Dear All:
Long time "lurker", first post. Like most of you, I spend most of my waking hours (and some of the rest as well) contemplating, ruminating and, some of my friends would agree here, sometimes perhaps even obsessing over the idea of an "early" retirement, away from the camouflaged slavery of contemporary society and ever-growing blindfolded masses.
As an admirer of the discipline and tactics of most of the folks in this board, I would love to hear your opinions, advice and any comments and/or perspective you might have on my particular situation.
My basics:
- 32
- Married.
- No kids.
- No debt WHATSOVER. Never been in debt, ever.
- House is paid for.
- Cars are paid for.
My background:
- I have always been frugal, a saver, a coupon-lover, aware of the "do I need or do I want this" fundamental differences, always abiding to the "if I can't pay cash for it, I don't buy it" mentality, etc, etc. The everyday rules most of you here follow through.
- I have been saving since I was 20, aware, I suppose, of the "fundamentals" of money, credit cards, the consequences of debt, etc, even though I never made much money.
- I will be making about 38K this year (if all goes well), and made only 33K per year during the last 5 years. My wife makes about 42K per year, working in the Health Business. She started this year.
- I am conservative. No experience with stocks, mutual funds, nor any other investment. As an immigrant from South America, these were things we were not exposed to, and nobody around me had any experience with them, either. All I ever had experience with were savings accounts and CD's. I had to learn most of the basics behind investing on my own. And I am still a novice when it comes to it.
- I keep a low-expense, below-my means lifestyle. Don't care about what most people my age care about. Don't need a fancy this or that. I am happy reading books, watching films and listening to music. All low-expense activities that I could do for the rest of my life. Smoke and mirrors are not for me. I don't have time for the media bombarding and telling me what to look like and what to do with my life. I only use my TV to watch movies and NOTHING else. Freedom is an illusion, and I am simply hoping to retire early in order to have more time for myself and my wife, to do with that time what we please.
- As you can see, we do not make much, but we do SAVE a lot. Sometimes more than 50% of our take-home pay.
Where I Stand:
- I have 56K saved in a Money-Market Savings account that used to have a 3% interest rate and is now basically collecting dust (ie: a 0.55% interest rate). I consider this my "retirement account".
- I also have 15K saved in a regular savings account. I consider this my "Emergency Fund" account.
- I keep around 5K to 7K in my checking account. This covers my monthly expenses, times 3. I consider this my "Everyday account", and if I loose my job, I can still use it for about three months before even touching my savings.
- We spend between 2K and 2.5K a month, TOTAL. This includes $1100 a month for our house. Even though it is paid-for, the condo fees and taxes add up to that monthly amount.
- We save between 2K and 3K per month. If we ever get a raise, that amount will only increase.
- Did I mention no debt?
- Again, we don't have much investing experience. We recently opened a brokerage account, but it only has 1K worth of ONE mutual fund in it. This account has been opened for a little less than a year and it has performed at around 3.2%.
My Goal:
- We would like to retire as early as possible, and that is why we save so much. We won't also need that much, either. The house is valued at $225K or so (a gift from her parents, who bought it a LONG time ago... I know, we are VERY, VERY LUCKY). We could sell it in 2 decades or so, buy something way cheaper with lower taxes and fees, and combine that with whatever other savings we have by then.
My Questions:
- What would you recommend as far a investing options? Where should I go to, what should I look for? I am conservative and don't want to risk much of my hard-saved cash. It REALLY was hard to save the above numbers, specially on a salary like mine. I might have not made a killing so far, never earning returns of 10% or more, but I have never lost money in my life, either.
- Any ideas for an investing portfolio of about 3K to 5K to start with, that would return around 5%? I would be willing to risk only up to 5K, maximum, but I am tired of having almost 60K in one account that's giving me $25 TAXABLE bucks per month.
I welcome ANY feedback. Thank you for reading all the way down here. I appreciate your time and look forward to your comments.
Long time "lurker", first post. Like most of you, I spend most of my waking hours (and some of the rest as well) contemplating, ruminating and, some of my friends would agree here, sometimes perhaps even obsessing over the idea of an "early" retirement, away from the camouflaged slavery of contemporary society and ever-growing blindfolded masses.
As an admirer of the discipline and tactics of most of the folks in this board, I would love to hear your opinions, advice and any comments and/or perspective you might have on my particular situation.
My basics:
- 32
- Married.
- No kids.
- No debt WHATSOVER. Never been in debt, ever.
- House is paid for.
- Cars are paid for.
My background:
- I have always been frugal, a saver, a coupon-lover, aware of the "do I need or do I want this" fundamental differences, always abiding to the "if I can't pay cash for it, I don't buy it" mentality, etc, etc. The everyday rules most of you here follow through.
- I have been saving since I was 20, aware, I suppose, of the "fundamentals" of money, credit cards, the consequences of debt, etc, even though I never made much money.
- I will be making about 38K this year (if all goes well), and made only 33K per year during the last 5 years. My wife makes about 42K per year, working in the Health Business. She started this year.
- I am conservative. No experience with stocks, mutual funds, nor any other investment. As an immigrant from South America, these were things we were not exposed to, and nobody around me had any experience with them, either. All I ever had experience with were savings accounts and CD's. I had to learn most of the basics behind investing on my own. And I am still a novice when it comes to it.
- I keep a low-expense, below-my means lifestyle. Don't care about what most people my age care about. Don't need a fancy this or that. I am happy reading books, watching films and listening to music. All low-expense activities that I could do for the rest of my life. Smoke and mirrors are not for me. I don't have time for the media bombarding and telling me what to look like and what to do with my life. I only use my TV to watch movies and NOTHING else. Freedom is an illusion, and I am simply hoping to retire early in order to have more time for myself and my wife, to do with that time what we please.
- As you can see, we do not make much, but we do SAVE a lot. Sometimes more than 50% of our take-home pay.
Where I Stand:
- I have 56K saved in a Money-Market Savings account that used to have a 3% interest rate and is now basically collecting dust (ie: a 0.55% interest rate). I consider this my "retirement account".
- I also have 15K saved in a regular savings account. I consider this my "Emergency Fund" account.
- I keep around 5K to 7K in my checking account. This covers my monthly expenses, times 3. I consider this my "Everyday account", and if I loose my job, I can still use it for about three months before even touching my savings.
- We spend between 2K and 2.5K a month, TOTAL. This includes $1100 a month for our house. Even though it is paid-for, the condo fees and taxes add up to that monthly amount.
- We save between 2K and 3K per month. If we ever get a raise, that amount will only increase.
- Did I mention no debt?
- Again, we don't have much investing experience. We recently opened a brokerage account, but it only has 1K worth of ONE mutual fund in it. This account has been opened for a little less than a year and it has performed at around 3.2%.
My Goal:
- We would like to retire as early as possible, and that is why we save so much. We won't also need that much, either. The house is valued at $225K or so (a gift from her parents, who bought it a LONG time ago... I know, we are VERY, VERY LUCKY). We could sell it in 2 decades or so, buy something way cheaper with lower taxes and fees, and combine that with whatever other savings we have by then.
My Questions:
- What would you recommend as far a investing options? Where should I go to, what should I look for? I am conservative and don't want to risk much of my hard-saved cash. It REALLY was hard to save the above numbers, specially on a salary like mine. I might have not made a killing so far, never earning returns of 10% or more, but I have never lost money in my life, either.
- Any ideas for an investing portfolio of about 3K to 5K to start with, that would return around 5%? I would be willing to risk only up to 5K, maximum, but I am tired of having almost 60K in one account that's giving me $25 TAXABLE bucks per month.
I welcome ANY feedback. Thank you for reading all the way down here. I appreciate your time and look forward to your comments.