Corporateburnout
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Have you heard of Vonage?
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Blogger Joe Udo says 25x expenses not enough for early-retirees
- Thread starter haha
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Have you heard of Vonage?
bmcgonig
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Yes. But it's VOIP and it kept going down on me during a call. I'm assuming that the guy has a real voice landline. And even Vonage is $25/mo if I remember.
Sent from my iPad using Early Retirement Forum
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So if I understand correctly this guys wife still works?
So how is he retired if he still has Family income coming into his household?
This guy is just a stay at home dad with a working spouse .
Thank you Mr. Money mustache
So how is he retired if he still has Family income coming into his household?
This guy is just a stay at home dad with a working spouse .
Thank you Mr. Money mustache
Yes, it is a deliberate choice. One that can add to the overall material well-being of the owner. It should be considered as a contribution to an improving standard of living. Like air conditioning, which is another choice. Seat belts and children's car seats (no choice there). Some, such as cable TV, are indeed dubious, but others, such as high speed internet access, add considerable value.
These all cost money, increase one's cost of living, but when first introduced into the budget are not part of the "inflation rate" because they improve the standard of living. In fact, our standard of living is continuously improving, but to fully participate and enjoy those improvements, they must be paid for over and above the usual changes in average cost of living.
This is something the "SWR" discussions usually don't include, because it is difficult to quantify the cost of our improving standard of living. It also has a different impact on a 70 year old retiree vs a 50 year old. But it is real.
Big_Hitter
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
yup
tfudtuckerpucker
Full time employment: Posting here.
If you read his blog, Joe says their monthly expense is mostly covered by their passive and online incomes, and they save her income. She also provides the health care insurance through her work.
I agree the blog is not quite as interesting, since there are many households with one spouse working, while the other doesn't. I'm not sure the blog would gain as many readers if his wife decided to "retire" instead.
I agree the blog is not quite as interesting, since there are many households with one spouse working, while the other doesn't. I'm not sure the blog would gain as many readers if his wife decided to "retire" instead.
daylatedollarshort
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Most of the ER blogs I have come across have either one spouse working or the household has investment income / wife's part-time income / husband's part-time income which is not much different than having one full time income in a two parent plus kids kind of household, which is not exactly newsworthy.
Really retiring on $600K for two people and not working at all ever again and "retiring" on $600K plus even $24K in annual earned income is a pretty huge difference in overall lifetime retirement funding. $24K in annual earned income over 50 years adds another $1.2M in lifetime earnings to the initial $600K, plus higher SS payments at normal retirement age.
The extra earned income by continuing to work even part-time is the difference between $600K and $1.8M ($600K + $1.2M) in total lifetime retirement funding, even more with investment returns and higher SS benefits factored in.
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ExFlyBoy5
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How you define retirement is how YOU define it. How Joe defines it is how JOE defines it. I don't work but my DW does. She has no financial reason to do so, but refuses to quit all out working at 38 years old...she fears boredom, so she keeps toiling away in the salt mines. Those variables would lead you to call me UNEMPLOYED to which I say...um...NO. I am and will continue to be RETIRED.
Sent via mobile device. Please excuse any grammatical errors.
So millions of Americans are currently retired early and they don't even know it?
I think most stay at home spouses would be offended if you called them retired
People with Mr. mustache fever might call themselves retired but that's a shortcut or fantasy that's not going to end well
Major Tom
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It will end well for him though, if the traffic and revnue from his site is anything to go by.............
If he's lucky he will become a millionaire like Mr. mustache and be able to sell the fantasy of frugal lifestyle While taking your family on international trips making 30 K a year
Not.
Major Tom
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I was talking about MMM. Not sure about this guy.
scrabbler1
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The f his wife's health insurance coverage from her job is probably more valuable than her income. If he had to cover HI premiums for a family with kids his expenses would be a LOT higher.
When my husband reached age 62 and chose to not work anymore... and even let his architectural license lapse - did he not retire? (Because I was still working?) I think if you've worked for decades and now are withdrawing from investments and/or pension rather than drawing a salary, you're retired in my book.
When I retired a few years ago - I had (and still have) kids at home. Does that make me a SAHM rather than retired? Or did I retire from a career of several decades? I am drawing from my investments rather than cashing a paycheck. Sure - I have responsibilities to parent my kids - but I had those responsibilities while working as well.
This whole arbitrary "that person isn't REALLY retired" argument drives me nuts. If you worked a career and drew a salary, and now don't and have to tap retirement resources (pension and/or savings).... then you're retired!!!!
I am talking specifically about the Mr. mustache crowd
I've listened to many Podcasts and Watch many YouTube videos and these people to crack me up
There is a whole community of people that are trying to convince me that they're retired
It's a job for them
They think they found a magical shortcut To get out of working
Why do you invest so much time listening to the podcasts and watching the videos if you do not believe their story?
dunkelblau
Recycles dryer sheets
According to 2015 Annual Net Worth Update - Retire by 40
his net worth was 2M at YE2015. He reports monthly expenses at the start of each month and they fluctuate quite a bit but seem to average about 5K, so their effective WR would be around 3% without his wife's earned income, assuming his reported online income of ~1K/mon covers their taxes once she stops working.
FWIW if I were earning income from writing regular blog posts, I wouldn't call myself retired.
FUEGO
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I think he's working 2 jobs. His real job and his second job debunking the fake early retiree conspiracy. Gonna be hard to ever retire if he keeps up that second job...
Because it's entertaining
There just part of the investment community and I enjoy listening to people talk about their investments
And it's not about believing their story
Remember the highflying 90s during the tech bubble when everybody was going to retire at age 50
Mr. Money mustache fever is no different
Well, if that's what puts the vinegar in your pickle, why not.
Just one thing. You don't believe they have enough assets to retire early, their ER plans are based on their investments, so you must believe their investments won't deliver what they expect, yet you follow them for their investment advice?
Well everybody is pretty much just investing in Vanguard Index funds and ETFs so there's not a whole lot of advice to get
No the math does not work for most of these retirement bloggers to last a whole lifetime without working again
They are just selling the idea of retirement early retirement
There's nothing wrong with it but it's just an idea and that's the product
I just find Mr. Money mustache fever entertaining and fascinating
It's just like the.com bubble
If somebody's going to sell the public the idea of early retirement then they have to be able to expect constructive criticism
That's all this is I'm not making personal attacks on anybody
walkinwood
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I was not comfortable with using the standard SWR model (initial % withdrawal adjusted for inflation) when we ER'd in our late 40s.
That's why we (and a number of others on this forum) went with a withdrawal model that takes a fixed percentage of the current portfolio value each year - and that percentage is less than 4%. Our AA is 60/40 stock/bond.
In reality, our expenses stay pretty constant for a few years, then jump a bit and stay constant (nominal) again for a while. So, our withdrawal model gives us a spend ceiling that we don't try to aim for.
There are risks in this model too. A long decline in the market will make life difficult - and we have decided that we'll go to work to fill in the gap should that occur. We think it is a very small possibility, but are not ready to mentally close that option - now or ever.
I'm with Exflyboy and Rodi. There are many variations of "retired" and if that's how you see yourself, then that's it. I don't think the "millions" that Purplesky refers to consider themselves to be retired. Its all semantics to everyone but the person concerned anyway.
That's why we (and a number of others on this forum) went with a withdrawal model that takes a fixed percentage of the current portfolio value each year - and that percentage is less than 4%. Our AA is 60/40 stock/bond.
In reality, our expenses stay pretty constant for a few years, then jump a bit and stay constant (nominal) again for a while. So, our withdrawal model gives us a spend ceiling that we don't try to aim for.
There are risks in this model too. A long decline in the market will make life difficult - and we have decided that we'll go to work to fill in the gap should that occur. We think it is a very small possibility, but are not ready to mentally close that option - now or ever.
I'm with Exflyboy and Rodi. There are many variations of "retired" and if that's how you see yourself, then that's it. I don't think the "millions" that Purplesky refers to consider themselves to be retired. Its all semantics to everyone but the person concerned anyway.
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Teacher Terry
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For the younger people on Mr. MM I wonder if they will get frugal fatigue after awhile. It is one thing to live frugal for awhile because of a goal, etc but as a way of life I think it would get old. Sure you have lots of time but your friends are working, etc. I was a SAHM until my youngest went to school and then I was bored and looked forward to working.
OP
OP
haha
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
I feel that there is something wrong with that. It is fraudulent, just like the miracle cures pushed by frontier salesmen. Also, I am not pleased by people planning to raise children on the backs of taxpayers.
I retired quite early, largely because I didn't understand the issues. But my kids didn't even attend public school, and they paid their ways to public universities. There was no ACA.
One difference between then and now is that the look forward returns on fixed income as well as stocks were likely to be at least 3x greater. Yet few if any people were writing about early retirement. I heard of Joe Dominguez but I though he was a nut. I did read a book by Terhorst, who seemed well grounded and careful. I also knew hippie era dropouts, and saw how many of them came running back to reality and corporate or other careers when they saw how rough poverty could be even when it was voluntarily elected and romanticized.
Currently the US has its lowest employment rate ever of working age males. Unlikely that all of these are er'd software developers.
I agree with Purplesky, this movement is evidence of a delusion. It may also be true that we are very close to mass worldwide over-supply of labor, and everyone may get bailed out in some sort of social programs, funded by taxpayers until it can no more be funded, then perhaps some harsher system. It seems that every other teenager I meet wants to be a robotics developer. Vamos a ver!
Ha
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