$5K to Retirement In 9 Years: Year 5 “A Seattle Bait & Switch”

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This is part of a series about my journey to early retirement. In case you missed it, here are the previous parts:

  1. $5K to Retirement In 9 Years: Year 1 “Is This Adulting?”
  2. $5K to Retirement In 9 Years: Year 2 “Avoiding My Problems With Exercise & Consumerism”
  3. $5K to Retirement In 9 Years: Year 3 “Discovering FIRE…And Ignoring It”
  4. $5K to Retirement In 9 Years: Year 4 “Catching A Unicorn”

Year 5

So the countdown to leaving NYC, my job and our awesome apartment, had begun! I was curious how difficult it would be to get a job across the country in a city where I had no connections (since I’ve gotten most of my jobs through networking), and it was indeed difficult. Companies seemed to not want to interview me as soon as I said I wasn’t in the area. I get that meeting face to face can be key to an interview, but video chat exists people πŸ™‚ !

Anyway, since I had no network to rely on, I was applying to places through job postings AKA the old fashioned way πŸ˜‰ and shockingly, for the first time in my career, I got a reply from applying to a job through an online portal! They were totally understanding that I hadn’t moved to Seattle yet and set up a series of interviews over video chat and mentioned that they would fly me out for a final interview if all went well.

So I did this gauntlet of interviews – one after the other. They took about 3 hours total. Since we lived in a studio, I had to kick my partner out of our space for that time – luckily we lived near a lot of cool stuff so he wasn’t bored sitting on our stoop or anything πŸ™‚ . When this interview marathon finished, I was shocked again because: They hired me over Skype!!!

So one thing was a done deal at least: I had a job when I got to Seattle and it was at the same level I had before, but I negotiated them up to paying me $85,000 a year!! I started doing calculations and realized that between this salary increase and the lower cost of living in Seattle, that I might be able to cut my retirement timeline from 10 years…to 5!

The sun is rising on a new possibility…

So my future job was all worked out! Now I bet you’re wondering what was happening during the last months at my current job – you know that dream job I was literally worried sick to give up? Well, that job ceased to exist of course πŸ™‚ . The high level shadiness I mentioned in my previous post had unfortunately bled into our little work paradise.

My badass boss was asked to take over our entire ad agency and become The President. I say asked, but it wasn’t really a request – it was a demand. She had been very clear with me and everyone else that she did not want to run another agency, but they needed her and she decided to step up in that moment (Spoiler: She quit that horrible situation less than a year later).

Obviously she can’t do two jobs at once, so the mini-agency we were building within this company was pushed to the way-side. If I hadn’t given my notice, I likely would have been laid off like many people were around me. Wow. Bullet dodged with another lovely reminder that nothing lasts forever. So my previous company was crumbling around me and also hilariously had decided to move a 10 minute walk from my apartment one month before I left – typical πŸ™‚ .

So close and yet so far…

Anyway, while the office moved I was busy finding low cost ways to move across the country. We got rid of a lot of our stuff, packed up everything else and shipped it to Seattle (address TBD). We had to find an apartment before telling the moving truck where to go after it arrived on the opposite coast. The race was on! We did all of the above, had several goodbye parties with our friends and said Ciao to the city we’d called home for all of our adult lives.

See you later NYC!

Once again, random friendships prove to be awesome πŸ™‚ . That same receptionist turned recruiter friend that I visited on my OG trip to Seattle, asked us to stay with her for a week while we found our own place. She picked us up at the airport and she greeted us with a giant glittery banner welcoming us to Seattle. It was so sweet and warmed my heart πŸ™‚ .

She then went above and beyond trying to help us find an apartment. We were driving all over the place looking at listings, but none of them were living up to what I was looking for. Luckily, after some sleuthing on my part, we found something promising that was walking distance to both our workplaces.

Sup Seattle?

Because I am almost too punctual and neurotic, we arrived at the apartment viewing early – so early that they hadn’t opened the doors yet. So we wandered down the street and found a lovely Mexican restaurant (which would soon become our “Shaw’s Bar” of Seattle), ordered a margarita, got a text from the broker that they could open early for us, chugged said margarita and sprinted up the hill to the apartment (Heads up: Seattle is very hilly – like SF hilly. I had no idea and it was a brutal trek πŸ™‚ ).

We got to see the apartment before anyone else and talk to the broker one-on-one. He casually mentioned that the unit above the one we were there to see was also available and asked if we wanted to see it. We said sure out of curiosity. The first apartment we saw was a ground floor unit with a lot of windows. The second apartment was the top floor of this small building with a view of Downtown, Mt. Rainier and The Space Needle.

Hi Giant Mountain!

I was entranced and I (worriedly) asked how much more this apartment was than the other one and the answer was: an extra $50/month….WHAT?!? We immediately said “We’ll take it!” and snatched up the apartment before anyone else had even seen it.

We rented this one bedroom for $1,597.75 total per month for the next 5 years. They raised the rent a little bit a few times including increasing it $5/month at one point to which we responded…why even bother πŸ™‚ ? When we left in 2020 we were paying $1693.94/month. Not bad πŸ™‚ .

The view from our apartment

So we had our apartment and a place to tell the movers to bring our stuff! We moved out of my friend’s guest room, moved our stuff into our new apartment, and started to settle into Seattle life. This new job, which I’ll call Company 5, told me I should take all the time I needed to settle into my new life, so I had a full week to get everything ready before starting my new job. Hearing something like that was unheard of in my NYC jobs, so I was curious to see if jobs in Seattle really were that different.

…and they are πŸ™‚ . My new job was amazing. I didn’t know if it was Seattle people or culture or what, but the environment was WAY more relaxed and less high strung than NYC. People seemed super nice and the work was manageable (aka there wasn’t a lot of it compared to what I was used to, but what I was used to required constant late nights and this job only required occasional ones). My coworkers were lovely and similar to when I had my dream job, I didn’t really mind going to work.

The view from the roof of my work building

I loved walking to work with my partner – he was working out of a co-working space a block away from my office so we would walk to and from work together. It was super cute πŸ™‚ . We were getting settled in Seattle and I started making friends through work, so I was ready to turn my focus to my favorite new nerdy hobby: FINANCE!

I had been using the budget app YNAB for almost a year and was tracking my spending in Seattle to see how it compared to the months I had tracked in NYC. I suspected my costs would be lower without me doing anything, and that was exactly what happened πŸ™‚ .

Despite all this yummy and fresh seafood…

As you’ll see in the coming years, my costs dropped from about $35,000 in NYC to $18,000 in Seattle. My spending slowly decreased to that level after all the moving and travel costs were eliminated from my budget.

I made a few effortless changes, such as reducing my rent from $1,337.50 each a month for Β½ a 400 sq ft studio to $846.97 for Β½ a top floor, corner 700 sq ft 1 bedroom that was walking distance to work with gorgeous views and southwest facing windows. I also obviously found this new job that I loved where I made almost $20,000 more than I was making in NYC.

And then I did make some intentional changes. I changed my phone plan from a $90/month plan with AT&T to a $15/month Republic Wireless plan. I also taught myself how to travel hack and got my fancy Mom on board with it.

I travel hacked my way to free tickets across the country to go home for the holidays, as well as First Class seats to Vietnam and ThailandΒ for me and Mom. We were living it up for basically free πŸ™‚ . I also overcame my obsession with gadgets and expensive vacations, analyzed my love of eating out to maximize my happiness and hit $100,000 net worth!

Ahhh Thailand

So I’d been living it up and building a new life in Seattle for almost a year when inevitable change started sweeping through πŸ™‚ . My job (once again) started getting a little weird. I became more aware of the politics, the dynamics and machinations of the higher ups, and watched my favorite people I worked with be replaced with others randomly. At the same time, I kept getting more and more work handed to me.

A boozy hot cocoa cart sadly won’t make up for this…

My workload finally became too NYC 24/7 for my liking, so I raised my hand asking for help and was met with silence wrapped in a “We’re all in this together! Be a positive person! Don’t be a whiner,” which sounded like some MLM-esque bullshit to me. It was also a serious red flag. I was once again a year into a job and it had changed so much that I couldn’t recognize it…So I quickly became over it πŸ™‚ .

What I didn’t know until later was that the reason people were being weird and stressed and moving things around and giving me a lot more work, was because for the first time in a decade, the agency was on the verge of losing their main account – the one I worked on. The higher ups were panicking at the possibility and trying everything to prevent it. Well, in the end, despite their efforts: It didn’t work.

A boozy Labor Day spread can’t save you either…

The agency’s main client moved the work we did, to another agency (which has an even weirder story down the line that I’ll get back to if I can). And as a result, our agency had to let a lot of people go. And I was one of them πŸ™‚ . This was the second time that a lay off aligned perfectly with me wanting to leave anyway. My boss had taken me aside and told me I was being let go and my reaction was literally to say “That’s cool.” to which she replied “No it’s NOT.”…Ok πŸ™‚ ? Like damn lady, let’s get some levity in here πŸ˜‰ .

Y’all might need another theme besides “Alcohol”

So I left that meeting and went to HR where I was told I would receive one week of severance pay (cool!), but I soon discovered it had a huge catch. They slid a piece of paper across the table towards me and like everything I’m asked to sign – I read all of it.

It said that to receive a week of severance pay I had to sign a gag order and I could never say anything negative about Company 5, their holding company or anyone that has ever worked there – and if I did, Company 5 could sue me. My jaw dropped when I read it.

I asked the HR head who was asking me to sign this if it could be edited. She said no so I told her I wouldn’t sign it. She looked surprised. Even though I was early on my FIRE journey I wasn’t about to sign my integrity away for a few thousand dollars. Also the thought that they would dangle money in front of someone who had just been laid off sickened me.

And it wasn’t even that I was planning to say anything particularly negative about the company. I was just going to tell the truth: the good and bad. But after that shit I told everyone who would listen to stay away from that company πŸ™‚ .

Another weird part of this interaction was that I was friends with the other people in HR, asked about this gag order and they had no idea what I was talking about. Apparently it’s something only the head of HR knew about and dealt with. Super shady. Anyway, I’m extremely glad that I was in the position to say no to β€˜free’ money and once again walk away if a situation was not to my liking. What a saga πŸ™‚ .

The sun is setting on my faith in any company…

So I moved across the country, found a wonderful job and then…that job went up in smoke at the perfect moment πŸ™‚ . I may have been in a new city, but I already felt at home and was excited to take a few months off before jumping back into the rat race. I applied to a few new jobs each week, collected unemployment and ended up traveling all over the US visiting my friends for 4 glorious months. Let’s see where I netted out after all that:

Salary: $85,000

Spending: $22,518.67

Net Worth: $137,612

So Young Purple is once again funemployed. What kind of shenanigans will she get up to? Will she find another job or have to start working in the salt mines?Β Tune in next time to see what happens πŸ˜‰ .Β 

Here’s the next post in this series:Β $5K to Retirement In 9 Years: Year 6 “Searching for Bigfoot”

24 thoughts on “$5K to Retirement In 9 Years: Year 5 “A Seattle Bait & Switch”

  1. Although I’ve read it multiple times, I’m still shocked by your COL in Seattle. Even when aggregated with your partner’s expenses, assuming a 50% split, it’s seems outrageous.

    While I’ve never lived in Seattle, I’ve visited many times. It’s so incongruous to my experience spending in there.

    It’s always nice to have examples that seem impossible.

    This series is a fun read!

  2. This post is eye-opening!

    I currently live in NYC and the following quote:
    “As you’ll see in the coming years, my costs dropped from about $35,000 in NYC to $18,000 in Seattle. ”

    is quite significant. Although I love the fast-paced 24/7 lifestyle here, and having visited Seattle ~7 times and probably not my favorite place in the world, I think I ought to consider lowering my expenses in the years to come by moving somewhere more affordable. I guess my dilemma is: Is there a place (either in the US or internationally) where one can enjoy an NYC-like lifestyle but for cheap?

    1. Yeah 4 years in NYC was more than enough for me. Seattle is much more my speed and I loved my 5 years there. As for if there are cities with an NYC-like experience – I think that depends on what you think is “NYC like.” Seattle has the things I love about NYC (walkability, good food) without the downsides (crowds, the smell). I’m sure there are many similar cities out there with less of an NYC price tag.

  3. I am loving this series, Purple! Every episode/post has so many twists and turns. Sheezus, who knows what will happen next??? Also, you are amazing for being able to live well on $18,000 in Seattle. Wow. The last time I was able to live on an amount that low was almost 25 years ago when I got my first full-time job in Seattle, lived like I was still a grad student, and made less than $19,000/year. You inspire me.

    1. YAY I love to hear that! And yeah my life there surprisingly didn’t cost a lot – I guess no house, car, kids and pets can go a long way πŸ˜‰ .

  4. I’m loving this series! I think it would help if you could put the year into the posts – especially when people look back on these later! It would give context to the rent and job markets, especially.

    I’m also a former east coaster who fell in love with the PNW, but I moved out in the 90s. At one point I split a place with friends and my share of the rent was $275 πŸ™‚ but I was making something like 27k so that was pretty necessary! I had housemates into my mid-30s because my rent was still only $400 (on a 55k salary… much better) and I couldn’t justify getting my own place & paying more until I moved to a new city for a few years.

    1. Fair point – I had a debate about that with myself and ended up including the year in the finance graph at the bottom. Otherwise I wanted this to feel more like a story outside of time if that makes sense πŸ™‚ .

      And that sounds like a lovely time in the PNW!

  5. Perhaps EVERY β€œcorporate wage slave” β€œjob” is a β€œsalt mine” in one way or another? Or eventually becomes one???

  6. Purple, I would love to know your thoughts on “the strength of weak ties.” It’s a concept I just learned of recently through a book I was reading and basically says that a majority of big life moments actually result from a so-called “weak connection,” or someone that we would not consider a close friend or even acquaintance.

    Reading your “how I got here series” has been so reminiscent of that idea. Your networking leads to jobs etc. I’m sure you have had many more “weak tie” experiences as well but this series in particular brought into sharp relief for me! Love reading your overview as well πŸ™‚

    1. That’s an interesting idea I haven’t heard of before! You made me want to separate out how I got each of these jobs below. Very interesting πŸ™‚ . Thank you for sharing.

      Company 1: Alumni
      Company 2: Weak Tie
      Company 3: Friend
      Company 4: The Same Weak Tie
      Company 5: No Connection
      Company 6: Friend

  7. I like your way and the way it is described. Can You please recommend me a book suitable for my 24 years daughter (she is still a student) , I want to attract her attention to FI.
    Thank you for your blog and
    Best regards from Germany

  8. Would you mind sharing the steps or methods you used to increase your net worth outside of general saving, increasing income, and lowering your expenses. I saw that you used a Roth ira. Any other methods that you could recommend?

    1. I’m not sure I understand what you mean. Those are the ways I increased my net worth (saving, making money, spending less) and a Roth IRA is just a place to put those savings. The other buckets I put savings in were a 401K, Traditional IRA and Taxable account.

      1. Thank you for replying, I was wondering if you used any investment accounts? I’m still researching retirement accounts, but as far as I know we can’t go into those until we’re 55. I suppose you can take money out at a penalty. But I have to figure out the logistics behind that. Would you take out money on a yearly basis and accept the penalty?

        1. Hi Jaye – all of the accounts I listed are investment accounts. You can access tax-advantaged accounts earlier without penalty through a Roth IRA Conversion Ladder – that’s what I’m doing. I’m writing a post about that process, but it won’t be out until summer so I’d suggest doing research on that. Blogs like the MadFIentist talk about it in detail. Good luck!

          1. Well I googled this Conversion Ladder and Ma’am all I can say is Thank YouπŸ₯³! Things are starting to make sense πŸ’œ I’ll keep an eye out for your article in the summer.

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