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Welcome! Please introduce yourself

Started by Sam, August 04, 2018, 06:17:32 PM

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rluks

Quote from: thlayli on November 07, 2018, 07:45:36 AM
I'm a fiction writer, by hobby, and would love to make it a more full time gig.

Hi there, I enjoy sci-fi. And I'm considering to write something too. Would love to check out your work.

nganix123

 Hello,

Been a long time reader....I've learned a lot from your website through the years..Keep up the good work!!!

Ocko

Greetings to all from mid-Michigan,

I am 30-year-old civil engineer and along with my wife, an elementary school teacher, have enjoyed reading and discussing Financial Samurai since 2015. May we offer our thanks to Sam for providing insightful content and to all of those who have offered their feedback.

After entering the workforce during the recession, finishing our student loans in 2014 and then taking on a mortgage considerably below our earnings, we've been happily working toward FI ever since. We enjoy saving for a fully self-funded retirement by living simply and savings like it's 1930.

Our 401(k) and 529 accounts have enjoyed the recent stock gains and even more recent corrections. We continue to diversify into municipals, real estate, private stocks and CDs.

We're expecting and expecting a wild ride from most sectors going forward into 2020 and beyond.

Cheers,
R

dustball

Howdy from Austin :)

Just started reading Financial Samurai last year.
I'm just an engineer so don't have background or experience in finance
Not planning to reach FIRE but interested in FI.
Excited to learn more and contribute to this forum.

cytoman66

Greetings from Kansas!

I'm a married, father of three (17, 16, 14) in his late 40's.  I'm a rural hospital executive with a passion for personal finance and investing.  I spend a fair amount of my free time reading blogs like Financial Samurai. Thanks Sam!

Jeremy

DigitalNomad

Hi from Vietnam.

I am an ex-silicon valley engineer turned location-independent online business owner. Been on the road since 2013 (same year as I started reading Financial Samurai) but been living pretty much permanently in Vietnam since 2016. In addition to my online income I also have investments in physical real estate, real estate crowdsourcing (RS & Fundrise), stocks, bonds, crypto and p2p lending (Prosper & LendingClub).

See you around the forum!

shanger

Greetings from Los Angeles and thanks for having me! 

I'm in my mid 30s, married, and we're expecting a baby boy later this year.  My spouse and I have been reading the blog for the last couple of years and we're huge fans!   

I earned an undergraduate degree from MIT (finance and economics) and an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management.  Spent the first part of my career managing money for institutions (started at a hedge fund, then worked at PIMCO helping manage fixed income and derivative portfolios for corporations).  Moved over to the transactional side of finance, and spent time in investment banking at Credit Suisse and in middle market private equity as well. 

In 2016, I founded a small VC backed startup focused on wealth management, which was acquired in early 2018.  A few months prior to my startup getting acquired, the biotech firm my wife worked at got acquired as well.  We did zero tax planning prior and at the time had a relatively limited understanding of how RSUs and ISOs work.  While it was a certainly a blessing, the lack of planning and knowledge resulted in a painful surprise tax bill (in addition to the taxes we had already paid) during tax season. 

Nowadays I'm a private banker and money manager and I work with individuals and endowments and foundations.  I've held a variety of finance and entrepreneurship roles, but by far my favorite part is my current job where I get to work with families and individuals to help folks make sense of their finances.  Excited to be here!

TacosAndBurritos

#107
Greetings from Texas (or whatever BFE town I'm in).

Found Sam's blog when I was in HS a decade ago, read it a couple of times. Went to college but had trouble finding a job after the recession. Didn't want to pay attention to my student loans, figured if I ignore the calls I wouldn't know how serious the problem was. So I defaulted. 19K grew to 25K. Found a job but disliked office politics and the environment wasn't for me.  So now I'm an oilfield worker fracing wells. Better work schedule, higher pay (2.5x), best medical care, and I'm good at what I do so I get offers all the time. So I'm starting a bit late but better than never. My first out of college job paid well but no way could I FIRE on 50k/yr, so I didn't care much about FIRE. Now that I'm making more, my desire to FIRE has grown exponentially. Well that and working as a part time PA for a guy who had FIRE at 33 owning a bunch of pot farms. All he did was work out, go on dates, and invest his money in businesses to help them grow. Literally, that's all he did while having 2MM in cash on his bed chest.

Age: Mid 20s.
Location: Texas (or anywhere you can frac) but call Dallas/Houston home.
Goal: Do whatever the F I want and not have to worry about it. Ideally I'd want a centrally located home and just wake up, work out, volunteer at a dog shelter, and take part in hobbies every day. Another goal is to not swing a hammer into my 30s.

P.S - Decided to rehab my loans last year, and brought 25 to 17K so far. My goal is to finish paying them off in 12 months (May)!

CheepoBiker

Good Morning All;
                            Hello from Missouri. I'm clueless when it comes to investing, whether it be terms,strategy, etc. I've been lucky-or not- in having land that others wanted. I left the investing to a brokerage. That said, I'm now 65, just got on Medicare, and plan on waiting til 66 before collecting SS. I have more than enough money to last me, and my goal this year is to liquidate the stocks/funds portion of my portfolio, and stash it in CD's, or wherever safe, and minimizing my tax burden.  Thats pretty much it, passed this along so you'll have some insight when I post my questions on the forum. Thanks       

Joshea123

Hi people,

Greetings from Vancouver. I'm a 25 year old Brit recently located here from England.

My early 20's I was pretty clueless about money but did travel a lot. I've visited around 15 countries and worked and lived in 4.

I have about $10k saved and I'm currently working a low wage job, looking into career options but also looking at skills to begin to try and make some money online: copywriting etc. I have a degree in History which if I could go back I probably wouldn't do, but it did teach me critical thinking which is never a bad skill to have.

Anyway pleased to have joined the forum, only discovered the blog recently and looking forward to conversing with you all and hopefully learning a thing or two.

Cheers

VOLinNYC

Hello Sam & Forum,

I'm a University of Tennessee graduate living in New York City, hence the screen name.  I sell professional services for a Technology Solutions firm in the city.  My position allows for a respectable amount of free time and remote work.  When I'm not working or taking care of 7 month old, I try to make sure our family is staying on track for FIRE.  We own a small apartment in the Upper East Side and are interested in purchasing a vacation/rental property in Charleston, SC.  My main focus for 2019 is aggressively saving for the Charleston down payment.

Looking forward to interacting on the Forum!

Best,

VOLinNYC

Cesarwilliams


kgschnyd3r

Hello everyone,

I was an IT Manager/Director for 20 years until I decided to start my own business. I have started a physical security company so my life has changed quite a bit from the old 8-5 routine. (and being on-call 24/7) It looks easy on paper but I have definitely run into some challenges. Nothing that will stop me from making progress, just little things that are annoying, non-productive and time consuming. The company is gaining traction and I feel good about the future.

I am able to be in this position because of some financial decisions I made years ago. Some of them were luck, being in the right place at the right time and others were prudent decisions like not having credit card debt, paying down the mortgage and saving as much as possible.

I've been reading Sam's posts for about three years now and I like his approach. I wish I understood everything he writes about and that's why I am looking forward to learning more every day.

bgallant1289

Hi from Los Angeles. I'm a 29 year old new dad who rents an apartment for $2400 a month about 5 minutes from the beach. I have a wife who is the same age and a 7 week old. While on paternity leave I had the realization I didn't want to keep going back to my day job and needed to start to map out how I was going to escape the rat race.

Speaking of day jobs, I work in investment management of a superannuation fund out of Australia, specializing in the asset management and development of their real estate portfolio. Before that I was an analyst at a commercial mortgage brokerage firm cutting my teeth on commercial real estate. Ironically after 7 years and helping other investors get rich, I have nothing invested in real estate and want that to change given my level of knowledge and  expertise.

I found FS through a guest appearance of his on another podcast and found it refreshing to hear another spin on FIRE. Can't wait to start mapping out my journey and collaborating with all you.

My Money Wizard

Hey fellow Samurais! Long time FS reader and really excited about this community!

I'm Sean, a 29 year old living in Minneapolis and chasing financial freedom as fast as possible. I work in finance by day and blog about money by night. (One time Sam stopped by and commented on a blog post of mine, so I like to think that makes me a pretty big deal 8) )

My goal is to reach total financial freedom by age 35. To get there, I do my best to save over 60% of my income and I track all of my investments on my blog. (Just passed $300,000!)

Looking forward to learning from everyone here!
Tracking my progress to financial freedom on my blog,
MyMoneyWizard.com.

MoneyOnTrees

Hi all! Longtime FS reader and first-time forum poster. About myself:

I was born and raised in VA, I went to college in TN, and I've been living in DC for the last decade. Five years ago when I was 30, I made the bold decision to quit a high-paying executive job to co-found a B2B software company. My friends and family thought I was nuts to walk away from something so lucrative.

While the executive paycheck was fantastic, I knew something was missing — my happiness. I was putting in way too many hours, enduring way too much stress, and sacrificing my mental and physical health in the process. Not to mention, I was increasingly irked that no matter how much value I added to my employer, I didn't have equity in the business and I still had to take my marching orders from the owner.

It probably sounds counterintuitive that my solution for reducing stress, increasing my happiness, and improving my health would be to start a company. Sure, the first year is rough compounded by the fact my partners and I agreed not to take any compensation for the first year. However, after a lot of hard work, perseverance, and luck, we turned a profit in 12-months and have been growing double-digits ever since. Looking back on it now, I can honestly say that becoming my own boss was one of the best decisions I ever made. Coincidentally, it was during the startup years that I discovered FS which served as a constant reminder of the financial freedom I was seeking.

While my professional expertise is in sales/marketing and business, my real passion is writing and personal finance. I had always wanted to start a blog and with my software company on stable ground, my wife finally nudged me to make that a reality. In 2018, I taught myself Wordpress, chose a name, started writing, and soft-launched in November. The link is below if you're curious. The site caters to 18-34 year-olds looking for actionable guidance on beginner-intermediate personal finance topics. The site is a hobby that I do in my spare time to help others but I'm always open to feedback on how to make it better.

Apologies for the novel, but I'm very much looking forward to learning from all of you, asking questions, sharing my experiences, and helping whenever I can. Sam, thank you for everything you do and for making this forum possible.
My personal finance blog: MoneyOnTrees.co (.co is not a typo)


dropoutandretireearly1539

Quote from: Sam on August 04, 2018, 06:17:32 PM
Hi everyone. Thanks for your interest and support of the Financial Samurai Forums! Please take a minute to say hi. Feel free to share as much or as little about yourself as you like. It'll be fun to see the community grow and reach all corners of the globe.

We're right now in soft launch mode, and I plan to publicize the forum by September 2018. I just want to make sure as many kinks are out first.

My story: https://www.financialsamurai.com/about/

Thanks!

Sam

HELLO EVERYONE !!!!! This is Doug from the

Facebook page thats called Dropout And Retire Early !!!!

I love reading financial samurai posts !!!!!

Thanks for having me here !!!!!  :) :) :) :) :) :)

JohnBrown

Hey! Im newbie! Nice to be a part this community! Nice to meet you all.

JonMD

Hello FS people. I am just joining here and excited to share my new FIRE plans, mostly financial over I. The FIRE topic page of forums. I am always open to hear opinions from this community and hope I can add somethings as well!

JonMD