Please Allow Me to Introduce Myself…
Thanks for dropping into my little corner of cyberspace. When you clicked on this blog you probably thought you stumbled upon another retired 30-something who’s mastered the arts of investing, entrepreneurship, and frugality and has set out to tell their tale of Financial Independence and Early Retirement (FIRE). This aint that blog… yet. While FIRE is the goal, I am far from it. If I’ve led you astray, then I do apologize. There are several great blogs out there that deliver on the promises above. In fact, you can find them on my recommendations page.
Rather, this blog seeks to put you, the reader, in the stands to watch the race… the journey from complete brainwashed, drooling from the mouth, weapon of mass consumption to being financially independent. Along the way I will detail our progress towards FI, explain the logic behind the decisions made, and provide a post-mortem on the results. You’ll hear about the opportunities, the challenges, the successes and the bone-crushing failures. Along the way I hope you come to learn from our mistakes and maybe, just maybe, pick up a good tip or two. If all goes well, hopefully I can re-write those first paragraphs sometime in the next 15 years or so. If not… Hey, everyone watches racing for the crashes, right?
Who am I? 
I’m a 33-year-old husband, father of two, licensed civil engineer, with over a decade of work experience in both the government and consulting sectors (where I am at currently). I’ve worked on projects including strip malls, massive subdivisions, multi-million-dollar mansions, levees, bridges, to high rises. My hobbies include DIY-anything, cooking, the outdoors, and most of all, collecting other hobbies. Recent passions have included remodeling our kitchen, homebrewing, BBQ, and reading everything I can get my hands on for FI and investing.
My wife is working full time in the IT industry, and is clearly the brains of the family and the glue that holds it all together. We met in college and now have two beautiful, crazy daughters. We live in a suburb of St. Louis, straddling the line between centrally located and urban sprawl. It’s a lovely City with a number of challenges, which both help and hamper the pursuit of FI, but that’s a story for another post.
What’s the story so far?
Fresh out of college I was fortunate to land a decent job in the consulting realm as a civil engineer. Which was good, since I had a mountain of student debt and payments were now due. But being in debt up to my eyeballs wasn’t enough. Shortly after graduating I decided to reward myself by purchasing a new, full size pickup truck… with bank financing. Then I made a bolder move by buying a single-family house (in 2008 at the height of the bubble!!!!), with minimal money down and paying PMI. I spent the next few months being house poor and realizing that I needed a roommate to help cover costs. Thankfully, by this time my girlfriend (now wife) was looking for a roommate as well and so we decided to move in together. Of course, we needed to furnish the house so we bought TVs and a mattress, on credit, and developed a routine of going out to eat. Savings? Meh, we’ll save later, right? Honestly, we made minimum contributions to our employee plans to get the match, but that was about it. Put another way, we were living like everyone around us, with no further thoughts given.
That’s not to say we weren’t having fun, hell, we were having a great time. But my bank account was shrinking while my waist size was growing. Both of us were excelling at our jobs and receiving decent raises. But the repetitive stress of work was wearing on me. By my late twenties it became clear to me that working the traditional 30-40 years was not for me. Clearly FI was the way out of the rat race. I started running the numbers. But I was totally befuddled. How could I have such a good job but be so far from FI that, at this point, retiring at all appeared dubious at best. Oh, and wait, about this time we decided to add a couple of kids to this boiling cauldron of consumer debt along with moving to a bigger house, buying a bigger car, and each of us changing jobs. In other words, we were living the widely-held definition of the American Dream, minus half a kid.
Something. Had. To. Give. …and so, it did. A few years back my brother recommended I read “Rich Dad Poor Dad” by Robert Kiyosaki. I tore through that book in two days. Then I blew through the “Millionaire Next Door” and pushed my way through “The Intelligent Investor” by Graham & Dodd, and then finally stumbled upon the FIRE movement. Most notably the blogs of Mr. Money Mustache, Jlcollinsnh, and Financial Samurai. And everything just clicked. It was like I stepped out of the fog and into the light for the first time. All the challenges, and gripes I had, became something I could control. Finally, a way of life was laid out that appealed to so many feelings I’ve had on and off throughout the years. Truly, the information was common sense but now I could see how all the pieces fit. This. Was. Doable.
As I shook off the shock from this thermonuclear revelation I took a look at my past decisions and finances and for the first time noticed absurdity of it. I could feel the debt holding me back, like vines wrapping all my limbs. So, like explorers entangled deep in the Amazon Rainforest, we got out machetes and started hacking. First my truck payment, then my student loans, then her car payment, then the kitchen credit card debt, continuously rolling the money previously earmarked for (now repaid) debts into those remaining. At the time of this post, the only debt, outside of our mortgage, left standing is a small fragment of my wife’s student loans and this too will be vanquished within a couple months. With the death of each debt I could feel the weight lessen. I felt emboldened. Hell, if we could knock this debt out that fast, with just minimal changes to our lifestyle, then what else could we do?
The path ahead.
This is where it gets fun. This is where you jump in for the ride. Moving forward we have some big decisions to make, and numerous questions to ponder. How do we go about boosting our savings rate? Where do we invest, and using what strategy and allocation? What to do with our current investments? How should we fund our kid’s college? Should we optimize our choice of vehicles now or later? Should we dive into real estate, start a new business, switch career fields? What happens when planned savings clashes with Murphy’s Law? How does the drive for FI mesh with raising our kids alongside families following with conventional path of spending all their earnings? Remember that house I bought at the height of the market in ’08? We still own it and rent it out. Will our tenants burn the place to the ground or will they be model citizens? Do we stay the rental path, or sell? How do you balance the discipline of seeking FI while enjoying life now?
With each post I hope to explore each of these topics and offer commentary on other aspects of life as I see them or have experienced them. The hope is that by putting the thought and research into each topic and by showing our work to the world, we will be pushed to reach farther and think smarter. If someone finds value in the dialogue here and can make an impact in their own life, then that is icing on the cake. The advice herein is specific only to our situation. What works for us may not work for you at all. I am not a financial professional. Please do your own due diligence when considering the approaches outlined here. I will make every effort to answer questions asked, and truly hope that with the input from others we can fill in the gaps and improve the quality, depth, and breadth of the information provided. Thanks for stopping by.