I’ve just spent the last hour on a website I just discovered, and am so inspired I wanted to share it with you. Early Retirement Extreme is my kind of site. The guy who writes it (Jacob) is in his early 30s and financially free… without ever earning a six figure income or coming into any sort of inheritance or windfall. He is an extreme saver, saving 70 -80% of his income during his working years. He now works about four hours a week on the computer, which provides enough income to cover his expenses. I love reading stories like this; they inspire me and motivate me.
Jacob lives in an RV, and leads a very simple – and happy – life. My family has a house with 3/4 of an acre of land, but we also lead a simple, happy life. Our expenses are quite a bit higher than Jacob’s, mainly because of the house. But we have a 15 year mortgage with a fixed 4.625% interest rate, and we’re working hard to pay it off in less than half of the scheduled time. Once we do, our expenses will drop considerably, since our mortgage accounts for about half of our monthly expenses.
We’re also working towards our goal of growing most of our own food, which will further reduce our expenses (food is our highest expense after the mortgage). Buying a house with a large yard was a big part of our long term plan, and it feels great to make extra payments on our mortgage every month, knowing that we’re working towards owning our own mini-farm someday.
Right now, we’re saving about 50% of our after-tax income (I include the extra we pay toward the mortgage in this figure). I’m so impressed by Jacob’s story, and inspired to keep focusing on our long-term goals. Retirement means different things to different people, but I think that everyone would appreciate more time to devote to things that they love rather than things that they must do in order to earn money (for a small percentage of people, these are one and the same, but for most people, there are plenty of things they would rather do than whatever it is they do to generate an income). If you’re interested, check out Jacob’s blog and get inspired to start saving for your own independence day!
MoneyEnergy says
Love the site design!
I found Jacob’s site about 10 months ago or so… and quickly became as obsessed – many things, especially his reasoning, really struck a chord with my own thoughts and values. I highly recommend everyone check it out. If you don’t walk away inspired about something re: improving your life, efficiency, wealth, health etc., well, … something might be wrong;)
Zella says
My husband and I actually had this discussion this past weekend. I love what I do, and would do it regardless of how much money I had saved… I don’t really come from a family of people who retire, however. Everyone just sort of moves on into another job, until health forces them to quit. His family is pretty much the same way.
We are saving for retirement, but most of our savings are allocated for other things. It might not be tax-advantaged, but it fits our goals better.
Andy Hough says
ERE has been one of my favorite sites for a couple of years. I’m surprised you didn’t discover it sooner. It is in my blogroll.
FrugalBabe says
So am I, Andy! But I tend to get stuck in a rut with the blogs I read. Especially since our son was born, the amount of time I have to devote to perusing blogs has decreased quite a bit, and I don’t venture out as often as I should.
Early Retirement Extreme says
Thanks for the highlight. I sometimes suspect I am the best kept secret in the pf world. It’s probably because I don’t do linkexchanges and so I don’t appear on very many blog rolls.
Kaytee says
FB,
I’m curious if you can recall the % of your monthly income that you were saving while you were still debt? I struggle with this constantly, because I love seeing our sick amount of debt numbers go down, but I also love to see our savings and retirement accounts go up. Also, do you still have a solar panel fund?
~Kaytee
FrugalBabe says
Kaytee,
My husband started our business in 2002, and for the first year, we lived off of my salary. But I joined him in 2003, and for the next year, we were broke and going into debt just to survive. During that year, we saved nothing at all. I think we might have paid a little extra on our mortgage once or twice, but that was it. No emergency fund, no retirement savings (we both had IRAs that we had rolled over from our 401k plans, but we took a year off from funding them), nothing. Starting in 2004, we began contributing $100/month to each of our IRAs – and even that was a stretch. We bumped it up to $200/month into each account the next year, and I think that was also the year we opened our ING account and started putting $100/month into an emergency fund. But we raided that account a few times to pay bills, and didn’t really start focusing on building it up until a year later. It was 2007 when we paid off the last of our non-mortgage debt, and that was when we really started focusing on savings. We have kept our spending at nearly the same level it was at when we were at our poorest, but our income has increased and we have no debt payments to make other than our mortgage. This has allowed us to commit a large chunk of our income to savings – we’re trying to make up for those lost years in our 20s when we didn’t save much!
We do still have the solar panel account (it’s at ING), but it’s just sitting there for now. At our old house, adding solar panels was one of the only things we could do to make our home more eco-friendly. Here, the sky’s the limit. We’re considering home-made wind turbines, greywater recycling, rainwater harvesting, and several other projects. We’re actively working towards growing most of our own food… there are so many possibilities here that are less expensive than solar panels. So we’re sitting on that decision for now. If we decide to go solar, we’ll need to start funding that account again, as we don’t have anywhere near enough money in it yet.
Don says
I have read most of whats posted on ERX.
Saving for solar is great but beginning to understand solar is where you will see the savings. I just moved out of a 1.2 mil. home over looking the Pacific in LA CA,. to a one acre secondary lake lot in WA. State, In May of 2014, I moved into a Craig s List find of a Classic Class A, Motor Home, a steal at $800.00. My lot had been listed all winter for about 5k more than I was able to purchase it for, it is a treed lot 35 miles North of Spokane and I love the area. I had wanted my own land and I wanted septic rather than city sewer and a monthly payment. I also wanted a well and thought I would go all solar with a small generator as back up. I was surprised that the motor home has a 4000 Kilowatt generator already in it that works well as part of the purchase price that was a bonus, I did not know the lot had Power. PUD water and my own septic system in and permitted. this all was a huge bonus. I discovered this was omitted from the web listing when I went to see the lot. I think a lot of people did not want raw land and the price went down as the lot sat online for sale. I then drove up to see it and made a cash offer that day closed in a week. I paid cash for the lot and all the facilities along with a small pole barn and a smaller shed. This summer I enclosed the pole barn and next summer will have a small cabin for a few thousand and my labor. all for less than the price of a compact import car, I own it for ever and about $250. a year in taxes.
Sorry for the long story but here are my thoughts on solar as I see it based on my new circumstances. You should down size your needs and look at what you are using power for. Change to LED lights where you can, cut wasted power and as I do, I am mixing solar with cheap power from the power company at ,14 cents a Kilowatt hour, I do the big things like run a washer dryer and run my power tools on grid power or wash in a laundry sink by hand for some things and air dry for free, weather permitting, Save on solar and run a smaller system now. spend $1000.00 to set up a small system to power just your living room or bedroom and learn about living on solar then designing your own system. The best way to learn to live better and smarter is with in the restrictions of that smaller system is to use it, Buy the extra power at a cheaper rate than you can make it with solar. Trust me, having a greedy Solar Company Salesmen, a unit pusher, cover your roof with panels and filling your garage or basement with a huge collection acid filled, off gassing and dangerous batteries is expensive and I think not the best way to go. As a GREEN guy, I like the green in my pocket and I do not feel guilty about using power from our many hydro-power dams in WA state.
I posted this sitting in my Snowbirds camper in Quartzite AZ surrounded by Snowbirds from all over the US and Canada in their motor homes. truck campers and trailers. All enjoying the sun and the warmth and a kinda fellowship of very cheep living out of the snow for a few months. Some in Mil. dollar coaches others in very old rigs that could not cost much, but most living on Solar System generated power as am I now running my lap op off my battery ! P.S. It only cost me $180.00 to park my rig on the BLM long term camping land for the winter with water. trash and RV dump stations. One of the best (early in my case) retirement deals ever. Town a few miles away and a Walt-Mart just about 30 miles away.
I hope to begin posting on my dormant Blog MYRICHFRUGALLIFE and posting some video on YouTube, under the same name now that I am settled in for the winter under the sun.
This Thrifted Life says
Thanks for recommending this blog! I’m really enjoying looking through his site and can’t believe I hadn’t found it before.
GC says
thanks 4 the link!