WOW! Who would have thought that in just 1 month (the official anniversary is tomorrow on the 16th) that we would have made so many changes. Seriously, this Mr. Money Mustache lifestyle is so worth it. Who wouldn't like to retire early? And it is so clear to me that it is 100% possible and doable now (even though my parents totally did it!).
It all started with a Tim Ferris podcast interview with the Mustachian Man himself… Mr. Money Mustache. You can listen to that here. I listened while I was on a quick run, and holy shizz it felt like a revolution in my Soul. Dramatic I know, but for real. This is powerful stuff.
We are the typical suburban family in the Dallas Metroplex (although I am crunchier and hippier -- is that a word? Let’s go with "more hippie like” than most of my neighbors and friends). As zen as I am, it took me until my 30s (okay, mid-30’s) to get to a point where I give “zeros” about what other people think of me. Prior to that I gave lots of f&#ks about what friends and family and even strangers might think. Weird, I know...but I would bet many of you do too.
You know the drill, keeping up with the Jones’s… come to find out the Jones family works 80 hours a week, is up to their eyeballs in stuff, maintains a huge house, car payments, fast boat, marina slips, really up to their eyeballs in debt, despite a shockingly high income, fiscal irresponsibility, and waste.
We have been truly blessed with the hubs working hard and raking in the moola for us, and frankly with a consumption driven lifestyle there is no end in sight until he is 65. We want to spend time as a family, without the stress of a corporate job.
We were already the family that shunned amusement parks and typical "fun" stuff. Really even my kids despise them. We’re barefoot and outside most of the time, any find true joy in working with our hands. When we really examined it, we were living in duality. It's a lot to keep up with.
So along came Mr. Money Mustache, and this post here where I tried on his lifestyle. I rode my bike on my errands. Freakin’ liberating! Since then it has been an all out battle on slashing ridiculous costs and even trading my car AND I look at everything we purchase in a 10 year window… even a cup of coffee.
Here's how we instantly begin saving $1395 a month:
Cable Bill: So yeah, we had a big fat satellite bill. It was just about at $200 a month. We love live sports (particularly football) so this was a tough one to figure out. Not to mention the area we built in doesn't have any internet options other than slow ass DSL, so streaming can be difficult. But nonetheless we found a great option and cut our bill down to $25 per month + Netflix $7.99 per month. This offered a total savings of $167 per month or $28,892 over 10 years. (I will put together a full post on my findings soon.)
Mobile Phone: Cell phones are another tough one, I can see cutting this further as we near our FIRE date but for now, we switched providers and plans, and cut our monthly hit from $325 to $107 (and they gave us a free iPad to do it.) That saves us $218 per month or $37,714 over 10 years.
Grocery Bill: DAYUM, we were wasting some food and money around this place. Our grocery bill was $1200-1400, for a family of 4 (2 adults, a 2 girls 6 and 8). We have cut it to about $500 (still working that one down). I would like to see it drop further and I expect that it will with my garden and some additional frugal grocery budget moves. You can check out my primer here on what we are doing, I will go more into detail very soon. But that saves us about $700-900 a month or $121,000-$155,700 over 10 years.
Overgrown 11mpg SUV: Yeah, one of the first things that I considered to free up some cash, was trading my (paid for) 2010 Nissan Armada for something small, useful, economical,
