gibsito
Confused about dryer sheets
I could go on about this kind of stuff forever. But I'll try to be concise with this first post.
As a kid I viewed money in the bank as deprivation of the good time I could be having by spending it. I got married at age 26 to a woman who had similar views. Not surprisingly, we never had any savings despite two good incomes and no kids. But I started changing and decided money in the bank was better than endless credit card bills. I tried to convince my wife of this, but her response was that our friends had more debt than we did so we were doing fine.
Eventually our differences widened, and we divorced. It was a painful divorce, for both of us. In the midst of my despair there was one gleaming thought that came into my mind: I could finally have full control of my finances.
This was in the early 1990s. I'd heard about the book, "Your Money or Your Life," bought it, read it, and clung to every word in it. That book made me realize that early retirement was possible by cutting my expenses to the bone, maximizing my income and saving the difference.
We had a houseboat that I got in the divorce. Our home mortgage was over $1,500/month, but the houseboat was paid off and the slip fees, which included electricity, water and sewer, were $265/month if I lived on it full time. So I decided to sell the house and move to the houseboat. Luckily, my brother wanted to buy our house so the essentially dead housing market became a non issue. When the sale went through, there was $8,000 left over to split with my former wife. So I started out with $4,000. It was now 1994 and I was 41 years old.
During this time I became an avid cyclist and bike commuted to work. It made perfect sense to me. It saved gas and parking money, kept me in shape (so I cancelled my gym membership), and was like a little vacation before and after work each day. I started dating a woman who also rode, and she got me into bicycle touring, which I absolutely loved. We took two weeks off and rode our first tour together. I loved every minute of it. But bicycle touring requires free time, and I had very little of that due to work.
I worked hard and got two promotions, allowing me to save even more money each month. I didn't know much about investing, but maximized my 401k and 457 plan contributions, and bought mutual funds on the advice of a financial planner at my credit union. Later I bought two relatively inexpensive investment homes in another state and rented those out.
I worked for the state government but had been hired at a time when the pension plan was dismal. I calculated that if I retired at 50 I could only count on about $200/month in pension income. But near the end of the '90s two laws were passed that dramatically improved my pension and savings prospects.
First, I was allowed to buy my way into the much better pension plan that had been offered before my hiring date. Second, I was allowed to buy up to 4 years of "air time" - which added to the time that I had been employed there (but that I hadn't actually worked) for purposes of calculating my monthly pension amount. These deals cost me about $77,000, but I was able to pay it via a transfer of funds out of my 401k so it was all pre-taxed money. That was a real game changer. My monthly pension prospects went from $200/month to over $2,000, and it included an annual cost of living adjustment.
I continued working and saving, and during the entire time had a graph on my refrigerator that showed my current investment income and my current expenses. The idea from Your Money or Your Life was, once the lines from each of these data points crossed, it was now possible to retire and live solely on investment income.
In early 2008, those lines crossed. I had made it. I decided I would keep working until my 55th birthday in early August because I had about six months worth of leave time saved up that I could convert to a one-time cash investment into my 457 plan.
But it had been getting increasingly difficult at work due to staff shortages and a seemingly never-ending increase in workload that had become impossible to keep up with. When someone would quit, they wouldn't be replaced and, instead, their workload would be spread among those of us who were remaining. I could no longer do a good job for those who I supported, because there were now too many of them, and there simply wasn't enough time in the day. It was extremely frustrating.
In late January my boss called me into a meeting. She gave me an assignment to track down thousands of items of equipment to be inventoried, as there hadn't been an inventory done in 10 years. Any piece of equipment I was unable to find was to be documented as lost, and the others were to have their locations specified and documented. None of this had anything to do with the IT department.
I was furious. I was now expected to support about 350 computer users and in my spare time, ha ha, and track down all this equipment that had absolutely nothing to do with my occupation and classification. This was a job that could easily have been given to an entry-level office assistant.
After the meeting, I went back to my desk, wrote an e-mail to my boss and gave her my 30-day retirement notice.
That went from one of the worst days of my working life to absolutely the best. As soon as I hit "Send" I wanted to jump through the roof with glee.
On February 29, 2008, at age 54, I walked out of those doors for the final time. A month later I did a bicycle tour in Idaho. Four months after that I rode my bicycle 1,000 miles from northern Oregon to my floating home in the California Delta. A year after that I rode 1,800 miles from Cancun, Mexico to Panama City, Panama. And I've done many others since then.
In 2010 I met my current wife, who had been living below her means and saving money essentially her whole life. We are a perfect match. We've been together for almost 15 years now and married for two. We keep our money and investments separate, with the exception of our current home which we paid cash for almost two years ago.
I'm 71 now, and life is great.
As a kid I viewed money in the bank as deprivation of the good time I could be having by spending it. I got married at age 26 to a woman who had similar views. Not surprisingly, we never had any savings despite two good incomes and no kids. But I started changing and decided money in the bank was better than endless credit card bills. I tried to convince my wife of this, but her response was that our friends had more debt than we did so we were doing fine.
Eventually our differences widened, and we divorced. It was a painful divorce, for both of us. In the midst of my despair there was one gleaming thought that came into my mind: I could finally have full control of my finances.
This was in the early 1990s. I'd heard about the book, "Your Money or Your Life," bought it, read it, and clung to every word in it. That book made me realize that early retirement was possible by cutting my expenses to the bone, maximizing my income and saving the difference.
We had a houseboat that I got in the divorce. Our home mortgage was over $1,500/month, but the houseboat was paid off and the slip fees, which included electricity, water and sewer, were $265/month if I lived on it full time. So I decided to sell the house and move to the houseboat. Luckily, my brother wanted to buy our house so the essentially dead housing market became a non issue. When the sale went through, there was $8,000 left over to split with my former wife. So I started out with $4,000. It was now 1994 and I was 41 years old.
During this time I became an avid cyclist and bike commuted to work. It made perfect sense to me. It saved gas and parking money, kept me in shape (so I cancelled my gym membership), and was like a little vacation before and after work each day. I started dating a woman who also rode, and she got me into bicycle touring, which I absolutely loved. We took two weeks off and rode our first tour together. I loved every minute of it. But bicycle touring requires free time, and I had very little of that due to work.
I worked hard and got two promotions, allowing me to save even more money each month. I didn't know much about investing, but maximized my 401k and 457 plan contributions, and bought mutual funds on the advice of a financial planner at my credit union. Later I bought two relatively inexpensive investment homes in another state and rented those out.
I worked for the state government but had been hired at a time when the pension plan was dismal. I calculated that if I retired at 50 I could only count on about $200/month in pension income. But near the end of the '90s two laws were passed that dramatically improved my pension and savings prospects.
First, I was allowed to buy my way into the much better pension plan that had been offered before my hiring date. Second, I was allowed to buy up to 4 years of "air time" - which added to the time that I had been employed there (but that I hadn't actually worked) for purposes of calculating my monthly pension amount. These deals cost me about $77,000, but I was able to pay it via a transfer of funds out of my 401k so it was all pre-taxed money. That was a real game changer. My monthly pension prospects went from $200/month to over $2,000, and it included an annual cost of living adjustment.
I continued working and saving, and during the entire time had a graph on my refrigerator that showed my current investment income and my current expenses. The idea from Your Money or Your Life was, once the lines from each of these data points crossed, it was now possible to retire and live solely on investment income.
In early 2008, those lines crossed. I had made it. I decided I would keep working until my 55th birthday in early August because I had about six months worth of leave time saved up that I could convert to a one-time cash investment into my 457 plan.
But it had been getting increasingly difficult at work due to staff shortages and a seemingly never-ending increase in workload that had become impossible to keep up with. When someone would quit, they wouldn't be replaced and, instead, their workload would be spread among those of us who were remaining. I could no longer do a good job for those who I supported, because there were now too many of them, and there simply wasn't enough time in the day. It was extremely frustrating.
In late January my boss called me into a meeting. She gave me an assignment to track down thousands of items of equipment to be inventoried, as there hadn't been an inventory done in 10 years. Any piece of equipment I was unable to find was to be documented as lost, and the others were to have their locations specified and documented. None of this had anything to do with the IT department.
I was furious. I was now expected to support about 350 computer users and in my spare time, ha ha, and track down all this equipment that had absolutely nothing to do with my occupation and classification. This was a job that could easily have been given to an entry-level office assistant.
After the meeting, I went back to my desk, wrote an e-mail to my boss and gave her my 30-day retirement notice.
That went from one of the worst days of my working life to absolutely the best. As soon as I hit "Send" I wanted to jump through the roof with glee.
On February 29, 2008, at age 54, I walked out of those doors for the final time. A month later I did a bicycle tour in Idaho. Four months after that I rode my bicycle 1,000 miles from northern Oregon to my floating home in the California Delta. A year after that I rode 1,800 miles from Cancun, Mexico to Panama City, Panama. And I've done many others since then.
In 2010 I met my current wife, who had been living below her means and saving money essentially her whole life. We are a perfect match. We've been together for almost 15 years now and married for two. We keep our money and investments separate, with the exception of our current home which we paid cash for almost two years ago.
I'm 71 now, and life is great.
And welcome to our site!
