Lazy Man and Money

Our Early Retirement Plan: My Personal Income (Part 2)

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If you are just starting this, I suggest you start at The Introduction – Part 0. Alternatively, you can jump to Our Early Retirement Plan: Where We Are Now (Part 1).

My income and my wife’s income are dramatically different from most people. I don’t have a 9-5 job. Yesterday I mentioned how I make money from websites and from a small business.

Businesses

I run a few websites, but the one you are reading is by far my most successful. While I’ve put numerous hours into it, it’s starting to pay off well. In fact, the websites scale quite well. While it takes me awhile to get the websites going and producing income, but once they do, they can work without much time or effort on my part. Of course if I want them to continue to grow, I have to put significant effort in. However at some point, I might just say, I’ll spend a day and write a weeks worth of content and then vacation for the rest of the week.

The small business that I work on with my partner is a service. We do some work in acquiring clients as well as some start-up. However, once things get going, there’s very little day-to-day work with providing this service. We are keeping the business in stealth mode for now, so I’m not at liberty to discuss the details. Sorry.

It’s hard to believe that I could have these businesses 33 years from now. I’ve been at each of them for a very short time now. However, if these incomes were to last until then, I could live an essentially “retired” lifestyle. In fact, in my weird definition of retirement these two businesses are almost an ideal fit. I would have a sense of accomplishment, but still the freedom to travel and conduct my business from anywhere… or I could outsource these businesses to others and keep large percentage of the profits for myself.

Some may ask what they can do to duplicate the businesses I have. Sometimes it’s simply a matter of keeping your ears open for money making opportunities. I wish I could say that I planned these business from scratch. However, I accidentally fell into both businesses. In addition, network and surround yourself with smart people.

Retirement Nest Egg

In addition to those businesses, I have $125,000 in retirement accounts invested in stocks. If I were able to invest this money and make an 8% return, it’s possible to make 5% after inflation. Compounding this money for 33 years would seem to produce a potential $625,000 nest egg. I would need to pay taxes on some of this money (it’s a mix of Roth IRAs and 401Ks), but perhaps I’d still have $500,000 in equivalent to today’s dollars (since I factored in inflation). Experts estimate that you can withdraw 4% of that nest egg in retirement without impacting the nest egg itself. This would be $20,000 a year.

In addition to this, if my businesses take off, I can shelter some of the income in self-employed retirement accounts. I might even be able to put as much as $40,000 in a SEP-IRA. In addition, my tax attorney is saving me a lot of money by pointing out how many things are now a deduction with these businesses. These two extra tools will also help.

Rental Property

I mentioned in part 1 that I have a rental property. It’s currently worth less than I pay for it. I barely make back my expenses on it at this point. However, in 30 years it will be paid off and any income that it earns after that be a nice supplemental income.

Conclusion

It’s difficult to impossible to estimate what the businesses will make so far in the future. However, my websites currently make around $40,000 a year. My other business makes around $24,000 a year at this moment. Add in the $20,000 cash flow from the nest egg and it looks like I have a decent chance of having $84,000 when I retire. And while I don’t count on social security, it would be a solid bonus. I could definitely sustain myself on $84,000 a year. In some areas of the country, both my wife and I could live off that money.

My Six Word Memoir

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For those of you who don’t follow such things, there’s a thing in the world of blogging (often called a blogosphere) called a meme. Basically someone takes a topic, writes about it, and then “tags” others to write about it. I suppose if you don’t write about it, you get stuck being “it.” As we learned at an early age, no one wants to be “it.”

The point of the story is that I’ve been “tagged” by credit addict. I need to write six words that encompass my thoughts. So I had six words together:

Be Ben Franklin… healthy, wealthy, wise.

However, fate has changed my memoir. I was tagged for the same meme by Fat Man Unleashed to write one for Lazy Man and Health. This means that I’m going to have to split my single statement into two reflecting each personality.

Thus for Lazy Man and Money, I go with:

Money – freedom to do almost anything

This is really what Lazy Man and Money is about. I talk about being Lazy, but that’s just one example of what is possible when you are financially independent. I feel that it strikes a chord on some level with most people.

If you are curious what my health memoir is, please check my six word memoir at Lazy Man and Health.

The proper thing at this point is to tag some others. I’m not one to support pyramid schemes, so I’m going to tag three people total from my two websites. This is a more “sustainable” meme that will help it last longer. And rather than tag the big blogs, I’m going to bring attention to three blogs that have unique viewpoints, only a handful of posts, and could benefit greatly from your attention.

These sites are:

For those people the rules are simply:

  • Write your own six word memoir.
  • Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you wish.
  • Link to the person who tagged you in your post.
  • Tag at least three more blogs.
  • Leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play.

Money Does Buy Happiness… Imagine that!

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It’s long been assumed that money doesn’t buy happiness. There was a famous study in the 70s (PDF) that supported this claim. It concluded that as long as your basic needs are met, money doesn’t buy happiness – it’s money relative to the people around you. If you don’t believe the study, what about the anecdotal evidence of lottery winners reporting that they are less happier after winning? When I think about it, some of the happiest people I know aren’t particularly rich, but have good friends, family, and hobbies that they enjoy.

New York Times published an article yesterday saying that maybe everything has changed, money does buy happiness after all. In my opinion, this is the defining statistic:

In the United States, about 90 percent of people in households making at least $250,000 a year called themselves “very happy” in a recent Gallup Poll. In households with income below $30,000, only 42 percent of people gave that answer.

I think you have to look at money as a way to buy various freedoms. If you win the lottery, you might not need a day job, which gives you a lot of freedom. However, you now have cousin Nick asking you to help him out of his credit card problem. You trade one stress for another. If you are a CEO of a big company, you have plenty of money. But then you have to deal with all the responsibility that comes with it. If a friend comes up with great tickets to the big game, you often have to say no and get back to work.

I think it’s very difficult to find that happiness balance. Having money (and not the responsibility that comes with it) seems like a way to reduce those obstacles to a very happy life.