He was a software engineer and by the time he turned 30 he and his wife retired.
How did he do this? That is what the blog is all about. I read pretty much the whole thing in two days (thank you, Jenny, for turning me into a useless wife and mother for those 48 hours:)).
Basically, for almost a decade, he lived off of 25% of what he and his wife made (including the mortgage payment!) and put everything else in savings. Now, he lives off the interest of that savings, does whatever odd jobs he feels like doing (it is all his choice if and when and how he wants to work), and stays home with his wife to raise his son.
Sounds pretty good, doesn't it? The idea is fascinating to me.
He is a complete anti-consumerist. Even now- with all of his money (and he now has A LOT of money), he only spends about $27,000/year. Why? Because he has decided that the idea of always buying more and more stuff simply does not make one happy. Which is true. We live in the richest society in the world, but are on more anti-depressants than any other country as well.
He and his wife ride their bikes everywhere- they almost never travel by car. They spend only $30/month on electricity. They don't take exotic vacations- they go camping. He owns one pair of pants that do not have holes in them. But by living this incredibly frugal lifestyle, they give themselves the gift of being able to do whatever they want. They don't have to work- unless they want to- and they are not tied down to STUFF.
I have thought about this a lot the last couple of weeks. It would be SO COOL if Ben could quit and hang out with us all day!
But, I have one small problem: I really like the lifestyle we live.
I like our house. I like being able to go out to dinner with friends if I want to. I like date nights. Ben and I are very happy right now at this place in our lives. If we cut out all spending like he advocates- no cable, no TV, no second car, no home renovations, no eating out EVER, etc. we could have Ben quit his job in a few years- but is that really what we want? I don't know.
So we came up with a compromise. What if we could have Ben semi-retire (go part time) in 10 years? That would require some sacrifices, and we would have to do two main things:
1. Pay off the house
2. Have a couple hundred thousand in savings for emergencies, etc.
How do you do that in 10 years?!? I really don't know if we could ever do that- unless we did cut all excess spending, which I am not sure we want to do. I am a very frugal person, but frugal enough to put THOUSANDS in savings every month, not just a couple hundred? Hmm...
Which brings me to another point: He insists that we should have our money in a fund that earns 12% interest a year. WHAT?!?
Are any of you earning 12% a year on any kind of investment right now???? If you are, please let me know and tell me your secrets. The absolute best funds I am seeing are at about 3.5%! Speaking of which, where do you put your savings investments- not your retirement fund, but your emergency fund- or as I like to call it "Early semi-retirement Fund"? I'm curious because when it comes to investing I am pretty much an idiot. I am great at saving money, not good at all at investing money.
Anyway, his blog is very interesting. Some definite food for thought.
6 comments:
I don't know...retirement might *sound* nice, but I know that for a lot of people they get incredibly bored. If you are people who can find real purpose to your lives without the routine of work, then maybe it would work, but I'm not sure the whole not working at all thing is really all it's cracked up to be. But I agree that being frugal so that you can afford a decent lifestyle when you are older is a wonderful thing to aim for. My grandparents worked very hard when they were younger and were very frugal and now that they are retired they are able to do absolutely anything they want and it is wonderful to see.
Dani- I totally agree. Mr. Mustache actually talks a lot about that. He notes that most who retire early still enjoy working, it's just now they work doing whatever they want, making their own hours, only taking the clients they enjoy working for, etc. They are in charge of their job, instead of the job being in charge of them.
Ben actually really loves his job- it's just that he works so many dang hours (no overtime, but he's gone almost every day all day). We think it would be awesome if he worked M, Tu, and Wed and then had a 4 day weekend every week. We could do more temple work, more service, he could pick up some consulting work (which is something he is interested in), and mostly just be able to hang out with the kids more. We don't really want to wait until we are retired to do all the things retired couples do. It'd be fun to do those things in our 30's or 40's. We'll see- there are a lot of factors at play.
Tell me about the long-hours thing. Jason works until 7 most nights and one night last week he was at his office until 4am. Alas, that is our life. I wish it were different but for now we are stuck with it.
Glad you liked it! In person, I really, really like this couple. Check out the forums there too, you can put a question out about your situation and you will get a ton of responses and help - his "community" is very passionate! But, really, I'm not sure I'd worry about the 12% yet, I would worry more about figuring out how to save the 50% (or whatever) of your income (knowing that the percentage you already put away for retirement counts here). It's HARD, and I know you're already incredibly frugal. I actually sat down with them and worked through our stuff in person, about a year ago, before they hit it big! It helped a ton, just moving stuff around!
Jenny- how did you get to meet them? That is really cool. I have thought that it would be awesome to have him do an analysis about us, though I am pretty sure of what he would say. He seems like a very nice person. And, that's a good idea to try the forums- I haven't done that yet. That may need to be the next step.
Dani- You are a saint!!!! Having your own business is so hard with all the long hours! Hopefully it will get easier over time!
Christina - their son is Max's age - we were in the same due date group, so I've known her almost 7 years!!! They are really nice, and I know they're busy, but I bet if you send an email they might respond, or use you as a case study - you are exactly the type of family that could benefit. OR, on the forums there is "ask a mustachian" and put all your stuff out there!
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