Mentioned previously that I found Mr. Money Mustache many years ago, and then a few weeks ago after we left California that we hit a major milestone (as we became "homeless," living in our van).
Between selling our house, which hopefully closes in the next couple weeks, and the recent market upturn, we've essentially surpassed our number.
I started looking for a new job a while ago, not really considering how close we were. Our plan was (is?) to move to Florida, start new jobs in May, and work for maybe another year before actually retiring. But fuck, now we're both sitting here wondering why? I feel committed to start this job I accepted months ago as I'd feel shitty leaving them with a hole when they've been waiting for me to start since February. I think we decided today that my wife won't even bother transferring her job anymore. The only x factor is that we'd like to build a house, and that's a lot easier done when you have steady employment (at least for getting a loan). And with inflation potentially on the horizon, I'd kind of rather get a mortgage than pay for it outright.
We're both kind of relieved to be in this position, but also after 3 weeks of travelling the country and not having any commitments, feeling ambivalent towards "rejoining" the workforce. We've still got another 3 more weeks until my job starts, so we'll still be in vacation mode for a bit.
Anyway, this really just became a Livejournal post about nothing. I mostly wanted to encourage people to pursue financial independence because it really can be a reality. I think I discovered the concept around 2014 and didn't get serious about it until early 2015. I never thought we'd get here so fast (we had maybe $80k saved at that point and were making a combined income around $70k a year). A series of fortuitous raises and not having kids really helped. I mentioned in Politics that I was able to tell my boss to essentially fuck off because I disagreed with the direction of the organization (resigned from management and then just quit about 2 weeks later). I think around 2016 I had projected we'd have enough to retire by 2024 or so. If we finish out 2022 working, we'll probably have an extra 15-20% more than what the 4% rule says we need.
Edit: Also, to be open about everything, our max combined income was definitely higher than median, but even our best year was $185k in 2020, and that was after major raises for both of us. Prior to that we were in the $90-$140k range from 2015-2019. We generally saved about 60-70% of gross. I share that because most people here veer towards things like technology or engineering where those salaries are definitely feasible and I believe most of you could retire within 10-15 years if you just manage expenses and stash the rest away in a broad market index.
