February, 2018 | The FI Family

Optimizing Our Financial Independence Journey

We entered this journey already on it.
With the arrival of our first son, I left the work force. We planned for it only in that we decided it would be great for a parent to stay home, but we did not prepare financially. One salary in Seattle and another kid later, I re-entered the workforce with $20k in debt. That meant we lived beyond our means by $5k/year for four years. Which – probably a shocking thing for the FI community to hear – isn’t bad considering where we were living and not being of the FI-mindset. And we were not depriving ourselves. But we also lived in a very walkable neighborhood – it wasn’t unusual to not use the car all week – and didn’t pay for daily childcare.
We knew exactly what we were doing and we took (baby) steps to minimize that:

Cut cable
Whistler, BC
Cut magazine subscriptions
Reduced cell phone and internet bills
Stopped dry cleaning
Ate out less

But we also did a lot of things on the opposite end of that spectrum:

We vacationed. A lot. Mostly weekend warrior trips around the PacNW, but also CA, Whistler, HI and East Coast trips. Miles/points paid for some at first, but certainly not all.
We went out. A lot. We lived in an incredible neighborhood with great restaurants, breweries, bars and live music. We couldn’t resist.
We paid a monthly fee for a babysitting service. Then paid them by the hour when we used them!

I could go on with both fronts. This was pre-FI and I don’t regret it, but it’s funny to look back and try to see the logic in these decisions.
So when I say we were already on the journey, we had already trimmed a lot of the unnecessary monthly bills about 10 years ago. It was the FI community that gave us the nudge to take savings a lot more seriously and be a lot more budget-minded. We’re almost 10 months in and we’ve taken the basic steps:

tracked our spending to shave off more unnecessary spending
maxed 401k, increasing 529 and increasing Roth IRA
already paid off one credit card and have a plan to pay off all debt

I thought a W4 adjustment would be a logical optimization because we had a large tax return and it would be great to have a bigger paycheck instead. But I can’t figure out what our ideal withholdings should be on our W4. Files jointly with two kids … he claims 1, I claim 2. I see conflicting information on the internet and I’m confused. At the same time, the IRS calculator is not available while they’re updating it for 2018 tax law changes.

Maybe understanding this will hit me on the head or maybe it’s no big deal. A large tax return isn’t the worst thing in the world. But until then, I’m just keeping on the road of spending less, saving more, and reducing debt.

Retire Early and Pay for College … is it Possible?

I have nine years. What will college cost in nine years? It’s a daunting thought and I try my best to avoid it. And think I must I live on Fantasy Island when I say I’m going to retire at the same time I’m sending my two kids off to college. I honestly don’t know if early retirement will be able to happen at the same time. (Loans are not an option – personal parenting goals.)
College is a wild card. Or maybe I want it to be a wild card because all my (limited) research shows tuition will about double and that’s scary. The Vanguard college tuition calculator provides a pretty basic estimate of anticipated costs. Low-ball estimate is that a four-year college education at $100,000 today will increase to $167,000 in nine years.

529s: Today’s standard for college savings. Put it in post-tax, pull it out for education-related expenses without penalty. We have two, established by the kids’ grandfather when they were babies. Our nine-year-old has ~$12k today. We contribute $100/mo. At this savings rate, using a compound interest calculator, this will be almost $40k in 9 years. Maybe enough for one year if we stay at the same contribution rate.
- We increased our college savings another $100/mo into each of our Roth IRAs. (No, we’re not at the point where we can max these out yet.) Withdrawing from a Roth prior to age 59.5 carries penalties, unless for a qualifying reason. Your child’s education is one.
- And there’s this: “… most parents should max out their Roth first then look at funding a 529 plan.” With that, we will make a plan to max these out. I wonder if we can squeeze that into 2018?
Community College Transfer: I really like the idea of saving on tuition by going for two years at a community college then transferring to a four-year, but there seem to be more drawbacks than positives. Maybe this will shift to being a more common practice in the future, but I can’t plan on that.
- Change: It’s hard. Going to college is hard. And a lot of Community College students don’t transfer to 4-year institutions.
- And this! Sadly, only 15 percent of community-college students earn a bachelor’s degree within six years.
- Social: You learn so much about life and living when you’re living away from home, at college. It’s like a safe bubble (ok, that depends…) where you and your peers are figuring it out together.
Having recently moved from Seattle, I’m wondering … perhaps moving back to enjoy the mountains and sound, while taking advantage of UW’s Dual Enrollment would be worth considering. (Reason #458 we should move to Seattle.)
Scholarships? This Washington Post article is old, but it probably still stands close to the truth today: 19% of high GPA students receive academic scholarships and 0.7% receive athletic scholarships. This would be really great, but I can’t count on it.
All PGA players start somewhere
- I love the Chick Evans Caddy Scholarship! It may be why I strongly encourage my kids to be caddies.
- And you can’t overlook the weird ones.
Go Pro: Our younger son is eight and has declared that he will be a professional golfer. So be it.
Real Estate: Our obvious choice and we’re so so so thankful we have it, because I really don’t think we could achieve the savings rate we’d need to pay for college without loans. We have two rental homes in the crazy Seattle market. We’ve owned one, our ex-primary, for 11 years and the other for four years. Either of them would more than pay for both kids to go to college at today’s average tuition rates. We can’t predict what they’ll be worth in nine years. I don’t have a crystal ball. But this is what will pay for college and enable us to retire around the same time.

I hope.

Spreading the FIRE

I’m starting with our wins of the week:

Filed our taxes via H&R Block and got fat federal and state returns (this probably means we need to adjust deductions)
Took federal return to pay off one card! WHOO!

Going for the Gold!

No one wants to stop spending. I haven’t found too many like-minded friends in my circle of friends. A co-worker is enthusiastically into FI, so it’s pretty awesome to share learnings and successes with each other. But among my close friends and family, it’s not spreading. I’m not exactly pushing it either. You have to be interested in learning and open to change. And breaking away from our consumer-driven culture isn’t something a lot people are interested in. People like to shop.
But, let’s pretend.
At this point, if asked, I would recommend the following books:

I haven’t read these, but they’re on my list:

Podcasts:

Blogs: I don’t read too many – just not enough time, but I like these:

We’re nine months in and these are all common names to me now. There’s such a wealth of free information foranyone that wants it. It’s like we all have the ability to stretch this super muscle, but we don’t. It doesn’t have to be complicated, there are several simple changes you can make that make a huge impact. Anyone can do it!

Why We Decided to Rent vs Sell

We knew we’d return to the East Coast to be closer to family at some point. So, after 10 years of loving life in Seattle, we made the move back to the Philadelphia area.

The Seattle real estate market is insane. We lived in a 1,300 square foot single family home in a desirable neighborhood with great schools and close to downtown (i.e., short commute to Amazon). Prior to purchasing this house in 2006, we sold our Philadelphia home for a nice profit, affording us to pay off my student loans, buy two (used) cars and put 20% cash down on our new Seattle home. This was all without a thought of kids (which came only two short years later). Thankfully, the house worked for our family of four because we quickly realized we couldn’t afford a bigger house that wasn’t a fixer.

During our time in Seattle, we also purchased a smaller investment property in another neighborhood. We didn’t follow the “buy the worst house in the best neighborhood” rule, but we bought what we could afford and got newly renovated (low maintenance) house in a neighborhood we knew was “up and coming.” For three years, we acted as the property managers with no turnover and very few issues.

So, when it came time for us to move, we were torn: sell or rent? The Seattle market has seen such growth: was it a bubble and should we sell now (2016)? Or hold onto the properties with a nice monthly income, hope the long-term growth continues and accept there will be maintenance and management costs? We took a deep breath and decided to rent, turning over the property management to a company that takes 10% off the top of the first rental and 8% off the top of the second. This has proven well worth it! They take care of everything and are prompt to answer any questions of concerns.

In the two years since February 2016, property 1 (primary) has grown in value by 35% and property 2 (investment) has grown by 46%. This doesn’t account for the monthly rent which more than covers the mortgages. So, I didn’t do an entirely accurate comparison, but in the same time period, a $10k investment in VTSAX would have grown around 35%. Selling our properties would provide a much larger investment, so perhaps this would have been a wiser decision, but I like: 1) the passive monthly income and 2) having diversified assets.

The Plan for Property 1:

Keep it for the passive income during retirements, or
Move back! Right now, we’re thinking about retiring in WA.
We also keep in mind that if we sell by 2020, we can avoid paying capital gains tax for having lived there for two of the prior five years.

We definitely have an emotional tie to this house and neighborhood and simply don’t want to sell it. At least we recognize this!

The Plan for Property 2:

Keep it for passive income in retirement, or
Sell it to pay for college for two kids in 10+ years, while collecting monthly rent. But, with this, comes real estate market risks and increasing maintenance costs as the property ages.

And, of course, the ever-present threat of an earthquake in the PacificNW that could reduce both properties to a pile of rubble.

The Nightly Rental Option: I recently looked at what nightly vacation rentals would look like for each of these houses, but our steady monthly rent exceeds the estimates.

We purchased our big, old, inefficient home in the Philly ‘burbs, but the market here is not nearly has hot, so it’s not so exciting to think about. With some improvements coming to the neighborhood that will increase walkability and overall appeal, I’m sure we’ll sell it for more than we bought it, but if you consider the real costs of home ownership, I can’t confidently say we’ll see a profit.

Either way, we’re in a great place with these investments and will keep them for now. I’m not sure what would change that. I’m afraid that if we sell and funnel the profit into investment accounts, we’d be putting all of our eggs in one basket. It’s all about balance!