Lately while I've been reading the book "Semi-retirement: Work Less, Live More" I got to thinking. What scenario would I need in order to retire with 1) Savings(i.e. 401, Roth, Bonds) 2) Supplemental Income(Tax lien interest, Part-time selling things online, house paid off) and 3) Part time work. Here are the three scenarios I laid out for our family on what it would take to retire.

Savings Supplement PT Work
1. $225,000 x 3 - House Paid - $20,000
2. $225,000 x 2 - $20,000 - $20,000
3. $225,000 x 1 - House paid - $30,000

I basically laid these out as a starting point of what would it take for our family to semi retire. I used the $225,000 x 3,2, or 1 to indicate for each $225k it would provide $10,000 worth of income to our family. I realized at the end that each scenario averaged out to about $50-60,000 per year in income from all these streams. It also showed me that retirement doesn't have to be that far off. I could be a lot closer then I think and I don't necessarily have to have $1-2 million saved up.

Do these scenarios seem realistic? Has anyone else had experience with an actual semi-retirement like this?

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Earlier this year my mortgage company had a sign up for no "startup fee" for signing up for a mortgage accelerator program. They waived the $400 fee, and all I need to pay is $9 extra per month for the transaction of taking my money out every week. Here are a couple of helpful calculators that will show you the difference.

http://www.bankrate.com/brm/calc/biweekly-mtg/biweekly.asp
http://www.mortgage-calc.com/mortgage/biweekly.php

Now take a $150,000 mortgage, say a person has 27 years left on that mortgage at 6% interest. Here is the difference.

Regular payments
Monthly Payment: $ 935.98
Total Int.: $ 153256.88
Avg Int each Month: $ 473.02
.................................
Biweekly payment
Biweekly Payment: $ 467.99
Total Int: $ 122197.71
Avg Int each BiWeekly Period: $173.58

You'll have your loan paid off in 22 years and save $31,000 in total interest. That is the kind of savings that can help you get to retirement early!

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The other day my co-worker was looking at a site on homes, and I asked him what was he doing? He said he was looking at foreclosed homes in the area he is moving to - Flordia. I said to him do you have to pay for that? He said no...I just found out today from my mortgage company that if you google up "financial institution name REO" that the first link will be the bank's foreclosure listing that are listed free. Take for instances Countrywide. Here is theirs.

Countrywide

Turns out I found a lot more foreclosed homes in my area then I thought there would be. Here are just a couple of other bank foreclosure sites I found too.

Wells Fargo
Bank of America

Has anyone else used an REO site? I found these extremely helpful!

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Today I read the article from money.com on "Welcome to the recession". It got me thinking...how is the recession effecting me? The only way I've seen it effecting me is that gas prices are going up and so is food. How about everyone else? The economy where I'm at really isn't moving either way and home prices are staying about the same. I was wondering if other people are starting to feel the effects yet? I'd love to get other people opinions in other regions of the country.

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Wow! What a weekend! It hardly feels like I got a vacation, because I spent the entire weekend building a murphy bed for our basement. Last week I bought a build it yourself kit off of Rockler beds and it sure was a lot harder then I thought. The kit was really good and even came with an instructional DVD. I have finished all the initial 38 steps that required cutting all the wood and assembling it, and now I'm waiting on painting it and adding decorative modeling. I'm taking some of the ideas from Murphybed.com to help me make it look nice. When I finally get some time I'll try and take some pictures. Hope everyone had a great Memorial Day weekend!

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This weekend my family and I are going to be hitting a few garage sales. Here are the top five money making tips for how to make money off another person’s trash.

1)Ask for a discount on the item you are going to purchase
2) Check out Craigslist before you go to find out which garage sales you want to hit, and what items will be on sale in those neighborhoods.
3) Bring a laptop and wireless card – leave the wireless laptop in your car, if you find an item that you think might be valuable go back to your car and look it up
4) Team up – go with a group of people into each neighborhood to find items that you can resell and you can cover more garage sales faster. Also you can tap your team’s knowledge on what may be good items to buy
5) Buy baby clothes – at a lot of garage sales people sell their baby clothes at an extreme discount. Gather as many baby clothes throughout the year and host a garage sale of your own selling just baby clothes (marked up of course). It will definitely get a lot of traffic and baby clothes are sure to sell

These are just a few of the tips I recommend to try and make a little money from going out garage-saling! What are some of your tips? Enjoy the season everyone and remember “turn trash into cash”!

Today I read this article on how they are now predicting $15/gallon gas!

$15 Gas article



If things like this come true then the world will be in chaos! I can't imagine what prices at the store would look like, lines at the gas pump would look like, or how this would change the future of the middle class. Personally, I think you are going to see a major swing and rebellion once you hit $5, which we were debating a few weeks ago on "what is the braking point for gas". A lot of people are already sick of the gas prices and if this continues our economy, middle class, and standard of living are in for a world of hurt.

I just want to throw this out there as my own prediction that I think will come true before 2012. Along with all the middle east countries rationing explain in the article I predict that "Israel will find large quantities of oil reserves under their soil." Based on what I've been see and the trends I just want to throw that out there.

What do you think the breaking point will be? How will you change your lifestyle once gas hits $5, $7, $10, or even $15? You better ask yourself these questions now and come up with a saving plan if this does come true. Again we shouldn't be driven by fear of the unknown possibility but be in a position to protect ourselves and our assets.

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Yesterday my wife and I took the plunge after returning from our vacation. We bought six reusable bags from whole foods for 99 cents each.

Whole Foods

This is part of our challenge of going green in our home. We are simply sick and tired of collecting the plastic bag and ultimately them ending up in our landfills. I do use the plastic bag again and pack my sack lunches. Here are some more green tips to help save you some money and the environment.

1. Switch your light bulbs to compact fluorescents
2. Unplug electric devices (they are still pull electricity even though they are shut off)
3. Remove excess weight from your car to help improve gas mileage
4. Telecommute at least one day a we to work
5. Ask your utility company for a free home energy audit.

Check out the environmental defense website for many more green tips.

Environmental Defense

Check out my blog for other money savings tips to get to retirement early at frugal retirement.

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Here's a short list of 5 things you can start doing today to help you put money away for the future:

Create a "loose change" jar for all your coins and at the end of each month, deposit the collection into a stock that you believe has hit "bottom" and has growth potential. Sit on it.
Decide today that you will eat out only once (twice at the most) a week. This may be hard for those coffee/latte folks out there.

Do all your bill payments online - as well as set up automatic payments direct from your checking/savings account. This will eliminate any late fees you may encounter, plus any postage fees.
Instead of going out for a movie - or renting a movie, borrow movies from your local library. You can't go wrong with a classic movie - especially a Hitchcock!
With gas prices shooting up, find out if any of your co-workers would be willing to ride-share. This is a great way to get to know people - and save money!

What are some of your tips?

Check out my blog for other money savings tips to get to retirement early at frugal retirement.

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Today I was going through my old favorites and came upon this 2002 article – You think like a million bucks. The article went on to list the most common characteristics of millionaires. Here they are:

“MILLIONAIRES SEE A HALF-FULL GLASS”
“THEY SEIZE THE DAY”
“THEY HAVE A MASTER PLAN”
“THEY FEEL ENTITLED TO THEIR MONEYBAGS”
“THEY KNOW THE UPS AND DOWNS OF INVESTING”
“THEY FIND WAYS TO MAKE MONEY DOING WHAT THEY LOVE”
“THEY KNOW THEY COULD DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN”

Back in high school I was out playing golf with my golf buddy and his dad. During our round of golf I told my friend and his dad that someday I was going to be a millionaire. Boy did I get laughed off the course. For about two holes they wouldn’t stop laughing and criticizing me saying, “Do you know how many zeros are in a million?” “Are you serious?” “I’ll believe it when I see it”. To this day I still remember that day, what I was wearing, what hole we were on, how they said it, and their doubtful attitude. Above anything their criticism motivated me more then anything to one day become a millionaire. I was only 17 at the time and I didn’t know how, but I knew I would.

Then came college...I still remember the class and teacher...quantitative methods and professor George. During one of our boring classes I was introduced to the power of compound. George laid out how by dollar cost averaging and investing $500/month from 22 to 30 that I could have $6.5 million by the time I turned 65 (@ 12% interest). I was AMAZED and so was the whole class. Everyone asked more questions that day then they did in the entire semester. He went on to explain that a person who invested from 30 to 65 would end up having less. That is when I realized...this is my ticket to becoming a millionaire. I’m going to invest $500/month right after I graduate college at least until I turned 30 (and I did!).

Finally, right out of college I went to see a “financial advisor” at one of the big brokerage firms in our town. I went in there with a bit of skepticism, and came away with an important tidbit that I carry with me today. He tried to get me sucked into one of his “HIGH Growth tech funds”, but the thing that stuck out the most was he asked me a question. He asked me, “what are your goals?” I said “what do you mean? For tomorrow, week, month, or this year?” He said, “No what are your goals for when you turn 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 55, 60, 65, 75, and 85?” I said, “Hmm...I’ve never thought about that.” I went home that night and wrote out my life goals.” To this day I still have those goals and am working to accomplish all of them, which include financial, spiritual, physical, family, and educational.

Like the above article wrote about millionaires have a master plan. For me my master plan is my life goals. I know what I want to accomplish and by when. It’s in my yearly goals that I set out how I’m going to accomplish these goals to meet the next 5-year increment goal. If you haven’t thought about it, then write down your goals!! For me having a master plan has been the biggest compass for staying on track. Do you have one?

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Lately I've been reading some articles on becoming a millionaire. Additionally, I've also read many books in the past that address characteristics of millionaires and how to become a millionaire. But very few discuss the post end of becoming a millionaire. Now that you've got a million dollars in the back, then what now? For me in order to retire I'll probably need closer to two million to retire but my hope will be to be able to do these things in retirement.

- Spend time with family
- Run
- Read more
- Blog more
- Golf
- Buy a house on a lake or golf course
- Wake up early to watch the sun come up over the lake while sipping my coffee and reading a book
- Help maintain running trails
- Get more involved and volunteer for our church
- Let mom take a break more while I watch the kids
- Help dad at the farm

These are just a few of the ideas I had to do in retirement. What are a few of yours? I'd love to hear any of your ideas.

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Lately, I've been feeling prompted to blog about tithing 10% even though an individual may have a lot of credit card debt, auto loan, school loan, and home loan. I am a firm believer (contrary to Suze Orman) that a person should continue to give 10% to the church even though you may have a lot of debt. A lot can be determined by the character of a person while they are in debt to determine how they will act once they get out of debt. I know a lot of people may disagree with me on this, but I can account for myself how continuing to tithe while in debt has had great rewards for my wife and I. The Lord has blessed us many times over for our faithfulness in giving in the hard times and now we are trusted with a lot more. Now we are again tested in the good times if we will be faithful with what we have and continue to give. Since getting married I've really experience the joy of giving sacrificially and it definitely has been a learned trait that I got from my wife. Thanks honey!

I just wanted to get other people's take on tithing regardless of large amounts of debt and hear about any success stories or failures. All comments are welcome.

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We'll today it has been 30 days since I started out on my first challenge to generate more income in my family's life then existed before. I set out on a goal to raise $500 and I'm proud to say I was successful in raising $635.



The biggest contributing factor to my success was without a doubt Craigslist. It accounted for 83% of my total extra income and at no cost. If anything by doing this challenge it has opened my eyes to the possibilities of what Craigslist can provide you and publicize.

Along with that is has gotten a lot of useless junk out of our house and provide more storage space for our family. Especially as we prepare to have a new baby!

Below is a list of my streams of income:
1) Craigslist - $525
2) Tax Lien interest - $8.90
3) Ebay - $51.52
4) Amazon books - $51
5) Online Survey - mysurvey.com

Now's it off to Chicago on Wednesday for a family vacation, which we'll spend the majority of my streams of income on! We are going to a Cubs game and hopefully hit a few museums! Hope you enjoyed my challenge.

Let me know if you enjoyed my challenge or having any other ideas!! Thanks for reading!

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Well the challenge is over! Here are the official results of “What % do you save?” It looks like on average people save 15% or more! That is astounding!!! Compared to the national average of 1% or less. Saving 10% or more is a key getting to retirement early and a lot of the poll respondents show that they realize this too.

Check out the poll results

Today I took the plunge and ordered Work Less, Live More: The Way to Semi-Retirement by Bob Clyatt. I bought it used on Amazon used books and I’ve been reading it every time I go to Borders or Barnes and Noble. As a person that is actively seeking to someday have the option of not having to work I thought this would be a great addition to my collection and give me some great advice. The book takes the perspective of perusing a semi-retirement, which is something I haven’t considered before.

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Today my sister, son, and I went to garage sales. Brings back fond memories as a kid going with my as my mom instilled in me being frugal and getting good deal at garage sales. Sometimes my mom and her friends took garage sales to an extreme, but I got the jist of it! Thanks mom!

This morning we didn't pick anything up for more the 25 cents, but we did find some great deals. Bought a squirt gun and a nice puzzle map of the United States. My parents use to quiz me every night before I went to bed on the states and their capitals. I figure this will help my son learn his states too. Then probably the best deal I am proud of snatching is a vintage 7up glass cup. I remember these cups when I was a kid. I think they came from Pizza Hut, but I'm not sure. I couldn't believe the price tag said 25 cents and I knew it was worth more than that so I looked it up on ebay when I got home! Found a list of two of them for $20!!

7up ebay glasses

Also on Friday I sold my golf clubs for $60, so that is a little more to add to my Multiple Streams of Income challenge. I'm now up to $635 total!!

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Today my 3 1/2 year old son and I are planning on going camping along the Missouri River tonight! This is our first time ever trying this and last night I practiced setting up the tent. Needless to say it was "fun", but took a lot of patience. Regardless, I just want to create a tradition with him that we can do the rest of our life and I hope he can grow to have a love of nature like I've grown to have. Especially after being raised on the farm! So its off to camping we go!

Yesterday in my masters class we discussed the “real” dollars spent on gas and how we’ve just crossed over the threshold that we were at in 1981 during the Iranian Crisis. People have been moaning a lot about how the price of gas is “breaking the camels back”, but in relative terms gas is at the same levels that they were in 1981.


Data provided from http://www.inflationdata.com/

Department of Labor – Inflation Hoax:
Now take a snapshot of the above inflation adjusted gas data. Then look at the rate of inflation in both 2007&2008 and compare it to 1980 & 1981.


Data provided from http://www.inflationdata.com/

Does something look a little odd here? To me something smells a bit rotten and that our department of labor is skewing the inflation numbers, because so much of our national debt is leveraged against the inflation rate and business are adjusted against the inflation rate as well. To me I really believe the Department of Labor is pulling the wool over our eyes and these numbers aren’t really factual. You and I both know that when we go to the grocery story that 1) Milk cost $2.55 last year and last week when I went to the store it cost $3.35, 2) Gas last spring cost $2.75/gallon and I just had to fill up on $3.54 gas today, 3) Fertilizer for my lawn last year was $5.80 for a small bag and this past weekend I paid more then $11. Now do those numbers look like 3%, 4%, even 5% inflation? Even a high school dropout can figure out that! Personally here is what I believe. I believe we the people need to take inflationary calculations into our own hands. Here is what I propose. List out 4 items that you will commit to track yearly on how much it will cost for those items each year. For example:

1) Milk
2) Bread
3) Gas
4) The same 3 homes in your neighborhood

Then you can figure out on your own…is the government telling us the truth? This puts the power back in your hands and helps you to make adjustments to your finances based on your factual data! As a result, you’ll get to retirement early and be able to hedge inflation while in retirement to sustain a comfortable lifestyle.

What do you think?

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Yesterday during some free time at work I thought for a second about my multiple streams of income challenge and thought...in all what avenues do I currently utilize to get to retirement early? Here is the list I came up with (in no particular order):

1. Craigslist
2. Ebay
3. Surveys
4. Blog Revenue
5. Amazon books sales
6. 40 hour/week job
7. 401k
8. Roth 401k
9. Wife’s 403b
10. My ROTH IRA
11. Wifes ROTH IRA
12. 529 plan for son
13. Ibonds (for son’s college)
14. Silver coins & coin collection
15. Company stock options
16. County tax lien certificate
17. Farming business
18. Home equity

Basically when I got to about 8 or 9 items I felt blown away. Then to come up with 18...wow! I realized we are already using a lot of different streams of income generation that are already generating $$’s or will be available someday (i.e. retirement funds, 529 plan).

You know the quote of Albert Einstein that says “The most powerful force in the universe is compound interest”. I realize with 18 different streams of income, the power of compound interest, and being only 31 years old that these streams will eventually make ponds. Thus generating more income or retirement $$’s that I probably will ever be able to imagine.

I challenge you all to sit down and write out all the ways that you are creating avenues of income today or will be in the future. You might just be amazed at what you are already doing.

As always if anyone has any suggestions on other ways to create income streams, then let me know and I’ll investigate!! Thanks again for everyone’s encouragement as my family and I go on this challenge.

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This weekend my wife and I planted our garden in our new raised garden. Last year we had our garden flood multiple times and we didn’t have a very productive crop. Plus the top soil here is about 2 inches thick and then you hit clay so it wasn’t very good for irrigation. We have a lot of high hopes this year!

This year we planted tomatoes, potatoes, green onions, green peppers, green beans, zucchini, and peas. Had to ask the in-laws on how far apart and how many potatoes to plant in each hole. They’ve been gardening since Adam and Eve started, so they have pretty good knowledge about how to do it! I also put up a protective fence around the garden too, because we had a problem last year with bunnies eating our green pepper plant. They chew on that like its candy.


Hope it will look like this at the end of the year!


With that said today we’ve officially started our 30 day – Go Green challenge and over the next month I’ll be blogging about how our family is going green. Our garden is one other way that our family is seeking to raise organic food at home. I’ll also give some tips on what we are doing to go “more green” and the benefits. Just like the multiple streams of income challenge has been a great motivator I think that going green will really challenge our family to live more environmentally friendly.

Now for the Multiple Streams of Income challenge update – yesterday our baby crib bedding set sold for $51.52, which I added to the challenge. We are officially up to $565.43 on day #23, and we are going to push hard the last 7 days.

Lastly, we got good news on Friday that we had over paid our home insurance escrow and we got a big fat check for $193. That is $193 that is going straight towards paying extra on my student loan. Still have an objective to pay all of that off before the baby comes. It’s a lofty goal, but then again I doubted that I’d be able to raise $500 for my current challenge.

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Got some good news on the multiple streams of income! Listed a baby crib set last Sunday and this morning we only had 1 bid on it at $25. Just checked it and we have 3 3/4 hours left and we have two bids and it is up to $51.52!!!Awesome! We also have 9 watchers on our item so I'm hoping some people will jump in at the last minute and bid it above $60.

Also on Friday my wife and I listed three European pez dispensers sets on Friday, and we are hoping to start getting some bids on them. Currently no watchers, but we're hopeful.

Talked to a guy at work today and he said he was going to send me a referral signup for pinecone research so I can generate some more survey income that didn't exist before. I'm also going to re-read my book "Multiple Streams of Income" by Robert G Allen to try and get some more ideas.

On another note, yesterday I went to Barnes and Noble and read a few pages of Work Less, Live More: The Way to Semi-Retirement and it looked really good. I'm thinking about buying it used off amazon, but we'll see. Anyone else read this book by chance?

Lastly, this coming week I'll be starting my next challenge (overlapping with Multiple Streams of Income) called "30 day challenge - Go Green". My objective will be to move my family and house to living "more green". I'll give updates as to how we are living green and ways we are improving.


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Yesterday I read a great article from getrichslowly.org that JD took to one of his lectures at Western Oregon University. He produced a one page personal finance sheet and this perception from a pf book caught my eye:

The Three-Step Budget (Andrew Tobias, The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need)
1. Destroy all your credit cards.
2. Invest 20% of all that you earn. Never touch it.
3. Live on the remaining 80%, no matter what.

So that got me thinking...time for another poll. What % of your income do you save on a monthly basis. Check it out my new poll at Frugal Retirement. I'll be sure to post the results in about a week.

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8 years ago I heard a sermon on “owing no man nothing” and people from the church got up front and testified of what being debt free did for their lives. It was really powerful and encouraging to see people with real stories of how getting out of debt freed them of this bondage. Debt has so much baggage with it and restricts a person in so many ways. For example…college loans.

I graduated school 9 years ago in May. I still owe $6950, and I started out owing $15,000. Does that sound kind of ridiculous? For me it sure does? I’m almost coming up on my 10 year reunion and if I wasn’t so aggressively paying off my student loan, then I would most likely still have my loan at my 15 year reunion. What kind of bondage is a 15 year school loan? It’s a lot!!

My wife and I are having a baby hear in September and today as I write this I still owe $6950, and one of my wife and I goals are to pay off my student loan before we have our second baby. It is a lofty goal and I don’t how it is going to happen, but when we introduce this baby into this world we want one less debt to have hanging over our heads. As part of my 30 day Multiple Streams of Income challenge I plan on continuing even after the 30 days to generate income to pay off my student loans and eventually owe no man nothing!

Is anyone else struggling with debt out there? Make a plan (with your spouse if you are married) and plan to get out of debt aggressively. Then at the end of the day when capital one asks you…”What’s in your wallet?” You can yell, CASH!!!!

frugal retirement

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Yesterday my wife and I had a great discussion about keeping money, frugality, retirement, debt, and saving in perspective. Recently my wife and I have been following this blog about a couple that found out at 20 weeks into their pregnancy that their baby had under developed lungs and would be born with undeveloped lungs and would die soon after she was born.


http://audreycaroline.blogspot.com/

The blog gets about 40,000 hits a week and has had a huge impact on people all throughout our country. It really has impacted us in keeping all things in perspective pertaining to money and that it is only temporal. This family's faith in the midst of this adversity has been amazing!! Despite all that they have gone through in giving birth to their daughter who they lost within 2 1/2 hours of birth - it has been a testiment of how our Lord can use all things for his glory.

Even trials and dispair.

Even joys and triumphs.

Even money worries.

Even death.

Even life.

I just want to encourage you all, like I've been refined of lately, to keep all financial matters at the feet of Jesus. Money is talked about in the Bible more then any other topic, and its important to keep your character in check and search your heart on "are you trying to serve both God and money?" I know personally I fall into this camp sometimes.

I also ask you to check out this great video of the testimony of family about the whole experience and the impact it had on them. Thanks for listening!

http://withoutwax.tv/