The Intersection of FIRE and Disney

How did you first hear of FIRE? Were you pursuing it before you heard of it (and just didn't realize it) OR did you read about it and say "I want to do that" and decide to make some changes?

I was never a fan of the hole 9-5 thing and I came across FIRE browsing Reddit one day. We were in college and SO just got his first job offer which was more than our college incomes so it was easy to save a lot once he started working.
 
Overall, I think we're somewhere in the middle of the Frugality/savings/FIRE spectrum. We're onboard with many concepts but are certainly not extreme. I've cut my grocery budget to about $300 month; however, I'm willing to spend $600 on our Broadway tickets . . .

I’m similar. I have no problem spending money on experiences. We got out to eat and travel a lot. I coupon though and don’t really buy expensive clothes or accessories. We do like our tech gadgets tho, but we use those everyday so we don’t mind spurging on that. The thing that stops us from going on vacation more is the limited time off.
 
I wish we had heard of FIRE years ago. We always tried to live like our fathers taught us. Live below your means, just in case something goes wrong: also know the difference between a need and a want. This has served us very well. We definitely don’t skimp (in our minds,) on experiences/vacations but are aware of costs. Always tried to save as much as possible. We will be leaving our jobs within the next few months and relocating to FL. which has been our goal for the last few years. We are 55 and 56. My thoughts are save as much as you can but also make sure you enjoy your life and time with friends and family.
 
I'm following along. Due to age, college costs, high cost of living area etc. not doing FIRE, but definitely trying to save more while still realizing that life is short and we need to enjoy some things before we are too old to enjoy them. It's definitely a balance around here.
 


I'm curious to follow along too.....excited to read some of the sites posted and start learning more. We are pretty good savers, but you can always do better, right? The balance part is my main concern. How to best save for tomorrow and live for today? I'm in one camp, DH is in the other......ha!
 
I love that you've added this thread. I love the FIRE movement - although I'm not sure I consider us participants due to our age. I am 51 and DH is 52. I would love for DH to retire in about 5 - 6 years or so. So, if that is considered early, then we're onboard. Our primary goal right now is to get our youngest through college (she is a freshman right now). Then we'll re-evaluate.

I read Millionaire Next Door I'm guessing at some point around the year 2000. It inspired me to purchase our first rental property in 2001. Our plans right now are to keep one of the rentals in retirement as the return is greater than the 4% safe withdrawal rate from retirement accounts (even after adjusting for insurance/taxes/repairs, etc).

I really enjoy the Frugalwoods.com site. You might consider adding that site to post #1 as she gives great tips on frugal living. She also typically holds the "Uber Frugal Challenge" in January, which some may want to attempt. I also do enjoy MMM a great deal but have only read maybe 20% of his site.

Overall, I think we're somewhere in the middle of the Frugality/savings/FIRE spectrum. We're onboard with many concepts but are certainly not extreme. I've cut my grocery budget to about $300 month; however, I'm willing to spend $600 on our Broadway tickets . . .
Thanks for the suggestion - I added the Frugalwoods to the first post.
 
I'm curious to follow along too.....excited to read some of the sites posted and start learning more. We are pretty good savers, but you can always do better, right? The balance part is my main concern. How to best save for tomorrow and live for today? I'm in one camp, DH is in the other......ha!
Well...MMM (Mr Money Mustache) would say that spending less IS living for today. LOL! Our family of 4 spends on average about $44k per year (that's our average over the past 11 years). Luckily my wife and I are on the same page. We often say things like "Our life is great, I'm not sure what additional joy/satisfaction we could get out of spending more money". I don't feel we deprive ourselves of anything that would bring true joy to our life, we do from time to time forego things that would bring momentary fun though that I'm sure others think we're crazy.
 


I read the boards over there and it swings from one extreme (You bought lunch out? Facepunch!!) to the other (Buy an electric/hybrid car, Pete/MMM did!). One thing to note is he is now getting divorced, so it'll be interesting to see how that affects his FIRE plan.
 
Well...MMM (Mr Money Mustache) would say that spending less IS living for today. LOL! Our family of 4 spends on average about $44k per year (that's our average over the past 11 years). Luckily my wife and I are on the same page. We often say things like "Our life is great, I'm not sure what additional joy/satisfaction we could get out of spending more money". I don't feel we deprive ourselves of anything that would bring true joy to our life, we do from time to time forego things that would bring momentary fun though that I'm sure others think we're crazy.

That is an impressive run-rate - esp. with kids. The hardest part for me is balancing stuff we want our kids to be able to do vs. the cost of activities. Not stuff our kids want to have - we are pretty good at saying no to kid junk (my little one is always talking about how her friends have SO MANY TOYS). But we live in a high COL area, and piano lessons, sports, other activities are not cheap. We want our kids to have those experiences, so we wind up spending quite a lot on that kind of thing.
 
Well...MMM (Mr Money Mustache) would say that spending less IS living for today. LOL! Our family of 4 spends on average about $44k per year (that's our average over the past 11 years). Luckily my wife and I are on the same page. We often say things like "Our life is great, I'm not sure what additional joy/satisfaction we could get out of spending more money". I don't feel we deprive ourselves of anything that would bring true joy to our life, we do from time to time forego things that would bring momentary fun though that I'm sure others think we're crazy.

And thats where in theory, I do agree with MMM (and you!). Its a "be happy with what you have" mentality. I'm still working on this btw.
 
Discussion Question for those following along: How do you calculate your savings rate? Of course the simple answer is Savings Divided by Income but there can be nuance to all of that.

Here's how I choose to measure it:
  • Income = "Take Home Pay" (i.e. the total of all our paychecks throughout the year) + 401k Contributions + 401k Employer Match + Medical/Dental Premiums Withheld (which are also added as an expense) + HSA Contributions + HSA Employer Contributions + Net Income taxes refunded or owed for the the year
  • Savings = 401k Contributions + 401k Employer Match + IRA Contributions + Net HSA Contributions (net of disbursements for the year) + HSA Employer Contributions + Liquid Investment contributions + Mortgage Principal Payments + The net result of my checking account for the year (or minus if this is a negative number)
I then take my total Savings and divide by my Income. Of course all of this is built into my financial spreadsheet and sounds a little more complicated when typed out. I don't include interest income or money from winning a fantasy football league or Ebates or whatever in my income figure. I put that just below the "income" line into "Misc Cash Inflows". I just like income to be the income derived from gainful employment. One other quirk that could go either way is Mortgage Principal Payments. I choose to include it in savings vs. an expense as I'm paying myself (building equity in my home). The INTEREST component of my mortgage payment is absolutely an expense though so I just divide the annual mortgage payments up accordingly.

I reconcile our finances to the penny - it's just a fun hobby to me (that happens to help us in our effort to achieve FIRE)!

I'd be very interested in hearing how others track this and what you may do differently :-)

Interesting calculations. Regarding income, I wonder if gross income should be used (before taxes), simply because taxes are an expense that can be managed and are not fixed.
 
This is an interesting thread. I should probably confess to being something of an interloper here though -- I am getting close to being too old to retire early, plus I really have no great desire to retire. I like my job a lot and most days would want to do it even if I wasn't getting paid (of course, I do like getting paid too!). But I do want to get better about managing our finances. It's only been in the past few years that we've not spent pretty much whatever we've made, although both DH and I do have some retirement savings it's nowhere near maxed out. Now that the last kid is in college, I have been able to sock away some savings (which is now just in an Ally savings account). I have been making some extra payments toward the principal of our mortgage, but the interest rate on the mortgage is pretty much what the interest rate on the savings account is (although that interest will be taxed). I think tax considerations would also say that we should be maxing out our 401(k)'s.

So I guess my question is, where do FIRE people keep their savings?
 
I read the boards over there and it swings from one extreme (You bought lunch out? Facepunch!!) to the other (Buy an electric/hybrid car, Pete/MMM did!). One thing to note is he is now getting divorced, so it'll be interesting to see how that affects his FIRE plan.

Wow, I don't think I knew he was getting divorced. I don't keep up with his blog much though. That will be interesting.
 
That is an impressive run-rate - esp. with kids. The hardest part for me is balancing stuff we want our kids to be able to do vs. the cost of activities. Not stuff our kids want to have - we are pretty good at saying no to kid junk (my little one is always talking about how her friends have SO MANY TOYS). But we live in a high COL area, and piano lessons, sports, other activities are not cheap. We want our kids to have those experiences, so we wind up spending quite a lot on that kind of thing.

Yes. I totally get that. We spend more on experiences than on things. But I did want my DD to be able to try some extra curricular things which definitely added up. We're not big on toys and stuff here, no need to keep up with the neighbors who get new cars every few years and redecorate the house pretty much that often. But I did want my DD to see the world and enjoy things as well. Like I said, it's been a balancing act.
 
Yay! A FIRE thread!

While we are no where near FIRE, we, and by we, mostly me, because I handle all of the finances, are working toward it to some extent. I love reading financial blogs and have done some pro-bono personal financial "teaching" along the way. I haven't told anyone around me about FIRE just because I already get the vibe that certain family members think I might be "cheap" - which I don't like. Watching finances. Yes. Not spending more than what we feel is necessary. Yes. Cheap. Oh heck no. But certain family members also have a mortgage on their house after living in it for 40 years. So there. Hmmmph. Clearly I needed an outlet. Which has made me want to be mortgage free by the time kids enter college. Probably a long shot, but it will be close.

Anyway, lately things in the savings department have gone down. We have been dining out so much more lately due to some changes in the family, and that, I know, has taken a toll on the budget. Last I calculated, we were only saving about 25% of the take-home pay (which I know doesn't account for 401(k) and other line items, but that's what I go off of.

When I mentioned to DH that we should tighten the belt in some areas, he wasn't too pleased and told me that we don't have to save more than 50% off our income! Well, not that we do, but he thinks we save and save and save and not live. How we go on vacations and pay for them must be a SUPER mystery to him (or it probably is thanks to the CC thread).

Anyway, I hope this doesn't move as fast as the cc thread so I can actually keep up!
 
I read the boards over there and it swings from one extreme (You bought lunch out? Facepunch!!) to the other (Buy an electric/hybrid car, Pete/MMM did!). One thing to note is he is now getting divorced, so it'll be interesting to see how that affects his FIRE plan.
For those interested - here are some places the divorce was discussed/revealed:
 
Interesting calculations. Regarding income, I wonder if gross income should be used (before taxes), simply because taxes are an expense that can be managed and are not fixed.
That's a very valid point but actually of little consequence. If I used Gross Income then I'd list Income Tax as an expense. I'd end up adding the same figure to both the numerator and denominator. This would reduce my savings rate (for example in my highest income tax year it would take me from 53% to 49%. BUT it wouldn't change the absolute $$ figure of savings for the year (i.e. if $40,000 would still be $40,000).

The reason I choose to exclude them is that I estimate that my income tax expense during my "wealth accumulation" years will be far higher than in my "early retirement" years and therefore will greatly mislead me on the amount of expenses I need to cover at my SWD (Safe Withdrawal Rate).

MMM actually defines this as: Your savings rate, as a percentage of your take-home pay and further defines take-home pay as gross income minus all income taxes. He also adds: Remember to add back in any 401k or other savings deductions to the paycheck you see, since these are really part of what you are “taking home” – you just happen to be saving it automatically.

So that's where I came up with my calculation. It would not be a mistake and I would not argue with somebody who chose to add taxes in their calculation method. (As long as they add it as both income and expense) and that would ultimately just show your savings rate as slightly lower giving you a larger safety margin as you approach early retirement.

EDIT: Also worth noting is that aside from one anomaly year, our Federal Income taxes only average $1,500 a year so it would not make much of a difference but would add some work for me to track as that data comes from a different source than where I input everything currently. :-) Retirement withdrawals are not taxed by state or local in PA so adding them would also add no value in my specific situation.
 

Well I'm sorry to hear that for their kid's sake, if nothing else. Wrong as it may be, I can't help but be curious as to how that will affect FIRE for both of them.
 
Now that I've commented twice...

While I'm not necessarily on the path to FIRE, I do really enjoy reading about it and getting ideas for living frugally, paying off debt, etc. I discovered MMM while working a miserable job and looking for options on how to get out of it/pay down debt. While I certainly can't pretend we have some sort of outstanding savings rate or anything, I am working to pay down our student loans faster and make sure we're living within our means! I've also maxed out my state retirement and are slowly contributing more to DH's retirement and stock plans. We have about $8000 in student loans left to pay off (not including my loans that are forgivable under PSLF), and I'm hoping to knock out at least $5000 of that next year.

Looking forward to keeping up with everyone's journey here!
 

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