is like her mother, highly driven, highly motivated, gonna get it done now type. She studied hard, we never had to say do your homework, she studied her teachers to know what they wanted.
Back to my son, it's fun now because you can see him getting excited about what he is doing.

 

[Rianne]

Welcome, Time2. You mention a couple of things you want to get done. What will you do with your spare time? This forum is a fun place to hang out. Just don't get to see everyone face to face, but you'll get to know them .

You made it through Hurricane Michael. I'd say you have a bright future. Looking forward to your posts.

 

[Time2]

>You mention a couple of things you want to get done. What will you do with your spare time?<
I still haven't really got a handle on that!
I spend too much time on the internet, some on financial sites, some on electronics sites, as my hobby is electronic tinkering. I have a bench setup with lots of test gear used in my hobby, so some of my time is spent there.
I'm mostly into radio stuff, antennas, crystal radio, etc.

I have signed up on "MEET UP" a year or more ago and have went on several bike rides and walks in our local conservation area. The problem is it's an 16 mile round trip drive so I can ride or walk 4 or 6 miles.
As I mentioned, just finished up with all the insurance covered repairs after the hurricane, today I will send in the pictures to get reimbursed for the latest repairs. I was very happy with my insurance company, so many people had to fight for every payment, I didn't have any problems, but part of that is because I didn't need the money, I could do the repairs and pay the bills without immediate reimbursement, so many had to have the insurance payment in hand to pay.

I have a shed with a work area and my tools, it lost a couple of clear roof panels in the storm so, a lot of them got wet, I should have done a better inventory of my damages, but it is a lot of work to go through every item and decide how much rust makes it unusable. I'm sure I could have recovered a lot more, but I wanted to be fair. I have a hundred rusty drill bits, but should I be reimbursed? I didn't, as with many other rusty tools, I'll just clean them up. Same with my electronic parts that got wet, because I had bought a business when it closed I had thousands of dollars
of replacement cost items that only cost me a couple hundred dollars, again I just ask for a few resistor and capacitor kits to replace them.
The hurricane was really hard for many people, but you had no choice, other than doing what needed to be done. We didn't have running water for 5 days, no electricity for 8 days, although I had a generator and did save some of our business inventory.
We had one wall of our two car garage lean in against my truck, it could fall in farther, the enter ceiling and all the insulation was on the vehicles or floor. The vehicles were stuck for 4 weeks because the door would not open with the wall leaned in. Several 4x8 sheets pf plywood were blown of the roof and lots of shingles. We lost our carport (wrapped around out pecan tree) lost our screened porch, three walls of our greenhouse collapsed , my wife's sheshed got crushed by a tree, I built her a newer bigger sheshed! The trees in the area were decimated, I mean we very possibly lost 90% of our trees, at least the pine trees.
We had a mall, it is closed and will not reopen, a few of the outer stores did stay and are open, but we have no more mall. We had two movie theaters, both are closed, it's been 1 year, I don't know if they are going to reopen. We lost dozens of businesses on the main road through town, that will never reopen.
Ok, enough stream of conscious writing, back to my shed, I need to put a new roof on it, metal panels, at most two days work just need to work up the gumption.
I didn't proof read, hope I didn't make to many errors