Let’s see where the journey takes us!
I want to share my financial independence (retirement?) journey through posts on this blog. How I got to financial independence. What I do with it. What I have learned (and continue to learn) that could help others reach and enjoy their financial independence. And in the process to learn even more from the feedback I hope to get.
Some of my posts will be about money management. About what I call frugality without sacrifice. About how I manage to lead a pretty nice basic lifestyle for less than $15,000 gross a year.
Some of my posts will be about my investment “adventures.” About how my $400,000 stash yields me $28,000 to $32,000 a year in passive income. And about the risks that involves.
And some of my posts will be about what I do with my free time and my surplus money now that I have (or think I have) full control of my time and money to do something with it.
My core money management strategy is frugality without sacrifice — what I call playing the frugal game. Cutting the waste and getting more for my money every time I spend any of it. I know that sounds like a “duh” statement. But I’ve been amazed (and you might be too) at just how much money can fall through the cracks when one takes one’s eye off the frugal spending ball.
My investment strategy is based on creating and maintaining a high yield stream of dividend and interest payments. That also means that my strategy is more high risk than a lot of people are willing to accept. But it works for me. And many of my posts will be about how and why that is so.
I put a good deal of my time into investing and money management so that I can have the financial freedom to do what I want. But actually taking the time to do fun things is something of a problem for me. If left to myself (so to speak) I have a strong tendency to either let my time go to doing more chores (since there’s always more) or to plop down to watch a DVD movie. And that’s not how I really want to spend what’s supposed to be my free fun time.
So I am continuing to develop scheduling and routine-setting tactics to “force” myself into actually using my time to hike, take trips, write these posts, do serious history reading, and develop some real hobby-interests. And I’ll be writing posts about how that is working out.
In short, it is very important to me to feel that I am in control of my life, to have goals, and to actually accomplish them. When all of that comes together, I feel good about my life and about myself. I’ll be writing these posts to help me stay on that course.
Along the way, I hope some of what I’ve learned and what I will continue to learn helps you in your quest for financial independence. And I’m pretty sure I too will learn a lot from your responses to my posts.
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image courtesy of Retired To Win (!)
Followed your link from MMM! I’m also in my 50’s, didn’t start saving til I was 40ish, and have a stash about the same size as yours. I am very interested to learn how you manage your money and retirement, as I want to learn how to do this for myself.
Welcome, Lisa.
I have a lot of articles on how I manage my money lined up to be published. (It’s not rocket science, btw.) So stay tuned.
I am turning 50 this year and though a larger stash I have 4 kids at home which 2 are in HS and 2 still younger. We were late to the game in getting off the treadmill of spending what you make but are doing much better now and have a ways to go. No debt and good stash but still have alot of pork to get rid of before I will be happy. In 2 years we plan to be done but I have a vacation home I have been struggling to sell and then we will sell our Mini-Mc Mansion both we own. This will help us alot. Anyhow I look forward to your writings as I am always looking for more and more ideas to improve my own situation. Congrats on your retirement.
Thank you, Douglas.
Come back and visit. There’s something new every week (at least).
My husband works for a major company and in his 401 and profit sharing, he has approximately $250,000 but most or all of it is in that company’s stock. He thinks it is okay. I say we should diversify. What do you think? He is 51. We do have some other savings but not much.
I make it an absolute maxim of my investing not to have more than 6% of my portfolio’s value in any one company’s stock (and no more than 12% in any one industry). So that should tell you how alarming it sounds to me for anyone to have “most” of their money in one stock. ANY one stock.
OMG having it all in company stock is a horrendous risk. Talk to some former Enron or Bear Sterns employees they lost it all.
I reluctantly came to your website worrying it was another “come on”. What a joy to discover a common sense lifestyle site that all can benefit from. Wouldn’t ours be a better country if everyone got off the consumerism treadmill?
Keep posting and good luck winning.
Ps 60, no debt, always lived carefully!
Thank you for the kind words, Ray. I hope you come back often!
RTW,
Great blog. Just found it after seeing one of your comments on MMM. I started following Pete at MMM about 2 years ago and have doubled my stache since that time. I am 58 and plan to retire in 2-4 years, so not necessarily early but much better than 65 or 70. I really relate to your post about scheduling fun time, as I also have a tendency to fall back into more “work” style routines. Anyway, I appreciate your sharing and will catch up on all your posts and keep following you.
Thanks
Ed2
Welcome, Ed…
Two years ago is about when I discovered MMM. He redoubled my frugality convictions and inspired me into launching this blog.
Thanks so much for your encouragement. It’s that kind of feedback that keeps me writing here.