I Could Not Have Conceived

Dear Reader, don’t let the title of this blog post mislead you. This male blogger has not tried to defy the laws of nature by trying to get pregnant. Rather, the post is about my ignorance and the miracle of me—a self-proclaimed idiot of the highest order—learning and achieving a few life-altering things here and there that I could not have conceived of just a few years ago.

Stage right

Let’s set the stage. In early-2016, I was married to The Missus, and Thing One (The Elder) and Thing Two (The Younger) were pre-teens. The Missus and I owned a fairly sensible (for our budget and situation) condo. We’d finally, after several years, built up an emergency fund to the level I’d long wanted. And we had retirement accounts that were modest, modestly and regularly funded on a regular basis, and modestly growing.  

I’d never heard of financial independence. Our “goal,” to the extent we had one, was, I guess, a modestly increasing lifestyle (always within our budget) as our increasing salaries allowed for, and retirement. Which we figured we’d reach sometime in our 60s. Maybe at 70. Maybe even a bit later than that. We’d never done any calculations because we didn’t even know there were calculations to be done. Much less what they’d consist of. “Retirement” would just sort of happen. Magically. 

Tho generally happy, I’d also for probably 10 years been whining about wanting to move to talking about moving out of the Midwest to some more pleasant part of the country. I’d never made the move because: (1) we had a good thing going jobwise in the Midwest; (2) per The Missus’ prerequisite (which I agreed with) we’d need jobs lined up, for both me and The Missus, in whatever place we decided to move to; and (3) it’d be such a big deal to move; far too big to seriously contemplate.

Then I read a New Yorker article that changed everything for me. It alerted me to this thing called “financial independence,” FIRE, and Mr. Money Mustache (MMM). That led me to MMM’s blog and all manner of other FIRE bloggers and sources of super-usable information that I’d not known about and, in many cases, never would have thought of on my own. 

Mind . . . blown.

We soon began making huge changes related to our savings, earnings, and investing. Fast forward to 2021, and the stage that I set above is radically different in ways. So different that my 2016 self who knew nothing of FIRE could not possibly have conceived what would be a mere five years later. 

Here are a few examples.

A big move

As I mentioned, by early-2016, I’d been whining talking about moving for years. There always were excuses for not moving though. None bigger than our good job situations and The Missus’ sensible precondition of us having jobs lined up in the new location.  

But just one year after discovering FIRE and making a slew of changes, I realized a few things. First, that I was far more unhappy in the Midwest than I’d admitted even to myself. Second, that I’d since fallen hard for the Mountain West, and the fact that I didn’t live out there made me all the more unhappy; Third, that maybe moving half-way across the country wasn’t so unfathomable after all. And fourth, that we had enough money to handle being without jobs for at least a year and probably had reached what’d later be coined “Coast FIRE.”

About a year later, we made the move. 

I could not have conceived.

Company man

While we decided to move without having jobs in our new location lined up, fate intervened a bit. When I told my boss that we were moving, she surprised me by asking if I’d be willing to work remotely. As I liked the group of people I worked with very much, and having a job lined up for when we moved would remove some potential short-term financial uncertainty and largely put The Missus’ mind at ease, I accepted the offer. 

That ultimately required me to set up my own company. Having my own company and not being an employee of my old firm also allowed me to do work for clients other than my former employer. That resulted in increased income and investment contributions. 

IN early-2016, I’d never even considered not being a full-time employee of some business or other. The thought of being a small-business owner working part-time never even crossed my mind.

I could not have conceived.

Bye buy

Before learning about FIRE, we’d long since imbibed the Kool-Aid that buying one’s home was always . . . always! . . . smarter than renting. From a financial standpoint and for unnamed “other” reasons as well. And that any serious adult owned their home instead of renting it. That’s just logic. Duh!

But I later learned a few things. First, that it ain’t necessarily so. And two, that I don’t particularly like owning my home. 

When we decided to move, we didn’t even consider buying a place. As it’s turned out, we ultimately got lucky on our rental. But just as beneficial was our investing the proceeds we received from selling our place in the Midwest, rather than tying it up in real estate. That allowed for the level of our liquid assets and the flexibility that affords to grow. And to grow even more because of market returns on that chunk of change and the rest of our investments. 

Today, buying a home is not something I’ve wholly written off, but it’s nowhere on the radar. 

I could not have conceived.

Returns on investments

Before learning about FIRE, we had retirement accounts but no taxable brokerage accounts. I knew they were a thing but had no idea of how to set them up. And as I knew nothing of index funds, I’d thought taxable brokerage accounts were for individual stock investing. Having been burned the one and only time I tried that, I’d learned my lesson and wasn’t about to try that again.

But once I learned about far more “sensible” index investing, we dove right in. I deeply regret that I didn’t learn about stock market index funds in March or April of 2008, when a 12-year bull market started. But, as it’s turned out, 2016 wasn’t the worst time to start seriously investing.

Five years later—just five years!—we’ve reached the point of financial independence. Sure, we didn’t start our FIRE journey with nothing invested. And we’re incredibly fortunate. I don’t forget that for a second. Nonetheless, the point we find ourselves in wasn’t arrived at without a plan that we’ve stuck to, and at least some effort and short-term sacrifice. 

I could not have conceived.

50-50 chance

What’s more, we reached financial independence when I was 50 years old, and The Missus a few years my junior. As mentioned, in early 2016, I figured we might be able to retire in our 60s if everything worked out. Very possibly later. And the concept of financial independence and the options it affords were wholly unknown to me. 

Heck, even after learning about FIRE, it seemed wildly unrealistic that we’d reach financial independence this quickly. Again, that bull market—along with putting our bodies into the wind when the ‘rona decimated the market in 2020 and not just staying the course on our investments but increasing the amount of money we invested a bit—did wonders. 

So, here we are, in Q4 of 2021, and we’ve reached our goal.

I could not have conceived.

Purpose driven

Dear Reader, you may be wondering what the purpose of this post is. You might even think the purpose is some chest-beating exercise of a braggart.

It is not. Or at least that wasn’t my intent.

Rather, the insipration came from my recently reflecting on a few aspects of our current lives that were wholly not on our radar in early-2016 and just how crazy the scope and breadth of change over this short period has been. As I started writing, I thought of more and more big changes over this timeframe. I wrote the post in part to document some of these things for myself. A selfish exercise, I recognize.

But the other purpose for my writing the post is, I hope, more selfless. That purpose being that I wanted to demonstrate that wildly large positive changes can happen in just a short period of time.

Like I mentioned, we admittedly had a bit of a head start when we started down the FIRE path, and we benefitted greatly from good timing. But had we not made intentional choices based on things that I learned from reading about FIRE, we’d be nowhere even close to where we are financially and in other ways.

We’d all but certainly still be in the Midwest, too. And I’d likely be at least as unhappy as I was.

And ain’t no way I’d be calling it a day on my job. Let alone at the ripe young age of 50.

In short, I could not have conceived.

And in the end . . .

Again, Dear Reader, apologies for the misleading blog title. But who knows? Maybe one day I will get pregnant. Then again, maybe not. Too painful to contemplate.