Living situation

So if I can limit my personal spending down to $400 a month or less, I can retire in 3 years. But that doesn’t take into account the amount I should be contributing monthly to the joint account… Must continue to calculate. This would be a lot less complicated if I was single and not planning to have children.

I really do need to get Shane in on this; she could make or break my plans. Last week she bought a $4000 wedding band for me (“nothing but the best for you”, Aw!), and insisted that it HAD to be a joint account expense and it HAD to be this ring. Love the sentiment, but that’s too much frosting for this cake.

We’ve got a great living situation, my fiancée and I. We bought a small two family home at a great interest rate. With the upstairs rented out, and our roommate D contributing too, the mortgage and taxes are basically covered. When the mortgage is paid off, one of us could theoretically retire on that extra income. I’ve read blogs of people who have done exactly that.

The house is also great in that there is enough space that it can grow with our family. It’s two bedrooms, so we can probably raise two children of the same gender here. I also strongly believe that it’s situated in a neighborhood that will have above average price increases over time.

If you are working on retiring at any age, I *highly* recommend making it easy on yourself by reducing your living expenses as much as possible. Do it. It will slash your time to retirement drastically.

Stay-at-home fiancée?

So my fiancée, “S”, has decided she wants to quit her job. YESSSS! Time for me to swoop in with ERE principles.

Hopefully she’ll sign on to a bunch of them… I don’t know how successful I will be since she makes 6 figures and has gotten accustomed to a lot of the perks. As I’ve mentioned previously, she loves eating out. Also her initial reaction to these philosophies has very much been gut wrenching fear (“but I have to support my mom, but I have health issues, but we want to have kids”).

I get it.

I too am terrified of detaching myself from traditional lifestyles (ironic, being that I’m gay and all). That shouldn’t prevent anyone from setting your sights on it, at least calculating what your freedom looks like. So we get better health insurance and build in a larger buffer to pay off your mom’s house, does that take us 1 extra year or 10?

But, like I said originally, she really really wants to quit. Talks about it every day. She won’t talk about her job with me (unhealthy?), but I know she wants to leave. Maybe if we work out how long it would take to become financially independent it will be easier for her. Idea being she will have a goal to work towards.

Hobbies

All of my hobbies, as of last week, were big money sinkholes. I love going out to eat and taking exercise classes, preferably on the same night with people in tow. Also like getting pedicures with my best friend, C…

…which is what she wants to do tonight. Obviously this expense has to be cut. I mean I HAVE nail polish at home. I’ve also decided that a simple clear polish leaves the nails looking nice for longer, with less worry about chipping etc. She also wants to go out to eat and possibly do another activity.

Thinking through the new frugal lens, and knowing I can’t convince her to come to my house, I’m going to pitch that we go to this really cheap noodle house we love. I can get a giant $8 soup, then eat half today, and half tomorrow. Maybe for a post-meal-activity we can go for a walk in the local park.

$8 now seems like a huge deal to me. I already bought 4 organic bananas for $1.73 today.(*) Granted I will eat at least half of these tomorrow… And it seems stupid to splurge on the FIRST week. Can’t be helped I don’t think though, and I certainly love C’s friendship.

In the early retirement extreme world, hobbies should be free. Mine will now consist of volunteering for the local LGBT organization, gardening (not free, but supplies food), and exercise meetups. I used to love playing ultimate frisbee through meetup, although transportation costs may prevent me from my old habits. By the way, if you are not familiar with meetup.com, you should get familiar. Lots of people are looking for things to do.

Maybe I should pick up a part time job? That would provide extra income AND take up my time. I’ve also read from other ERE blogs that it helps to transition down from full time work, not just jump ship entirely. Otherwise it’s too big of an emotional leap to handle well.

(*) I believe in voting with my dollars. Organic locally grown food is better for the planet, and I believe it’s better for my body. I’d rather pay it to the grocer than m.y doctor.

Biking is the answer

Spent on transportation visiting my best friend,C, yesterday: $7.50. Damn, that is a lot… Subway to her house there and back is $5.00. The bus is $2.50 each way to get to the city. I realized belatedly that I could have biked to the path and taken that instead for $1.50, AND I still have an unlimited for that. Instead I took the path home and just walked.

C is moving to Cali soon, I’m not going to deny her a visit…

Wait! I am clearly not used to saving-over-convenience. If I have a bike and an unlimited path card I could have brought the bike to the city and then BIKED the ten miles or so to her house. Would have taken a lot longer, but is absolutely doable.

P.S. Gave C and her boyfriend two cupcakes. Planning to give away the rest to a bake sale tonight. Even though they were free, and I don’t have the luxury of wasting food any more, they will probably do more harm than good. The stupid GNC thing says I have 30% body fat. :(. Plus volunteering is one of my new hobbies.

More on hobbies tomorrow.

My two loves: food & her

Current considerations:

Today my girlfriend spent $3-4 on getting ingredients to make lunch… Should I tally what she spends too? What about what we spend on the joint account? I split my paycheck between the joint account, my spending account, and my own savings account. My current plan is to stop spending, try to cut down massively on what we spend jointly, then later see if she’s willing to cut down on her personal expenses too. Maybe run some figures by her to see if that motivates her.

Yesterday I bought a bag of dried lentils for $6, and I completely forgot tally it, damn. The concept is that I will eat a very plain diet, just lentils, brown rice, and green veggies (and maybe an egg once and a while). I’ve already gone vegetarian earlier this year, which should cut down on calories and expenses.

Meanwhile, should I not benefit from anything she buys? I definitely ate her cooking (delicious!). There’s no way she would ever agree to an all lentil diet…. Figure this life plan will help me pare down on eating too, unfortunately we have a ton of cupcakes in the house. Free calories, ugh.

If I could just give up eating I would be so much richer.

Day 1

So, challenges already…of course. My fiancée (we just got engaged a week ago!) and I are spending the day together, and it is apparently really difficult to do this without spending money. Especially difficult to do when she is not on board with my new life plan. I’m hoping that as I become more adept at this she will join in.

We ended up going, on foot (3 miles) to the mall (what am I going to do there?), for lunch. Don’t worry, I was prepared. I brought my own food, and she bought whatever she wanted. This may end up with me being skinnier…

By the evening we were bickering; often to make up from fighting we go to Chinatown and have something awesome to eat (Hotpot anyone?). I almost (almost!) was about to make an exception to my not spending money rule, rationalizing about joint expenses not counting, and she’s upset, etc etc.

We were saved by our garden. This past spring, at my request, we spent tens of thousands of dollars re-doing the back yard, just to make it a pretty growing space. Its a really beautiful space now, but it is definitely not a positive step in terms of retiring early. Spilled milk at this point. But, Instead of leaving the house for dinner we harvested a ton of greens from the backyard, cooked them up, and ate that instead! Woohoo! Success!

Net results :
Spent $2 on a BMI/body fat machine at the mall, and picked up a $5 prescription.

Spent: $7
Earned: $0

I. Want. Out. …

I. Want. Out.

Will you help me? So tired of the rat race, even though I’ve only been on the wheel for 6 years. Maybe I just don’t fit in. Maybe no human fits in.

I thought it was because I didn’t have a good job fit, so I found a better one. Then I thought my dissatisfaction came from not being my own boss. Then starting my own company on the side became a major money wasting failure, so I hired a career coach. She was lovely, helped me fit in, helped me find a job that would appreciate me more, both fiscally and emotionally. Feels great to be appreciated.

I still want out.

So here’s the challenge, can I become financially independent in 5 years or less? Just like this guy. Through a combination of extreme saving, and extreme cost cutting, maybe I can. And if you help by reading my blog, I might stay motivated long enough to make it.