[Toshi]

What are you all doing to exit the rat race and plan your own end-game? Reading material that may be of use in answering this: http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2014/11/23/not-extreme-frugality/

I've witnessed a tempering in my own material desires as I've gotten older, but haven't achieved the Zen embodied in Mr. Money Mustache. I've been so focused on winning the game, as it were, that I didn't examine my plans for the end-game as well as I might have.

I'll be on the treadmill for a few more decades due to having multiple kids and being deeply invested in my career in terms of time, money, and identity. In short, I'm not going to be like MMM, but I think I will try to incorporate some of what he preaches as needed perspective on our (as in our culture, not just my family) lifestyle.

 

[StiHacka]

I plan to get rich.

 

[Toshi]

I plan to get rich.

What's your plan? No, seriously, what's your goal and how are you going to get there?

 

[jstuhlman]

pay off house asap; kids are smart, they better get scholarships to higher ed; continue learning to live off the land; use saved dollas; retreat to woods far away from the coming coastal apocolypse, and eff the outside world.

 

[JohnE]

Work like a dog, have fun in your off time, try to do good things in your world, die anyway...

 

[stevew]

this guy might be my hero.....but i will probably work until i die.

as long as i can disappear for two or three weeks at a time every year....i'm good with that.

 

[Westy]

I could get hit by a bus tomorrow (more likely by a redneck in a lifted truck), I say fuck it on a regular basis and burn through a small portion of that fund on a regular basis. Other than that I generally save and live well below my means.

 

[Toshi]

this guy might be my hero.....but i will probably work until i die.

as long as i can disappear for two or three weeks at a time every year....i'm good with that.

MMM offers hope for those of us who can't just dial up random financial industry work for a day or two when they need it: http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/about/

 

[Toshi]

pay off house asap; kids are smart, they better get scholarships to higher ed; continue learning to live off the land; use saved dollas; retreat to woods far away from the coming coastal apocolypse, and eff the outside world.

Using the saved dollas is less effective in the long run than accumulating a big pot of it and drawing <=4% yearly from its investment proceeds...

 

[Toshi]

Work like a dog, have fun in your off time, try to do good things in your world, die anyway...

If you restructure your expectations then the working like a dog part can be reduced and the off time increased. I'm hypocritical in writing this as I fully expect to work 30 years myself, but the key will be living well below my means throughout so as to be independent when I finally relax.

 

[jstuhlman]

meant to write "used save dollas to accumulate large tracts of wilderness land and build off the grid abode"

 

[DaveW]

I've pretty much dropped out of the rat race, I've gone from senior manager at a multinational news organization to a factory job, then to part owning a bike shop on the outskirts of a smallish city in a small country, and organizing craft beer festivals.
I earn fuck all, but I'm happier for where I am than where I was.

 

[binary visions]

I'm in a pretty good spot right now where I like my job, rarely work overtime, get paid a good wage and have few bills. The result is I am just dumping money into savings/retirement. When you factor in my company match for 401k, I am saving well over 40% of my gross pay - and we're essentially a single income household right now.

The things I buy are relatively small, and the big purchases are inevitably centered around experiences rather than things. I think that lends itself to a fairly good exit plan since it both bolsters my ability to save and reduces the amount I need to save.

The only probably I really have with MMM, or someone like Tim Ferris in his 4 Hour Work Week, is that a lot of their advice is very extreme and rarely acknowledges the middle ground between "stop working altogether at age 30" and "become a slave to the system until age 70."

 

[jonKranked]

i'm gonna start a pot farm once it's legal.

 

[Toshi]

meant to write "used save dollas to accumulate large tracts of wilderness land and build off the grid abode"

This will pay dividends, if you will, if the shit really does hit the fan, but otherwise you're missing out on the magic of compounding interest working in your favor if you save.

I've pretty much dropped out of the rat race, I've gone from senior manager at a multinational news organization to a factory job, then to part owning a bike shop on the outskirts of a smallish city in a small country, and organizing craft beer festivals.
I earn fuck all, but I'm happier for where I am than where I was.

Have you scaled your lifestyle back accordingly? Hopefully you haven't adopted an American style 0% savings rate strategy.

I'm in a pretty good spot right now where I like my job, rarely work overtime, get paid a good wage and have few bills. The result is I am just dumping money into savings/retirement. When you factor in my company match for 401k, I am saving well over 40% of my gross pay - and we're essentially a single income household right now.

The things I buy are relatively small, and the big purchases are inevitably centered around experiences rather than things. I think that lends itself to a fairly good exit plan since it both bolsters my ability to save and reduces the amount I need to save.

The only probably I really have with MMM, or someone like Tim Ferris in his 4 Hour Work Week, is that a lot of their advice is very extreme and rarely acknowledges the middle ground between "stop working altogether at age 30" and "become a slave to the system until age 70."

Doing it right, you are. Try reading whitecoatinvestor.com for a more moderate perspective. His numbers are tailored to the specifics of doctors' salaries/loans/career trajectories, but he's essentially a moderate who assumes one won't retire super early as a goal in and of itself.

i'm gonna start a pot farm once it's legal.

Have you mapped out what you'll need to get this done and what returns you could expect? One hop vine does not a gardening business make...

 

[jonKranked]

Have you mapped out what you'll need to get this done and what returns you could expect? One hop vine does not a gardening business make...

1 - it's not a vine.

2 - i know a guy

3 - discussions are already in progress

 

[BigBoi]

Speak with a financial planner, someone who incorporates insurance, banking, and lending in addition to investment advice.

Most planners are good people, have nifty software to identify potential gaps and opportunities, and would gladly take your call.

I work in the planning arena and the biggest mistake I see people make is carrying a large mortgage into retirement.
If your housing is already paid for and you will be getting a decent SS check every month, you will always at least have a roof over your head and food on your plate.

 

[Toshi]

Most commission based planners and insurance salesmen are acting in their best interests, not that of the client. I've experienced this myself, and thankfully saw only a few hundred dollars lost down the whole life insurance sinkhole before I came to my senses.

 

[dan-o]

Having seen several family members and close friends best-laid plans for the future get FUBAR'd by terminal illness/untimely death, I spent the boom years focusing on life experience rather than career/$.

My wife of 25yrs and I share a spontaneous outlook and have travelled the world together, lived abroad etc. We basically have no bucket lists per se having lived our lives while young and mobile rather than plan for some wondrous all encompassing retirement.

My kids colleges are funded and my business provides well enough. I can scale my biz back as I slow down so that we still have a decent income until I'm sick of dealing with it/people.

We sacrifice quite a bit to ensure our kids are prepared for the future and they're both on track to become sparkys or plumbers before pissing into the collegiate wind.

I don't have a desire for a posh retirement. All my wife and I want are a couple camps in NM and Maine to reflect on our lives and fade to black, which is well within our means given to low costs of that dream.

 

[Toshi]

Yep, no sense in planning for the future without making the present a good place to be in. Also goes to show the value of insurance, too.

 

[Mo(n)arch]

Actually trying to get a job in good old Switzerland to get lots of money for building a house and making my little farm at home more attractive. Italian salaries are a joke right now. I am still young(ish), 27, but I have to do something now, if I want to go through with less loans as possible.
My family, including my grandparents teached me to save money, and to live my life. So the plan is to work hard and live life at the moment and save as much money as possible.

 

[Kevin]

Im just hoping ill never get that old cause i spend all my money on hookers and blow.

 

[4xBoy]

End game?

I will die.

 

[Pesqueeb]

This topic is timely, it was the subject of much debate whilst we were in LA over Turkey Day weekend.

The wife and I tend to be pretty conservative when it comes to money, her more so than I. We've passed on several opportunities to move to places we'd rather live immediately, in favor of a longer term goal. As it stands currently, we should have no mortgage when I'm 44. My daughter will be 15, and my wife will be 41. I'm currently contributing 14% into a Roth (bumping to 15% in 2015), we have a 6 month emergency fund (on which were working towards 9 months) and we have no current debt except the mortgage and some left over low/zero interest student loans that belong to my wife. The long term goal here is 2 part: (a) Provide at least a majority of living expenses for our daughter if/when she attends higher education, and (b) Provide ourselves comfortable middle age/retirement years.

Now, I tell all that, to tell this story. We've know the family we spent thanksgiving with, literally decades. The wife has know the 4 children since preschool, and I'm the newcomer, only having know them since 1992. The youngest brother, lets call him Adam, because that's his name, has spent the last 8 years or so drifting around central america. Doesn't really do much except work the bar at various tourist establishments, and the occasional weed trimming jobs in NorCal when he comes back to the states to get his visa stamped. The joke regarding Adams future is that he's "blissfully unaware" that there may be one. And I must say, I'm more than a little jealous, I've never know anyone more "in the moment" than Adam. That lifestyle though surely comes with a price on the sort of future one might be able to live.

All that's not to say I'm slaving away and not enjoying the present, for a future that may or may not exist, because that's absolutely not true. Like Dan-o, I feel pretty good about the life the wife and I have lead to this point. We've traveled fairly extensively (praise the jeebus for free/cheap airline travel), and I don't have much of a bucket list. I've got the scars to prove that life can end suddenly and violently, when you least expect it, so I try pretty hard to make sure that when we want to do something, we do it, within reason. Some more motorcycle trips, and more time in Europe are certainly in our future, but I feel pretty confident saying that if we suddenly found ourselves independently wealthy, I don't think we'd change much. Probably move to Santa Barbara, get a place on the beach, and then continue to spend my free time exactly the way I do now, just more of it.

 

[binary visions]

My wife of 25yrs and I share a spontaneous outlook and have travelled the world together, lived abroad etc. We basically have no bucket lists per se having lived our lives while young and mobile rather than plan for some wondrous all encompassing retirement.

This is the piece that ends up missing from a lot of those advice blogs. I am completely on-board with saving for retirement, or delaying gratification to look at the bigger picture, but I'm not going to wait until I'm middle aged to start traveling.

There are no guarantees. I don't know that I'm going to be healthy next year, let alone when I'm 50. Perpetually working for your future self is not a good way to live.

 

[jonKranked]

live life like you're gonna die. because you are.

 

[jimmydean]

What's your plan? No, seriously, what's your goal and how are you going to get there?

<edit> But for real, it is tough for me to think about saving for the future while I have spent the last 18 years and have another 4 more years of supporting ex'es (to the tune of $2k a month towards the end) so having much if anything put away at all has been a joke for many years because I refuse to live on ramen and live in a van down by the river.

I have very little put aside so far, but I have been adding to that and will continue to do so. Yes, I am known to drop $5 on a Megabucks ticket at the grocery store mostly for laughs. But if that bitch were to ever hit, my life could get a lot more interesting.

While both my buddy Joe and I have angry ex'es that love to bring up the fact that we each own a Corvette, they don't like it when they see that he and I each paid less for our cars than we paid for the ex'es cars. I would get a lot less pleasure out of driving her Corolla than my C5.

 

[Toshi]

For those of you still convinced Mr. MM is merely a tightwad, I think this sums it up better: http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/05/20/financial-reportin-sucks/

>>>>> quoted material below, not actually quoted due to XenForo retardation

Right now, we are already living at a level far beyond the basics that are required to maximize our happiness. You don’t have to feel guilty or run out and change that, but just acknowledge it, because that knowledge is freedom. You could live on much less, and with the right tricks, end up even happier than you are now. It’s true for virtually everyone. So what is more efficient and satisfying: keeping an unwanted job for 20 additional years to earn more money, or learning the right tricks?

The answer to that should depend on how much you like trading your time for money at your job, versus how much various material conveniences and luxuries are worth to you.

[... We could simplify] the typical person’s life down to something that would cost between $5,000 and $25,000 per person per year in the US, without compromising their ability to live a happy life. Most of the remaining things we have in our lives – even ones we happen to enjoy – aren’t fundamentals for human happiness. They are just cultural norms, programmed in differently for each country by the marketing of corporations who sell the non-fundamental products.

But the assumption by financial advisers these days is that consumption is just a personal choice, all of it is reasonable and none is ridiculous, and more is naturally better if you can afford it. Frugal people are written up as mildly entertaining oddities – “Wow, things sure work out well for them – too bad you can’t do that in real life”.

 

[eric strt6]

When I was 19 and on a 2000 mile road trip through the west coast, British Columbia, and Montana we stopped in on some old neighbors of mine. Les was 55 at the time and an ex Olympic gymnast and personal trainer and asked about our trip. He approved: his comment was don't rush into a career there will be time for that. Make your adventures while you are young and able. There comes a time in life when all you can do is sit on the porch. Don't be the guy sitting there moaning about all the things you wish you had done. Be the guy telling anyone in earshot the tales of all your adventures.

I took his advice, no regrets. I am 58, working hard, have a nice house and some funds, still play as much as possible. I traveled the world, Climbed high peaks, taught Scuba Diving and Rock Climbing, became a Fire Fighter.

Lots of my friends have died long before "old Age", yeah do some planning for it but damn it LIVE while you Can, vs hanging around until you die.

 

[Toshi]

You also wake up at the crack of dawn for your job. Is that really what you want?

 

[eric strt6]

You also wake up at the crack of dawn for your job. Is that really what you want?

Yes it is. I am done by 1pm and even in the dead of winter I have daylight to go bike or Kayak for 3-4 hours instead of sitting in a cube farm or office only seeing daylight for that period called the lunch hour doing the 8-5 crap. I don't drink or watch TV so I don't care if I sleep through evening prime time or bar hopping.

I forgot to add that my wife the CPA has the same schedule so we have hours to go out and do things together or separately every day. She rides her horses or comes biking or kayaking with me. We have an awesome lifestyle if you ask me.

 

[eric strt6]

 

[Toshi]

I am done by 1pm and even in the dead of winter I have daylight to go bike or Kayak for 3-4 hours

It'd be even better to be done when you wake up at a normal hour, ie to be retired.

 

[eric strt6]

It'd be even better to be done when you wake up at a normal hour, ie to be retired.

maybe that's your goal. its not mine. A good proportion of the folks I know are of retirement age. The ones that still work are vibrant mentally and physically. With some notable exceptions the ones that don't work have lost that edge they tend to become sedentary and less mentally sharp.

Understand that your perception of how and what we should be doing is just that, yours. More power to you if it pans out for you. I have, and probably always will, choose my own path. I prefer being outside of the normal safety net nearer the fringe. I am more alive out there.

 

[jstuhlman]

to each their own. are you happy? good. if not, change it or STFU.
Eric and Dr. T, sounds like you both have it figured out on your own terms. That's what's good...

 

[eric strt6]

to each their own. are you happy? good. if not, change it or STFU.
Eric and Dr. T, sounds like you both have it figured out on your own terms. That's what's good...

bingo

He likes what he is doing and I like what I am doing and in reality that's all that matters, We all die in the end so have fun getting there. I will in all likelihood get there way before him

 

[Toshi]

maybe that's your goal. its not mine. A good proportion of the folks I know are of retirement age. The ones that still work are vibrant mentally and physically. With some notable exceptions the ones that don't work have lost that edge they tend to become sedentary and less mentally sharp.

Driving the fat bus keeps you sharp, or going kayaking? I agree that sitting around and doing nothing in retirement leads to wasting away in a corner, but why does that have to be the alternative?

 

[eric strt6]

Driving the fat bus keeps you sharp, or going kayaking? I agree that sitting around and doing nothing in retirement leads to wasting away in a corner, but why does that have to be the alternative?

Not gonna argue with you Toshi. I don't feel a need to justify my life to you nor should you have to justify your life to me.

 

[Toshi]

Fair enough.

 

[Toshi]

With the new year, tax time upcoming and all that, now is a good time to make one's yearly check of the 3 bureaus' credit reports.

I posted about this before, too, so I am nothing if not consistent/a consistent drone: http://www.ridemonkey.com/threads/www-annualcreditreport-com.138073/

www.annualcreditreport.com (not the similarly named one with "free" in its title--this is the free, govt-sanctioned one, oddly enough).