I found myself falling into a familiar trap last night. I had talked to a friend who mentioned a large company in Seattle that she has recruited for that pays very well, but is almost notoriously difficult to work for. It is said that your experience there completely depends on the team with which you’re placed, which is not that different from most companies. However, when reading reviews of the company by actual employees the overwhelming feeling is very negative. Continue reading “The Curious Case of My Heart During A Job Search”
Category: Early Retirement
NYC to Seattle: A Revelation
I had a bit of a revelation today. For months I’ve been running numbers and scenarios as a result of our New York City to Seattle moving plans. I’ve calculated how much less we will pay in rent each month after moving. And on an abstract level knew that we’d save money by not paying state or city income taxes since Washington doesn’t have state income tax while NYC has one of the highest in the country. But today I looked at this information in a different light. Continue reading “NYC to Seattle: A Revelation”
My Ideal Retirement: The Perfect Life
I was recently sent a self help presentation that basically asked that we all learn to separate what they called Means Goals and End Goals. A Means Goal is basically a means to an end and the End Goal is that end result. My Means Goal is to reach financial independence through working and saving while still living life to the fullest. Continue reading “My Ideal Retirement: The Perfect Life”
My 10 Year Plan
Based on my end goal of financial freedom I’ve accumulated information from various books, blogs and traditional retirement calculators to determine how much I need to save to be able to live off of indefinitely. Overall I’m basing my calculations on the updated Trinity Study from 2009 that reinforces the 4% safe withdrawal rate for investments with a 75% stock, 25% bond asset allocation even when adjusting for inflation every year. Mr. Money Mustache makes a lot of excellent points about how this study in itself even builds in a large safety margin by assuming that a person would not adjust spending to account for economic reality, such as a recession, or substitute goods to compensate for the inflation of an individual item.Continue reading “My 10 Year Plan”
Discovering FIRE Bloggers
My partner enjoys reading reddit and had mentioned that I should read the blog of Mr. Money Mustache. I went to his site and read a random article about him being sued, decided this blog wasn’t for me and moved on. I had such patience back then 🙂 . A few months later I returned randomly, saw the site had undergone a complete overhaul and was welcomed by a giant Start Here. Instead of reading about him being sued I was taken on a step-by-step journey of how he retired at 31. This began a month long obsession of reading everything MMM has ever written. Continue reading “Discovering FIRE Bloggers”
10 Years to Financial Independence
A few months ago I decided that I am now 10 years to retirement. According to my calculations growing a nest egg that would allow me to retire in 10 years (at age 35) is more than doable based on my current salary and savings rate. Even though I’ve only been working for 3.5 years it was quickly apparent to me that working for other people, commuting to an office every day and working towards goals that are not aligned with my own is not something I want to do for 40 years. So I decided to change it.