Hi, I’m Mr. MFI (Managing Financial Independence). Unfortunately I’m not a superhero or an international spy but I am deciding to keep some anonymity until I reach my financial independence goals. You never know how corporate America will feel about a personal blog so I’d just assume not risk derailing my FI plans.
What will you find here?
A wide variety of topics related to the pursuit of FI, happiness and everything to consider along the journey. I’m a personal finance nerd, lover of learning new things and passionate about trying hard things – especially physical. I went from never running more than 6 miles at a time to running a 50 mile ultra marathon in 2 years. I love to travel and learn about different people, cultures and food. As an engineer I love to optimize and improve the crap out of everything which is one reason I was drawn to FI and life hacking. Travel hacking? Yup, I do that too.
My Story
I’m an engineering manager Xennial living in New York who was heading down the traditional American dream pathway modeled by my parents. I went to college, got married, bought cars, bought a house, got a dog and took vacations. I accumulated all the debt that comes will trying to copy the life of the Jones’. When making purchasing decisions I had a mentality of “if the monthly payment fits, I gets.” Life was good with a steady job, lots of stuff, being able to pay my bills each month and maybe save a little if I had any left over. Or so I thought.
Then my wife left me.
The financial reality of that event hit me like a ton of bricks. Money was never a big concern before but now things were tight. I was extremely lucky growing up to have two very supportive parents that helped me financially through college but I was NOT about to go to them with this problem. I’m a grown ass man with a house and a career but I can’t pay my bills? Divorce turned my world upside down and sent me down a path to get out of debt.
Then I met Mrs. MFI.
Where I grew up as a spender from my upper middle class upbringing, Mrs. MFI was a saver. She set a great example for me in not wasting money on constantly buying stuff and spending on experiences instead. With her positive influence and my career aspirations life was good and the financial picture was getting stronger. But we didn’t really have any real financial goals. We assumed we would retire someday but had no idea how much we would need, no age in mind and no plan to get there.
Then my mom died.
When your mom is dying of cancer and she can’t talk you have a lot of time at her bedside to think about life and what is really important. My mom died at 63, before full retirement age.
She wasn’t overweight.
She didn’t smoke.
She didn’t have any prior health issues.
She wasn’t a risk taker.
It hit home that a person could go through their working life doing all the right things and still die before ever getting to enjoy their retirement. This eventually formed into a thought of “oh hell no, that’s not happening to me.”
This blog is me sharing all that I learn along the way on the path to pursue not just financial independence, but happiness in life. I’m hungry to continuously learn, ready to take action and enjoy every step of the journey. If all goes well Mrs. MFI and I will be FI around 2027 and will figure out our next steps from there.
2022 Update: After a year of blogging and continuing to help people with personal finance I’m going to explore more technical topics on the blog. This will help my financial education as I explore the possibility of training to become a financial coach or planner. I hope you’ll join me along the journey and learn a few things along the way.
