Success Stories

It seems easy in retrospect, not so much at the time.

Still, graduate from top business school at 23, go to Wall Street as an Investment Banker, save more than you spend and retire at 38.

I do, however, have a recurring regret from having left the Street so early... it happens the same time each year... what would have been bonus day!
 
Not FIREd: The benefits of frugality

This story isn't about how I became FIREd. It is a story about frugal living. You decide whether it is a story of success

From day one my wife and I believed three things: 1. Pensions are unlikely. 2. Ditto for Social Security as we now know it. 3. Early retirement is a good goal.

We started our frugal habits early in the marriage. How many couples:
*Come out of grad school with no debt, and a sizeable profit?
*Can count on one hand the pieces of furniture they've purchased new vs inherited or bought used and refinished?
*Still drive their first car?
*Still live in their first home?
*Regularly shop at thrift stores?

Despite good habits, I didn’t pay attention to our savings. When our child was born I began to get curious about how much we had for college.

After her birth I noticed shortness of breath. Long story short: I got a call from a cardiologist saying "You have one year to live." I was 31. My -to brief- life flashed before my eyes; all youthful illusions of immortality ended. I think that moment marks the end of my youth, and the beginning of my adulthood. Fortunately the doctor followed it with "Unless you have surgery."

Surgery worked, and I got very serious about saving money so my family could be provided for in case of future problems.

Our frugality allowed my wife to cut back at her job, spending half-time with our daughters.

All went well for several years. I advanced steadily in my career, and health was good. I got a career opportunity that seemed too good to pass up, becoming the director of the local Chamber of Commerce. My wife decided to work 3/4 time. Money was coming in nicely, and life was good.

Then the governing board of my Chamber had a change in leadership. We no longer saw eye-to-eye. When the atmosphere became toxic I decided to reap the benefits of my frugality-I exercised my F.U. money option. I figured to find another job with relative ease. My last day was two weeks before Lehmans brothers went bust. Immediate hiring freezes. Ouch. Imagine my stress level. Fortunately, frugality and prior savings meant we had no real worries.

After a few months my wife got her dream job and went to work full-time. Meanwhile my heart problem decided to throw a new wrinkle our direction. Again, I went through surgery to correct it. The surgery didn't work. I now find myself only able to comfortably work half time. I'm Mr. Mom the rest of the week. I work around the house and chase after our kids. I had no idea how much I would love it! Our live below your means lifestyle allowed us to role with the punches, turning a potential nightmare into a blessing in our lives.

I shudder to think what could've happened in the last two years. I wouldn't have been able to extricate myself from the hostile work environment. And, despite my ongoing health problem, I would need to work full-time. I would not have the energy I need to be the Dad my kids deserve.

There you have it. I’m 38 now, and can only work half-time for the foreseeable future. I have a nest egg about 1/3 of what I want for retirement. Life hasn’t gone according to plan. Not FIREd, but plan to be by our mid 50s. Still loving life thanks to our frugal lifestyle. I think that is a success, don’t you?
 
Carnage said:
Scrabbler, sorry if this is common knowledge as I'm new here, but what did you do when you semi-retired? Did you cut back on hours at your current job or did you go in a new direction completely?
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After I paid off the mortgage in 1998, I was awash in money because one biweekly (full-time) paycheck more than covered my monthly expenses. I was also becoming more miserable at my (full-time) job, a misery which increased when my company in May of 2001 moved from lower Manhattan to Jersey City, New Jersey. This lengthened an already barely tolerable commute.

This relocation had been announced in 1999 so my depressioin at this commute only worsened. In early 2001, before and after our relocation, I was in negotiations to switch to a part-time, mostly telecommuting arrangement which enabled me to work from home most of the time while making the trip from my home on Long Island to NJ only one day a week. The kind of work I did, mainly computer programming, lent itself to telecommuting.

In anticipation of this big change, I was lining up my volunteer work with local schools and resurrecting another evening hobby I had not been able to do for 13 years because I was just too damned tired after coming home from work.

Living on a paycheck which was about 47% lower (before taxes) and 40% lower (after taxes) was not a problem, as I was still able to add to my savings and retain medical insurance and some other prorated benefits. But in 2003, the company ended its open-ended telecommuting but allowed me to continue working part-time. I just had to put in all my hours at the office, bringing back the horrors of more frequent commuting to NJ (3 days a week). I knew this would eventually be my undoing.

In 2007, after nearly 4 years of that, I asked to have my weekly hours further reduced, from 20 to 12. This eliminated one weekly trip to NJ and got me home an hour earlier on the remaining two days. I did this in an effort to stop (or slow) the burnout which had returned after the telecommuting had ended.

But that lasted for only 17 months. I knew even in 2007 that I was probably going to leave the company by the end of 2008. The only way I could put an end to the bad commute was to leave for good. As you can see in my signature line, I cashed out my company stock which had continued to grow whether I was working P/T or F/T, took the money, invested it in a bond fund, and easily live off the interest.

I still do my volunteer work and evening hobby, both of which made easier and have been expanded due to not working any more.

But for me, eliminating something awful (the commute) was more important than finding something positive to do. However, the aforementioned positive things I can now do are fun.
 
scrabbler1 said:
I did not forsee being able to retire early until I was in my late 30s (late 1990s). However, besides always LBYM, these are the key decisions which led to my ER in late 2008 at age 45:

(1) Knowing at age 20 that I never wanted to have kids.

(2) Paying off my student loans (only about $8k) by age 24.

(3) Starting to invest in mutual funds at age 27.

(4) Refinancing my mortgage at age 28.

(5) Starting to invest in stock mutual funds at age 31.

(6) Paying off my mortgage at age 35.

(7) Semi-retiring at age 38 so I could reclaim my life and lessen my lousy commute.

(8) Being lucky enough to work for a company which went from not-for-profit to for-profit in the mid-1990s and whose company stock rose 3000% in 12 years.

(9) Found a good, high-yield (not junk) bond fund to invest proceeds ($300k) of the company stock when the economic downturn depressed its NAV in late 2008 to boost my ongoing monthly dividends. (See my signature line.)

No kids, no debts. My recipe for retiring at age 45.
Click to expand...

Number 8 probably helped ya the most..........;)
 
FinanceDude said:
Number 8 probably helped ya the most..........;)
Click to expand...

Yes, #8 was a big help. But many of my former coworkers own more shares than I did and they could not (or would not) retire at a young age. Without #8, I would have had either a much different ER plan to retire at 45 or else I would have had to work more years P/T.
 
The decision not to have kids and paying off our mortgage before we are 40 are the keys to our FIRE plans. DW thinks she would like to work until 50, and she is okay with me bowing out at 45... she's a keeper, without a doubt. :)

Mortgage free, we should we able to save 70-80k per year... our plans rest completely on our ability to pull this off... a job loss for either one of us would torpedo pretty much everything. I'm having some trouble trying to figure out what the minimum amount of $ we need to live a decent, not overly deprived, existence. I don't want to have to go back to work.
 
Almost accidental.
Found Motley Fool then REHP and realized I was only spending a small amount of my income.
Went to a retirement seminar and found a loophole and pension supplement.
Realized I spent less than $25K/year.
Took an early retirement at age 54 (Dec 2004)with full medical benefits.
Lost much weight, health improved in many ways.
 
Around 1980 (age 27) a friend got me interested in investing. I read this book:

Amazon.com: Money Dynamics: How to Build Financial Independence (9780879095161): Venita Van…

and the first version of this:

Amazon.com: The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need: Andrew Tobias: Books

Our first $10,000 of investment was mostly wasted on two tax shelter limited partnerships sold to us by an unscrupulous financial planner. Namely, an investment in a company that did stuff with bull sperm to make it yield more female calves, and a real estate investment trust. We got essentially $0 back from those investments (once we received a check for 31 cents). OTOH, they saved us about $4,000 in taxes.

Having learned our lesson, we stuck with mutual funds from then on.

My career went from research scientist to computer programmer (educational games) to manager to consultant to independent software developer. Lena's from chemical engineer to CAD something-or-other to facilities management.

My software business lost $30,000 in one year, but as the Internet blossomed, it allowed me to compete with the big companies, so I did OK from then on.

A natural frugality and an early start are the things that made it possible for me to retire early. If I were doing it over, I would have been much more frugal, aiming to retire at age 40 or so.
 
First, let me say that DW and I come from middle class families. It's just that the middle class lifestyle stopped abruptly for both of us when we turned 18 and moved out. Second, let's establish that DW and I were born with the frugal/saver gene (we were both taunted as kids for being cheap).

By the the time she entered graduate school, DW had already saved $15K in an IRA from odd summer jobs. By the time I entered graduate school, I had $3K in my pocket (borrowed from my dad) and a suitcase full of clothes. But I had learned to live on $500 per month or less for the past 5-6 years (by necessity mind you). So we had the frugal/saving thing down to a science.

When DW and I hooked up, we quickly decided to live in sin. We were able to combine our low incomes into one decent household income and by living together, we were able to save a bundle on rent, utilities, food etc... As a result, we managed to graduate not only with zero student loans, but actually with a combined net worth in excess of $100K.

After graduation, and armed with 2 PhDs, we started making good money on the first day. That allowed us to max out our retirement accounts right away. We loosened up the purse strings a bit, but remained frugal, saving at least 30% of our income. We were pretty good at saving, but knew nothing about investing and we made some classic money mistakes (like hiring a commission-based financial advisor). We finally wised up a couple of years later. After doing a lot of reading, I decided to take control of our portfolio.

The transition from good savers to frantic savers happened some time in 2004 IIRC. At the time, we realized that our good jobs were all but secure. Our companies had gone through several rounds of layoffs and attrition and this was a great source of stress for us. We started to yearn for more financial security. That's when I found "Work Less, Live More" and ER.org (though is took me a few years to register and join the conversation). It was a revelation. We started tracking our expenses and cutting the fluff, we increased our savings rate and reallocated our portfolio with ER in mind. We later moved to a lower cost of living area and gained employment with firms that offered better income prospects.

Six years later, our efforts have paid off though luck played an important part. DW ended up working for a company offering very generous merit-based compensation (bonuses, stock-options). The stock-options in particular allowed us to reach our goal much sooner than we could have ever anticipated.
 
Got married at 19. DH and I worked in low paying jobs - I was a bank teller and he was a landscape laborer. We still managed to save money and lived simply. Within a few years, we realized a college education would help us get better jobs. We worked and put each other through college. Never got a student loan - just paid as we went. This taught us to be financially responsible.

We both got good paying jobs and lived on one salary. The other salary went toward savings. After about 20 years, we had saved enough to be financially independent.

I left work in January 2008. DH expects to retire within 6 months or so. I do a lot of volunteering and serve on the board of a local charity. I've also helped a number of small charities get approved by the IRS as 501(c)(3) organizations. DH wants to have a big garden when he retires. We're very happy and still very much in love.
 
Purron said:
Got married at 19. DH and I worked in low paying jobs - I was a bank teller and he was a landscape laborer. We still managed to save money and lived simply. Within a few years, we realized a college education would help us get better jobs. We worked and put each other through college. Never got a student loan - just paid as we went. This taught us to be financially responsible.

We both got good paying jobs and lived on one salary. The other salary went toward savings. After about 20 years, we had saved enough to be financially independent.

I left work in January 2008. DH expects to retire within 6 months or so. I do a lot of volunteering and serve on the board of a local charity. I've also helped a number of small charities get approved by the IRS as 501(c)(3) organizations. DH wants to have a big garden when he retires. We're very happy and still very much in love.
Click to expand...
Nice story, kind of a fairy tale in the good sense.

I think couples who team up and help get each other through the ups and downs over the long haul have something special going on.
 
I wanted to thank you for sharing your success stories. Very inspiring and interesting to read :).
 
My Story:
My story:
Born in a third world country.
Escape because of the war, live in refugee camp, and got sponsored by a Canadian church.
Grew up in big family, and lived poorly (but as happy child).
Went to University. Met a girl, got married, and have two kids .
Knew I wanted more in life but had to sacrifice (LLBYM). Bought a house, paid it off early. Bought three triplexes in rough shape and put a lot of sweat equity.
Now at 36 years old. Triplexes almost paid off. Can stop working as rent income can cover expenses but will work till 40 to add more padding to the nest egg. Who knows I might still like w*rking but if I don’t I know that I can quit my job.
 
Well probably what motivated me was that my father was laid off from a good paying job when I was just a freshman in high school. My father made good money but spent it all. They had very little savings and some relatively big debts. My father was out of work for eight months. The finances were a disaster and we almost lost the house.

That had a tremendous effect on me and so I have always been a saver all of my life. I never ever want to go through what they went through (or what lots of families are now going through).

So I saved and invested, and saved and invested. Fast forward 30 years and now I'm worth some real money. I have stepped up the spending somewhat over the years but we still live a very comfortable but quiet lifestyle that we enjoy.

As others have posted on this forum, I feel that the more money that I have the less I want all the cars/stuff/fancy clothes etc. Once you decide that you don't need all that junk It's pretty easy to sock alot away and not feel deprived at all.

Megacorp has those golden handcuffs making it really worth while to hang on for another few years or so. My job is not stressful, it is work, but I enjoy it. My thinking right now is that I really don't want to not work. If they'll have me I may just keep working for awhile yet.

As I have posted before on a number of occasions, My work attitude really changed when I figured that I had enough money to hang it up if I wanted to and live our modest lifestyle. The boss wasn't a jerk anymore, the co-workers weren't idiots anymore. I accepted, and am now thankful that I would never be promoted to the corner office with all its issues. Really - Life is good and I am thankful for everything that I have.
 
Great story Master Blaster:flowers:
 
My Story of FIRE

This story lacks the uplifting quality that I get from reading other’s stories but is a story of a so far successful FIRE. It is kind of a stretch to call it a story. More like a collection of thoughts.

THE BEGINNINGS
After spending some time as a young adult, I began to feel that living from pay to pay with nothing going into the bank was unacceptable. I wanted to be able to save something. This was one of the feelings that gave me the impetus to put myself through college and to relocate for better paying jobs.

In my adult life I realized that I was blessed to have average college level intelligence. I worked and went to school for many years with the ultimate goal of getting a four year engineering degree.

We were blessed to both have practical money values. Living within our means came naturally to us.

DW and I relocated to California and we were looking for a place to rent. Met this guy who had an electrical engineering degree but was not working in the field. He had some houses for rent. I was shocked that he would turn his back on all of that hard won education and training to own a couple of houses. Something that required little or no formal training. He explained that he did not like being a “migrant missile worker”. It gave me something to think about. Finally got the BS degree. Started to learn what he was talking about.

In the early 1990s we moved to NY for work. When I was complaining to my landlord that my little nest egg from the California house sale was not making any interest in CDs, he told me about Mutual Funds (he taught high school finance). I started learning about investments but FIRE was not yet on the thought horizon. We moved again and I went for an MBA on the weekends while working full time. Got to learn more about investing and business. Graduated in 2000. It was interesting attending B school during the Dot Com craze and the Y2K thing. I wish I could say that this additional education made me a shrewd investor. It did not. My technology heavy portfolio suffered larger swings than the S&P500 but I managed to avoid a dot com catastrophe.

FIRE
Back in California again where both me and DW planned to work. This time I was armed with some knowledge of the real estate market there. Bought as much house as I dared to on one income. Conservative? Yes, but it turned out to be a good thing because I lost my job 9 months later. Got another job or two. Housing prices and the stock market kept going up.



I went to a couple of retirement parties (for other people) at work. Some of these people had a well planned out transition that they have been working on for years. I was not nearly so prepared. I envied them but I was not going to dally and probably give up the chance for the freedom that FIRE offered. I was doing a 200 mile round trip commute in LA. I felt that A Stop At Willoughby was waiting right around the corner for me.

Someone on the ER forum had a saying that goes something like “gradually I realized that I hit the real estate lottery”. I know the feeling. How many more years would I have to work to save what I now could walk away with? 10, 15 years? We had to pull the trigger and sell but the gun did not go off without a kick. The house sold at the hairy end before the collapse. In the early 1990s when we were in CA, I sold my house in a real estate free fall. That was not fun. We could not have cut it any closer. It was luck that we got out in a timely manner.

I read a book or two and from them I got the idea that I could FIRE on a SWR of 8-10% (I have read other books since then). At this rate, we almost had enough nest egg to FIRE with. By then, my house had almost doubled in value and it was apparent, even to me that we were on the edge of a real estate bubble that was about to pop. This extra money would give me enough to FIRE with for sure. Couple this with the fact that by then we were unhappy living there and you get a “ What are we waiting for?”.
I quit working in February, 2007.

We moved back east to a rural area but within driving distance of DW and my families. Paid cash for a house and started enjoying retirement. It has always been my dream to live out in the country. I live in a forest surrounded by tall trees.

Starting reading about FIRE and investing in earnest. Diversified my portfolio but I only used equities. I used the 2000-2002 scenario as my worst case as far as portfolio design is concerned. I figured that I could survive a 20-30% drop in the market OK. What are the chances of a dip worse than that? Almost zip I recon. And besides, FIRECalc did not really change it’s percentage much when I added those bonds to them. The diversification into REITs worked well in 2000-2002. Another ace in the hole, in case I need it.


2008
Well, we see how that plan worked! The year end number for my portfolio was –42.4%. At times, the portfolio looked a lot worse than that number indicates. It wasn’t 1931 but I could see 1931 from where I was standing in March, 2009. I had learned what it was like to get a windfall and now I learned what it was like to lose a lot of money. I was sure I had to go back to work (if I could find a job). I started a local job search and we cut back expenses. On cable TV they call it a “teaching moment”. I had risked my freedom to retire and put DW through hell for a few dollars. The world is a changing place and markets are unpredictable. There was warning on this downturn but there was no such warnings in 1987. We really don’t have to have that extra money. We have made several good expense reductions without any loss in utility. Working a temporary job is a good way to get out and meet people in the community. I would rather eat dirt than live in the city full time. When I get out of this, I am going to protect my egg (investments that I live off of) better. I have a plan to gradually move asset percentages over to safer investments proportional to the rebound of the egg. Some people can only learn by experience. I guess I am one of them.

2010
The portfolio is surviving. I believe that we are going to be alright and still be retired. I truly think that I am better off for having experienced this recent downturn (but I would not want to relive it). Working part time acts as a reminder that it is really, really great to be FIREed.

Free to canoe
 
Thank you for sharing your story Free to canoe. Mine is different in some ways, but quite similiar in others. Living and learning. Don't want to be in the city anymore. Love tall trees around me.
 
Reader's Digest condensed version:

By the time I was 30 I was tired of working.
I started saving and investing for retirement.
Twenty seven years later I was FIREd.
I felt uplifted. :)
 
REWahoo said:
Reader's Digest condensed version:

By the time I was 30 I was tired of working.
I started saving and investing for retirement.
Twenty seven years later I was FIREd.
I felt uplifted. :)
Click to expand...

Sound like the Khan version. Few words and to the point;)
 
Around 1980 (age 27) a friend got me interested in investing. I read this book:

Amazon.com: Money Dynamics: How to Build Financial Independence (9780879095161): Venita Van…
Click to expand...

That was the first financial book I read, too! I grew up kind of poor. I was the first person in my family to go to college. My parents lived pay check to pay check. When I got my first post college job the pay was a dream come true. I met my husband (then my boy friend) and when we moved in together we realized we could live off one salary. He bought me the Venita Van Caspel book as gift for some occasion. It was weird because neither one of us had ever grown up in a household where there was extra money to invest so at first we had no idea where to start. We still laugh about that book today because we owe a lot to Venita Van Caspel for good savings habits early on in our careers.
 
I was one of six children. Money was always "tight" and saving and financial planning were stressed. I won a scholarship to our state U. Paid my way through Law School. DW went through medical school on scholarship. Never bought a new car till I was 37. Bought my parent's beat up home and rebuilt it myself. We still live in it. Took Academic job with a good DB Pension. Tenured when I was 32 and full Professor by 40. DW had non profit and then Government position. FERS not CSRS.

Life changing event was my wonderful MIL's death in 1983 at the age of 57. My family tend to live to late 80s and 90s. Decided I wanted Financial freedom much earlier. Retirement was not critical since an academic job allows freedom and security with lower income. By 1992 we knew we would never lose the house and kids would go to college. We maxed out our TSP, 403 B and 457 plans.

I took Emeritus status at 57 which is very young for an academic. DW will probably w*rk to age 60. One DD is now out of Law School and the other is finishing a Ph.D.

Our luxury was always travel. We traveled cheap but we took the kids and went everywhere.
 
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