I am Mr. Financial Independence. I’m married and have two young children. I’m in my upper 30s, and I live in the DC suburbs. I spent a handful of years billing by the hour in a professional services job before working for nearly ten years at a large company. During that time, I got serious about my financial independence, which has not yet allowed me to fully stop working, but does let me do more of what I want. I now work for a high-tech start up and enjoy going to work every day; well, most days.
I grew up middle class and went to college and grad school with some help from my parents, but also a lot of loans. My wife took on even more student loans than I did. I don’t know why I put “took on loans” in the past tense: we still have a bunch of them. A mortgage too. But other than those two large pools of borrowed money and the credit card purchases that we pay off in full each month, we are debt free (no car loans, no home equity lines, no month-to-month carryover balances on credit cards).
Financially speaking, we have lived pretty conservatively, meaning that for past 15 years we have brought in more money than we have spent; in some years that spread was substantial, in other years it was not. We have saved a good amount of money in 401(k)s, IRAs, brokerage accounts, and savings accounts and CDs. We also have aggressively funded our kids’ 529 accounts. Throughout this site, I’ll go into more detail, but rest assured that I walk the walk about what I discuss on this site, and the advice works.
Your financial independence is within reach. Between a few of my close friends and I, all of whom subscribe to many of the financial independence ideals from this site, I have seen multiple cases of people (often married couples supporting kids in addition to themselves) achieving a net worth of over or close to $1 million before reaching 40 years old on annual incomes varying from the mid five figures to the low six figures. And even if you’re already over 40 or close to it and you don’t have a net worth anywhere close to $1 million, you can make that a reality in the next 10 to 15 years. It’s all about making consistently smart (and sometimes boring or counterintuitive) financial decisions over a long enough period time. It doesn’t take huge financial wagers or luck, but rather being deliberate and disciplined – make a smart plan and stick to it. This discipline does not always come easily, especially if you were not raised in a financially disciplined household. And in today’s culture of consumerism, we are constantly told by television and social media about the material things others have that we don’t.
This site will teach you the strategies to be financially independent and through examples and stories will show you how simple it can be to continually improve your financial outlook. I will be responsive and interactive with your comments to articles and frequently will participate on this site’s discussion forum. Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy and find this all to be useful and fun.
I am Mr. Financial Independence. I’m married and have two young children. I’m in my upper 30s, and I live in the DC suburbs. I spent a handful of years billing by the hour in a professional services job before working for nearly ten years at a large company. During that time, I got serious about my financial independence, which has not yet allowed me to fully stop working, but does let me do more of what I want. I now work for a high-tech start up and enjoy going to work every day; well, most days.
I grew up middle class and went to college and grad school with some help from my parents, but also a lot of loans. My wife took on even more student loans that I did. I don’t know why I put “took on loans” in the past tense: we still have a bunch of them. A mortgage too. But other than those two large pools of borrowed money and the credit card purchases that we pay off in full each month, we are debt free (no car loans, no home equity lines, no month-to-month carryover balances on credit cards).
Financially speaking, we have lived pretty conservatively, meaning that for past 15 years we have brought in more money than we have spent; in some years that spread was substantial, in other years it was not. We have saved a good amount of money in 401(k)s, IRAs, brokerage accounts, and savings accounts and CDs. We also have aggressively funded our kids’ 529 accounts. Throughout this site, I’ll go into more detail, but rest assured that I walk the walk about what I discuss on this site, and the advice works.
Your financial independence is within reach. Between a few of my close friends and I, all of whom subscribe to many of the financial independence ideals from this site, I have seen multiple cases of people (often married couples supporting kids in addition to themselves) achieving a net worth of over or close to $1 million before reaching 40 years old on annual incomes varying from the mid five figures to the low six figures. And even if you’re already over 40 or close to it and you don’t have a net worth anywhere close to $1 million, you can make that a reality in the next 10 to 15 years. It’s all about making consistently smart (and sometimes boring or counterintuitive) financial decisions over a long enough period time. It doesn’t take huge financial wagers or luck, but rather being deliberate and disciplined – make a smart plan and stick to it. This discipline does not always come easily, especially if you were not raised in a financially disciplined household. And in today’s culture of consumerism, we are constantly told by television and social media about the material things others have that we don’t.
This site will teach you the strategies to be financially independent and through examples and stories will show you how simple it can be to continually improve your financial outlook. I will be responsive and interactive with your comments to articles and frequently will participate on this site’s discussion forum. Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy and find this all to be useful and fun.
I am Mr. Financial Independence. I’m married and have two young children. I’m in my upper 30s, and I live in the DC suburbs. I spent a handful of years billing by the hour in a professional services job before working for nearly ten years at a large company. During that time, I got serious about my financial independence, which has not yet allowed me to fully stop working, but does let me do more of what I want. I now work for a high-tech start up and enjoy going to work every day; well, most days.
I grew up middle class and went to college and grad school with some help from my parents, but also a lot of loans. My wife took on even more student loans that I did. I don’t know why I put “took on loans” in the past tense: we still have a bunch of them. A mortgage too. But other than those two large pools of borrowed money and the credit card purchases that we pay off in full each month, we are debt free (no car loans, no home equity lines, no month-to-month carryover balances on credit cards).
Financially speaking, we have lived pretty conservatively, meaning that for past 15 years we have brought in more money than we have spent; in some years that spread was substantial, in other years it was not. We have saved a good amount of money in 401(k)s, IRAs, brokerage accounts, and savings accounts and CDs. We also have aggressively funded our kids’ 529 accounts. Throughout this site, I’ll go into more detail, but rest assured that I walk the walk about what I discuss on this site, and the advice works.
Your financial independence is within reach. Between a few of my close friends and I, all of whom subscribe to many of the financial independence ideals from this site, I have seen multiple cases of people (often married couples supporting kids in addition to themselves) achieving a net worth of over or close to $1 million before reaching 40 years old on annual incomes varying from the mid five figures to the low six figures. And even if you’re already over 40 or close to it and you don’t have a net worth anywhere close to $1 million, you can make that a reality in the next 10 to 15 years. It’s all about making consistently smart (and sometimes boring or counterintuitive) financial decisions over a long enough period time. It doesn’t take huge financial wagers or luck, but rather being deliberate and disciplined – make a smart plan and stick to it. This discipline does not always come easily, especially if you were not raised in a financially disciplined household. And in today’s culture of consumerism, we are constantly told by television and social media about the material things others have that we don’t.
This site will teach you the strategies to be financially independent and through examples and stories will show you how simple it can be to continually improve your financial outlook. I will be responsive and interactive with your comments to articles and frequently will participate on this site’s discussion forum. Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy and find this all to be useful and fun.