Now what, step 3

After thinking about my retirement plan some more , I started to look around the internet and found some interesting websites. One of them was Mr money mustache

It’s a blog and community on reaching your retirement, i.e. being financially independent as soon as possible. Well that’s interesting. Started with the first series of blog posts and got a bit carried away reading. And thinking, what if this actually works. What if I can generate nough passive income to work a day or two less. Finally I’ll be able to train more, run more races and even do some more travelling.

Ok ok hold on, not so fast. The basic idea is to consume much less, and cut your montly cost base. But hey I like consuming. Maybe I don’t buy as much unnecessary crap as most people, but I do enjoy a good restaurant, night out and a bit of luxury now and then.

I continued reading and found more interesting info. It is possible to reach financial independence between 5 and 7 years. That’s very fast indeed.

I already started but with a much longer time frame in mind, what if this is possible for me. I think I am going to crunch the numbers a bit more.

Now what, step 1.

A couple of days ago I wrote a bit about my own personal retirement gap. Long story short, not much is certain when it comes to my retirement.

Now what, let’s see. It got me thinking about the stuff I can control. So I opened up good old excel and started gathering all my financial info.

Boring but very necessary. So where does my money go. Not surprisingly most of the money goes to my mortgage, (health) insurance, electricity, gas and food (including eating out, drinking in bars etc.). Your basic stuff.

Luckily not all was bad, I have some savings and I tend to save each month. That’s were I did my first discovery. My mortgage costs me 5,4% every year. My savings account netted me 1% every year.

Stupid me , should have made extra payments to minimize my mortgage. which will save me money now and in the future.

Step 1 figured out. Paying off the mortgage.

That’s all good but it doesn’t give me an income in the future , if I pay off all of it the money will be in the house so to speak.

Now I have to figure out how to get a steady income that can pay for my basic needs now and in the future without having to work for it.