$50 Per Day

I never let a day go by when I'm not reading a mixture of blog posts, trade publications, local newspapers in print or online and, of course, books. As a matter of fact, I am currently between three different books, one of which I read first thing every morning, one of which I'm reading the last hour or two before going to sleep and one of them that I just sneak a few pages in here and there.

One of the blog post that I came across that piqued my interest lately is by millionaire Millennial blogger Grant Sabatier, the founder and author of MillenialMoney.com.

The post is titled "The $50 a day early retirement strategy." 

Obviously, $50 is a hell of a lot more than the $5 per day that any readers who have not started consistently saving to try to start with. Five bucks a day equals one hundred and fifty or so bucks every month and $1,800 per year. Not enough to fund a solid long-term retirement, but enough to get started with if everyday expenses have caused you or someone you know to forgo investing at all.

Several things came to mind as I read this post about saving $50 a day as an early retirement strategy or, as I like to call it, paying yourself $50 per day. 

The first thing that dawned on me as that this month, November of 2018, I just happened to be Paying Ourselves First in the amount of $50 per day.

Mind you, this is not me investing $1,500 into my own retirement savings accounts during this 30-day month. This is me paying my daughter $400 for her future college expenses, my wife $500 broken into two separate payments of $250 to her Roth IRA, which I have invested into the Vanguard S&P 500 Index, and investing $600 into my own Roth IRA, which I will share once again is invested with T. Rowe Price, specifically in the Blue Chip Growth fund and the Capital Appreciation fund.

The second thing that I realized is that I had planned to invest this amount prior to reading this post and it would be a more impressive amount if I was twenty, fifteen or even ten years younger than I am. currently enjoying my last few days of being of Prime Age, I turn an age that has many factors, forty-eight, in the next few days before Thanksgiving.

So if I was telling you that I was investing $1,500  into my own retirement savings account this month and was turning twenty-eight years old or maybe thirty-three like my Millennial boss's age or even thirty-eight, I think that it would be a lot more impressive then a forty-eight year-old telling you that I'm doing this.

Nonetheless, this post has instilled the desire in me to pay ourselves a grand total of $18,250 next year between the three of us.

$50 per day will add up to $18,250 next year.

Now that the limit for how much you can contribute to your Roth IRA under the age of fifty has increased to $6,000 per year, it's easy for me to say exactly how $12,000 of that will be invested.
$5,500 had been a little bit of an awkward amount of $458.33 per month if you do the math.

$6,000 per year for each of us is very easy math; $1,000 per month to invest in our IRAs split evenly with $500 going to mine and $500 going to my wife's.

I'll be switching gears a little bit next year in terms of how I invest the remainder of the  $6,250,  which, as of now, I intend to invest in the T. Rowe Price Dividend Growth Fund. Or I may decide to pay down our mortgage by an extra $6,250. Or I might decide to invest it all in my favorite all-time fun, the Vanguard Wellington fund. Perhaps half to the dividend growth fund and half to the Wellington fund. Maybe making other investments that I haven't even contemplated yet.

But the bottom line is, although I won't be paying myself $50 per day at the age of twenty-eight or even thirty-eight or forty, I will hereby make it one of my goals and resolutions for 2019 to pay ourselves first in the amount of $50 per day next year. With the caveat that I will not be making daily investments, but breaking up the $18,000 in investing throughout the year to approximately $1,500 per month, as I am doing this November.

After all, I can hardly write about becoming financially independent this month. But I can continue my quest to actually retire at the respectable, on-time age of fifty-five approximately seven years from now but with many asterisks involved.*****

*I will have to continue to work until age sixty or even sixty-two or sixty-three, just not at my soul crushing municipal economic development job.  A likely scenario is for me to become an economic development consultant rather than work for one municipality.

*I would be eligible for a monthly pension payment in the $6,500 range seven years from now if I remain gainfully employed and receive annual pay raises of 3%. 

*My goal is to generate additional income by side hustles, writing, blogging, speaking, etc., so as not to become more financially independent. 

*Something that I am going to try is launching an e-Commerce site.  I do not harbor delusions of grandeur, but very much want to have a go at it and do not mind working an extra ten or twenty hours per week on it in addition to my full-time job. 

*Speaking of my full-time job, although I work for a government entity and you may harbor several assumptions based on that, I worked from 8:30 AM to 8:30 PM this past Monday, my normal eight hour day on Tuesday and from 8:30 AM to 7:00 PM last night.  A regular eight hours brought my work week to 38.5 hours through Thursday.  Because I am a salaried professional, there is no overtime or comp time or whatever.  I am leaving two hours early tomorrow but will have to burn two vacation hours although I would have worked 44.5 hours.  I'm not complaining, just stating that I am not a union member nine-to-five guy who goes home every day at the exact same time. 

*I could write many more asterisk points but that's enough for now.         Ciao!