Retired in 2013 at age 33. Life is Good.
The plane tickets are booked. In early June the Root of Good family packs up and hits the road for a summer in Mexico. Just another crazy thing you can do when early retired.
We’ll be chasing the kids up and down pyramids and mountains, into the crystal clear water, and then relaxing in the shade until the smell of grilling meats lures us to the explosive colors of the local markets.
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After a cold and abnormally snowy winter, the first day of beautiful spring-like weather came calling last week. We answered that call by getting outside and enjoying the fine weather. Even though it was Monday, a day that normally brings dread to cubicle dwellers the world over, we found ourselves embarking on foot for a journey to… a gas station? That rather strange destination, especially given our mode of transport, was sheer pretext to pull us out of doors and into the great urban Wilderness that surrounds us.
It was the most ordinary of mornings in the most extraordinary sense possible. We caught the budding cherry trees just before the blossoms opened. We passed by an empty bird nest temporary vacated or possibly deserted. A recent ice storm deposited scattered hulks of downed branches across the neighborhood’s yards, some already smartly stacked by the sidewalk obediently awaiting a ride to the city yard waste center.
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Half a lifetime ago I developed a financial independence plan before I knew anything about financial independence and early retirement. My 17 year old self scribbled out a poorly refined plan to never work again and live off of savings from a minimum wage job. The bottom line: I thought I needed $120,000 to fund a perfectly adequate lifestyle forever by living on $600 per month in interest.
The year was 1997, the place was North Carolina in the wonderful United States of America. The federal poverty level back in 1997 was $657 per month, which meant that I was planning on living below the poverty line (before I even knew what a poverty line was).
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February’s headline: “Massive net worth growth and tiny expenses”. Our net worth shot up $74,000 thanks to robust returns in our investment portfolio. We managed to spend less than $1,000 because two winter storms kept us partially housebound for two weeks. And we simply don’t spend a lot of money in general because we already own just about everything we need or want.
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It’s hard to get excited about a brokerage firm. In fact, I like boring brokerage firms. Other than low costs and fees, an excellent web interface, and great customer service, there’s not a lot I want from my broker. Check out my recommendations page, and you’ll see Vanguard and Fidelity as my top choices.
But there’s another brokerage firm that piqued my interest recently: Motif Investing. They offer something that I haven’t seen at any other brokerage firm. The ability to trade a basket of stocks with one click and for only one low $9.95 brokerage commission. And they are offering $150 to entice you to give them a try (read on for more details).
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Imagine early retirement as a well cooked meal. The recipe calls for healthy doses of earned income and a liberal application of spending less than you make. Place those savings into a good asset allocation. Mix ingredients well and let simmer for a decade or two. Voila! Early retirement on a platter. If only you could find that dish in the frozen section of the grocery store or at a drive thru window near you!
You can’t retire early without a decent working history. Throughout the last two decades, I’ve had almost twenty different jobs. The earliest ones didn’t pay particularly well, but my compensation generally increased as I gained more experience. Join me on this autobiographical odyssey through my working years.
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Out of curiosity, I took a look at our ten largest purchases of 2014. I knew what the the top few expenses would be (vacations and a major home renovation), but the rest of the expenses escaped my memory after the money left my hand.
Looking at the top ten expenses is a good exercise to conduct each year. Our top ten add up to about half of our annual spending. I’m a big believer in making sure our expenditures bring a lot of value, and by looking at these top ten expenses, we can see whether we got good value in 2014.
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How did we kick off 2015? With a month of average spending of course! January’s expenses of $2,548 were very average in spite of some lumpy expenses like the annual property tax bill. When it comes to spending money, average is good. Our income of $2,068 was on the smaller side and much lower than last month’s income.
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In my last article asking whether we should conceal our wealth, I mentioned the high poverty school that our children attend. We had a choice of many different elementary schools, and decided to go with the objectively worst school available based on traditional measures like test scores, percent of students in poverty, percent of students with limited English proficiency, and other demographics that most would say indicate a failing school. What persuaded us to choose this “failing school” was the direction it was headed and the fact that it was in our neighborhood only a few blocks away.
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“Today my teacher asked me how we are able to go on another cruise so soon after the last one. I told my teacher that my daddy is retired and my mommy is about to retire, too. Then a kid in my class asked to borrow a few thousand dollars from me.”
That’s what my nine year old told me at dinner a few days ago. Some parents might freak out about how honest their kid was with their teachers and fellow classmates. Not me. But should I be more concerned?
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