The Intersection of FIRE and Disney

[Happy814]

Posted too soon!

 

[shh]

This ceases to amaze me too...because I travel I am rich?? Trade-Offs is so not understood with some folks! My saying to people is "You can have practically ANYTHING you want. You can't have EVERYTHING you want". Unfortunately many of the people I encounter actually have NOTHING that they want because they waste all their money buying things somebody else has that isn't even important to them

I say this same thing all the time! I wish I could say it to certain family members deep in debt and denial.

 

[Happy814]

Age: DH and I are both 28

How Long You've Been Chasing FIRE: I'm firmly in the FIRE curious camp as of now. Looking forward, we are much more likely to pursue the FI and not the RE part. We have a family business, so we are looking to somewhat go in the OPPOSITE direction to what you all are probably doing. For example, we are maintaining a good relationship with our banker because we know we will want to acquire more debt in the future to fund growth. I have always been a frugal person. After we got married (at age 20), I spent a LOT of time reading what I like to call the "Dave Ramsey Fan Club" blogs. I started our married life off with varying ventures into frugality. I eventually found MMM at some point and began to think more deeply about minimalism, preserving the environment, and building wealth/financial security without sacrificing a fulfilling life.

How much longer you think you have to work: The past couple of years we have deviated from the FIRE path. I'm currently in grad school (plus working a full-time++ job) and DH has been working tirelessly to grow/maintain the business. This is wild and audacious, but I would love to see FI by 40. I do not imagine that we will quit working at that time however. DH has a few health problems that will most likely worsen as he gets older, so I'm not willing to push off life experiences for "when we retire." I'd rather work a few extra years than forgo vacations and nice dinners. It helps that we both love our jobs and get a significant personal fulfillment from them.

Random Fact: I'm a super fast reader. It isn't unusual for me to read a book in one sitting. My record so far this year was the month of May when I read 12 books. Once FIRE comes I'll have even more time to read!!

 

[afan]

I say this same thing all the time! I wish I could say it to certain family members deep in debt and denial.

I think we all bite our tongue on stuff like that or we wouldn't be on the budget board I have a friend that got a new escape a couple years ago and just traded it in for the newer one because she wanted more room for the dogs crates. They are small doxies and she uses their home crates for taking them places. It would have been easier and way cheaper to get smaller, plastic or just smaller wire crates. Then she'll complain about money. She at least realizes that credit card churning isn't for her which is why I barely talk about it. But I also know she carries a balance and buys impulsively. Which is one of my downfalls but it's also stuff at dollar tree or the dollar spot at target, so stuff under 10. But I also adjust other things so I can get hot chocolate at starbucks if I want. It's all about balance. My goal is to save more but not by being more of a homebody than I already am.

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

...It would have been easier and way cheaper to get smaller, plastic or just smaller wire crates...

It would be cheaper to get rid of the dogs...(wait did I take this too far??)

 

[alryan]

So last night I went to the library and checked out The Millionaire Next Door. Because I like not paying for things that I can get for free! I’ve heard of it many times over the years and I think it will be an interesting read. Thanks for putting it back on my radar.

Me too! I'm interested to read it. Chris Hogan also has a similar book coming out in January called Everyday Millionaires, which sounds very similar.

 

[afan]

It would be cheaper to get rid of the dogs...(wait did I take this too far??)

Just a bit.

 

[alryan]

Some have answered already but I'm curious...what decision that you have made do you think has best helped you to be in a position to save? And the opposite...what things tempt you to get off the path? For us I think the answer would be housing. We bought a house with a 15 year mortgage so we will be totally debt free at retirement. I remember going in to get pre-approval for a loan and couldn't believe the amount they told us we could "afford", probably around twice as much as we paid. On the other hand, the thing that tempts me sometimes to be "normal" is upgrades on the house. I absolutely love hardwood floors and hate the carpet in my house, but every time I say, ok we are doing this, I look at the $8000 and say "Is this worth no vacations for two years? Do I want to go into debt for this? Do I want my DH to have to work for an additional year to make up for taking money out of our Roth?" And the answer is always no...but someday I will get my hardwood floors!! As others have said, all about choices!

On the bright side, since we cut cable and went to YouTube TV and don't have HGTV my house "wants" have decreased dramatically!

 

[WVMomof3]

We are both 47 with kids 20, 18 and 16. We are on the 3rd of 8 years straight of tuition bills (1st year of 4 that will have double tuition bills). I am firmly in the FIRE curious and have been researching more in the last year. Though when I mentioned to DH he should retire at his MRA of 57 (Federal Employee) he was like why would I want to do that? So, I do think we could be FI but not RE, but his job goes in cycles of love/hate so we will see. I must confess, that while I do try to track our money, I am very much shocked every month when the CC bills come in how high they are. I am a very cheap person, I feel we don't spend frivolously, but I really need to track better so I know just where it goes. That is my goal this year. I started to use Mint, have used quicken in the past, and haven't loved either method. I feel like YNAB is too much but it gets so much love here maybe I should revisit it.

I am always fascinated by the numbers people throw out as their retirement goal. I read some posts on an early retirement forum and people throw out numbers from 500,000 to 6 million or more. I am in the camp of I do not need to leave an inheritance behind to my family. I really don't understand the thinking behind it. Hopefully I will live to my 90s at which time my kids will be in their 60s so why do they need my money then? DH will get a pension of approximately 40% of his high 3 salary so I think my numbers are more 1-2 million by the age of 57.

 

[DisneyMandC]

• Age: I'm 29 and DH is 30! I've only been working for four years though since I went to law school immediately after college.
• How Long You've Been Chasing FIRE: I learned about FIRE in 2015, but haven't really been chasing it so much as I've used it as inspiration to focus on paying down student debt and learning to live more frugally. While I'm not particularly interested in retiring early (I love what I do and DH and I are both workaholics), I do want to have enough money to not only be able to live comfortably when we do retire, but also to be able to support our parents. Both of our parents have very little retirement savings and will likely need significant help in the future.
• How much longer you think you have to work: I work for the government and have a state retirement plan. Assuming I can stay here for the duration of my career, as I hope to do, I can retire at 56 years old after 30 years of working and be quite comfortable as currently 16.5% of my income goes into it each year. That being said, I honestly don't know that I'd want to retire that early.
• 1 Random Fact not related to FIRE: DH and I are competitive horseback riders, which is where most of our money goes!

 

[alryan]

I'm in this camp as well. Really never understood it. We both had/have grandparents live well into their 90s, one to 100, so I am planning for that. If we happen to both die earlier there will be an inheritance, otherwise no. The thing I struggle with is not outliving your savings. If you do the conventional wisdom of just living off the the gains, then there will be an inheritance, but if you don't then you have to worry about outliving your savings. I hope to land somewhere in the middle. I know some don't want to count on social security, and really I don't include it in my calculations, but I believe that if I would spend all my savings by say age 85, at that point even if all I had was social security I would be ok.

 

[NY Pirate Princess]

I am 49, husband is 50. Plan for him to retire at 55 and myself when we are clear of the mortgage, probably 57. Our pension should meet our needs and we will be eligible for health insurance through our union.
I came to professional work later in life (i fancied myself a poet but was really a waitress with a poetry problem!) so we are very fortunate to be looking at pensions that should meet our needs with just under 40k a year combined.

My advice to those new to the concept is to try out some budget sheets to calculate projected spending in retirement. That will help you know what you need to save.

I like the retirement answer man podcast and frugalwoods is fantastic. Shocked to learn of mmm's divorce.

I am glad for all of you millionares. We will never hit that mark but feel fortunate just the same.

I hope this thread doesnt get as busy as i love cc did. I cant read that one anymore! You folks are cc rock stars!

 

[Mome Rath]

I have a question I'm curious about which actually pertains to the intersection of Disney and financial stuff (perhaps not FIRE specific, but FIRE would definitely be included). How much of all of these types of decisions do you feel relates to your family of origin? So, as an example my family was always really frugal, really entrepreneurial, future focused way before Ramsey or MMM or Bogleheads, etc... We never took vacations as such, but finally took a trip to Disney when MK and EPCOT was all there was, and stayed off site of course. So, oddly, my view of finances and of Disney was significantly impacted by my FoO (Family of Origin). So, some people are the opposite of their FoO and some people carry on from their FoO.

My views lean to FI much more than RE, for sociological, psychological, religious reasons, etc... but more than that, my husband, family and such has always pushed to be your own boss, own your own business, and I'm not sure that RE applies the same, or is sought the same, in that circumstance. So, for us the goal has always been avoiding debt, saving more than you spend, make sure you have enough for retirement, and also to leave to family when you are done with it. My advice is really schooling centric; there are ways of getting your education without going into crippling debt, make sure you dig into the different colleges and what they offer. My husband has a PhD and I have a Masters, we both belonged to programs where our tuition was paid and we got a stipend if we worked for the college programs in which we were enrolled. We also sought scholarships and grants. It was hard going to grad school and working part and full time, living away from home, etc... but the work was definitely worth it for us.

I would also consider us mild minimalists (lol) as we don't have too much house or too much stuff. I cook all our food, and we grow a garden, we don't really like to shop much. But, this is where Disney comes in; as others on this thread we don't go into debt (not even close, if so I'd never do it) to take a Disney trip. We know the discounts and have gone for over 30 years. We don't go hog wild when we are there. I think that was one of the points of living as we have lived; have enough money to do what we want and make money serve God and us, and not the other way around where you're serving money and those that hold debt over you (the banks, credit card companies, loan companies, etc...). So, time with family and seeing the world via travel is part of that for us.

This is one interesting area where I think philosophy and practicality live side by side; as your philosophy goes, your actions in regards to money follow. I'm just interested to know from those of a like mind when it comes to money; did that philosophy come to you by way of family, or other?

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

Some have answered already but I'm curious...what decision that you have made do you think has best helped you to be in a position to save? And the opposite...what things tempt you to get off the path?

Best Decision: Stuff does not make me happy, I will not let it become my focus, I will be content with what I have
Tempting Things: At this point...nothing. I could spend a little more if I wanted to at times but nothing is tempting to me to suddenly say I would be happier if I spent $40k or $50k more each year (I'm not even sure what I could buy that would double my annual spending, LOL!)

I'm in this camp as well. Really never understood it. We both had/have grandparents live well into their 90s, one to 100, so I am planning for that. If we happen to both die earlier there will be an inheritance, otherwise no. The thing I struggle with is not outliving your savings. If you do the conventional wisdom of just living off the the gains, then there will be an inheritance, but if you don't then you have to worry about outliving your savings. I hope to land somewhere in the middle. I know some don't want to count on social security, and really I don't include it in my calculations, but I believe that if I would spend all my savings by say age 85, at that point even if all I had was social security I would be ok.

IMO Attempting to Retire Early almost implies needing to leave money behind. Now, that could be for charities, family, great grandchildren's college, etc. The problem is if you even begin to touch principal at 40, 45, 50 as you said it would be very difficult to ensure you don't outlive your savings. Since you don't know the date of your death in advance, you can't plan to spend it all. It seems to me if you plan this right, and you retire with say $2MM which you can conservatively live off of, you may end up with $5MM when you die and I'm ok with that, lol.

 

[alryan]

For me it definitely came from family, most specifically my Mom. I grew up with 4 siblings, a dad who left when I was 5 and never gave us any support. So money was tight, but looking back I never felt poor, although we most definitely were. I think it made me realize that happiness is not related to how much stuff you have. And even though we didn't have a lot of money we traveled to quite a few places. It often involved camping..I first stayed in a hotel in my teens on a trip to Niagara Falls, sometimes we stayed with relatives. So those traits of making the money you have go as far as you can have stayed with me. So grew up frugal out of necessity and now living it because it just makes sense to me.

Apparently I can't figure out the whole quote thing!

 

[QueenIsabella]

This ceases to amaze me too...because I travel I am rich?? Trade-Offs is so not understood with some folks!

My saying to people is "You can have practically ANYTHING you want. You can't have EVERYTHING you want". Unfortunately many of the people I encounter actually have NOTHING that they want because they waste all their money buying things somebody else has that isn't even important to them

We get this a lot, too. We took three of our kids to Europe this summer (12 days, 3 countries--a very nice trip!). But then my DD15's friends are mystified--we must be rich, right? Then why do we never eat out? Even when we have pizza, it's homemade, with homemade dough. In fact, "Dad's Pizza Night" is hugely popular in our house. But DD15 is smart enough to know that, if we ate out more, there would be no money for nice trips.

On the issue of inheritance and leaving money to (adult) children...this is discussed a lot in our house. As others have said, you can't have a money stash to live off of, and plan to spend your last dollar on your way out. Wile I grew up poor, DH grew up more privileged. In addition, his mom paid for college for her grandchildren while she was alive--we inherited both the money and the obligation here, and DH would like to pay it forward by at least contributing towards college for our grandchildren. This is where things get dicey--we have 4 kids over an 11-year span, and could easily wind up with a dozen or more grandkids over a few decades. So for now, we've agreed to give "seed money" at birth, and see how the chips fall.

There's also a saying in the book "Beyond the Grave" (on estate planning, if anyone's interested). It goes, "You can give with a warm hand, or give with a cold one." We'd rather give with a warm one, sharing our time and money with our children while we can enjoy it together, such as the grand trip to Europe. Now, if we have enough left over when we kick the bucket, that our children can inherit well, I'm okay with that. But it's not my main goal. OTOH, since DH got an inheritance, he wants to pass on that legacy. Which I understand.

P.S. Just to be clear, DH and I were "401k millionaires" before my MIL died. Her death and Dh's subsequent inheritance changed the game a bit, but we already had the saving/spending philosophy that guides us today.

 

[speedyfishy]

this point...nothing. I could spend a little more if I wanted to at times but nothing is tempting to me to suddenly say I would be happier if I spent $40k or $50k more each year (I'm not even sure what I could buy that would double my annual spending, LOL!)

If I had an extra 40-50k that I had to spend I’d definitely do Adventures by Disney trips lol. Other than that idk lol I was looking on Saks to use my Platnium credit and the prices for infant outfits were at highs of $200. Is that really that much better than the $5 onesies at carters?

 

[MEM]

Health insurance is a major obstacle between me and FIRE. DH71 qualifies for Medicare as does DS24 (disabled since birth). DD22 could get crappy insurance through work. However, the Family plan I pay for through my job is the same whether its two of us or four. For now, all four of us are on my insurance plan and its a great plan with low co-pays (but about $800 a month). Once DD turns 24 she'll have to find her own insurance and then DH and DS will go on to Medicare. I'll can then pay the Individual rate until I retire, assuming its after 65.

Regarding "FoO" - DH and I are the exact opposite of our FoO - his father was a compulsive gambler who spent his paycheck and his wife's and also pawned some of DH's possessions when he was a child. My parents spent everything they made and were constantly being bailed out by their parents. Fortunately, they never qualified for credit cards! They did have tax liens on their house.

 

[AlohaNow]

“FIRE curious” That made me laugh out loud!

Great questions alryan!

Helped most to be in a position to save – Well just starting out investing from my very first job. Understanding early on the impact it would have over my lifetime given the time value of money and how the stock market works. I still have a page ripped out of Money magazine from long ago that had charts and graphs and where you would write in what you make and what you wanted to grow it to. Nerd alert. I’ve always loved this investing stuff.

Real estate has been huge as well. We made tax free smack off of the first house we owned and we are on track to make tax free smack off of this one. We also currently live in a low COL area. I actually hate living here, and am so ready to move, but our property taxes are $1,600 a year and we have way more space than we need. We are staying until the youngest graduates from high school. Knowing that everything is relative, understand that we used to live in the metro areas of NYC, then DC, then Honolulu. We are now in the Denver metro and it stinks in comparison, but wayyyyyy less of our income goes towards basic living expenses. We rented in NY and Hawaii, but owned in DC. The real estate market just happened to go our way at the right time. Can’t really plan that, it just worked out!

Temptations to get off the path – I really can’t think of any. We view our retirement investments like a Sharps box – once the money goes in it is never coming out until we retire. With each incremental increase in pay more money goes in and I love seeing the balances grow. There were times when all I could increase was $10 per paycheck, but you need to get into that habit, and you will find yourself in a good position one day!

And not to belabor the ‘travel is choices’ thing, but when people say, “You’re so lucky, you always get to travel!” I want to reply, “Let’s go for a ride in my 14-year-old car while we discuss exactly how much budgeting and planning goes into each trip. And be sure to bring your 80’s mix tapes, because my car has a cassette player!”

 

[runwad]

[QUOTE="SouthFayetteFan, post: 60033646, member: 529508"

My assessment of the situation is...Employers and bosses are often afraid of losing their best people (or any people because hiring and training sounds hard). Workers are afraid of losing their jobs so they don't want to rock the boat. Typically those chasing FIRE are also super productive good workers. We figure out that because we are NOT afraid of losing our job but the employer/boss is afraid of losing us that we have all the leverage. The further down the path to FIRE I get, the less likely I am to comply with something I don't want to do. Busy-Work, needless meetings, paperwork for nothing...no thanks. Don't like it...hmmm fire me (they won't). Of course I wouldn't actually refuse to do something that is necessary and has value in my job.[/QUOTE]

I totally agree with this! I wouldn't say we are chasing FIRE but we've always been concerned with FI. Once the house and cars were paid off it really took the pressure off at work! Now I always think no biggie, if I get laid off I can go work at Kohls and be fine. It's very liberating.

I'm 52 and DH is 54 we have 3 kids and 2 are in college. One will graduate this May and another will start next fall, so always 2 in college. I really feel like we'll really be able to sock away money once the kids are all launched. Until then, we'll just keep plugging away.

We never made much money but have always saved since we started working our professional careers. I went part time after our 3rd was born and never looked back. Every purchase we've ever made was always made with just DH's paycheck in mind. That enabled us to get the house paid off before the kids started college. The early years were hard and we didn't have a lot left over some months, but those years of sacrifice were worth it because life is so much better now with a little wiggle room.

Good Luck to everyone on their journey and I too enjoy reading about others tips and tricks.