If I Had A Million Dollars

I hit a big money milestone last month.

It’s big, big. One I never imagined when I used to sing along to the Canadian band Barenaked Ladies.

I hit a net worth high in September: ONE MILLION DOLLARS!

$1,000,000

Let’s rewind a bit. Seven years ago, I published my first post on this site, originally titled The Journey Begins. The journey to financial independence began after I’d stumbled on a few inspirational FIRE blogs. Their writing showcased life as they lived frugally and quit their jobs—most in their 30s or 40s. I fired up a blog to share my own journey. To see if I could do it too.

In my About Me page— which desperately needs updating— I laid out my plan. I planned to retire at age 32 with $1.2M. I had no idea if I could do it.

To verify whether it would be possible, I meticulously tracked my monthly and yearly spending, sharing it here. I negotiated job offers, made some career pivots, and doubled my salary. Most importantly, I found other people with similar dreams, and followed their FIRE journeys for inspiration.

Some of my early inspiration

I binge read so many blogs in the beginning. I’ve linked to a lot of them in my Sunday Sharies posts. What they proved to me is that financial independence is achievable, but also so varied. People all over the world are designing their lives with intention, and generous enough to write about it. With their stories in mind, it made my twenties feel freer. I didn’t have to travel down the conventional, cookie-cutter path.

Liz from FrugalWoods

Shared her story from making a pittance while trying to live in New York City to moving to a homestead in Vermont. From her, I learned that if you focus on your core values and a clear vision, you can make it happen.

Gwen from Fiery Millennials

shared the pitfalls of Real Estate management, burnout after the wrong job, and how with some lifestyle adjustments, she’s actually happier working. From her, I realized I didn’t want to take the real estate route.

Purple from APurpleLife

retired at 30 after hitting her FIRE goal of $500,000. She still actively writes about her retirement, one of the few people who does so! (Millennial Revolution does a good job of this as well). From her I learned bravery!

Pete from Mr. Money Mustache

Pete also retired with a lower number, somewhere between $600-$720k for both MMM and his then-wife to quit their full time jobs. From him I learned that even after retiring, you can keep working on passion projects (for him… construction).

As I learned about more people retiring on less than a million dollars, I wondered if maybe my goal of $1.2M was a bit too far out. I itched to quit my job and leave a toxic career of software engineering. So I kept crunching the numbers and moved the goalposts… closer.

Then I quit my job at age 29 with $650,000.

Retirement Has Been Going Pretty Well, Thank You

After I quit my job, I haven’t looked back. My resume gap is widening, and I’ve been out of touch on the latest software trends for a while.

Since retirement, I’ve travelled to Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Japan, Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Alaska, Ireland, UK, the Netherlands, Italy, Slovenia, and France (14 countries, and a state I’ve always wanted to see).

I moved twice and have a third move lined up next month. The idea of moving abroad again appeals, but for now I’m planning on moving away from the city and into the woods.

I got married.

I got another cat.

One thing I don’t miss: working. I don’t miss it even a little bit.

Is This Too Braggadocious

When I mentioned potentially writing this post to my family and friends, one person warned me that it was too ‘braggadocious’ (I thought he made up this word at first, but it’s a real one!). However, I still think this one is important to share because I did something scary– retired 3 years before my goal, with barely half of my originally planned net worth.

More importantly, the growth of the money isn’t about me. It’s about what the market can do. I haven’t worked in 3 years yet my net worth has grown from $650,000 to $1M. It’s not even a super-secret-ultra-genius investment portfolio! Just your standard low cost index funds have made me a millionaire after I stopped working.

Of course, it’s important to acknowledge that whatever the market giveth, it can taketh away. Who knows what will happen in the future. Perhaps someone attempting the same stunt in a couple years might hit a dramatic stock market downturn. Taking the risk has been worth it to me, but not every FIRE story will be replicable.

After front-loading a lot of work and savings, my investments chug along like a reliable employee. I may have quit my job, but the market made over $100,000 per year. Not me. I made less than $2k helping people rework their resumes and doing some financial coaching.

Getting Rich Under Capitalism: Good For Me, I Guess?

It’s impossible to ignore the fact that all of this money is generated under capitalism, where the rich get richer. Now I get to witness it for myself as my money generates more money— a flywheel of wealth.

Under this system, large corporations are strangling out entire ecosystems. They pollute water, the air, the earth. Our financial markets are predicated on slave labour (often called “outsourced”) that is out-of-sight, out-of-mind. Genocides happen in plain sight, the U.S. providing direct military aids and arms, and the profits off of these atrocities help bolster the U.S. economic market. All of this drives up the worth of my stocks. Gross.

• The Money With Katie Show: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Capitalism (But Were Too Afraid to Ask)
• Bitches Get Riches Podcast: S1 E4: “Capitalism is working for me. So how could I hate it?”
• The Money With Katie Show: How to Use Today’s Economic Uncertainty to Get Closer to Your Dream Life

All of this creates a strange cognitive dissonance. How can I continue to invest when this is how society is set up? Katie says it well in the first linked episode: “the more I learn about the way things work, the more demoralized I feel, and it’s really tempting to crawl back into Individual Solutions land, throw on the rose-colored glasses, and focus on my own little balance sheet and ignore everything else.” But as she explores with her guest, that’s not a real solution.

My favorite creators have all ramped up their political bents, for good reason. There has to be change in policy and power, and the deeper you go into financial education and systems, the more you realize how messed up it all is. The solutions aren’t in Individual Solutions land, they are in politics, policy, and power. While we live under capitalism, I will continue investing. But I will also turn my focus to push for political change.

Some politics from financial creator-land:

It’s refreshing to see financial content go from “finances are personal” to understanding and grappling with the fact that politics change our financial landscape at a level so far beyond budget hacks.

Here are a couple snippets of commentary from two financial experts, Ramit Sethi and Amanda Holden:

It’s impossible to engage with money and ignore that current world tragedies are orchestrated by the rich to get richer. They are making money off of wars, genocide, and stripping the rights of their citizens. It’s important to know how to find financial security as an individual (so you can be independent of toxic workplaces, relationships, or other scenarios). Then do whatever you can to push for societal-wide change. Boycott, strike, and agitate.

Unfortunately it’s impossible to escape the reality of our economy at an individual level. You can’t win by divesting entirely. But with the freedom of financial independence, people have more time and resources to commit to changing the status quo.

Why I Won’t Be Sharing My Net Worth After $1M

Real numbers do matter

Though it hasn’t always been comfortable (I’ve shared this blog with friends and family over the years) I’ve tried to be as transparent as possible. This was important to me, because real numbers helped me make a real plan for myself. Vague percentages and ‘everybody’s situation is different’ didn’t help in the early days. Real people’s stories made the difference. When I could read about peoples’ financial lives, it motivated me to change my situation.

So, I shared expense reports every month. I’m not usually a spreadsheets person, so this was mostly for the blog. I showed realistic expenses of a twenty-something living in Portland, Santa Barbara, and upstate NY. I also shared my salary as a software engineer, which ranged from $65,000 at my first job and topped out around $140,000. This was never a “I can do it, so you can too,” narrative, but an attempt to share whatever variables I could, so people could map their own journey towards financial independence. Tweak your own variables as needed!

Money Diaries: A Week in Portland, OR

Over the course of the blog, I have been dating, single, and now, married. For almost the entire duration of writing, until just recently, I kept my finances completely separate. This made reporting numbers on the blog easy! For a few years, I split things with my partner 50/50. For the years I lived in Amsterdam, I recorded everything I spent in summer, autumn, and then an entire year as a single woman living solo.

Money in Marriage Makes Sharing Harder

Earlier this year, I got hitched. After marriage, sharing numbers got a bit trickier. The $1M reported is strictly my own, individual pre-marriage money that I personally earned, invested and saved. Everything I share with my partner we keep track of separately in a different Empower dashboard.

As my life gets more entangled with another person, it’s harder to keep my money life distinct. I can hear the imaginary wails of the Early Retirement Police upset that I could be on my partner’s health insurance plan after moving back to the US from the Netherlands. Now we’re on the exchange: Bronze HMO, $911 a month for two of us 😱. They’d also loudly complain that I’m not really retired, because I’m married to someone who works and earns an income (which, by the way, is their preference. They are one of those weird people who enjoy working for some strange reason). The important thing to me is that if we split I’d be able to stay retired, even if it meant lifestyle change. Your plan doesn’t need to be bulletproof if you can be flexible.

However, it’s definitely true that with a working spouse, things are easier. I have cushion I wouldn’t have otherwise. It makes sharing numbers feel disingenuous because it’s not just my money anymore. Plus, I’m not sure if it’s as helpful at this point in the journey.

So, I’ve decided that I won’t be sharing numbers after $1M. (Or, at least not past $1.2M, since that was the original goal). But I will share if my numbers do dip below $1M! I hope that by sharing all my expenses and income over the years I’ve encouraged readers to make financial moves that work for their situations.

If I Had A Million Dollars

Though the Barenaked Ladies imagined what they could buy with a million dollars (a treehouse! sausages! a faux fur coat!) it always meant freedom to me. Amusingly, I do not have anything they sing about. No house. No K-car (does a Subaru Forester count?). No treehouse. No mini-fridges (yet). I suppose my cat is kind of like an exotic pet (but not an ostrich or an emu).

I’m so, so grateful that I don’t have to commute into an office and report to someone to do a job that makes little to no difference in the world. Financial freedom has been the greatest gift I ever gave to myself.

What’s wild is that if the markets keep going up, I might still reach the original goal I mapped out almost a decade ago: $1.2M at age 32. And, in the meantime, I have to use the money for good, not evil. Because the practice of FIRE is comprehending what is enough. And I’m there. A lot of the problems of the world could be solved if people could simply be content with enough.

What about you?

What is your “enough” number?

Has there been a difference in your political activism recently?

Is this too braggadocious?

Share in the comments below!