The Intersection of FIRE and Disney

[Samantha*belle]

Update! We hit another milestone. Husband is officially 6 years away from retirement! I am 10 years away. We are continuing to invest aggressively with our raises we received this past year. As the time progresses, we are finding it easier and easier to balance our quality of life with our investment strategies.

Plan on purchasing AP’s on Wednesday using an unexpected bonus I received from my school district.

Congratulations! Enjoy that AP!

 

[RamblingMad]

Gosh I hope you're right. The cost of college is so ridiculous!

I looked at the cost of taking some automotive classes at community college for fun. I already have a degree. And those programs were priced at $40k. The price of university is ridiculous. Any improvement you get in salary you're going to lose in interest in loans for a lot of degree programs.

 

[BridgetBordeaux]

I looked at the cost of taking some automotive classes at community college for fun. I already have a degree. And those programs were priced at $40k. The price of university is ridiculous. Any improvement you get in salary you're going to lose in interest in loans for a lot of degree programs.

I have no idea where you live but here is a (2 year old) chart of the cost for various credit hours you might take in a semester. outside of Atlanta.

Tuition and Fees - Gwinnett Technical College

 

[QueenIsabella]

We're lucky to live in North Carolina, where the state school are low-cost and high quality. I know not everyone has that luxury. For #3 (college freshman), it would have been <$10k a semester, all-in. It's even less than that because she got a "Love where you Live" scholarship to live on-campus--we live close enough that commuting is an option--and, in fact, her brother commutes to the same campus (different kid, different personality, and he has special needs).

I don't think a 7% RoR in retirement is unreasonable, IF you have other sources of income. As I mentioned, we'll have pensions plus SS, so I don't mind the idea of close to 100% in equities. However, if you're drawing down your investments to fund your retirement, a much lower % in equities makes more sense, with money in more stable stuff like bonds, etc.

 

[laceltris3]

I don't really factor in SS. But I have pensions with my current and a former employer. They are cash balance plans that for one of them pays a guaranteed 4%/year interest, even though I no longer work there, and the current one pays a % of salary and interest based on a treasury index, but hasn't been paying much, obviously.

For future planning purposes, I will probably annuitize one of them, and take the cash balance on the other. It will provide guaranteed income in addition to SS, and enable us to avoid having to take out anything other than RMDs in a down market.

For now, I monitor the balances and consider them to be a bond allocation. I cannot get 4% guaranteed (and PBGC insured) anywhere else. That allows me to hold more in equities with my personal investments.

 

[RamblingMad]

I have no idea where you live but here is a (2 year old) chart of the cost for various credit hours you might take in a semester. outside of Atlanta.

Tuition and Fees - Gwinnett Technical College

I used to like in the north suburbs of Atlanta a couple of years ago, and I drove past that school a lot. Those rates look like what I paid for private university back in the 90s. That still blows my mind. Salaries haven't kept up.

 

[Starport Seven-Five]

Ran our quarterly numbers last week and they were a bit rough. Still made progress but definitely short of what we're used to in the last couple years. How did everyone else do?

 

[peabody58]

Ran our quarterly numbers last week and they were a bit rough. Still made progress but definitely short of what we're used to in the last couple years. How did everyone else do?

Up 17% since last year, but down 0.6% for the quarter. But then again we recently cashed out 30K from Vanguard to go crazy on wife's new red hot 2014 VW Eos convertible. [She's in love with her car!]



Being retired now for 6+ yrs, we are starting to enjoy spending money. Even joked with DW about splurging for the Galactic Skycruiser!

 

[FreeDiningFanatic]

Ran our quarterly numbers last week and they were a bit rough. Still made progress but definitely short of what we're used to in the last couple years. How did everyone else do?

Up 6.4% for the quarter. But then took a hit in October - down 1.9%. Also rolled my former employer sponsored 401k into an IRA, so that put things on hold a bit during the transition.

 

[Starport Seven-Five]

But then again we recently cashed out 30K from Vanguard to go crazy on wife's new red hot 2014 VW Eos convertible. [She's in love with her car!]

Enjoy! That one looks really clean for a 2014.

My wife had a 2012 that we sold earlier this year actually. Was a great car for us.

 

[QueenIsabella]

We were down for the quarter, but not horribly. OTOH, I was reviewing DS15's investments with him. The money in one of his trusts, received from his grandmother in 2018, is up 30% from when he got it. So, he was thrilled. The math was particularly easy on that one--I didn't bother to calculate it on his other stuff. But, I think it's important to show kids how, if you leave it alone, your money can grow. And it gave us another chance to throw in the lesson that, this money is a gift to him, but it's a legacy of his grandparents' hard work and savings, so it needs to be treated with respect.

 

[FreeDiningFanatic]

We were down for the quarter, but not horribly. OTOH, I was reviewing DS15's investments with him. The money in one of his trusts, received from his grandmother in 2018, is up 30% from when he got it. So, he was thrilled. The math was particularly easy on that one--I didn't bother to calculate it on his other stuff. But, I think it's important to show kids how, if you leave it alone, your money can grow. And it gave us another chance to throw in the lesson that, this money is a gift to him, but it's a legacy of his grandparents' hard work and savings, so it needs to be treated with respect.

You said this perfectly.

 

[QueenIsabella]

You said this perfectly.

Thank you. I grew up poor, and, when I dreamed of my future as "not poor", it never dawned on me that I would have to raise trust fund babies. So, I'm trying very hard not to raise them as, you know, trust fund babies. On the good side, their trust funds are not in amounts that they could go the "beach bum" route, but they're enough that they could get into trouble (drugs or other bad choices).

 

[Sjm9911]

Im happy with my guaranteed 4 percent. Yea, not keeping pace with inflation i know, but pays steady. Im still working, and contributing. So there is that.

 

[WVMomof3]

Ran our quarterly numbers last week and they were a bit rough. Still made progress but definitely short of what we're used to in the last couple years. How did everyone else do?

We were pretty flat last quarter but still up over 15% for this calendar year so I’m pretty happy with that. Rather be flat than down. DH was just figuring out that our investments growth ytd in June was higher than his yearly salary. That didn’t happen last year till December.

 

[mgarbowski]

Ran our quarterly numbers last week and they were a bit rough. Still made progress but definitely short of what we're used to in the last couple years. How did everyone else do?

Down 0.03% for the quarter but up 12.6% YTD and 14% last 12 months. September was our first negative month since last October.

 

[platamama]

Ran our quarterly numbers last week and they were a bit rough. Still made progress but definitely short of what we're used to in the last couple years. How did everyone else do?

I check our balances only a few times a year. I don't know how we did quarterly, but YTD we're up 14%. Last year we were up 16% for the calendar year, and it was 14% the year before that. So it looks like I'm in good company with some numbers posted above.

DH was just figuring out that our investments growth ytd in June was higher than his yearly salary. That didn’t happen last year till December.

That's fantastic! Sounds like you're getting close to FIRE.

 

[cush1]

So glad to see this thread! Great minds… We love Disney and want financial independence!

Resources that help me:
Millionaire Next Door
Automatic Millionaire
Multiple Streams of Income
Ramsey’s 7 Baby Steps
Our Rich Journey https://youtube.com/c/OurRichJourney
Meet Kevin https://youtube.com/c/MeetKevin

 

[Starport Seven-Five]

Was punching a few numbers into our spreadsheet this morning and realized we are up more in the last month than we were from Q2->Q3.

I was worried last month that my “months to FI” calculation might be too aggressive since I only had Q2/Q3 data. Now I’m wondering if it’s too conservative.

 

[PaintsWithAllTheColors]

Was punching a few numbers into our spreadsheet this morning and realized we are up more in the last month than we were from Q2->Q3.

I was worried last month that my “months to FI” calculation might be too aggressive since I only had Q2/Q3 data. Now I’m wondering if it’s too conservative.

Congrats! That's a great problem to have! I too, feel like my estimates are consistently too conservative as this current environment makes it easy to beat, but i haven't adjusted any estimates because i figure eventually we'll hit a slow down and i'd rather keep low expectations and be pleasantly surprised haha