FIRE Progress Report through August 2019

Don’t worry, you’re not experiencing déjà vu. This is a new post. Starting this month, I’m changing the naming so that it coincides with how I track things. When I keep track of the numbers to report here, I always keep track of them with the month they occurred. For example, if I put $100 away on August 10, it goes torwards the month of August. However, I’ve been putting these posts out using the month I’m telling you the numbers, not the month the numbers actually occurred. Obviously, that gets confusing for me, and might confuse you when I mention Christmas in the January report. Going forward, the title of the post and the numbers will match to when things actually happened.

The Money Related Numbers

25.40% (previously 25.65%)

This is our invested assets/target number. Our invested assets span across a variety of investment vehicles such as 401k, HSA, IRA, Roth IRA, ESPP (Employee Stock Purchase Program) and standard taxable mutual funds.

107 months (previously 108)

The number of months until my 45th birthday and our finish date.

101.41 months (previously 102.62)

The number of expected months until we reach our target number based on our current expected monthly contributions, assuming a 10% annual return.

The Expense Related Numbers

8.34 times annual spending (previously 8.66)

This is how many multiples of our annual spending we have saved up towards our goal. For example, if this value was 9.1 and we spent $10,000 annually, we would have $91,000 saved up.

33.35% to minimum FIRE (previously 34.63%)

The minimum number to achieve FIRE is 25 times our annual spending. This number shows how close we are to the absolute minimum.

32.82 times annual spending at goal number (previously 33.75)

We have a goal amount that we’d like to reach. Given our current annual spending, this is how many times our annual spending we’ll have saved when we reach our goal number.

How Much We Invested

29.38% of Gross Income Invested

This is the amount we invested in things like 401k, Roth IRA, taxable accounts, and Employee Stock Purchase Program divided by income from our main employment.

35.74% of Net Income Invested

This is the amount we invested in things like 401k, Roth IRA, taxable accounts, and Employee Stock Purchase Program divided by income from our main employment, but with taxes subtracted.

33.38% of Gross Income Invested with Employer

This is the amount we invested in things like 401k including employer contributions, Roth IRA, taxable accounts, and Employee Stock Purchase Program divided by income from our main employment.

40.60% of Net Income Invested With Employee

This is the amount we invested in things like 401k including employer contributions, Roth IRA, taxable accounts, and Employee Stock Purchase Program divided by income from our main employment, but with taxes subtracted.

What’s Happened and What’s Happening

August was another 3 month paycheck, which means we automatically put away more this month. Our expenses continue to climb until they will eventually level off in December due to the the fact that I started counting them more accurately last December.

I’ve changed the How Much We Saved section to be How Much We Invested and I started tracking new numbers. I’ve saved off the numbers I was publishing in previous months and I’m now using those to track future progress based on how much we’ve invested on average over the last 6 months. In the past, I came up with an estimated number and used that for future projects. This should be more accurate over time.

You’ll notice that the How Much We Invested are now percentages. I thought that posting actual numbers may not be as encouraging when people are looking at them and might be thinking “I could never save that much”. However, when it’s all relative (such as a percentage of income), it potentially becomes more achievable. The other goal numbers that I’ve been posting have always been relative to either our target numbers or our expenses, so now I’m simply making that consistent across the board.

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