Will A Decade of Lower Than Average Returns Impact My FIRE Date?

Will A Decade of Lower Than Average Returns Impact My FIRE Date?

Comments 17 comments

Most major investment firms are predicting lower than average returns for the stock market in the next decade. Horrifying words like Lost Decade are being thrown around. Even the vaunted Vanguard stock outlook has market returns in the 5.5% to 7.5% nominal annualized range for the next 10 years. This Vanguard report was recently updated over the summer after an even worse December 2019 outlook of 4%-ish returns. International equity growth seems to fare better when modeled by all parties….

Read More Read More

We Rented an RV and Drove To Montana. How Much Did It Cost Us?

We Rented an RV and Drove To Montana. How Much Did It Cost Us?

Comments 10 comments

Once a year we take a vacation abroad. In 2018, it was the tiny beach village of Chacala in Nayarit Mexico. 2019, we hit up South East Asia; Hong Kong, Vietnam, and Taiwan. This year we had a spectacular trip to Europe planned for March. Spain, Hungary, and the UK were on the itinerary. But then COVID happened, and like most everyone with 2020 travel plans, we had to cancel the trip. We never once thought we’d rent and RV…

Read More Read More

Recovering Consumerist

Recovering Consumerist

Comments 4 comments

We are ardent Capitalists here at Happily Disengaged. But we are also ardently aware of the problems associated with consumer culture in our society. There’s a problem with consuming items in ever-increasing quantities. Suffering inevitably results from the constant pressure we feel from advertisements and the need to show others we’ve made it. When you make more you spend more. The Consumer Okay, so the quotes are just a paraphrase of a mentality that us consumers have. There’s a bunch…

Read More Read More

How to Make A High Salary With No College Degree

How to Make A High Salary With No College Degree

Comments 3 comments

Sometime during the last decade of the cold war, America’s unions began to die. Blue-collar work in America, while respected and looked upon with nostalgic eyes by nearly all economic classes as the backbone of this country, just isn’t something that America aspires to be. And in turn, many young people are passing up what may be a great career and the fastest lane to Financial Independence. Not to mention a high salary with college degree needed. With the preconceived…

Read More Read More

Lazy People Spend More

Lazy People Spend More

Comments 0 Comment

When we moved into our house in 2015, we knew that the air conditioning didn’t work. The region of the Bay Area where we live has clockwork wind in the summer. This wind is usually enough to mitigate the need for paying thousands to fix the AC and then pay mightily to run it. Between the hours of three and five in the afternoon, on cue, a breeze picks up and continues on throughout the night. When my alarm goes…

Read More Read More

$6 Dollar Date

$6 Dollar Date

Comments 0 Comment

For the 4th of July weekend, we usually go camping. It’s a time of taking an extra day off work, to turn a three day weekend into a four day weekend, and driving out into one of the national forests we love to visit with friends and family. We swim. Drink. Cook delicious food. And enjoy being outdoors. For the last few years, we’ve been driving up into either the verdant forests of the north or the banks of the…

Read More Read More

How We Achieved a 50% Savings Rate In Just 2 Months

How We Achieved a 50% Savings Rate In Just 2 Months

Comments 10 comments

In two months we were able to increase our savings rate from 25% of our net income to 50%. Since we gave ourselves a 7 year deadline to call it quits from the rat race, the importance of jacking up our savings rate in a timely manner was number one on our FI course correction list. Achieving a 50% savings rate in such a short amount of time is not impossible, as long as you don’t have a lot of…

Read More Read More

The Happily Disengaged Origin Story

The Happily Disengaged Origin Story

Comments 6 comments

In 2015, at the ripe old age of 32, I was promoted to the position I’d been striving for since I decided to make construction a career. I bought a nice home in a nice part of town that same year. My wife also achieved success in her job, rising through the ranks from receptionist to become an HR manager. Things were good. Things were better than good, they were great. Life was great. The American dream was being dreamed….

Read More Read More