2025

Greetings family and friends!  

I rarely take the time to sit down and write a blog post.  Christina does a fantastic job keeping ya’ll updated with the latest happenings in the Merhar household.  Recently, we’ve decided to make some pretty drastic lifestyle changes, and it’s all due to a Reddit comment on the true cost of commuting with a link to a personal finance blog.  

This blog with the funny name – Mr. Money Moustache – has sent me down a serious rabbit hole of introspection on what money means to me and the world of financial independence and retiring early (FIRE).

In a nutshell, the idea is to save as much money as possible using your 401k, IRA and HSA.  Once you get to about 25x your current spending, you are safe to retire withdrawing 4% from your investments.  Pretty straightforward, non-controversial stuff in the finance world.

But saving 10-15% of your pay is considered ‘a lot’ nowadays.  Using that savings rate, you might get to 65 years old with enough in the bank depending on your lifestyle.

What this guy is advocating is a savings rate of 50-90% of your pay in order to accelerate your path to retirement.  It sounds extreme, but it’s actually completely doable!  Our goal is to retire by the time I’m 47 - so 2025.

It’s been about two months since reading the first post on commuting.  Since then, Christina and I have:

• Reduced our cell phone bill by 82%
• Reduced our grocery bill by 50% (possibly even more – December might be upwards of 60%!)
• Reduced our cable/internet bill by 45%
• Paid off the Mazda
• Decided that my commute and our two car lifestyle is crazy – so we are putting our house up for sale to move close to my work in the Mukilteo/Everett area!

Once we are moved into our Everett home and the leased Leaf is returned to the dealership, our savings rate will jump from it’s current 31% to 48%!  Once Christina begins working full time, it will increase even more dramatically.

We are very excited about our new frugal lifestyle.  And trust us, it’s not limiting at all.  We are very happy with our decisions and don’t feel as if we are missing out on anything.  In fact, it’s quite the opposite - we are much more focused and driven with this goal in mind.  I’m excited to keep posting on the little victories (and any setbacks!) on our new journey.

Cheers!

Obligatory kiddo pic:

The bros