About me

ABOUT US

My wife and I have been married over 21 years and have 4 wonderful children.  She is a public school teacher. I am a CPA in South Georgia, working for a nonprofit. She started working in late 2017 and I have primarily worked for myself from 2003 through mid-2018.

Through the years of self-employment, my income has varied up and down, ranging from profits of approximately $16,000 to $95,000. Now that we are both working, our income is comfortable. I recently decided to leave a management job with a Big-4 firm to be able to spend more time with the family.

FINANCIAL GOALS

My goals are simple, I want a Net Worth of $2,500,000 by age 66, which includes the value of our home. Based on a very conservative estimate of how much I need to save annually to get there, I needed to save $11,000 this year to get to the goal.

As far as retiring, I don’t think I want to. I want to do work I love and work as long as I can. Part of my decision to leave the big firm and take a nearly 40% pay cut was knowing working for this nonprofit gives me purpose and joy at work. I could not have done it without substantial savings though.

HOW WE DO IT

I’m the main provider of income and savings. Even with the pay cut, I will make more than twice my wife’s salary. She is required to save under TRS, so she will get a pension when she retires. She covers our insurance through her job and buys groceries. I pay everything else. Luckily, our house is paid for, the only debt we have is two cars financed. We owe less than $24,000 and they are financed at 0.9 and 1.9% rates, so I have been in no hurry to pay off.

With low expenses, I am able to save over 50% of my job’s earnings. I also save 100% of all side income, which was $12,450 in 2021. That’s up from the $8,466 in 2020; however, I have scaled back and have only earned $1,839 in the first quarter of 2022. While we couldn’t retire right now without impacting our lifestyles, I believe in the next 5-10 years we could.

We live a simple life when it comes to possessions, but pay for experiences and time with our family. My way of doing things is not for everyone, but it has made things easy for me and gives us options.

Please note the advice in these posts are just that. Do your own research before implementing any suggestions or affiliates herein. SideHustleRetirement.com and I are not responsible for any losses you may incur following advice in this blog.

You can reach out to me at contact@sidehustleretirement.com if you want to work with me.