I’m 41 and yesterday was my last day in the corporate nightmare of politics, territorial wars, bosses and power games. All I can think is whewwwww what a relief. 😅 But at the same time, I am terrified! This is unknown territory, living without a full time job! I’ve worked since I was a kid. My first paid job when I was 17 but I had numerous unpaid jobs well before that. I almost don’t know how to relax but I guess it’s time to sing a different tune, “He he he I am on vacation, every single day, every day-ay-ay-ay-ay….😀). I don’t plan to sit idle. I am creating a new life, crafting a life doing the things I love, and like they say, “Love what you do and you’ll never work another day in your life”.
I started my career in the US almost 16 years ago. I came to the country for an MBA in Aug 2001. I already had a green card, courtesy of my grandmother who had lived in the US for 35 years. Yes, yes, chain migration! Wohoo! During my MBA, I explored whether I could start a new career in the US. I came with 2 suitcases full of clothes and less than $2500 in cash, most of which I had earned during a summer stay with my grandmother, while working at Macy’s for $6/hr. My MBA was funded through student loans and by working as a Dean’s assistant graduating with a whopping $25,000 in loans in 2003. And I bought a second hand Honda Accord (I don’t believe in buying new cars), which added another $10,000 to my debt.
In 2003, the market was pretty topsy turvy, with the recent tech bubble burst and because of 9/11. Luckily I got a great job working for the best Fortune 50 company in the Mid West on their flagship brand paying me $79,000/ year. So the degree was worth it. My MBA delivered a great ROI. I was now working with a lot of Harvard grads making the same as me, but my cost of education was probably a third of theirs. US is definitely the land of opportunity! The only part that was unfortunate was that the job was in the Mid West and my husband, who I had just married a little over 6 months ago, got a job on the East Coast with a bank. Heck I would deal with that and find a way to make it work! After all, I had flown 8000 miles to be here, a measly 500 miles wasn’t going to get in my way.
I started working and spent my time between work and flying to the East Coast, diligently trying to prove myself. Within the first few months of starting to work, I started to question if this was it. I didn’t like being closeted in an office, slaving the day, only to come home when it was dark and work again. What I did like, was when they brought in Leaders to speak about their experience and when I learned new things. I realized it was really important to me to feel like I was continuously learning and growing. Few months into the job, I remember asking a colleague, who had joined the company with me, if this was it and she responded, “That’s what weekends are for”. Somehow for me that was not enough and I realized, I wanted the freedom to do what I want, when I want. At that point, I decided I want to retire by 35, so every day could be a weekend. But to do this, I needed to become financially independent. At this point, I didn’t know how to do this, nor how to estimate how much money I needed to become financially independent. But like everything in life, you have to start somewhere.
My first step was to pay off of my student loans. I heard a friend talk about how he opened 0% credit cards and transferred debt to them (at the time, I don’t think they charged the 3% per transaction, they do now). Also I didn’t have an investment portfolio, so I didn’t realize I could be investing the money instead to get a higher return than the rate on my loan. Anyway, I started opening these 0% credit cards while diligently paying them back on time, and also paying down more than was needed for the student loan. Within a year and a half, I had paid off my student loans and my car loan.
Luckily both my husband and I are savers by nature. Over the next 16 years, we stashed away money into our savings and maxed out our 401ks. We still did whatever we wanted, often eating out, vacationing once a year in the Caribbean and going for at least one roadtrip during the summer. Once a year, I’d track how we spent but beyond that, I didn’t spend much time thinking about my finances or creating budgets. Five years into working, I realized if I really wanted my savings to grow, I’d have to invest in stock market. I’d always been interested in the stock market, even as a kid, but I knew nothing about how to invest. Towards the end of 2007, I joined another Fortune 100 company in New York. As the company focused on producing consumer products that were necessities, the company continued to do well while the market went south. With a steady income, I felt ready to start investing in the market, but I still didn’t know how. As fate would have it, a colleague of mine started talking to me about how she invested, how she tracked her net worth through Mint.com and showed me how she evaluated stocks on Google Finance. I quickly realized investing in the market in 2008 during the economic downturn was a golden opportunity. I invested $20,000, mainly in some of the big tech stocks when they went on SALE and over the years, they have reaped exponential benefits. While entering the market was good, I did make the mistake of buying individual stocks instead of index funds.
Today I am not completely at my Financial Independence goal, as I don’t include the equity in my house in my assets. If I do, then I am at FI! But I live in the Bay Area and house values are overinflated. Robert Kiyosaki, the author of “Rich dad, poor dad” says, a house is not asset, unless it is bringing in revenue. That said, my investments can cover ~75% of my expenses. Now it’s time to enjoy the fruits of my labor and do things I have always wanted to do, spending more time with my husband and kids, helping other people achieve financial independence, spending time with dogs, traveling and creating streams of income focused on my passions. Read on to hear about strategies I’ve used to get here and the mistakes (like buying an apartment in NY) I have made along the way.