Fri, Sep 30, 2022, Should I be a Millionaire by Age 45

 All this budget talk has got me speaking bold ambitions. Am I, a lowly black girl, going to join the millionaire club?! 

Yep, I can say things like that and not worry about being jinxed! (ok, a little worry, but not enough to stop me). 

I always say what I liked about reading A Purple Life's posts is her confidence. It's not that I don't think those things are achievable, for whatever reason I've been living haunted by all my negative outcomes. As though I... did something to cause them!

By sheer fact of wanting a better life, I made my life worse. Crazy, right?

No more!

I'm going to be a millionaire by age 45. 

And I'm going to be happy.

I refuse to aggressively save as I've done the last 4 or 5 years. You know why? Because nothing comes next! 

So I'm going to enjoy the journey.

How did I get here you say? Well, I was quite a bit uncomfty with the large Seattle budget and kept waiting for "the universe" (guffaw) to say it was okay to live my life. Ha. The Universe is not actually a thing that speaks or makes decisions, silly girl.

Anyway, I was plugging in some numbers just to see where each of my different savings targets would land me in x number of years. Maybe something would stick out. Cuz having reached LeanFIRE, I just wasn't sure what my money goal (or any goal for that matter) would be.  

Well anyway, after quite a few days of clicking, I landed on saving $36k a year, at about 10% interest in 5 years would make me a millionaire. (I just checked to see some of my old budgets, and honestly this is how a lot of these budgets started, guess and check in the investment.gov compound interest calculator.)

Since that felt good, I tried that in my still-forming budget projections for next year. And it fits!

Starting from the top:

22.5k: 401k max out

Leaves about $69k of net pay. 

35k NC Expected Expenses (includes 1 month expense cushion)

If I up my Vacation Budget to $20k (from 15k), we are now at $55k total expenses (wowzers!!). Once scary, but now that I (have and) know I can reach another financial milestone with the leftovers, it feels good!

So that leaves around $14k to throw into After Tax, bringing my totals to approximately:

Target Spend: $55k

Target Save: $36k

The $36k used to look small but now that it's attached to a goal, it's perfect! 

And $55k used to look both small (for Seattle) and large (for NC) compared to what I'm used to, but it's also right sized. If I focus on a 5-month (vs 6-month ) stay in Seattle, I have a lot more room where I don't have to creatively budget or be forced into travel hacking.

See, with no heirs and legacy, there is a part of me that does need to adopt the 'die with zero' mentality but also save and enjoy. 

This is how I'm doing that. Again, this enlightenment brought to you by LeanFIRE! 

This year has been a year of trying to spend more and see what my comfort level is. 

Moving to Seattle and doubling my budget wasn't quite it.

Doesn't mean it'll never be,  Brain, but right now, no.

So yeah, I'm toggling between saving and freely spending.

As much as NC and I struggle to cohabitate, I can use it as a resting place and recharge in a different way - mostly give my pocketbook a chance to breathe, haha. 

I like circuits of things anyway... well, if they're planned. I like having a planned rest from planned adventure. 

So in Seattle, I can focus on doing more things. And in NC, I can focus on doing less things, maybe being more frugal and having to think things through. 

I get to be different parts of my personality.

Anyway, let's not wax too poetic here. 

But yeah, that's where we are as of Sep 30. 

I like it too because I can do it all with my base pay, and it's replicable with my bonus. And if I remove tithe and student loan, this lifestyle could be replicable if I retire with 1 million.

What a fun dream!

I don't want to think too far in the future, lest I get overwhelmed. But one of the things I noticed in my old spreadsheet for finding a new place to live is whether I could live there pre and post FIRE.

So knowing that whatever lifestyle I go on to create could be replicable pre and post FIRE_1MIL is nice too.

Other thoughts:

- I want to travel hack because it's fun and frugal but my generous budget means I don't have to; it feels a bit wasteful since I follow a lot of very frugal bloggers. So I'm making peace with that. The two I'm thinking of - one has kids to account for, so it's a higher priority for him. The other is not working. Travel hacking just hasn't been my thing since I've been anti credit-cards for so long. I'm still not going to pressure myself into it, but if it somehow easily makes sense, then yeah. But for now, it's full price for errything! 

- Oh, this 3 little jobs for my money makes it easy to automate too because the first cut gets taken by payroll (auto-save); the second automatically goes to my bank for Expenses; and the third automatically goes to my Account for Lifestyle Fund. So each Goal gets it's own pot of money. That takes a lot of guesswork out because I've been doing a lot of money movement this year, so this should cut down on that. But I'm not mad about this year, I went into it knowing I'd be manipulating a lot as I figured out what spending and saving post LeanFIRE looked like. And here we are! 

- I was reflecting recently that I neither accomplished getting a second job this year nor dating, nor securing even another job that paid me the seattle supplement of $60k. But the difference is, I no longer think there is any cosmic meaning to this. It's not "the universe" telling me to stay put or that I'll be alone forever and that I should not be in Seattle. It literally just means - I didn't get a second job; I didn't get a higher paying job; and I didn't enter into a meaningful relationship.  There are no other messages. THAT IS HUGE, PEOPLE!!

So if I really want to move to Seattle, I need to decide what I want to give up to make the money work. Right now, I found a solution. I can live in Seattle (or anywhere else) part time.

As for my job, it's okay for now, I realize what I do like about it is it's downtime and remote aspects. I do wish I could find something else to do with just as much downtime, remote, and light workload that was more in the background. 

But I'm pressing forward with my budget as though I'm working the same job for 2023 with a similar workload. 

Still trying to figure out what to do for Winter Shutdown. And I'm...um lost my train of thought trying to figure out tonight.

Looks like the game is still on. Yay!

So I need to wrap this up so I have a couple hours of down time before I need to get ready. The sun is out! Wow!