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Forever In Blue Jeans? Done!

I love music, and I have since I can remember. It can give me chills, make me smile, make me cry, it’s the one thing I truly love in so many of its forms. My dad also loved music, stuff I can now appreciate musically, but most of which I still consider “crap” (sorry dad, but a lot of it is bad). Mom was more Motown, R&B, and “oldies” centric, but R&B when it meant rhythm and blues, The Temptations, The Supremes, Marvin Gaye, The Four Tops, Ray Charles, man, I’m giddy just remembering those guys, and yep, just started a good Motown playlist in the background. Aaahhh…

One musician dad was a huge fan of that stuck with me though is Neil Diamond. Man, I love me some Neil! Cheesy as it can be, those lyrics cut to my soul so much, because I just get it. Although, as Mrs. SSC put it, “Neil Diamond, Neil Young, same diff, right?” Oh, Mrs. SSC…

But one of his songs in particular lately has struck a chord with me, “Forever in blue jeans.” What a song! It resonates with most of what I read on your blogs most every week, which is mainly that acquiring loads of money doesn’t matter, but as long as you have each other or what you deem your priority in life, you’re good. It’s about getting your life to a point where you call the shots and where you’re happy. Who doesn’t want that?

My whole life I’ve been money centric.

Money, money, money!! This was one of my first purchases as an intern in New Orleans.

Growing up broke as can be with parents that have zero good financial sense, I’ve tried to work towards making as much money as possible so that money is never a worry. Worrying about money, is the worst feeling in my life. It ranks up there with finding out someone you care about has died. I really hate worrying about money. This was my hangup with ER. Why the hell would I walk away from a nice comfortable setup to go back to scrounging just to not work?! No way! But then my focus changed.

For me, it was my kids. After having them I realized 2 things: 1. I’d do anything in the world for them. Yes, this really most exclusively means trading my life for theirs if God forbid that was ever an option, 2. I want to spend as much time with those guys as possible while I can.

One day, they’re going to go make their own lives and it is coming way sooner than I want. I already know this, and they just turned 2 and 4. I only have 16 years before they’re gone and off to college or career or who knows what, but it’s coming.

How does this affect me or my lifestyle or even our FFLC? Man, has my priority switched, because, since then and now, we’ve found our number that we’ve been living off of and can live off of and we have a date when we should reach that number. That date is in about 3 years and then we’ll be leaving our jobs.

Coming back to the Neil Diamond song, I realized my focus was echoed by these lyrics.

“Money talks,
But it don’t sing and dance
And it don’t walk.
And long as I can have you
Here with me, I’d much rather be
Forever in blue jeans”
….”And if you pardon me
I’d like to say
We’ll do okay
Forever in blue jeans, babe
And long as I can have you
Here with me I’d much rather be
Forever in blue jeans, babe”

Let’s see. Our “comfy life” as it is now, involves an almost 1 hr. commute each way, 9’ish hr’s at the office 4-5 days a week, to see the kids an hr or two a day before bed, and then get to hang with them while catching up on other errands/chores and what not over the weekends… Yeah, we’ve made it!! Versus taking a chance that our ER plans go as planned, but maybe we’ll be forever in blue jeans? I’ll take it.

I get really freaked out by this sometimes, and I try to put on a brave face, but I still get worried. Worried that we’ll try and fail. Worried that we’ll leave our “nice” jobs and end up in a horrid life of scrounging, scrimping, and worrying about money constantly. Kill me now, please. The knot and 20 lb weight in my stomach just writing about it makes me SO risk averse, part of me just wants to keep working until I’m really, really, sure I’ll always be good. And this is probably what drives most people to work for SO much of there lives. But that “horrid” life of watching our funds and scrounging for money, if it came to that still sounds like it’s a way better quality one than I’m living now.

I realized I’d rather be doing my life on my terms and forever in blue jeans, than in an office answering, “Yes, sir! Of course sir! Tomorrow sir, you’ll have those reports!” and if sh!t hits the fan, well, I’d rather try and fail than sit by in quiet fear and trepidation wondering what if. You know what I won’t get back ever? Time with my family. I also know that between me and Mrs. SSC, we can be making half the money my family was raised on and we’ll make it work comfortably. So, yeah, I’ll take that chance on spending as much time with family as possible while also maybe making my life way less comfortable than it is now. I have to say, the “comfort” I’m giving up versus the comfort I’m working towards I’ll take any day. And if we’re forever in blue jeans, I don’t count that as a fail either.

What made you want to get to FIRE/FFLC/Not working for the man and doing thing on your terms?

Neil Diamond Picture from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAWpkBurVno

By Mr SSC
Posted on July 21, 2015July 15, 2015
12 Comments on Forever In Blue Jeans? Done!

Sunshine Blogger Award!

Our blog was nominated for the Sunshine Blogger award by the bloggers over at Ditching the Daily Grind! Thanks for the nomination guys, I’ve been enjoying reading your blog! It’s nice reading about other families out there on the same path, and how their kids have/have not affected their FIRE goals. We really appreciate getting nominated for that award! Now, let’s get to the fun stuff!

The Rules:

Thank the person that nominated you

Answer the questions from the person that nominated you

Nominate some other bloggers for this award

Write the same amount of questions for the bloggers you have nominated

Notify the bloggers you have nominated.

The Responses to our set of questions:

When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?

These are really different answers from Mrs. SSC and I. Our family dynamics and priorities were pretty different growing up, as reflected in SO many ways in our lives. This is just one of those instances.

Mrs. SSC: She wanted to be a scientist or professor when she grew up. She’s done pretty well meeting those goals too, between being an actual rocket scientist for a bit, teaching some in grad school, and science-ing it up at her current career in the oil industry.

Mr. SSC: I wanted to be a long haul trucker. Yep, the guys on the road in the big-rigs hauling the 54’ trailers. I thought it would be fun, I’d get to travel a lot, see the country, and have a lot of freedom. Plus, you get to drive the biggest trucks out there! Woohoo! I’m a geologist instead and those dreams are in the rear-view mirror of life, and thankfully not the rear view mirror of my big rig.

What is the coolest/most memorable place you’ve visited

Mrs. SSC: Yosemite National Park. It was breathtaking and also one of the first times I ever went camping and hiking by myself. It was one of the first times I was able to take everything at my own pace, observe nature around me, and just get to be introspective and not have to deal with anyone else’s time table or schedule. It was awesome!

I really took this. It's so beautiful even at night. — I really took this. It’s so beautiful even at night.

Mr. SSC: Le Mont Saint Michel in Normandy, France. It’s an island commune and monastery that is just offshore, like ~600 meters. Besides being stunningly beautiful, an amazing thing is the tidal range of that part of the coast. When the tide goes out, it goes out 15 miles from the shore and drops nearly 40’!! When it comes in again, bam! The monastery is again an island surrounded by water. We got to take a 7 mile hike across the tidal flat at low tide, and it was awesome as a geologist, getting to see all those tidal features first hand. If you’ve never seen it, google it and check out the images, amazing! My picture doesn’t do it justice.

If money was not an issue and you could indulge in one thing, what would it be?

Mrs. SSC: My one thing would be land. I would want to buy an amazing plot of land with great views, mountains, fruit trees and more, and build a small but luxurious house. That and a Disney Cruise for the kids. Our friends say “it’s great!” and “the kids would love it!”, just like a 50’s tv ad, but it just seems SO expensive, so probably that too.

Mr. SSC: I’d go to the moon and spend a few hours bouncing around in my astronaut suit and riding one of those moon buggies around. That just seems like it would be a LOAD of fun, and it was literally the first thing that popped out of my mouth when I read this question. I mean, who could afford that nowadays? Not even NASA right, and you did say money was no issue. That would be my indulgence for sure.

What is the best compliment you’ve ever gotten?

Mrs. SSC: I don’t respond well to compliments, so I avoid them, and can’t think of a best compliment I’ve ever gotten. Sorry…

Mr. SSC: My best compliment was um, well, yeah I don’t know either really. I’ve been scouring my brain, but nothing jumps out. Sorry…

What legacy would you like to leave?

Mrs. SSC: I feel that if I can get the kids to grow up and be true to themselves, that would be good for me. I want them to be who they want to be, and not try to be someone that they think they should be because someone else wants them to be that way.

Mr. SSC: My legacy – with visions of being a trucker, I can’t say I’ve thought too much about a legacy that I would like to leave. When I was hiking the Appalachian Trail, I decided that I wanted to do something that would help the environment and not just take, take, take. Ironically, I ended up switching from Environmental Science to Geology and ultimately landed in the oil industry. Since I’ve had kids, I’d like for them to be adults that aren’t self-centered and self-serving and are empathetic to helping those who need it. Like Louis C.K. put it, “You should never look into your neighbors to bowl to see if they have more than you, but rather to see if they have enough.” If I can raise my kids to have that mindset, I’d feel good about that.

What do you prefer: beach or mountains?

Mt. Hood. We need to get back out there soon.

Both: Mountains for sure! Our relocation spot for our Fully Funded Lifestyle Change has to include a few things and mountains is one of them. We grew up near the Appalachians, so we like the feel of those mountains and are looking forward to being back there. I also love the Rockies, and could be there too, but as long as there are mountains and 4 seasons I’ll take it any day!

Our nominees for the Sunshine Blogger Award are (in no particular order):

Their questions:

What did you want to be when you grew up?
What is your favorite superhero and why? If you don’t have one, why not?
Who is your favorite author?
What person has had the biggest influence on your life?
What’s your favorite comfort food when it’s a chill night at the house?

Thanks again to Ditching the Daily Grind for the award nomination!

If I had a million dollars…

The other day I was working in the yard, and I had a song pop into my head that I hadn’t heard in forever. After singing through a few verses of it, I got to thinking, “Yeah, that’s not a lot of money anymore. Or is it?”

If you haven’t guessed the song by now, it’s Bare Naked Ladies’ “If I had a million dollars.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4L3ls_6UYg

The lyrics are funny and whimsical, and if you’re not familiar with it, it’s a song musing about everything that they would do if they had a million dollars. There are some of the usual things you’d think of such as, “I’d buy you a house… Some furniture for your house… A K-car, a nice Reliant automobile… a monkey, haven’t you always wanted a monkey?” Then there are the “extravagant things” that would be bought such as; “I’d buy you a fur coat, but not a real fur coat that’s cruel… A tree fort for your yard… an exotic pet, like a llama or an emu… and my personal favorite, we wouldn’t have to walk to the store; now, we’d take a limousine ‘cause it costs more…” That got me thinking, if they bought everything on this list, how far would their million dollars get them vs how far would it get the SSC family?

How far would a million dollars go if you spent it like the song suggest? Well, let’s see.

For simplicities sake, we’ll assume this is a post-tax million dollars. Where we would like to retire a house can range from ~$160k upward. We’re looking in the $200-$250k range. Let’s say they want a nicer house (they are millionaires now) and go with a newer $300k home. Then you add in some new furniture, because you don’t want any shabby digs in your new house. I’ll stay conservative and say maybe $20k, for furnishing a whole house. That should cover most of a house if you’re not shopping at Ethan Allen. Now if we look at the K-car, let’s say this is a modern day Hyundai/Kia equivalent, and go for $20k for the car, with tax, title, license. We’re at $340k spent, but our main cost of living things are covered right? Now for the fun things! Llama is about $400-800 with about $20-$30/month costs not including vet trips. In the grand scheme of things, not too much there. A monkey is about $4000 – $8000 though! Holy cow, that’s way more than a llama, and it sounds like they have way higher maintenance costs too. A tree fort for the yard, can cost as much as a house. Since they want to “take a limousine ‘cause it costs more” they’re probably not going to DIY the tree fort. Those costs range from a couple thousand on up. One of our co-workers is looking at a $5k playset for their 1 year old. Let’s just say $5k. Back to the limousine, when I had to take a car to the airport due to company policy and safety, it was about $70 each way. Let’s say that would be the average limo cost to go to the store, that would be an extra $75 a week added to the grocery budget, or $3744/year. They’ve already spent almost half of their million dollars and they still need to buy fur coats, John Merrick’s remains, some art (a Picasso or Garfunkel), a green dress, but not a real green dress, that’s cruel. Yipe, that’s a lot of spending!!

Let’s see how the SSC family would use this. Our number for FIRE is essentially a million dollars. HOWEVER, this is a million dollars NOT including our 401k’s. Oh, tricky, tricky right? Well you see, because we have been building and growing our 401k’s for a while now, we see that as money that left to grow on its own should be able to afford us the lifestyle we have now. Pushing that aside, our ER/FFLC number is roughly 1 million dollars. Maybe this is still a lot of money, even 23 years after this song was first recorded.

This should cover a mortgage outright first of all. Yes, we have equity in our house and based on the growth around our current area, we are assuming we will at least be able to sell it at a break even for what we paid for it, fees included even though we will most likely get more for it. We like to play it conservative assume break even and not count on any home sale profit. We are now down to ~$800k left over from our “million dollars” for us to live off of until we get to age 60/62 and can start drawing off of our 401k’s. I am aware of the Roth ladder and other options to draw on them earlier, but again, I’d rather plan so we didn’t have to count on that. Looking at our budgeting we have been spending roughly $56k per year. This is with about $8500 per year assumed in health costs, and $1500 per year assumed in dental. These are just ball-parked based on what we could glean from the Government health care website market options.

Breaking our budget down and having a floating yearly spend based on how well the market is doing, the cFiresim calculators show a 98% chance of success with our plan and investments as they are now. That’s not too bad really. This is assuming a 4% Standard Withdrawal Rate (SWR), and 7% growth, along with 4% inflation. We’ve accounted for higher inflation in healthcare at the urging of Mrs. SSC’s parents. Having survived a bout with cancer, their costs have increased dramatically. We also have a 5% cushion built in, and will most likely have a year of cash as a safety net. Yes, yes, there are better ways we could probably have that cash as a liquid asset but for now, we’re thinking cash. This is all NOT taking into account any side income, part-time or full-time jobs we may pick up. Also, not accounting for any pensions or even social security, which seems to be probably another $1-$2k per month each. Also, we account for $12k/year for our personal fun money/allowance/sanity fund, whatever you want to call it. So if things got tough, we can automatically “cut” $12k of expenses just by not using allowance type money for our hobbies and stuff. Then our yearly spend would be ~$44k assuming nothing else changed.

There are times I review these numbers and think, “Why the hell are we still working?!” Then I remember, “Oh yeah, we still have a ways to go!” We currently can just buy a house…. Then we’d have no jobs, no security money, and we would be watching the clock like a hawk to tap into our 401k’s then wake up broke and sad at 75… Booo…. So, we stick to the plan. Remember though, most of our investments will get the glorious benefit of compound interest, so it isn’t as if we will be setting aside a full $1,000,000.00. No way, man! Let that grow and earn, and grow and earn, and grow. Please for the love of God, grow!

The point I’m trying to drive home, is that you could spend a million dollars like the Bare Naked Ladies suggest, and you’d be back to broke pretty quickly.

I’m fortunate that we are in a situation to be able to plan, save, and get towards our FIRE goal but it comes through diligence with spending and saving and staying on track. We could derail it at any point by getting back into the consumer mindset, but we stay the course. Why, you ask? Well, even though I love my job and get satisfaction out of it, I have other things I’d rather be doing with my life that would fulfill me more. Who reading this now doesn’t have at least 2 other things they would rather be doing than sitting in their office at work? Who would rather have free time to fully pursue their passions and not try to cram them in with a “Go, go, go, Lifestyle?” You’ll see one raised hand at this keyboard – if you could look through the screen that is. Although then that would be a little creepy… Hopefully, you get the point.

How would you spend a million dollars?

Would you spend it or just live of the interest or dividends it brought you each month?

By Mr SSC
Posted on June 3, 2015
10 Comments on If I had a million dollars…

Taking advantage of employer programs for free money!

Taking advantage of employer programs does equal free money!

It’s always nice to find out you have free money, especially when you didn’t have to do anything crazy to get it. Last summer, I was able to get a lot of free money, just by taking advantage of my new employers health related programs.

With my new company, I was subject to some lucrative benefits for signing up with the new company’s “get fit” program. While at times it can seem intrusive, there are perks as well. One of which was that I got $250 put into my Flexible Spending Account (FSA) simply from signing up. It was really simple. I just went online, created an account and input basic data; height, weight, activity level, blood pressure (if you know it), etc… and then I got my “Fitness Age”. The company doesn’t have access to my specific info, rather they just know how many employees are using the programs.

BUT, by creating that account and answering a couple questions, it was a free $250. As an added bonus, when I linked my fit-bit pedometer to the program, I earn points just for my normal day to day activity. I was even able to earn more points by clicking through online questionnaires and “learning modules” about eating healthy, exercise, alcohol use, weight loss, stress management, etc… Seriously, this is all sponsored and promoted through work. I mean, they don’t mind that you do these things at work, as long as you’re not behind. They also sponsor on-site health fairs, blood panel screenings, and other “get fit” programs a couple of times throughout the year, but the best part is that you can convert the points into cash in an online shopping mall. They even have Amazon gift cards!

The best part about those points is you earn levels, and they make your points to cash ratio better! Between June and December of last year, I managed to work up to $75 worth of points. And, because I’d done enough modules, I was in the Platinum group. Yeah, Platinum!! That got me another free $50 totaling $125. Along with the $250 in my FSA, I had gotten $375 just for participating in my company’s health focus initiative program.

Unfortunately, I’d forgotten all about the $250 in the FSA until I got a nice reminder email earlier this month. It read, “This is a reminder that all submissions for re-imbursement through your FSA are due by the end of March. If not used, this money will be retained by your provider. Our records indicate you have an outstanding balance in your account.”

I went online, got some forms and then emailed Mrs. SSC, so she could do the hard work of slogging through months of receipts and bills to see if we had anything we could use that for. Of course we did, as the medical spending last year was pretty high with a lot out of pocket expense. After some perusing of past statements, receipts, and more, Mrs. SSC found $250 worth of reimbursable charges, and it got mailed off. Hooray, free money!

Overall, it is really nice to have a company that will give you those incentives to stay healthy. I totally understand it saves them money in the long run, but listening to my retired Father-in-Law talk about his work environment, lack of work life balance, and the downright dictatorship of his company during his career makes me really appreciate what we have now. I’ve dealt with poor benefits, no benefits, horrible bosses, and horrible work environments, so I am grateful to have these programs through this company. It boggles my mind though why more people don’t take advantage of it though. I showed a new co-worker, Melissa, how it is super easy to go online, sign up, link your fit-bit (which she uses), and crank out 300 points by clicking through some modules. Her reaction, “Meh, it seems like a lot of work…” Yep, I thought, a whole lot of work… *

Everyone has their price point though, right? What seems like no work to me evidently is too much drudgery for Melissa to earn that “small” of a reward. Like me and pennies. I will pass by a penny on the street and think, “Oh, a penny!” and then keep walking and not pick it up. However, a nickel, dime, or quarter, I’d stoop down and grab it! Maybe you would pick up the penny though and think I’m an idiot for passing it by. We all have our price point.

* – It’s only April and I’m already at Silver level and have $65 earned!!

Have you experienced free money for little to no work?

Have you forgotten about a balance in your FSA and had to scramble to not lose it?

Would you use these programs or do you see them as too intrusive?

We’re headed to the track!

A while back I noticed a lot of bloggers talking about what you should do with your tax return, as opposed to what most people would actually do with their tax returns. As a kid, this was always a nice time of year because we generally got a fairly healthy tax refund. It was like a financial Christmas, and presents would be bought, we’d get treated to some dinners out, and usually within a month or less, it would all be gone. Nothing invested, maybe some immediately pressing bills caught up, but generally, it was frittered away here and there. As an adult, I’ve tried to be more fiscally responsible, which is why we invest our tax refund. This year instead of putting it into our usual investment hidey holes, I convinced Mrs. SSC to go a different route and diversify our investments. Being from Kentucky, where we’re most famous for horses and bourbon, I decided investing in bourbon wasn’t up my alley, but how could you go wrong with horses?! It’s like they say, “How do you make a small pile of cash off horse racing? Start with a big pile of cash.” So that’s what I plan to do!

That’s right, I’m putting it all into horses. I’m sure you’re thinking, “Wait a second, most horses are privately owned and you can’t really buy shares of them, can you? Are you planning on investing in a horse training facility, or farm?” You’re right, I can’t diversify our portfolio with “shares of a horse” so I’m heading to the tracks baby! I usually do pretty well on Kentucky Derby day investments, and over the last few years I’ve managed to clean up. I did some calculations and my investments at the track have yielded over 200% return year to year. I did have a down year here and there, but modeling the amount invested against the returns, makes the stock market look paltry in comparison. I mean really 7% is supposed to be a “good” number? I’m talking averaging 200% returns. If you put that into my other modeling spreadsheets, I can have us to our FI/FFLC goal 2 years earlier!! 2 years!

Now that I’ve piqued your curiosity, you’re probably wondering, “How can you do this though, because The Kentucky Derby is a month away, PLUS it is only once a year. You won’t be able to make that much on one race, right?” You’re right again, I knew we had some smart readers! Plus, like I’ve found on all the FI blogs I read, you don’t want all your eggs in one basket, so I’ll be diversifying and spreading my investments over MANY races. I have taken our tax refund and parlayed it into a side hustle of betting on horses! We’re midway through the racing season, so I only have a half a season left, but I’m confident that I can more than double our refund. Already, I’ve been able to get a 30% return on my “investment choices”. 30%!! Our portfolio hasn’t done that yet! It makes me want to show our portfolio my winning stubs investments and say, “Get with the program, portfolio! What have you done for me lately?! Slow and steady, more like, Slow and Slower… sheesh!” I digress…

This weekend, I plan to get the investment action in full swing though. I’ve been researching the upcoming races around the country, track conditions, racing surfaces, horses, and put them all into a spreadsheet. Then I run a few Monte Carlo scenarios and pick the new members of the SSC Investment Portfolio. It has worked well so far with predicting which “investments” I should be making, so I will continue to follow it. I diverged from this method last weekend and I found that picking a horse with a funny name isn’t the best investment strategy, so I’ll keep science-ing it up. Not sure why I thought “Pajama Pancake” and “Tweedling Peanut” would pull out a win, when my spreadsheet said otherwise, but I know better now. Seriously though, I don’t know why people haven’t thought about this before, it’s pretty dang easy once you get all the variables accounted for.

I’m excited about keeping this train to FI rolling and get us retired a few years earlier than we’ve planned using traditional methods, and now I get why more people aren’t doing this whole FIRE thing. They’re sticking to slow methods with even slower investment return times. No wonder everyone works until they’re 60 or older, it takes that long for the stock market to work! Ain’t nobody got time for that! Certainly not this household. While the stock market keeps trying to make me some coin, I’ll be laughing all the way to the bank with my new diversification strategy!

Do you have a unique side hustle that outperforms the market?

Do you want a copy of my Horse Racing spreadsheet, so you too can be more diversified?

Have you realized today’s April 1^st yet?

image from hdwallpapersnew.net

By Mr SSC
Posted on April 1, 2015April 1, 2015
12 Comments on We’re headed to the track!

Goodbye FIRE, hello FFLC!!!

That’s right, we are looking forward to achieving FFLC! “What is this FFLC?” you ask. Well – I’ll tell you! It stands for Fully-Funded Lifestyle Change! “Uh, huh….” you’re probably saying to yourself. “So how is that different than ER or even FIRE?” you ask. The differences are subtle I suppose, but they’ve come from some realizations we’ve had over the last couple months, as Mrs. SSC and I have been seriously investigating places to live, things to do, and the underlying reasons why we want to quit our current lifestyle.

Here’s what we realized:

We don’t want to drop out of the workforce totally, but rather find something we can do that we are passionate about — regardless of the pay
We want more time to spend with family. We don’t want to fit in family around our jobs, but have our jobs fit in with our family life.
Full retirement wouldn’t be fulfilling to either of us, but volunteer work, teaching, mentoring… that is what we dream of

All of this led us to realize that we don’t want to retire– we want a Fully Funded Lifestyle Change!

No Free Time

In short, our current lifestyle sucks in regards to family time and free time. It’s great in that it allows us to save for the upcoming FFLC, however, there is SO much more we would both rather be doing with our lives than grinding away, day in – day out, for a corporation that will not notice one bit when we leave. Having 11-12 hour days from leaving the house until getting home 5 days a week just isn’t what I bargained for, or envisioned as “success!”.

The Talking Head’s song Once in a Lifetime really sums it up for us:
      And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
      And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife,
      And you may ask yourself
      Well… How did I get here?

If you’re not familiar with the song (I don’t know how you couldn’t be) check it out on youtube here – you’re welcome!

To us, the song represents what your dreams and vision of success were when you were younger, compared to the reality of the sacrifices you make to have them be what they actually are today. As music critic Steve Huey better describes it, the main theme is “the drudgery of living life according to social expectations, and pursuing commonly accepted trophies (a large automobile, beautiful house, beautiful wife).”^a Although the singer has these trophies, he begins to question whether they are real and how he got them. This leads him to question further the reality of life itself.^b

This is Success?

This is exactly how Mrs. SSC and I came to investigate early retirement, pre-tirement, FIRE, and all the trappings associated with pulling the ripcord on what is a fairly “successful” life. Sure, it’s nice and comfortable and we’re the “model of success” but to whom? It sure as hell doesn’t feel like that to us. To us, it feels like we’re just grinding it out for the man until we can hit that retirement point. We end up so tired from the long days, that it makes it hard to have energy to put towards the kids. The weekends arrive, and we are catching up on all the errands that need to get done, find something fun to do with the kids, and restock the pantry for the next week. Next thing you know, it’s time to crawl in bed Sunday night, set the alarm, and repeat… endlessly… We don’t want this lifestyle, because this is no way to live. How did we get tricked into this situation? Better question, how the hell do we get out of it?!

Well, we’re figuring that out as we go. Instead of living according to social expectations, we choose to live how we see fit to get the most out of life and make the happiest most satisfying life we can. For ourselves and our family. For us, this is bailing out on our work and careers and making a major lifestyle change to fit this new dreams and expectations. Until then, we’ll keep planning, saving, and discovering what it is we truly want to do once we walk away from this lifestyle.

I don’t know about you, but viewing it as a “Fully-Funded Lifestyle Change” instead of “early retirement” has me excited more than ever to see what the future holds.

Do you feel like you’re stuck in the hamster wheel of life and want out?
What have you done to change your life to focus on what you deem important?
Do you think we are just bat-shit crazy and dealing with a mid-life crisis?

a: Huey, S. “Once in a Lifetime”. Allmusic.
b: Gittens, I. (2004). Talking Heads: Once in a Lifetime: The Stories Behind Every Song. Hal Leonard. Pp.68-71. ISBN 9780634080333.

By Mr SSC
Posted on March 30, 2015September 21, 2018
47 Comments on Goodbye FIRE, hello FFLC!!!

Decisions, decisions…

This past weekend, I was at the grocery and had an interesting moment arguing with myself over a dollar fifty… Yep, a dollar fifty… It started like this.

I was in the potato chip aisle looking at which options to get for my lunch the upcoming weeks. I usually tend to get the mix bags of 20 or so bags to keep up variety. I’ve tried buying a big bag of the same chip and parsing it out, but it never tends to last as long, because I overfill and then I get bored of the same chips all week long. Anyway, as I’m contemplating the different flavor combos for the next 3 weeks, I notice the price difference in store brand versus name brand. I’ve noticed this before, but rarely pay too much attention to it. As I stared back and forth, I was thinking, “Hmmm, $4.98 vs $3.48. The bags are the same size, flavors are mostly the same. I’ve tried these before and they’re ok, I mean it’s hard to screw up chips. Hmmm, no Cheetos in the store brand, or equivalent… Hmmm, $3.48 or $4.98? It is $1.50…. We could save that just by choosing different chips…” At this point Mrs. SSC had moved on to the dairy section while I stood locked in debate with myself over which brand to choose.

Suddenly, I felt this sharp stinging sensation like I’d been slapped. Startled, I was like “WTF?! Where did that come from?” Then I realized it came from me. Not my logical side, but my more practical side which just entered the debate. Apparently, this whole chip debate had only included the frugal side and the logical side and they were both about to agree on store brand when the practical side jumped in and literally knocked some sense into me. It went like this, “Slap! Seriously? $1.50?! You idiot just wasted 3 minutes standing here debating about chips over $1.50?! Look dummy, you’ll have the rest of your life on a budget when you can eat store brand chips. Right now, you can spend a $1.50 and get the name brand chips. And QUIT standing in the chip aisle looking slack-jawed at the chips. This isn’t a groundbreaking Supreme Court decision, it’s chips!”

So I grabbed the name brand and wandered on with our grocery shopping. That got me thinking. I’m at least becoming aware of being frugal, and have worked it into my life in many other ways. Recall the tolls and money saved by using the next on-ramp? Now, I skip the morning tolls altogether due to finding an even better route. But back to the point of this post. I have no problem eating store brand on a lot of things. Our local grocery makes awesome store brand foods, and they’re almost always better quality and price than name brand. I also don’t like the feeling that I’m shorting myself just to save a buck. It makes my skin crawl and reminds me of the times growing up when we had to short ourselves because there were no bucks to save, much less spend on things other than rice, beans, other staples, and utilities. So I find it’s worth the $1.50 to “treat” myself to something that yes, I could buy cheaper. If everything is save here, pinch there, cut this out, cut that out, I tune out and lose interest in any savings because there’s nothing that bring a little joy.

What are the little things you still get even though you know they could be cut out? Do you have any things like “my chips” that give you a little smile when you enjoy them?

Let me know, I’d love to hear about them!

By Mr SSC
Posted on January 19, 2015January 18, 2015
14 Comments on Decisions, decisions…

2015…. here we come!!!

Well the time is here – the New Year! And it just doesn’t feel right to start the year without some sort of goal or two.

I mean, let’s see there’s the usual goals most everyone has some form of with their resolutions, if they are the type to make resolutions. My list of those is as follows:

Eat better
Eat less
Exercise more
Save more
Spend less.

Okay, Thanks for reading, See you next year!

Hahaha kidding… But the save more/spend less might be the ones you’re interested in, so how can we tweak them to be something attainable and fit our lifestyle?

I mean we didn’t have any specific financial goals in 2014, besides survival… In retrospect, on New Year’s Day 2014 we didn’t even know who Mr Money Mustache was!

So, we have been racking our brains, thinking about what to aim for this year… what can we do better? What can we do differently? Mrs. SSC is a HUGE fan of setting monthly goals, it seems like every month she is thinking of something to try… To be perfectly honest, I bet in her head she also has lists of daily and weekly goals. Fortunately, I just get brought in when the monthly goals come up. More fortunately, she says setting a goal for an entire year just seems too daunting, and a month seems like a more manageable chunk of time. We do pretty well at sticking to monthly goals. For instance, there are usually 1-3 months we’ll go on a spending diet and try to keep the credit card under an amount say 25% less than usual. Or, there was the non-finance related push-ups month challenge of doing a pushup for each day of the month. Except she started at 10, so day one was 11 pushups then, 12, and eventually got to 41 pushups in a day. These aren’t all in a row, but by the end we could do about 15-25 in a row before we collapsed on the floor, taking a breather before knocking the rest out. But, let’s get back to some financial goals and get out of the “crazy things we do to keep life interesting” goals.

We’re proposing a few different goals, and we’ll start with a monthly, a quarterly and a yearly goal. (I know, I said Mrs. SSC doesn’t like yearly goals, but this one was even her idea)

Monthly Goal:
January 2015 – 50% LESS TV!! Gah!! We’re not big into TV but enough that it’s distracting from other hobbies and I have a banjo to finish remember? How is this financial you ask? I don’t know, but we could stretch and say “It’s a primer for cutting the cord altogether. As soon as those idiots figure out football that’s NOT $300 per/season to stream, the cable is getting cut”! Until then, a weaning period seems appropriate. Plus it has to use less electricity, right? (eyeroll)

Quarterly Goal:
Q1 2015 – Only purchase consumables (food, diapers, etc…). Seems reasonable enough.

Yearly Goal:
Save $150,000! This seems like a stretch goal to me, but Mrs. SSC says it should be achievable.

Can we do it? I hope so… I mean, “Hell yeah we can do it!”

Happy New year’s everyone!

Do you have any goals different from ours, or do yours fall in the first 5 categories I mentioned? Let us know, we’d love to hear about them!

By Mr SSC
Posted on December 31, 2014January 2, 2015
12 Comments on 2015…. here we come!!!

Free money cost me HOW much?!

money graph — Free money cost me HOW much?!

While Mrs. SSC was paying the bills, she noticed that Discover had a cash-back reward offer for her personal Discover credit card that she uses for her ‘allowance’. Anyway, Mrs. SSC noticed that there was an offer of “spend $2k/month for the next 3 months and get $300 FREE!” Mrs. SSC thought this was awesome, since we have a second Discover card account that we use as our primary household credit card for bill paying/grocery/gas/etc… type of card that gets paid off every month. So, she went to see if she could sign up for this awesome deal with our household Discover card, and any guesses on whether it was offered on that account or not? Hmmm? Anyone?

No, is the correct answer.

So, for the card we typically have a fairly consistent amount spent on each month, there is bubkus in regards to additional offers. On the more meager monthly spend card (Mrs. SSC allowance spending) there was this nice reward offer. So then, would it be worth it to use that card for groceries and gas and get an extra $300 in a few months? Sure. But, really Discover just wants her to boost her spending to match that of our other account with them… As my 3 yr old would say in a sing-songy voice “Ooohhh, Discover….”

So, Hooray Us! for getting an offer to get cash back above and beyond their typical rewards, but it strikes me as devious or scheming in how it was presented.

Although, thinking about it now, I guess it’s just plain business. They see someone not spending much on their card each month, so why not try and lure that person to spend 3-4 times the amount they normally spend. Especially with the holidays, if you give a consumer a target of say ~$2k to hit and get “rewarded” with a free $300 to spend at Amazon among other places, well, it would seem that it should be a no brainer to spend that amount and get your “free money”. Then maybe they are over their usual budget and can’t pay it all off at once and then interest accrues. Who wins there? Discover.

But think about this in the case of most consumers.

Hell, let’s use me as an example of said consumer, from just a mere 7 years ago. I carried revolving debt and was constantly paying towards it, because my spend was way over my pay-down each month. Yes, yes, I know, Bad Mr. SSC, and you can read about that more here. But I would’ve been delighted at that offer. Spend $2000/month and get $300? Hell yeah, free money! But is it really? Let’s say I had just 16% interest (I paid late occasionally, so it was probably closer to 18% – cringe!!) over the course of one month, that interest would be $320. Someone check my math, I could be way off…. They’ve already gotten their “free money” back plus $20 if I don’t pay it down for just 1 month. 1 month! That’s it.

So for all those analysts sitting inside the machine that is called Discover, they’ve just earned their bonuses. Think about it. If they get just 10,000 people to accept this offer and not pay their additional $2k spend down for just one month, they made Discover an extra $200,000!! That’s just from the $20 extra per person that doesn’t pay it all down. And that’s not compounding that with the fact it will probably take more than 1 month to pay it down, so just by this one little offer, they will most likely make more than they put out there to give away as free money. Genius Discover, pure genius!

For those not in a situation to pay that balance off, it’s lose, lose. But I wouldn’t have known that or thought about it back in the day, and they would’ve made way more than the $300 they “gave” me. I would have never realized I just stole from myself because it was worded as spend blah amount and get Blah amount FREE!

Have you ever gotten taken by something that seemed great but you realized later, “This free money cost me SO much more than it was worth?”

I’d love to hear that younger Mr. SSC wasn’t the only one that wouldn’t see past that “free offer” and get taken for much, much, more.

By Mr SSC
Posted on December 11, 2014December 11, 2014
4 Comments on Free money cost me HOW much?!

The ‘lightbulb’ emails

Since Mrs. SSC and I have been together she has been in charge of the finances, investing, etc… It just works great for us, and if you read any of my posts, you’ll realize why it works well financially. The interest in this “lightbulb going off” moment has built to a head, so we thought a quick post might make this easier. Here’s my version of how we got to the email chain and spreadsheet listed below. It all began back in Fall of 2009; we had been at our jobs for a year, and open enrollment was upon us at our company and that brought up conversation around HSA elections, and other investment money types of questions. Since everyone knew Mrs. SSC was the human calculator and investment maven for our household, they asked her advice on how best to diversify their 401k portfolio’s, and other investment strategies. She passed around her investment spreadsheet which was an excel spreadsheet that made my eyes glaze over anytime I’d look at it. But, what it did have was years and dates and when we should hit our number for retirement. I knew it was around age 45, and the numbers played out, but her assumptions for cash available to live on seemed scary low, and I wasn’t going to quit a good job with a nice paycheck to eat Ramen and live in a trailer (not that there’s anything wrong with that, if it works for you). So, except for getting emails from our friends amazed that we were going to retire at 45, I’d roll my eyes and think, “Sure, sure, 45, uh huh…”

Last summer, I started paying attention. There was plenty of back and forth, and when Mrs. SSC was talking about “We only really need ~$60k/yr to be comfortable” I had to put the brakes on this crazy train, and I began to argue debate her assumptions on how much we would really need to live off of.

And this is where the story picks up with the email exchange below….

To: Mr. SSC
From: Mrs. SSC
Sent: August 13, 2014 9:05AM

Oh – I’ve accounted for tax, don’t worry – I added in 10% of federal tax, and 7% State tax (for Idaho – they are high!), and then also property tax. So that is all in the formula. It’s just I wonder if there are ways to avoid paying taxes…

Yeah – I like a 15% cushion. Some years we may need it, some years not. In my new & improved spreadsheet (still working on, it’s complicated) I’m adding in cash – setting it at 2 years cash (maybe we can have 1 year cash, 1 year CDs, and then our normal emergency fund in cash). Plus, if we need to tighten up, that 2 years of normal cash would last us at least 3, maybe 4 years in a bad economy – without us getting jobs, and without us taking money out the investments.

So – in the budget I’ve made a few adjustments. Note that cable TV isn’t included, I’m assuming in 5 years you will have found a way to get football streaming. Note also how I’ve added in $500/month on misc. stuff – like house misc. (broom, furniture polish, picture frame, new garden hose, etc), shopping (I guess pharmacy type stuff or just random shit), and kids’ stuff (clothes, school stuff, sports, etc.). So that is almost $6k/yr. of mostly optional crap built in Plus, I am rounding up to 65k with my calculations anyways.

To: Mrs. SSC
From: Mr. SSC
Sent: August 13, 2014 10:14AM

What I’m worried about is saying, “yeah see we can retire even earlier, we just have to tighten the belt even more. Let’s quit now, we can do it, we’d just have to tighten the belt even more, and move it up to our neck, and tie it to something high….” I’m just saying I don’t want to move our budget so far down that we retire, things go south and we’re struggling week to week. And worried about money. Especially If we live somewhere that we can’t pick up oil jobs, I’m a bit more skeptical of the 2019 date.

Just something to think about to let you know where I’m coming from. Xoxoxo

To: Mr. SSC
From: Mrs. SSC
Sent: August 13, 2014 10:41AM

I know. But don’t worry – we will have a nice big buffer in there by the time it all comes around. All I’m saying is 2019 is possible. Do you see anything missing from the ‘budget’ or what makes you think 65k wouldn’t be enough? (this is just a conversation , not an attack). The way I see it 65k has a ton of money built into it – 10k of ‘fudge factor’, 2k in rounding –up, maybe 2k in tax deductions, and if things get rough – up to 12k in deferred ‘allowances’. That is $26k of leeway even before cutting-coupons and turning town the AC/heat and duct-taping shoes to make them last… 😉

Here is a comparison… showing all our expenses currently. The credit card goes down ~$500 because no maid, cheaper cell phone plan, online TV instead of cable, less car expenses (commute/tolls gone). This is what I mean by we aren’t going to need to change our lifestyle much. The July 2014 credit card amounts shown are the average of what we’ve spent the last 6 months – and there were some pricey months… I mean daycare, mortgage and college savings are over $4k themselves that we won’t be paying when we retire early.

Trust me – I’m not trying to fudge numbers to get out of here earlier… I am just trying to understand the actual costs and balance them with being conservative, our comfort level with ‘risk’, and how much time an extra year in the office vs in the mountains hanging out with the kids is worth 😉 I hate cutting coupons!!!! Lol And honestly – there is no way I am not going to have some part time job. I might not get it until the kids go to middle school, but I will have one just to stay busy. Plus, there are ways we can start tapping the 401k early.

To: Mrs. SSC
From: Mr. SSC
Sent: August 13, 2014 12:12 PM

Ok, so you’re saying that right now we have ~$8k going out each month, BUT that includes stuff that won’t be there in 5 years or less. So essentially we drop out ~$4.5k each month. SO, make sure I’m doing this right… with those bills dropped out we are at ~$3700/mo in bills. Then you add a 15% buffer to that to get to $51k/yr for our “pseudo-minimum” needs. Then you add in taxes to work back to where that would put us “pre-tax” which is ~$63k. Then you’re rounding up to $65k as another small buffer. Hence the target of $65k/yr. Huh…

What you’re saying in the right column is that if things get really bad, we cut out allowances, and other things to get to $35k BARE minimum need, but those would be some really sucky times. But, targeting 65k/yr, we would only need about half that to cover the “non-bankruptcy option”. That’s assuming neither of us is working, just living off our saved income. So if we got any jobs that would be on top of this, and if they covered any health care, that would be less overall number.

So then, essentially, this doesn’t even factor in 401k’s because that’s “future money” not included here, this is just the “getting to 401k” type budget, not factoring in any sort of part time work, or other income? Holy shit! Seriously, if this is the budget from now until then, and we both plan on working part time or side gigs, why in the hell are we still working?! Oh right, we need to hit our number first…

I can’t believe that’s all we’d need though. I mean it’s all right there, but yeah, I’m just amazed that the number is what it is, with all those buffers built in and not counting any side income or jobs. I just thought it’d have to be higher… Seriously, I figured it’d be higher…

I think at this point Mrs. SSC read this and smacked her palm to her forehead while rolling her eyes. On the plus side, she was probably happy I finally got it and was on board.

It seems like this is common amongst FIRE couples, with someone pushing the issue and the other person is in my position until they have their own “lightbulb” moment.

Do these types of conversations seem familiar with your better half? Please let me know we aren’t the only ones out there that went through this…