Poll: Average Income Before FIRE

[lazygood4nothinbum]

i never defined myself by income or career. i simply kept myself out of debt and, aside from college, above the poverty line.

my lifestyle was never yachting socialite but more yachting socialist. i spent much of my youth boating with parents and friends. i’d help them drink the beer crew neighbors’ boats on the intracoastal or on way to the bahamas. my partner & i used to take his parent’s boat out and pick up complete strangers new friends who were hanging out on seawalls. we were completely nutz and had amazing fun together.

life pretty much went like that until my partner died at 35, when i went from party boy into a few years of deep depression. then the ol’man died, the boats were gone. i lost interest in my other boating friends. mom & i started dealing with her alzheimer’s by ourselves for the first 5-8 years because she wanted to keep her life running as normal as possible. we considered getting a small boat. i asked my sil (who i didn’t get along with at the time) how she saw her family using the new boat so i’d know how to shop. she said to me “we’ll be taking it out every weekend. i don’t know when you’re going to use it but that’s the only time we have.” how odd because i was expecting something like: we’d like to go out for a few days at a time or just some day cruises or something with a lot of shade. so instead of shopping i went back to mom and said “no boat.”

landlocked ever since, i found a cheap little cottage in crack town and settled in, working for once good but later crappy mcfortune5 and working to clean up my town before mom became too much of a responsibility that i had to let go of my civic work. shortly after, my little area would be featured on the front page of the new york times for its transformation. still, mostly an observer by nature, life for me has always been a bit less of what i did and a bit more of where i was. how much money i made was probably one of the most irrelevant parts of my life.

had i been raised in the midwest rather than on the east coast, i would have been just as happy riding a horse or spending my afternoons laying in a field and chewing on a blade of grass. i am that lazy.

in considering where i want to find myself into my early retired future i’m still keeping boats in mind but think i will do land-based travel first. but in the last two years i started going to marinas again to see what’s to be found there. as i seem to happen upon frequent coincidence in life, it was pleasant but not a complete surprise that on my very first dock walk after many years of staying away, i came across one of the boats i used to play on which belonged to a friend when i was in my 20s. it was being renovated and looked like they were doing a beautiful job on an absolutely gorgeous historic vessel now in charter service up north. i just found a picture online.

this is what you can enjoy in life on minimum wage and without even trying, but just by being there, smiling and introducing yourself…

[img width=750 height=303]http://i143.photobucket.com/albums/r156/lazygood4nothinbum/elpresidente.jpg[/img]

[flipstress]

brewer, I'm glad to have provided you with some hilarity for the day with my idealistic, naive notions. I dunno no decamillionaire...

...or even anybody with a sailboat, but lg4nb, I've been on a sailboat just once in my life and I loved the experience. They actually have a sailing club with lessons here in town--something to explore in the future for me...

[lazygood4nothinbum]

flipstress, if i recall correctly you live where most boaters here only dream of cruising. take swimming lessons first if you are not a good swimmer so that you will be safe and confident. then join that sail club. you will love love love it. some of my very best times on the water were with my bud and a cooler of beer on our little sunfish. life doesn't get much better than that.

[ESRBob]

Re: the original post, my W2 income throughout my career was really spotty-- entrepreneurship, working overseas, owning the company and not taking salary during lean years, then taking 5k/month draws meant that I was dragging down the average income in our town for awhile. Then there was 1999 when I wrote a (just barely) 7 figure check to the feds for capgains taxes on the sale of my company... that may be a secondary profile of business owners' finances alongside the consistently high-salary model.

LG4NBum,
you hit on an important point that (duh!) is slowly sinking in for me. That people who own boats need people to help them sail them. I am in the process of shifting from boatowner (lots of expense and tons of mental overhead) to friend of boatowners (more offers than I can handle and none of the expense, none of the headache). Obviously helps if you grew up around boats like you did and know how to be useful onboard, and have friends with too much money and not enuf time!

Love the classic beauty you show there in NY harbor. Friend has a similar one (about 10 feet shorter) classic wood 1950's rich-man's toy -- what a lot of fun we've had on her. And he pays the gas bill (last I looked it was less than a mile per gallon)

btw, my 11-year old son calls himself lazy and I am trying to get him to reclassify his behavior as 'efficient'. He says he likes math because you get rewarded for taking shortcuts that make solving the thing simpler (what he calls being lazy). I think he may be on to something... Maybe lazy is about to get a long-overdue restoration to its proper place as a virtue.

[BUM]

[quote=flipstress ]
some hilarity for the day [quote]



Favorite cliche:

I've been rich and I've been super-rich. Super-rich is better.

[Corporateburnout]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Moemg My income never went over $50,000 as an Rn but I still retired with seven figures plus.

Pretty impressive that's what I call LBYM

[lazygood4nothinbum]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ESRBob Maybe lazy is about to get a long-overdue restoration to its proper place as a virtue.

damned writers can't keep a secret.

hey esrbob, shhhhhhh, pipe down and w*rk your own side of the street. lazy only plays if everyone isn't doing it. if everyone was lazy and lbym, the entire system would collapse and then neither could dig us out.

you gotta good eye for boats. and so right about crew. a high school bud (a guy anyone would have pegged for future bum) is considering an new 50 ft post. problem is he only has a 35 ft dock for his downeaster. so he'll have to get a captain to run her between a new marina for summers there and winters near his sarasota home down here. i said great, i'll help run it down. so now i'll have another few weeks a year to vacation on someone else's boat. w*rks for me. by the way, if you're ever short required crew on a long distance delivery, let me know. you know how much i like to w*rk (on my tan).

hey, life is hard. but someone has to do it.

[Gone4Good]

Quote:

Originally Posted by brewer12345 They stay at work because they want to.

Chumps.

[wabmester]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cute 'n Fuzzy Bunny According to my social security statements...898K in 1999, 1046K in 2000 and 540k in 2001, but that was less than a half years earnings as I ER'ed in late April or early May of that year.

Ah, the glory days of the tech bubble. I miss them too. Were your options still above water when you left?

I calculated that I would have had another 7-figure payday if I had delayed my exit by two years. Absolutely no regrets. Really.

[Goonie]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Moemg My income never went over $50,000 as an Rn but I still retired with seven figures plus.

Mine never did either. In fact 2006, was my highest year at just a tad over $48K. I'll FIRE the 1st week of April this year, with net worth of just over $1M. I LBMM....quite a ways below!

I'm a crappy hamper....er' I mean a happy camper!!!

[dex]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Goonie Mine never did either. In fact 2006, was my highest year at just a tad over $48K. I'll FIRE the 1st week of April this year, with net worth of just over $1M. I LBMM....quite a ways below! I'm a crappy hamper....er' I mean a happy camper!!!

Goonie,
That's fantastic. Just don't tell me you lived in California and most of your net is from real estate.

That is like saying the hero of a Heratio Alger story won the lottery.

[Spanky]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Goonie Mine never did either. In fact 2006, was my highest year at just a tad over $48K. I'll FIRE the 1st week of April this year, with net worth of just over $1M. I LBMM....quite a ways below! I'm a crappy hamper....er' I mean a happy camper!!!

That's very impressive.

[Spanky]

Quote:

Originally Posted by brewer12345 Haaaaaahahahahahaha! Well, maybe by making the capital markets more efficient and providing liquidity to people who really, really want to liquidate on the cheap.

That means no admiration is necessary.

[ESRBob]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lazygood4nothinbum a high school bud (a guy anyone would have pegged for future bum) is considering an new 50 ft post. problem is he only has a 35 ft dock for his downeaster. so he'll have to get a captain to run her between a new marina for summers there and winters near his sarasota home down here. i said great, i'll help run it down. so now i'll have another few weeks a year to vacation on someone else's boat. w*rks for me. hey, life is hard. but someone has to do it.

Sounds like you've got the winning combination -- friends with too much money and not enough time, and a penchant for large floating vessels. One of the things I enjoy, too, about going back to reunions is seeing the ones who never looked like they'd get it together at age 18 now firing on all cylinders in something they figured out how to do well and have fun at somewhere along the line.

Will give you a holler if we are short of crew -- plenty of action up and down LI Sound --- Chesapeake to Maine. My own 37' cutter is now in the Chesapeake sitting on a dealer's lot, so hopefully I'll be joining you on the 'lazy side' of the crew soon.

My best bud in college used to say the same thing: "Hey, it's a tough life, but somebody's got to live it!" It's been a pretty good guiding philosophy for finding my way to ER

[lowflyer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cute 'n Fuzzy Bunny According to my social security statements...898K in 1999, 1046K in 2000 and 540k in 2001, but that was less than a half years earnings as I ER'ed in late April or early May of that year. So maybe we need a few more #'s on the poll?

Hmmmm. This is interesting. From all the posts, it looks like there's quite a range of (past) incomes, but the goal of RE is a common theme. The FI part....well, it's all relative.

[Goonie]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dex Goonie, That's fantastic. Just don't tell me you lived in California and most of your net is from real estate. That is like saying the hero of a Heratio Alger story won the lottery.

Nope....never lived in California.....AND never have owned any real estate......except I think I got some sort of thingy in the mail when I was a little tike that gave me something like one square inch of property some where in the Alaskan wilderness (probably half way up some snow and ice covered mountain).

[maddythebeagle]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cute 'n Fuzzy Bunny According to my social security statements...898K in 1999, 1046K in 2000 and 540k in 2001, but that was less than a half years earnings as I ER'ed in late April or early May of that year. So maybe we need a few more #'s on the poll?

hmm, big 6 figure income and couldnt pay a 30 dollar bill to amex?
http://early-retirement.org/forums/i...?topic=11660.0

[Sandy]

My individual income hasn't escaped the 50's and my DHs is comparable. We expect to have 7 figures in time for my planned ER, but we need to pay attention and watch all spending. It will be worth it.

[Moemg]

Goonie,
The square inch of property was in the Yukon territory .Courtesy of Sqt.Preston of the Yukon mounted Police .We got them in Puffed wheat cereal.I think I own about a square foot .

[ESRBob]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Maddy the Turbo Beagle hmm, big 6 figure income and couldnt pay a 30 dollar bill to amex? http://early-retirement.org/forums/i...?topic=11660.0

Maddy (and CFB)
Business Week has a cover story this week about Revenge as a motivator in corporate life -- That (or principle) may explain things better than the $30!