I don’t think I was on a terrible path in life by any means before finding the MMM site and the online FIRE community, but I had inadvertently let a lot of standard US excess/gluttony/anxiety creep into my life, and I didn’t even know any better.
Since reading that first MMM post I’ve devoured so many posts on the MMM site and forum and read so many other FIRE blogs that it would be impossible to thank each person, but if you’ve contributed any major ideas to the online FIRE community, thank you!
Different Assumptions
After careful consideration my spouse and I have determined that we both love our chosen professions enough that stopping them completely would be a negative for our lives. With that in mind the goal posts we have put in place for our version of FI are:
- 200k in taxable account
- 180k in old man money (401k, IRA’s, HSA)
- 1,500 Monthly Cash flow from rental property
With the numbers above we will need to generate 1,500/month from our working hours to maintain our current lifestyle and not tap into our stash at all. If we wanted to pull .04% from our taxable account we would need to generate $1,100/month to maintain our current lifestyle. Luckily we both have extremely flexible working hours so we can easily scale our work time up or down as we see fit. We will most likely not lock ourselves into any one specific working time commitment, but instead work in bunches at times and take longer stretches off at other times. I can see us both taking most summers completely off and working more from December – March most years.
Full Background Of How The FIRE Community Has Helped Me:
In the middle of 2016, I stumbled across the MMM blog, and I was enthralled. I was getting burnt out with the hours I had to work and looking for a better plan. I couldn’t imagine toiling away for another 30+ years, waiting until I was 65 to retire and focus on the activities and work that I get the most enjoyment from. After a few weeks of reading and contemplating I was sold, I just wasn’t sure what to do first.
Changing Behaviors On The Path To FIRE:
While I wasn’t sure of the best place to start, I quickly realized that all I needed to do was start putting one foot in front of the other. It turns out once you start being disciplined, it influences continued disciplined in other areas of your life. Once you get going things that felt impossible 1-2 months before, start to look and feel very doable.
First Trouble Spot:
The first issue I uncovered was Amazon. Once I was honest with myself, it was obvious that I had a bit of an addiction to buying things off Amazon. Looking back through my purchase history, you can see where I was at before finding MMM’s blog.
- 2015: 126 orders… 10.5 orders per month! What was I possibly buying!?
- 2016: 91 orders…. Found MMM middle of 2016
- 2017: 57 orders
- 2018: 46 orders
- 2019 YTD: 26 orders
To change this bad habit, I used MMM’s hedonic adaptation article and put the principals to use. Instead of aimlessly buying things I committed to adding any item I wanted to purchase onto my wish list, and then waiting for one month before looking at the list and deciding if I actually needed to make the purchase. This simple action was astonishingly effective. I would come back to the wish list each month and not clearly remember why I wanted to purchase most of the items listed there in the first place. The process of clicking the “add” button to the wish list was similar enough to the one-click purchase, that I got the dopamine rush like I had just made a purchase. Amazon Gluttony Eliminated!
A Monthly Budget:
Being a small business owner, I’ve always had to reconcile the business bank account each month; essentially taking the bank statement and inputting it into quickbooks to account for every last transaction. It had never occurred to me to do this for my personal life! Transitioning this process over to my personal life has made a huge difference though. It’s painful to manually type in every expense made over the month, and doing so encourages me to buy less! Plus knowing the exact amounts that I need to cover my fixed monthly expenses is weirdly comforting. I guess it takes all the fear out of the equation, and just makes it simple numbers on a page that have to add up.
Investment Accounts:
Embarrassingly enough at the start I only had one investment account. A traditional IRA, with the firm who did my yearly taxes. After some research, I found out the entire account was invested in American Funds, which turned out to have high fees for managing my investments. On top of that, I only had $3,500 dollars in this account. Again, leaning on MMM’s advice, I simply rolled this over to a Betterment IRA and opened a taxable account with Betterment, as well as a Roth IRA. I then set my contribution limits as high as I could, and every time I optimized expenses further, the excess money was allocated to one of the investment accounts. I’m aware using Betterment is knowingly capping my investment optimizations at roughly a 90 or 92% grade, compared to just simply buying directly from Vanguard. But I barely graduated high school, so 92% is amazing in my book haha. I also don’t enjoy deep dives into investment philosophy, so letting the easy Betterment interface and its portfolio optimization algorithm work is enough for me…..For Now At Least 🙂
Transportation:
After careful research and testing, I purchased a Rad Power Bike and a Boosted Board.
Before finding this site I drove everywhere. It never occured to me that I didn’t have to drive to basically every place I wanted to go. The city I live in does not have great public transportation, and I had just never really thought about biking anywhere….
The board is used for any journeys under two miles and the bike is used for any journeys up to ten miles from home. Anything further than 10 miles, and I try my best to carpool, or I take “old red”, my 1995 Dodge Dakota Truck.
These changes cut my yearly driving below 2,000 miles. This allowed me to average filling my gas tank only 4-5 times per year, saving money on gas and vehicle maintenance, while boosting my fitness and spaceship earth’s fitness as well.
Utilities:
After reading the MMM article on utilities, three big changes were made to my home. We replaced the electric dryer with a gas unit, which cut down our electric bill immensely. A whole house fan was purchased and installed to help regulate the home’s temperature. And lastly, my dad and I blew 18 Inches of insulation into the attic.
Utility bills went from ~$180/month down to ~$50. This was pretty shocking to me, living with the exact same level of comfort we were able to shrink our fixed utility bills this much! MMM is not lying, insulation truly is like buying a stock that drops monthly dividends straight into your pocket. Additionally the whole house fan sucks cool night air into the house, which stays trapped during the day keeping the house comfortable without the need for the AC unit to intervene very often. This process is then reversed in the Winter, pulling in the warmer afternoon air and trapping it in the house through the night to keep it warmer.
TV/Internet:
This one was hard, but I took the plunge and cancelled the TV package. We purchased a simple ROKU TV for $400, and paired down to a normal internet package. Cutting costs from $180/month to $60. After a few months I honestly didn’t even really notice a difference…
Insurance:
I realized being a healthy young adult, I should look into catastrophic coverage. Through Anthem I was able to find a High Deductible plan for $179/month. In addition, I was now eligible to open an HSA savings account and contribute $279/month to this account tax free, Booya!
Daily Meal Plan: I had never thought much about my food expenses before coming across this site. In general I tried to eat well but always struggled with meal prep and buying groceries. This all drastically changed after reading MMM’s article on a daily meal routine. I loved this idea, I didn’t mind the idea of eating the same meal plan every day, in fact it felt easy. No more thinking, no more constant choosing what to eat. Just do one big batch of research and then put the decision on auto pilot….. Before starting any optimizations I was spending roughly $600/month on food. After reading MMM’s food article I played around until finding a default meal plan to use most days. I emphasis most because when I stick to the plan most of the time, then I don’t feel bad about deviating from this plan anytime a social opportunity presents itself. If I have a great routine, then those occasional birthdays or nights out with friends are great indulgences instead of activities that cause me to feel guilty or bad about myself. Another great benefit of having a set meal plan for me is that on typical days food choices are simply on auto pilot, plus I’m eating way healthier than I had been before.
If you are interested in my current meal plan you can read it here.
The Last Mile
After all of these optimizations I began to get a little disheartened. Numbers were growing, and I was on pace to FIRE in about 11 years, but that still felt like an eternity. I was not largely unhappy in my job or day to day life, In fact I was super proud of all the great changes that had been accomplished, but I had the desire to reach my FIRE goal sooner; and needed to find a faster path. This led me to land-lording, and ultimately to renting out units to hospital patients in need of a short term rental. And that’s where I’m currently at.
At the current pace it’s looking like somewhere between 1 – 2 years from now we will hit all the numbers + have the rental properties cash flowing at our goal level.
As I mentioned at the opening, before finding the MMM site and the FIRE community I would have never dreamed that a situation like this was a possibility. To put things fully into perspective, at the start I only had 1 freaking investment account, the entire account was invested in American funds and a broker was Syphoning of a 1% management fee plus trade fees! That was the entirety of my savings.
Thank you to all of the members of the FIRE community, and I hope parts of this post are helpful to other people! Following many of the philosophies written about on the MMM site it really is possible to massively change the trajectory of your life!
