A Look Into My 2013 FIRE Notes

I actually chuckled after finding a Google Document back from 2013 titled “Lifeeeee”.  I had to share this and what my thoughts looked like 10 years ago.

A Look Inside My 2013 Brain

Guys, the only thing on this list that actually went according to “plan” was to have a baby. Literally nothing else here happened according to plan.  Ah to be young again (oh 2013 Court, you’re so cute to be thinking like this). Although I am so damn proud of my organized self for writing this all out in my late 20s.. I know, I’m super weird now and was back then too.

What Changed?

Of course, I’m glad my 20 something self was thinking ahead like this but this just showcases how much of a Type-A over-planner I’ve always been. Over the years I’ve learned to loosen up (I think?) and realized that there’s no sense in planning for anything more than a year or two out.  So what actually happened instead?

• We rented out our Florida townhouse for way more than $1,300/mo (2 people at $650/mo). Back in 2015, we rented out our ~2,000 sq ft townhouse to a family for $2,100/mo.  This was MUCH more than I thought we’d be able to rent it for.
• Nic paid off her student loans prior to 2017. So I suppose this point is correct, but we were aiming for 2017 but it happened in 2015 instead.
• We did save and purchase a Canadian townhouse but it was in 2016 not 2017, for $315,000 CAD not $300,000, 20% down ($63,000) not $80,000, 30 year loan with a 5 year fixed rate, with an interest rate of 2.59% for those first 5 years not 4.5%. Close but no cigar!
• We have not spent $15,000 on a car every 8 year.  Prior to leaving Florida in 2015, I sold my 2001 Toyota Rav4 for $4,000 and Nic sold her 2003 Honda Accord for $1,500. Our car setup has been all over the place since we moved up to Canada.
  • Court
    • With that $4,000 USD I purchased Nic’s grandma’s 2009 Pontiac Vibe with 40,000 kms for $5,000 CAD (the exchange rate at the time was 1.2 so this equated to the same amount).  A year later I was in a major car accident thanks to a guy not stopping at a stop sign and insurance paid me a little over $7,000 CAD for the car value as it was totalled.  I purchased a lemon 2011 Nissan Rogue AWD (no offense to the Rouge, I did not end up with a good one though) with 130,000 kms for $9,000 CAD. Within a year I sold this car at a small loss and bought Carol, my 2009 Toyota Corolla with 70,000 km for $7,000 CAD.  After a few years, we eventually decided to downsize to a one-car household and I sold Carol for $6,500 CAD.
  • Nic
    • Nic sold her super old yet super reliable Honda Accord in FL and used that $1,500 USD/$1,800 CAD to help fund her $4,000 CAD Honda Civic that she purchased from her brother.  She ended up over paying and sold it for $2,000 CAD as we were over the cramped 2 door style (not our savviest/proudest purchase).  She bought a $8,000 AWD Subaru Imprezza which we also sold as it was manual as the intention was for me to learn stick but that never happened (I freaked out trying to learn!) so that got sold for a profit (washing out the loss from the Civic) and she then bought a 2011 Chevy Equinox with 88,000 kms for $8,700 CAD.  We sold this beast for $7,500 CAD as it was too big for us and bought a 2013 AWD Subaru Legacy with 170,000 kms that we bought for $6,000 CAD.  While we loved this car, we decided to downsize to a single car and sold this Subie for $10,000 (this is when the used car market started to really not make sense) along with Court’s Corolla for a Subaru Outback for $12,000 CAD.
    • As you can see, we were alllllll over the place with vehicles – yeesh! I really can’t stand the car buying/selling process so hopefully we have our current vehicle for awhile now!  Writing all of that out made me dizzy, I can’t believe all of that happened over a 6 year time frame.
• Estimated baby costs of $20,000/year.  What crack was I on?!  This is the damn marketing hitting me. When we were getting ready to call it quits, we estimated to spend $208/mo on RESP investments (accurate), $175/mo on food, and $400/mo on everything else for each kiddo.  This comes out to closer to $9,396/year/kid which looking back, is still too high.
• We thought for a hot second to have my mom rent out our townhouse.  That never happened.  We ended up selling our Florida townhouse in 2017 instead as we learned we did not enjoy being cross continental land lords (even with excellent tenants).
• My fiscally conservative ways shining through…. accounting for CPI but no pay raises…
• Hopefully retire by 60.  HA!!!! Here’s where that age 60 comes from.  Check this out haha oh Court, I crack myself up. Conservative Clancy at her finest.

We were estimating $900,000 in savings would be our freedom.  Look at the damn timeline.  I just cannot.  We reached $900,000 in passive income, wayyyyy earlier than what my 2013 self estimated.  Back in 2013 I guessed it would happen in 2039.  26 years later.  26!!!! I would have been in my 50s at that point but here we are in our 30s not working.

The power of FI is over time you realize how to live an intentional life that you value and inherently you increase your savings rate and drastically propel your timeline. You figure out how to be more dialled in and optimized.  You find ways to reduce costs.  You find ways to make extra income.  It’s all part of the process but hard to think about when you’re just starting off.

Note that this was created in 2013 and I had first heard of Mr Money Mustache and FIRE a year prior.  At that point I had just paid off my $60,000 USD student loans and had saved up for a downpayment on our first townhouse and was very new to this investing/FIRE concept.  I was guessing we would save around $25,000/year.  We ended up saving WAY more than that.

This is why I try to tell people in the FI doldrums phase to just chill. You very likely will reach your number a lot sooner than you think. Compound interest is amazing.  A portfolio earning 7% returns looks very different when the size of that portfolio is $10,000 vs $1,000,000.  Simply being motived to reach your FI number will somehow get you there faster.  You’ll find some sort of side hustle.  You’ll realize you over estimated some sort of spending category as you found a way to reduce/eliminate that cost.  Yada yada.

Hope you enjoyed getting a look into my brain from 10 years back. Also hope it provided some relief knowing that plans do in fact change, likely for the better.

Did you ever come up with a game plan in your earlier years that were smashed out of the park?  Do you ever think reaching FI is SO far away?  If so, you may be thinking like 2013 Court and be a lot closer than you think.  Hopefully you got a chuckle from my thoughts from 7 years ago like I did looking back on this now.

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