When did you see the light?

[Scrooge]

Financially...married a squirrel 

Free nuts!

 

[Meadbh]

I took a job working for Satan.  Having never worked for an evil demon from h#ll before, I did not know how to deal with the situation.  Over a period of about 2 or 3 years I tried to deal with the Prince of Darkness in various ways before I decided that I needed a change of scenery. 

Go see "The Devil Wears Prada". Meryl Streep is wonderful as Satan.

 

[Meadbh]

I got started as a baby.....a local bank celebrated its centenary by presenting savings accounts with a balance of ~$1 to every baby born in the city during that month. Grew up as the only offspring of LBYM (older) parents, who encouraged me to deposit and save monetary gifts while providing cash flow for expenses. "See how interest makes your savings go up, dear??"

Parents' money management and preparation for retirement was also very educational. Sole breadwinner Dad did extensive research, which, as a teen, I read avidly. He had a good pension but also paid into a supplementary pension fund which enabled Mom to continue saving after he died.

Meanwhile, Mom's inheritance of equities from her FIRE brother (sudden death 3 years after ER!) exposed me to the behaviour of the markets. Mom was a tax efficient, "buy and hold" investor and enjoyed watching her investments grow.

Began to invest in earnest once earning. Began with cash equivalents; started with registered retirement savings as a resident physician; diversified as an attending physician. Saved madly for big downpayment on small house; paid mortgage off in 18 months.

But it was not till Mom passed away last year, leaving me an inheritance that doubled my NW that I really began to consider ER. Property prices on a paid off house in a great location rose 13% p.a. over 42 years.......equity and cash equivalent portfolios were basically untouched, due to that double pension.

I have come to realize that my parents, neither of whom finished high school, were two very smart people. Thanks Mom & Dad!

 

[Scrooge]

Saved madly for big downpayment on small house; paid mortgage off in 18 months.

18 months? Wow! And I thought that I was way ahead of the crowd with 8 years! 

 

[Rich_by_the_Bay]

I have come to realize that my parents, neither of whom finished high school, were two very smart people. Thanks Mom & Dad!

Neat story.

Anyone who saved money as a resident is smarter than I was. All my spare time was spent moonlighting trying to keep the loans under control. I was only partially successful, and then the interest rates of the early 80s set in and... you know the rest. Last med school/startup loand payment was at age 41.

 

[Meadbh]

Neat story.

Anyone who saved money as a resident is smarter than I was. All my spare time was spent moonlighting trying to keep the loans under control.

Rich, you had SPARE TIME as a resident?
No spare time = no time to spend money. Work, work, work, sleep, work, work.......

 

[Rich_by_the_Bay]

Rich, you had SPARE TIME as a resident?
No spare time = no time to spend money. Work, work, work, sleep, work, work.......

Well, spare time meant 1 weekend off per month. I worked many of them. But, I also had 2 kids and DW stayed home raising them.

Does that count as spare time?

I never bought into the macho culture that the more you worked the better you were, but like all of us, I busted my tail in my internship and residency. No choice at the time.

 

[Andy]

"A line in the Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice where the heroine's mother excitedly exclaims about one of eligible young men: "I hear he has $10,000 pounds a year!". That is - he has 10,000 pounds a year of income produced by his inheritance. A pretty considerable sum in 1806.

Anyway - I had this girlish fantasy of having "X pounds a year" and being able to live a life of leisure in the great 1800s tradition - as modest as it might be. Little did I know that true financial independence would work out for me. "

Audrey, I had to comment on this, because I had this fantasy too. :

 

[shiny]

I read all the Jane Austen novels when I was young. At the time rather than think that I needed 5000 pounds a year, etc. I thought I needed a job!! Those women didn't have one and had to rely on men!

During the second reading of the books (my mid 20s) I started thinking that having enough money to pay interest that met our expenses was a good goal.

Oh, Jane Austen, gotta love her.

 

[shiny]

Then while I was watching a Sugar Ray Leonard fight on TV (I think the Leonard-Hearns fight in 1981), the commentator stated how Leonard saved every single dollar he had earned as a pro fighter and would only live on the investment income. I decided then that I was going to try to save as much as I could and try doing the same thing.

Sugar Ray Leonard really inspired me too. My college roomate's dad told me that he had saved all his money to live off of the interest. I thought that was awesome.

 

[Andre1969]

Sugar Ray Leonard used to have a house here in Glenn Dale, maybe 10 minutes from where I live. It's a nice house, but for someone like him I'm sure it was definitely living below his means! 5 acres, 1 level brick rancher with 2566 square feet. It does have a swimming pool out back though. And a tennis court. And a baskeball court. 8)

He sold it for $425K back in 1984 and it sold again in 2002 for $500K. So I guess today it would go for something like $1M to $1.5M?

If anyone wants to see it, the address is 4212 Glenn Dale Road, Bowie MD 20720. Just plug it into Google Earth or local.live.com

I'm sure he's in something a bit more extravagant today. But maybe having that LBYM house here in Maryland back in the 80's helped him to afford that lifestyle?

 

[jclarksnakes]

....LBYM has been my mantra my entire adult life. I was lucky and married a good woman who shares my financial outlook. I went back to college after retiring from the army in 1993. I could have stayed home but DW has a few more years to work to make her teaching pension very nice and she would have been difficult to live with all these years if I was not working. At this point I am working partime mostly because I still enjoy the work. I have picked next year as the year I ER (at age 54).
.....Perky? Floppy? When DW notices me noticing extremely large breasted women she says they are probably not real. I say if they are round and have nipples that is all that matters.
jc

 

[audreyh1]

"Anyway - I had this girlish fantasy of having "X pounds a year" and being able to live a life of leisure in the great 1800s tradition - as modest as it might be.  Little did I know that true financial independence would work out for me. "

Audrey, I had to comment on this, because I had this fantasy too.  :

Glad to know I wasn't the only one! Actually, I was really intrigued by the lifestyle of the financially independent in the 1800s. Even though a lot of the activities were "homebody" in nature, people took advantage to study and learn and pursue science, art, nature observation, etc. Things I like to do today. Maybe I'm just an anachronism LOL!

Audrey

 

[audreyh1]

I read all the Jane Austen novels when I was young.  At the time rather than think that I needed 5000 pounds a year, etc. I thought I needed a job!!  Those women didn't have one and had to rely on men!

Not necessarily. Financial independence came from inheritance (not from working), and English law at the time did not discriminate against women equally as inheritors - unlike some other countries. Many women inherited financial independence.

In those books it was all about trying to gain financial advantage through marriage. Men with little means would need to find a woman that had a decent inheritance just as often as the other way around.

Audrey

 

[SteveR]

The light came on for me during my first marriage. At about age 40 it was clear that DW was not going to understand that spending cannot exceed income. It was a major reason for the divorce.

Flash forward 3 years and I was back to even again from being $$$$ in debt. From then on it was living within my means, saving, investing, and searching for the lowest price but best value on items. Sam's Club, Costco etc. are good for the bulk items and some specality stuff and internet shopping for many other things saves on excessive profits and sales tax.

The ER light flashes faster and faster as the countdown continues. DW still has 11 months but I can go anytime and may do so sooner than later. The BS bucket at work is full and is overflowing. My tolerance for it is near zero so I know it won't take much for me to leave the building for good. As soon as we have a better idea about DW's health issues I will be in a better position to lower the lifeboat and depart the sinking ship.

 

[shiny]

Not necessarily. Financial independence came from inheritance (not from working), and English law at the time did not discriminate against women equally as inheritors - unlike some other countries. Many women inherited financial independence.

In those books it was all about trying to gain financial advantage through marriage. Men with little means would need to find a woman that had a decent inheritance just as often as the other way around.

That may be true, but as a teenager I had no concept of what the law was back them. I'm specifically refering to the women in Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice who had to find a husband or be poor and pitiful! My parents were poor and I knew that I wouldn't be inheriting anything - therefore I needed to prepare myself for a job!

 

[scrinch]

I think there's something in my genes that requires saving. Something about ancestors coming from the far northern reaches of Europe where the winters are brutally long and the summers are unforgivingly short. One bad winter where you didn't save enough, and your genes are permanently out of the pool!

I remember being devastated at age 4 when I found out that I wasn't going to get the exact same dollar back from the bank that I had given them. My grandparents had given me a shiny silver dollar, and now all I had was this wrinkled piece of green paper. Despite that traumatic early savings experience, I kept working and saving from the age of 15 when I could legally get a job. I graduated from high school with a few thousand bucks in the bank, and then graduated from college with even more. That was 23 years ago, and the net worth has climbed steadily ever since. I've only really had an idea that this stash might enable me to change my lifestyle (RE) in the past couple of years, and I'm still internally trying to come to grips with the fact that soon I might not be doing anything "productive." The concept of early retirement sounds very appealing to the ears and brain, but the genes are still struggling with the it! The genes still want me to be preparing for the next winter.

 

[Nords]

... and I'm still internally trying to come to grips with the fact that soon I might not be doing anything "productive."  The concept of early retirement sounds very appealing to the ears and brain, but the genes are still struggling with the it!  The genes still want me to be preparing for the next winter.

Oh, you'll still be productive, but now you'll also be the exec in charge of defining & improving your productivity.

You could be gathering acorns for the rest of your life if you wanted to. But even squirrels find other gene-productive activities to engage in from time to time. You just won't have to spend so much of your time in pursuit of acorns anymore.

 

[JonnyM]

Tuff thread acts to follow, nevertheless:

We (DW and I) were both 43 when the light shined in our eyes. The work situation for DW in particular was becoming untenable. We looked at what was possible for local public sector ER's and found the retirement chart entries began at age 50. That immediately became the goal. Sort of a Stalinist Seven-Year plan, there would likely be much blood shed but we would find a way to achieve the goal. At first it appeared to point to an extremely frugal lifestyle IOHO's at about 12K per year times 2, but we truely preferred that choice to working another 5 or 10 years past the goal.

In the end as we spent the intervening years prepping for FIRE some elements of the plan improved and some where shot to hell, but that is life. I'm now 5 months in to joining up with DW and digging it to the max! : 8)

 

[audreyh1]

I'm specifically refering to the women in Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice who had to find a husband or be  poor and pitiful!  My parents were poor and I knew that I wouldn't be inheriting anything - therefore I needed to prepare myself for a job!

Yes, I know - they had to find husbands because their father was poor or some twist in the inheritance rules. Men had the same problem back then! Inherit, marry some money, or (god forbid) get a job. A job usually meant clergy or somehow obtaining a military commission.

Some women DID have to get a job. They became governesses. A job that let them at least live in some style in which they had been reared.

But yes - these days most of us expect to have to work. How unromantic!

Audrey

 

[audreyh1]

I'm still internally trying to come to grips with the fact that soon I might not be doing anything "productive." 

You REALLY need to redefine what it means to be "productive". Are you only productive because someone else pays you? I think not. You can be as productive - i.e. produce as much stuff - as you want. You can expend effort on thing you think are worthwhile.

Of course - after decades of working for someone else and doing what they deem important, we can forget what is important to us personally. You might have to rediscover that.

Have you ever known someone to work on a project for the intrinsic enjoyment of working on the project? Or because they thought the result might be worth it regardless of any financial remuneration or what someone else thought? THAT's what financial independence is all about!

Audrey

 

[unclemick]

Ah yes Romance.

Back in the day - I would have never have left the Space Program for a job making widgets - no matter what the pay.

Who said romance is dead

heh heh heh heh - years passed - I did get older and more cynical - but in the end went via layoff into ER. Work just for money vs ER? - you got to be kidding??

 

[REWahoo]

Ah yes Romance.

Back in the day - I would have never have left the Space Program for a job making widgets - no matter what the pay.

Reminds me of the story of a business traveler having a drink at an airport bar one evening when a guy wearing soiled coveralls sat down beside him. They struck up a conversation and the guy couldn’t help noticing an unpleasant odor coming from the guy’s coveralls. Inquiring what the guy did, he learned the reason for the smell. Seems he drove one of those little carts out on the ramp and serviced aircraft chemical toilets by hooking up a hose and draining the contents into a tank attached to his cart. Sometimes the connection was not perfect and he would get some ‘stuff’ on him as he disconnected the hose.

When asked why he didn’t find a better job, the worker’s response was, “What, are you crazy? No way am I leaving aviation!”

 

[scrinch]

You REALLY need to redefine what it means to be "productive". Are you only productive because someone else pays you?

I put "productive" in quotes because I'm using the word in a limited sense, not in an absolute sense. This squirrel has been gathering acorns for over 30 years now. I've got plenty of other interests and hobbies that could (and do) keep me busy and satisfied. It's just that I have these feelings that I should be gathering acorns rather than indulging my other interests...even though I really don't need any more acorns.

Next week and I'm going to the office and suggest reducing to part-time work (I work at home most of the time). Maybe I can wean myself off of this w*%k habit.

 

[jclarksnakes]

scrinch,
....I feel your pain. I have this innate feeling that I am supposed to be working. I have delayed my ER for a couple of years because of this feeling. Lately I have been making an effort to equate self improvement as being as worthy a task as punching a timeclock. Find something.....physical training, weight loss, learning a new language or skill, making new friends or whatever that could be as important to you in the long term as building a bigger nest egg. Who knows, the entire economy could collapse and our portfolios and retirement plans go down the toilet and we may need to be very physically fit to actually gather acorns to survive.
jc