Congrats! How'd you do that?
this post was submitted on 14 Feb 2025
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Positivity
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Worked really hard. Live in a low cost-of-living area. I'm not rich or anything, but property taxes here are small. Small rural town. And I just lived very frugally since I was in my teens. I'm in my 40's now.
And I have some side-hustles going on. I can't really mention them, since Lemmy would hate them, but has to with ads and things. And one was a fly-by-night thing that was brief but profitable. I put all the profits into paying off my house and land.
My kids moved out and are on their own. And my gf has a good job and lives in her own place. So basically I'm totally free.
I wish I could say I was a wise investor or some wall-street tycoon. But nah, I live in a small rural conservative town. The exact kind of place that most of lemmy hates. Everyone here has cowboy hats, gun racks in their pick-ups, etc.
But I don't care. Now I don't have to work. It's weird though. By the things you read on Lemmy/Reddit, doing what I'm doing is impossible.
Well, it's impossible in a big city. But in rural towns in boring states, it's very possible.
Sounds like you're doing some form of financial independence, retirement early (FIRE). Congrats! A coworker did that a few years ago and it was eye opening.
I've played around with a retirement calculator and it looks like 55 is going to be my first reasonable chance. I live in mortal fear of running out of funds. Who knows how long any of us has, but it would be terrible to be upper 80s or 90s and penny less.
Exactly what I did. And I didn't even wanna wait until my 60's. lol
Very cool! When did you start seriously putting aside money? I got out of college somewhat late and didn't start seriously putting aside $$ in my 401k until I was 30.
When I was 15. Grew up in a very conservative atmosphere. Self-reliance was a huge thing. Also grew up listening to Dave Ramsey. He was a huge influence on my financial life.
I got a lot of second hand Dave Ramsey stuff. I think most of the bad advice I didn't hear. I think it was probably overall negative for me, because I was left to believe credit cards are evil. I got my first one on my 33rd birthday. Should've gotten one when I was 18 and never used it just so the age of my credit file is longer. (I have stuff like mortgages in there, it's not empty.)
Yeah, fair point. I don't necessarly think credit cards are evil. But I think the are a bad idea for a lot of people who aren't aware of how to use them.
I have one but I pay it off every single week and never run a balance on it. I use it for gas, groceries, amazon, etc. Then just pay it off every saturday.
this dude does AI, get him fellow crabs 🦀
Ha! Nah, I paid off everything before AI. But I actually don't mind AI and think it's awesome. Now you can get me.
Hooray! Congrats on getting free from the shackles!
Any plans for the future?
Not really. I like my life. I'll just spend studying things I like. Walking in the park. Going on trips with gf.
Worried about politics/economy making your savings not enough? I would never feel like I would know how much I might need as things can change so fast.
Nope, I don't worry about that at all. I have zero debt. I have a huge garden to grown my own veggies. I have hens for meat and eggs.
If the world got so bad that I couldn't make due, then brother, we'd have bigger problems than not enough savings.
Also, the world won't end because Trump's president. Just like it didn't end when he was president last time. And just like it didn't end when Biden was president.