The Plan

We read a lot of personal finance blogs. There are some great people out there writing about this stuff. But a lot of bloggers I read are either struggling to get out of significant debt or trying to retire early on two large incomes, and most don’t have kids until they’ve financially prepared to do so. What if, however, your “Let’s do this!” moment for early retirement comes when you already have three young kids, the two of you don’t make over $100,000, and you both want to retire together? That’s how this blog began. Mr. T has a great job with great benefits and a lot of time off, but his salary started not very large for a programmer. I worked part time (10-15 hours/week from home), but my primary job was being a stay-at-home mom (which doesn’t pay well and the lack of time off is practically illegal).

So is it possible to retire early in this situation? Absolutely. Will it take longer than just a couple of years? Yes. Is it possible to do it without completely losing your head? That’s was the experiment.

The first plan was to earn the Alaska state energy rebate to get us jumpstarted. Once that came in (DONE), we simultaneously tried to max out our Roth IRAs and pay down the mortgage. Shortly after our youngest started Kindergarten, I went full-time at work (December 2019). Once we paid off the mortgage on our condo in January 2020, we started working on upping all of our investments. The original goal we set for retirement was $500,000 in investments and no mortgage by 2022. (That seemed crazy far away. Would there finally be flying cars by then?). The PFD was a big part of our plan. But mainly, we would try to save as much money as possible. And get creative on income. We tried some local things (that so far have not gone as well as we would have hoped) and started selling shirts and coloring books online (which went much better). For more details on the logistics of how we planned to achieve our goal, check out our Road to Financial Awesomeness as well as our timeline of dreams. $500,000 won’t last us forever, but it was the first goal.

In March of 2016, we took a solid look at our numbers and our plan including:

• How much we spend
• Three Numbers Retirement Calculators Include
• Recalculating: A new financial plan (introducing 3 possibilities)

In February 2020, we bought a house and rented out the paid-off condo until we sold that in June 2021. In April of 2021, we realized we had 1500 Days until we plan to quit! So we took the time to recalculate our plan again! Our plan is also about balance. We want to show our children both Alaska and the world and those things are expensive (even with some conservative travel hacking!). And we’re still trying to retire early to do more of those things. But kids grow up. So we have to do some things now. Balance is hard. Wish us luck.

FOLLOW OUR WHOLE JOURNEY – month-by-month updates!

• June 2015 – $59,030 investments, $90,000 mortgage balance
• July 2015 – $62,800 investments, $89,000 mortgage balance
• August 2015 – $57,926 investments, $87,536 mortgage balance
• September 2015 – $53,995 investments, $86,075 mortgage balance
• October 2015 – $72,552 investments, $82,600 mortgage balance
• November 2015 – $75,096 investments, $81,130 mortgage balance
• December 2015 – $74,780 investments, $79,950 mortgage balance
• January 2016 – $65,860 investments, $78,670 mortgage balance
• February 2016 – $70,878 investments, $76,200 mortgage balance
• March 2016 – $88,102 investments, $74,200 mortgage balance
• April 2016 – $93,042 investments, $71,990 mortgage balance
• May 2016 – $97,390 investments, $71,200 mortgage balance
• June 2016 – $101,100! investments, $70,218 mortgage balance
• July 2016 – $109,500 investments, $68,200 mortgage balance
• August 2016 – $114,380 investments, $65,900 mortgage balance
• September 2016 – $116,150 investments, $63,550 mortgage balance
• October 2016 – $116,585 investments, $59,600 mortgage balance
• November 2016 – $126,530 investments, $53,700 mortgage balance
• December 2016 – $133,270 investments, $52,975 mortgage balance
• January 2017 – $135,525 investments, $52,100 mortgage balance
• February 2017 – $142,570 investments, $51,025 mortgage balance
• March 2017 – $145,600 investments, $49,730 mortgage balance
• April 2017 – $149,600 investments, $48,100 mortgage balance
• May 2017 – $154,000 investments, $45,450 mortgage balance
• June 2017 – $157,230 investments, $43,640 mortgage balance
• July 2017 – $163,400 investments, $41,800 mortgage balance
• August 2017 – $166,190 investments, $39,920 mortgage balance
• September 2017 – $171,076 investments, $38,920 mortgage balance
• October 2017 – $177,500 investments, $36,520 mortgage balance
• November 2017 – $183,600 investments, $32,900 mortgage balance
• December 2017 – $189,565 investments, $29,990 mortgage balance
• January 2018 – $201,165 investments, $27,800 mortgage balance
• February 2018 – $186,840 investments, $26,700 mortgage balance
• March 2018 – $194,436 investments, $25,400 mortgage balance
• April 2018 – $198,080 investments, $24,300 mortgage balance
• May 2018 – $205,580 investments, $23,100 mortgage balance
• June 2018 – $206,200 investments, $22,000 mortgage balance
• July 2018 – $217,000 investments, $19,980 mortgage balance
• August 2018 – $224,870 investments, $18,400 mortgage balance
• September 2018 – $228,700 investments, $9,480 mortgage balance
• October 2018 – $212,800 investments, $8,000 mortgage balance
• November 2018 – $221,700 investments, $5,500 mortgage balance
• December 2018 – $204,000 investments, $1,900 mortgage balance
• January 2019 – $222,960 investments, ZERO MORTGAGE BALANCE
• February 2019 – $234,209 investments, $0 mortgage
• March 2019 – $242,870 investments, no mortgage
• April 2019 – $262,900 investments, no mortgage
• May 2019 – $255,000 investments, no mortgage
• June 2019 – $267,000 investments, no mortgage
• Q3 2019 – $275,400 investments, no mortgage
• Q4 2019 – $324,000 investments, no mortgage (Maggie goes full time at work. Dual income time!)
• Q1 2020 – $276,600 investments, $336,000 mortgage (bought new house)
• Q2 2020 – $317,000 investments, $335,000 mortgage
• Q3 2020 – $371,000 investments, $327,000 mortgage
• Q4 2020 – $444,000 investments, $322,000 mortgage
• Q1 2021 – $494,000 investments, $318,000 mortgage
• Q2 2021 – $639,000 investments, $289,000 mortgage (sold the paid-off condo)
• Q3 2021 – $659,000 investments, $288,000 mortgage
• Q4 2021 – $744,600 investments, $285,300 (refinanced into a 2.125% 15-year, so trying not to add extra payments)
• Q2 2022 – $593,000 investments, $277,000 mortgage
• Q3 2022 – $605,000 investments, $271,500 mortgage
• Q4 2022 – $684,000 investments, $268,700 mortgage
• Q1 2023 – $746,600 investments, $267,000 mortgage
• Q2 2023 – $818,500 investments, $263,000 mortgage
• Q3 2023 – $816,000 investments, $259,000 mortgage
• Q4 2023 – $947,000 investments, $255,000 mortgage
• Q1 2024 – $1,060,211 investments, $250,000 mortgage (MILLIONAIRES!)