Welcome to my new interview series titled “ESI Scale Interviews”.
The name comes from a post I initially wrote titled Working the ESI Scale to Financial Independence as well as a follow-up from a reader titled A Great Example of Working the ESI Scale.
In short, the interviews will focus on what the interviewee is doing in the areas of earning, saving, and investing. There will also be an opportunity for them to ask for suggestions from ESI Money readers if they choose to do that.
Since the series is just getting started, I’m looking for feedback as well.
Specifically, I’d like to know what you think of the questions — which ones are good, which ones need changed, what should be added, etc. I’d like to get to a consistent list to ask everyone, so I’ll take your thoughts for a few of these posts and then settle down on a final list.
Please note that the questions need to be applicable to a wide a variety of people with very different situations. In other words, a question just for wealthy people won’t fly in this series.
Also, I give the interviewees the option to add their own questions (as you’ll see below). These may or may not be adopted into the final set of questions — we’ll see what you all think of them.
If you’d like to be considered for an interview, drop me a note and we can chat about specifics.
With that said, let’s get started.
My questions are in bold italics and his responses follow in black.
OVERVIEW
Please tell us a bit about yourself.
My wife and I are both 35 and have been married a little over 11 years (no kids, only 2 cats for the time being).
We have lived in various areas of the country. We started about in mostly rural Missouri (rent $450/month), followed by 5 years in Birmingham, AL (rent $800/month) for graduate school, and have spent the past 6 years in Seattle, WA (current rent $2195).
What is your current net worth?
Current net worth (as of October) is $258k, which I track monthly and graph it so I can see the short- and long-term trends.
Assets (we rent, so no house value; this excludes the value of our cars, wine, and other valuables):
- Retirement accounts: $239k (including HSAs)
- Cash (checking + savings + small taxable index funds): $33.7k.
Debts (no loans; only debt are revolving spending on credit cards–for points!–which fluctuates month-to-month $9-18k): current is $15.3k
How did you accumulate your net worth?
We have generated our net worth through a combination of early-ish investing and also increasing incomes over time.
To provide a full picture, we started our marriage with a ton of debt (well over $100k, which included students, car loans, credit card cash advances, credit cards, and individual loans). We were forced evaluate our spending and our lives, and through a combination of smarter choices, a tight (and finally making a) budget, and tons of self-education (personal finance blogs, books, etc.) we muddled our way through it.
We only have tracking data starting from mid-2009 (after we had paid our car off), when we had a net worth of -$30k (assets, $39k; debts, 69k).
I keep a rolling 5-year change in net worth so I can analyze our progress in a slightly different way; our current 5-year rolling increase in net worth is $233.8k! This helps me put it in perspective instead of looking at the monthly numbers–this means we averaged +$47k net worth each year! How’s that for progress!?!?!?!
EARN
Tell us a bit about your career.
Let me walk you through both our careers and earning by location.
Missouri
We started our marriage when I was finishing up college and working retail (30-40 hours/week with a full-time class load), and my wife was 1 year into her first job as a teacher. I was earning $15k a year, and she was at $27k. This may seem low, but for our area(s) of Missouri, this money went quite far. My wife had money in the teacher’s retirement during that one year (more on that later).
Alabama
When we moved to AL for me to start grad school (working on a PhD in the hard sciences), my stipend (I had no control over the amount; it was set by the University) started at $23k for my first 3 years and then was bumped to a whopping $25k for my last 2 years.
During grad school, I started on my first side hustle (see more below). I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that my school/employer had NO retirement vehicle for graduate students.
My wife began a teaching job there at $33k, and after 5 years and a graduate degree ended at $45k. She also had no control over salary or the amount she contributed to the teacher retirement system, which was set by the state/school district and followed schedule/formula based on years of experience and highest degree earned.
We began paying off our debt in earnest and left the state with a barely positive net worth.
Washington
Me
I realize this is an atypical progression, but here we go!
After arriving in Washington, I continued working in academics starting at $37k. I did a lot more side hustle work during this time (more on that below). I spent 3 total post-PhD years in academics and topped out at $42k. Again, I had no control over my salary, which was mandated federally (my salary was paid from federal NIH grants) and followed a “years-of-experience” only model. I found it very frustrating to be stunted in such a way.
I had a 403b plan available, but I was not able to put much in it at the time due to cost-of-living and debt repayment. Through work in my side hustles and pulling from aspects of my academic training, I leveraged my skills to leap out of academia into an industry that supports pharmaceutical companies and biotechs. At the time of my transition, I had spent a lot of time reading and practicing and managed to land 4 competing job offers across the country (Boston, Atlanta, Seattle, St. Louis). I had had a contact at the job in Seattle, and it was the one I really wanted; however, I used the other job offers to practice my interview skills and my negotiation tactics (securing additional $$ and moving expenses for each offer).
When I accepted the job in Seattle, I had been leveraging the other job offers to push for a timely offer, and I received an offer of $100k (also known as a 238% raise), which I accepted without negotiating for 2 reasons: 1) It was $15k over what I would have been willing to accept (and $10k over the top of my desired range) and 2) the company was in a distressed situation, and from my contact on the inside, they came in with their best offer. Huzzah–real money now (albeit, in a really expensive city)!
I ended this job at $101k (part of a pro-rated raise) because I was laid off after 9 months but received a 5-month severance–not bad in my opinion! I had advance notice of the lay-off (I got notice but had to stay on for 3 months as a transition to receive my severance), so I was able to line up 2 competing job offers (1 for $105k that I had negotiated up $20k and different title from their original offer of $85k, and the other for $110k–but this company would not budge on salary or anything really, so no negotiation). The job for $110k would have had a minimum of a 45-moutinute commute one-way (without traffic); so, I took the job for $105k because it would allow me to work from home and not commute.
At this job, I was promoted unexpectedly after 10 months because of my performance, and they offered a 6% raise that took me to $111k. However, as they caught me off guard (literally, they called me and said ‘here is your promotion and new salary’), I was not ready with a counter. I did not let this deter me, and I did a bunch of research on the appropriate salary range for this level. It turns out they had put me in at the very bottom of the salary range.
I scheduled a call with my boss and my boss’s boss, and laid out my research of what the range of this position should be and how my contributions (despite my relative inexperience) deserved a higher salary. I asked for the mid-high end of the total range, requesting a salary adjustment up to $125-130k–they gave me 130k (so a 24% raise over my initial $105k)! I was very happy with this amount, and I also received a sizable bonus at the end of that year. For me, I typically don’t count my bonus amounts in my compensation, as they are never guaranteed. The following year, I had another raise and ended at 134k (3% raise).
In moving from this job, which I did back this June, I switched companies. I had been thinking about looking for different opportunities, but I was not trying that hard. A recruiter/head hunter reached out to me unexpectedly to see if I was interested in a new position.
I had several factors at play here: first, I work in a niche industry; second, the current specialized job market has a severe lack of talent; I already had a job (and therefore not desperate); and finally, I know what I am worth. The recruiter starting by asking me what it would take to get me to move companies, and I came back with it would take at minimum $150k to get me to jump ship. I mentioned that I didn’t even want to have an HR phone screen unless this amount was within the company’s range.
I was fairly bold during these conversations (knowing the recruiter ultimately works for the employer), and I also said point blank that the new position would also have to be interesting because I didn’t want to be bored. 🙂 Like I said, bold. I went through all the hoops and such and they came back at me with $150k base salary. I was disappointed, but I went full force into negotiating tactics (and again knowing the state of my industry, I was actually the one with more power, which rarely happens in these situations).
We went back and forth several times, once with them telling me they had a secondary candidate who would be willing to take the job for cheaper (to which I said, okay well then go with them), they tried to get me with a sign-on bonus, but I ended up getting them to add it to my base salary, so at $155k, which is where I sit how (or a 15% raise from my previous salary). At one point, in discussions with a VP-type (and keep in mind, my current position is an individual contributor position), I asked (more like demanded) that I would not work with a certain client (as I knew they had some of this business) due to my past exposure and bad experiences with them. This job is also a work-from-home job! 🙂
So, total salary increase from $15k to $155k, or $140k increase in annual earnings over in 11 years. I typically like to calculate my increase from when I switched industries, so I’ve had a 55% increase in salary over the past 3 years or 18%/year. I have also never had a formal management position, although I have “hired” and “managed” contractors that do work for me.
Wife
Once in Washington, my wife left teaching and went into healthcare. She started an entry level job answering phones for $39k, and it was hourly, so there was some overtime but intermittent at best. After a year, she left for a healthcare training job making $50k (28% raise), stayed there for 2 years and ended at $55k (5% raise per year-ish). I should point out that in her specialized area in healthcare, there is little to no negotiation in salary, which is why I am not telling a big negotiation story here.
She then left for another company, where her salary was $60k (a 9% raise). She ending up gaining management experience here, but her program was shuttered, and in lieu of severance, she was able to take on a new position with WAY less responsibilities (no more direct reports) for $65k (and 8% raise). She remained at this job for about 6 months before it became too boring for her (sensing a theme yet?).
Next up, she had competing job offers in slightly different but related areas in healthcare for $75k. She negotiated one of them up to $78k and took that job (a 20% raise). Unfortunately, this job was not everything that was promised to her, so she went into job-hunt mode again after about 6 months and found a job much more suited to her skills and interests. They initially offered $70k but she negotiated them up to $80k (using her previous salary as a bargaining chip), which resulted in a 2.5% raise (but after 6 months in the old job). Her current job has some travel and some office work, but they are very flexible and allow working from home several days a week.
So, total salary increased from $27k to $80k, $53k increase in yearly salary over 11 years.
Summary: As you can see, we have both leveraged the demand for talent in our industries to get significant jumps in our salaries, especially when switching companies. We have been very lucky and fortunate in this area–a lot of right time, right place, right skills, and good negotiating. I have a PhD, and she has a Masters; both of these advanced degrees have been crucial in our ability to earn more. Currently, we sit at $235k/year combined (so, a total combined increase of $193k increase in total yearly income since the start of our marriage 11 years ago). This amount does not include any bonuses or RSUs–base salaries only.
Do you have a side hustle?
I have had various side hustles paying different amounts over the course of the years, some paying a little as $10/hour up to my most recent of $110/hr. Some of my side hustles have included (total ranging $1k – $15k, depending on the year):
- Being a “standardized patient” at the local medical school. This side hustle is sporadic but paid a lot at the time I did it, and you get to be a fake patient for medical students learning how to do exams and how to interact with patients
- Teaching community college courses
- Editing scientific manuscripts for authors whose primary language is not English
- Various writing and editing consultancy gigs in the medical/pharmaceutical space
Almost all of the side hustle money has gone to help pay off our debt faster! My most recent side hustle was in 2016; my earliest was in 2009.
How happy are you with these results and what future plans do you have for growing your income?
I really can’t complain about our results. I am not really sure, given our personalities, job specialties, and locales that we could have done much better. For the future, I’m already targeting my next step, which will probably pay in the range of $180-190k base salary. That is probably a few years off (but quote is in today-dollars), but I know it is the career progression that I want.
I might try to pick up a few side-gigs in the next few months, but I am not aggressively pursuing anything.
My wife is comfortable and happy where she is and does not foresee any major changes in the next 2-3 years. However, she might be picking up some low-effort side hustle work in the near future.
SAVE
What percent of your gross income do you save?
We currently save about 18-20% in retirement accounts (401k, IRA, HSA) and probably another 5-10% in cash (for various things like vacations, medical expenses, new car).
How did you get to this level?
For the first 5-6 years of our marriage, our main focus was on debt repayment, and we made a conscious decision to focus most of our resources on that. There is a huge psychological component in it for us (i.e., peace of mind, freedom); thus, we aligned on spending/saving in that way. Starting really though in the past 3-4 years, we have been able to focus on saving (maxing out retirement accounts).
Between amount saved and stock market gains, we have added $173k to our net worth in the past 3 years.
How happy are you with these results and what future plans do you have for saving more?
I am happy with our savings rate and amount given our choices. For the future, I would like to ensure continued maxing-out of tax-advantaged accounts and perhaps $10-15k/year in taxable investment accounts. I would like to get to a point that these funds could finance financial independence without retirement accounts.
INVEST
What are your main investments?
Our main investments are index funds or ETFs (surprise, surprise!!) or cash for short-term items. We earn 1-1.5% on our cash savings, which is fine because we value the liquidity and peace of mind having this amount of cash in savings.
Honestly, for our index funds, I am not really tracking that closely, and we have things spread across a couple different investment houses (Fidelity, Vanguard, other for 401k administrators). We invest mostly in index funds that capture the broadest section of the market and then some in blended/income funds because I am a bit more conservative in investing than what the “experts” would say for my age. For example, my retirement funds in Vanguard have a 7.8% return from Sept 2008 (when I started investing) to present.
How happy are you with these results and what future plans do you have for investing?
I am happy with these returns. Considering our age and the relative recent ability to really boost our savings rate, we sort of see ourselves as playing catch up in terms of retirement savings. For the near-midterm (~5 years), I am not planning on any major changes to the types of investments or the rates of savings. Our main focus is getting money into the accounts!
NEW QUESTIONS ADDED BY INTERVIEWEE
Describe your getting out of debt journey.
This fall is our 3-year anniversary of being debt free! However, over the course of our journey, I have considered debt repayment as mostly an investing opportunity. With all of the debt I mentioned above, we started our marriage completely maxed out and almost unable to manage minimum payments. In fact, though I’m not proud of it, I had to take out a separate line of credit so I could consolidate some credit card balances and get the min. payment lower to improve monthly cash flow.
Once that was stabilized, I starting reading a lot of personal finance blogs (Get Rich Slowly, The Simple Dollar, Free Money Finance, Bargineering, etc.). I had a list of about 10-15 blogs, and I was reading them each day to educate myself. Next, I started reading some more of the well-known books (I’ll save my critique of each one for another time), including Dave Ramsey’s book, Your Money Your Life, Boglehead’s Guide to Investing, among others.
Along with this education, I also constructed a budget for the first time in our lives using an Excel spreadsheet. To this day, I still use an iteration of that original spreadsheet I developed 10 years ago! Tracking our spending was very sobering and really showed us where our priorities were and were not.
Another strategy we used to help us along was to take out student loans to pay off some credit cards because the interest rates were lower, and we could defer payments, interest-free, while I was in school (Note: I am not endorsing this method, as its legality is on shaky ground).
As we began to dig ourselves out of our self-inflicted hole, we were convicted to begin a true tithe to our local church (we had been donating some, but not a full tithe of 10% of gross), which at the time, around 2008, was about $425/month, which represented a huge chunk of change that could have be used to pay down debt.
Then, as many of you remember, there was this thing called the financial crisis. Unfortunately, my wife’s teaching job was on the chopping block. Because of this uncertainty, we ran the numbers and figured out how we could live on my salary alone, if need be. We doubled, maybe tripled down, and starting chucking all available money towards our car loan and min. payments on everything else, hitting somewhere in the woods of 25% of our gross income to debt repayment to make the cash-flow work out if we had to downsize to 1 income.
Luckily, with the passage of the stimulus package in 2009, my wife’s job was safe, and after wiping out our car loan (~$18,000 in 2 years), we made the step to supercharge our emergency fund, getting it up to about $10k. Once we had this buffer built up, we channeled our available resources of $$ into debt repayment. As we got any pay increase or found money, it all went to debt or savings, so we were still living on a pretty bare bones budget.
Once we got out to Seattle, despite the high cost of living, we were able to continue paying down debt and finished paying off all of our student loans in November of 2014. If you are following all of the lengthy story from above, you may note that we managed to pay off everything prior to achieving large salaries. Wanna know what we did? We threw a debt-free party! We used the amount that we had normally been paying towards debt and packed our place with friends, food, booze, and cake!
How much do you give away, if any?
We made a faith-based decision back in 2008 to give away at least 10% of our gross income. We recognize that numerically this stunted our savings and debt repayment, but this decision was and is aligned with our values.
My rough formula for our current giving is divide our annual income by 10 and give that per month. So, per the above numbers, we donate/give ~$2300 each month. For “found” moneys (i.e., bonus payments, birthday checks, side hustles), we give 20% of the gross amount. For example, this year, we are on track to give away approximately $28,000 real dollars. I am not sure of the % yet, as we have both changed jobs during 2017.
WRAP-UP
What money mistakes have you made that others can learn from?
Our largest mistakes were not having any real money management education or skills coming into our marriage. This ended up making for a really hard few years and a long time digging out of the crushing debt. It definitely compromised our ability to save and enjoy life in general.
Other than that, with our recent increase in salary, we have taken a few more liberties in purchases (i.e., vacations, spending more eating out, wine purchases), and we could definitely cut back. However, the past year and half has been really difficult emotionally for us, for a number of reasons, and we have consciously loosened our spending caps (I realize this is lifestyle inflation). Part of me wishes it were different, but I am okay with where we are.
Are there any questions you have for ESI Money readers regarding any parts of your finances?
NOPE! I’ve been a lurker/creeper on ESI’s websites for the better part of a decade and decided it was finally time to share and contribute something!
Thanks for sharing your story. You are doing great and I applaud you for your tithing decision. Just curious. Where are you getting 1-1.5% on cash assets?
Capital One 360 online bank pays 1.00% on savings with no minimum balance and 1.30% on money market with a $10K minimum balance. Both available on demand with no penalty or waiting period.
I currently use Ally, which has a rate of 1.25%.
Check out Synchrony Financial as well. Very good rates with no fees and no min.
Ditto for Synchrony Financial.
From their website, their savings account is at 1.45%.
However, we use Ally because our online checking account is with them too. This allows us ease of integration and moving moneys around, if needed. This is our personal decision, but if we were in the market for only savings, this account would be high on our list.
Fascinating career progression and debt payoff. I’m really impressed by the dedication to get rid of the debt and keep moving forward to increase your net worth!
Thank you!
Wow, you guys have achieved so much at a such young age, keep up the good work.
My only advice:
-Look for professional consulting gigs and/or get a contracting job. You can double, triple… your income this way.
-Try to save at least 50% of your income.
Thanks again for sharing your inspiring story!
Oh definitely! I head off on consulting gigs in 2017, but my new goal is to achieve $20k gross from consulting in 2018.
Really interesting interview! It was cool to hear that you negotiated a 24% raise even though the offer took you by surprise initially. Salary negotiation hasn’t been a strength of mine, but the more I read about it, the more inspired I am to be proactive in the future.
Keep up the good work!
Thank you! Honestly, I was a bit insulted by their initial offer, especially considering my history of how much I had contributed to the company. I got past that and got my desired amount. 🙂
3 years debt free? Love it!!!
Thanks for sharing!
THANK YOU! It was a huge family accomplishment, that’s for sure!
Follow up from me! I completed these interview questions in October.
Current breakdown is:
— cash: 28k
— retirement: 253k
— revolving debt: 12.7k
— total net worth (as of Dec 19): $268k
Your salary negotiation stories are inpiring. It really shows how much some can be underpaid if they don’t advocate for themselves. Being able to negotiate from a position of strength is huge. Well done. Really enjoyed your story. Good luck on the next step.
Thank you for the kind words! Negotiating in difficult but becomes easier each time. Step 1, always ask (worst they can say is no). Step 2, know your worth!
🙂
Questions to add:
Who or what was your greatest influence when developing your strategy for wealth and financial independence? (examples: a friend, priest, financial advisor, books, online resources, etc.)
How has personal relationships influenced your success over the years (good or bad)? (examples: spouse, friends & family) I notice that most of the past interviewees have a common thread where they worked as a team with common financial strategies and goals. A fundamental concept that can’t be underestimated.
Oooooo, mind if I answer them?
Who or what was your greatest influence when developing your strategy for wealth and financial independence? (examples: a friend, priest, financial advisor, books, online resources, etc.)
–For us, it was a lot of different resources, like PF blogs (Free Money Finance, Get Rich Slowly, and The Simple Dollar, just to name some major ones), books (Bogleheads, Your Money Your Worth, Dave Ramsey), and our faith.
How has personal relationships influenced your success over the years (good or bad)? (examples: spouse, friends & family) I notice that most of the past interviewees have a common thread where they worked as a team with common financial strategies and goals. A fundamental concept that can’t be underestimated.
–Agree, it cannot be underestimated. If you have a partner or spouse, if they are not on board with the plan, it will never happen. As it happens, both sets of our parents were fairly negative influences on our views and initial actions on money. As far as positive influences? I cannot really name very many that we were close too. Still so many people we know are still deeply in debt and don’t understand how we paid all ours off!
Great story, thanks for sharing! Perfect example of how investing in your education pays dividends in the future and the value of knowing your own worth when negotiating job offers.
If you don’t mind, I have a question (not a criticism) about the # of jobs you’ve had. I’m an old fart for my industry at 48, but since it takes me about a year to truly train someone, I view frequent job hopping as a negative when evaluating resumes. I’ve learned in certain fields (like software development), that employers actually view job-hopping as a positive, as people pick up new skills at each venue. My question is if you think in your field, the frequent job hops might ever be viewed as a negative? Again, not a criticism at all, I’m just curious how unique my views on this topic are!
Congrats on your success, you seem to be well on your way to financial independence!
Great question about job hopping. In my industry, it can be quite common. If you see someone who has been in the same company for 5 years, it can be a reason to pause, unless they had had multiple promotions.
For myself, I have crafted a career narrative that has been well received despite multiple jobs.
I love the side hustle question. The first thing I thought of when reading it was that those hustles didn’t seem to require any specialized skill (except perhaps some determination) and I felt relief knowing that if I lost my job, there are things I could do to fill in the gap as I found something new.
david
Actually, my very first side hustle didn’t require any specialized training, but from then onward, I leveraged my education, training, and experience in a highly-specialized fashion. For example, for any consulting/side gigs I plan on doing in 2018, I should be able to charge $125/hour.
I enjoyed the part about salary negotiation. It never hurts to ask and you’ll likely have some leverage if they really want you. These companies will always try to get you for less if they can. Being willing to negotiate is an often overlooked in other areas also. Its saved me quite a bit over the years. I dont know how much you are spending on entertainment/ vacations etc, but with your salaries I wouldnt beat myself up too much. Just be aware and keep things in check.
I used to be scared of negotiating, but now I love it.
Oh yes, in the story above, we took a BLOW OUT vacation in December 2016 and 4-5 weekend trips in 2017.
I enjoyed this interview. You had an interesting life. You were able to live and study in different parts of the country. You have great negotiation skills. After all of that moving around, it sounds like you have settled in and have a nice financial foundation to build upon. Thanks for sharing your success with us.
It was been an interesting ride for sure and is likely not over! HA!
Thank you for the kind words. 🙂
Great story and great information. I’d like to ask about your salary negotiation and how you achieved that – do you use any resources for understanding how much someone with your experience and with your position should be making? Other parts of your process we could learn from?
Sure, no problem. I use a variety of sources to figure out market rate.
First, I consulted Glassdoor, Indeed, and Salary.com. Then, I looked over what recruiters in my industry were posting on LinkedIn. I created my own spreadsheet to analyze and calculate the average salary for multiple levels (i.e., Sr. Manager, AD, and Dir.), noting the highs and lows. For my 24% increase that I negotiated at my previous job, I was able to leverage myself as a high-performer by laying out the quantifiable contributions I brought to the company as individuals. One of the things I mentioned was using my professional network to bring on 5-6 freelancers that then went on to use on a massive project we didn’t have staffing for and that I ended up managing. I did this at the individual contributor level.
I know ESI has mentioned it before (can’t remember where), but taking on additional responsibilities, especially those not asked, and stepping up in certain situations can get you noticed and demonstrate your worth. Having numbers is always useful in a bargaining chip.
Finally, getting up the courage to ask for what you want and think you deserve is probably the hardest part!
Hope this helps!
Great article! Thanks for sharing.
I am a fellow PhD in medical field and 35 years. Married, no kids but getting separated soon (mainly because of lack of financial alignment and misfit). I have been in work force for the past 7 years now between 2 companies. I didn’t get any promotions for first 5 years in previous company, so I quit and moved to another company with a 13% bump in salary, in a different field. Over here, I am an individual contributor and still learning some new stuff.
I too invested in HSA and 401k and do use Ally for cash savings.
Since I see myself as a single again, I see lot of growth opportunity here. I could use your insight on side hustles. What kind of consulting can you do? Any examples? Thanks!
I’d be more than happy to chat. Let’s try to connect offline. I will see if I can get ESI to send you my email address. I don’t want to post my email here, as then it will be very obvious who I am. HA! 😉
Great. I sent a note to ESI.
I trained as a medical student at the University of Washington! Might have been your medical student doctor! What a cool story and what a small world!
Probably not. 😉 It was a while ago. But still a small world. 🙂
Very impressive Especially your determination to pay off debt! And your side hustle is very interesting to me. I’m looking into doing this how did you become a “standardized patient” at the local medical school.. I’ve never even heard of this but would be interested in any tips you can give me
Thank you! I found out about it from a colleague, but most med schools have these programs now.
I like this new series.
It’s really interesting that wine is one of your assets. How did you get into that? How do you value it? Do you ever drink it?
We got into it when some friends introduced us about 5 years ago. We sort of branched out from then, honing our own person tastes. Luckily, both of our tastes in wine are very similar. Additionally, we have fallen in love with several smaller, niche wineries in the PNW, and they have limited production–hence we stock up!
For valuing, i typically use the retail value.
And of course we drink it! That why we are getting it. 🙂 And we love sharing it with family and friends. It turns out we may be small-time wine hoarders.
I bet that debt-free party was awesome!
Thank you for sharing your story, and especially for going into detail on your negotiation skills! It’s nice when you get to the point where you don’t need to budge and the employer has to do the catching up. Your increase in salary levels is extremely impressive so again…CONGRATULATIONS!
Coming from a 25 year old just starting his journey to financial freedom, I truly appreciate your story and how in depth you got. I take a lot of mental notes from stories like yours to paint a better path for myself going forward!
Thank you so much! Debt-free and never looking back. 🙂 Increasing our salaries has also been a big help. After we paid off all our debt, we shifted into making more $$!
Good luck on your path–you’ll get there!
Thank you for sharing, I really enjoyed it! Great job on the salary negotiations. I’ve done that a couple of times myself. It can be kind of a hassle but if you don’t look out for yourself, nobody else will. Kind of the way the world works at times unfortunately.
Also, your decision to give away 10% of your income is really admirable. That is not an easy thing to do. Congrats on all of your successes!
Thank you! It’s been a long and at many times hard road. 🙂
Great story! Thanks for sharing your experience, especially from the bottom to the top of the journey. I noticed that you and your wife did an excellent job on salary rises. Do you recommend any resources(books/blogs) in terms of improving the negotiation skill/salary jump tips?
My wife and I both feel that we are stuck at a situation where our incomes get stuck(I am a web developer and she is a pharmacist).
Thanks in advance.