This post describes my background and goals. Everyone’s goals are different. If you want to retire early, when do you want to retire and how much money will you need? Write it down. That’s what I am doing.
Hello and welcome to my first blog post! If you are still reading by my first sentence, thank you! Really! First let me introduce myself, I am Jon. I am currently 31 years old, and married to my beautiful wife (for 2 months and 3 days at the time of this writing).
We currently have no kids (yet), but we do have our sweet black lab that we call our kid.
My wife and I are on the same page financially, but I take the responsibility of our finances. In this blog, I will refer to myself as Free Runner. I am an aspiring multi-millionaire and I have a goal to retire early. As of September 2020, we have a net worth of $104,000.
I do not consider myself a financial expert. I read many financial books, listen to financial podcasts, and I like to learn. I especially like to learn about things I am passionate about- finances and retiring early are things I am completely passionate about.
The purpose of this blog is to hold me accountable on my path towards retiring early, as well as to help you along the path (and in real time- unless you’re from the future!).
As I learn more and more, I want to help you learn.
I will be writing about many areas:
- Finances
- Home-ownership
- Retirement accounts
- Savings
- Frugality
- Retire early strategies
- Goal setting
- Financial book reviews
- Debt and more.
I will also be doing a monthly update post detailing our progress towards our savings goals.
Now that I mentioned it, I should write what our goals are:
- $2.5 Million in retirement and savings by age 45 (14 years from now)
- Stretch goal of $3.1 Million by age 45 (14 years from now)
- Retire by age 45
- Paid off mortgage by age 40 (9 years from now)
- Stretch goal by age 38 (7 years from now)
How will we get there? Hard work, some sacrifice, and lots of patience.
I believe these goals are achievable if we stay on track and monitor our progress regularly. A castle is built piece by piece and takes time. Rome was not built in a day… as they say.
We have a long way to get to our goals, our savings and retirement accounts are only a small fraction of our target. Additionally, we are still in debt, which will deter us from maximizing our savings for only a few months.
Based on what we can potentially save once we are out of debt and estimating a yearly investment return of 7%, we can easily hit our “retire early” goals.
| Combined Annual Income | $163,500 |
| Savings (High Interest Savings Account) | $20,300 |
| Stock Market (ETFs) | $8,000 |
| Retirement Accounts (401k, 403b, Roth IRAs, HSAs) | $141,500 |
| Debt (Credit Cards, Students Loans) | $23,300 |
| Mortgage (equity ~ $108,000) | $190,200 |
I hope to look back at this blog one day after reaching our goals.
You can do this too. Find out what all of your debts, assets, and incomes are. Write it down and make a plan. How much can you save?
Financial Free Runner 
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