I wanted to save enough for 18 million Meimei to retire, but after the two babies were born, the old father went out to work 7 jobs in tears......

This article is reprinted with permission from: Daddy Awesome

"In addition to chicken babies and climbing vines, if you don't pursue a rich and expensive life, how much money do you have in your hands to dare to retire?"

This is a topic that has been talked about by Chinese people in the United States.

However, the figures that come from living in different regions are naturally different. In the U.S. Midwestern states and California, for example, the number may be more than one zero.

But even if you are financially independent and retire early to become a FIRE family, you may not be able to "lie flat" for a lifetime, especially if you collect the two "king bombs" of high cost of living areas + raising babies, it is a matter of minutes for you to get up again and obediently move bricks after returning to poverty.

46-year-old Sam Dogen is the "hard-working man" who has gone from working hard and saving money to retiring early at the age of 34, but after lying flat for a few years, he found that he had to re-enter the job in order to raise a baby.

On Wall Street, work 14 hours a day

Sam Dogen, 46, is Asian-American who lives in San Francisco with his wife and two children.

As a child, Sam traveled to five countries and witnessed first-hand the huge gap between the rich and the poor, which made him determined from an early age to make a lot of money and live a prosperous life.

Later, he and his family settled in Virginia, USA, and when he applied for college, he chose the economics major of the College of William and Mary from the perspective of the best value for money, hoping to join the financial industry after graduation and make a fortune quickly.

Sam's LinkedIn show that after four years of work, he pursued UCB's MBA program

In 1999, Sam got a job as a financial analyst at Goldman Sachs on Wall Street. On the first day of work, he experienced 14 hours of "workaholic" life, and suddenly felt that life was bleak, and if such a day would take 40 years before he could retire, he would definitely not be able to survive. Therefore, he plans to retire early and get out of the bitterness of work through careful savings and financial management.

Sam's salary was $40,000 a year at the time, and he started saving money after a month at Goldman Sachs. He invests half of his salary each month in the S&P 500 and some tech stocks, puts 5% into a regular savings account, and makes the most of his 401(k) account (a retirement savings account in the United States) to minimize taxes.

In addition to investing, he also did everything he could to save money. For example, in the first two years of his job at Goldman Sachs, he rented only a studio apartment in Manhattan for $700 a month. In order to save money, he ate in the company's free canteen after 7 p.m., and didn't forget to pack some leftovers to take home.

Sam's plan is to invest 50% of his income over 20 years, so that he can save for at least 20 years of living expenses, retire himself at 42, and then live on savings, stocks and potential real estate income until he is 62.

The rollercoaster of fate,

Retirement at the age of 34 to achieve retirement

I thought I would have to work for another 20 years before Sam could retire. Luckily, fate helped him, and through successful promotions and investments, he was able to advance his retirement time one step earlier.

In June 2001, Sam moved to Credit Suisse and San Francisco, where his base salary soared to $85,000. He began to save 60 per cent of his salary, mainly in fixed deposits. In 2003, he used the money he saved to buy a two-bedroom apartment in San Francisco, with the goal of diversifying his wealth from stocks to real estate.

At the age of 26, he moved in with his girlfriend again, and the other party helped share some of the expenses. At the age of 27, Sam was promoted to vice president at Credit Suisse, and his income jumped to six figures.

In 2005, he bought a house in San Francisco for $1.52 million, rented out the apartment, and 12 years later, in 2017, he sold the apartment at a time when prices were good.

High salary + saving money + investment and financial management, according to this trend, Sam's retirement time will only be shortened again. Who knew that fate did not favor him again this time, and the stock market crash and unemployment almost ruined his early retirement plan.

In 2008, the bubble economy in the United States burst, and Sam's stocks also suffered. Despite the stock loss cutting his net worth, he stuck to saving and started a blog and podcast to earn a side income.

The front page of Sam's blog

In 2011, during the global financial crisis, Sam, 34, experienced several layoffs at Credit Suisse, and finally chose to negotiate with his manager to be fired, and received enough severance pay to pay for many years of life.

Sam did the math:

His net worth is about 2.5 million US dollars (about 18 million yuan), relying on rent, stock dividends and deposit interest, he can get about 80,000 US dollars a year of passive income, if he lives frugally, spends rationally, and controls the annual living expenses at about 50,000 US dollars a year, he can retire now at the age of 34.

Four years later, in 2015, Sam's wife also retired before the age of 35. Although they are unemployed, they need to pay about $1,680 a month for full health insurance, but their savings and investments are enough to ensure that the young couple can live a leisurely and happy life.

However, the good retirement life was shattered after the birth of the two gold-swallowing beasts, and the old father was forced to go to business and had to work again.

San Francisco Life + Two Babies,

The net worth of $2.5 million is not enough

In 2015, the couple ushered in their first baby, and a few years later, the second child was born.

Sam did the math:

After having children, the family of four lives in San Francisco on $350,000 a year, while the couple's passive income is less than $230,000 after deducting 401(k) contributions, insurance, taxes, etc., which means that the family's income is not enough to cover expenses.

For this reason, the couple ended the state of completely "lying flat" and entered the state of "semi-lying flat" doing various part-time jobs.

Over the years, they have worked part-time as follows:

Recorded:

• Continuously update the financial blog, bringing in more than $1,000 in supplementary income every year;
• He worked part-time as a consultant for two years, working 15 to 20 hours a week for startups in the San Francisco Bay Area;
• He wrote a book that sold well, bringing in about $30,000 a year;
• He also serves as a high school tennis coach and earns $1,100 a month;
• He also drove an Uber, took more than 500 orders, and earned $30 an hour;
• In addition, Sam and his wife also rented out a $1.52 million mansion in the early years, and then bought a house on San Francisco's West Side that was more suitable for a family of four but needed to be repaired, cutting expenses by at least 40%;
• And his wife teaches piano lessons in her free time to earn a little extra money

Sam found that his family still had a deficit of nearly $60,000 a year, and some of the "hardcore bills" every year were really "unmanageable".

Like what:

Expenditure:

• Mortgage, property tax, utility bills, property insurance, etc., are about $80,000;
• The cost of childcare and occasional babysitting is $29,400 for the second child, and $24,000 per year for the eldest preschool education;
• $25,548 per year for food; Save about $529 a year for your child's 12,000 colleges;
• $10,200 per year for health insurance and $2,040 for life insurance for the whole family;
• Other household expenses include $7,800 for three family vacations per year, $6,000 for sporting events and social events;
• $4,200 for baby products;
• a total of $9,360 for car payments, insurance, maintenance, and gas;
• $4,800 per year on clothing;
• $3,600 spent on charity;
• The couple's cell phone bill is $1,800 per year.

With a total of $200,000 a year, Sam, like many Asian parents, has an all-out attitude when it comes to parenting and investing in their children's education, so these expenses are almost impossible to cut.

To this end, Sam "reappeared" from the end of last year to April this year, engaged in fintech consulting for a period of time, hoping to seize the dividends of AI and make more money for his family. But the workload was too much, and I finally quit.

According to the cost of living in San Francisco + two gold-eating beasts, Sam and his wife can no longer be regarded as financially independent and free FIRE, because the cost of living and childcare will only get higher and higher in the future.

So, Sam was serious about finding a full-time job. On the one hand, it is to pass the dozens of idle hours that the two children have to do every week after going to school; On the other hand, it's really not okay not to continue to work and make money.

Parents in any country cannot escape the fate of "working for their children".

Sam's story has sparked some interesting discussions online.

As one of the high-income groups, Chinese people – especially Bay Area parents – find it incredible:

Living in California, raising two children, and only having more than 2 million assets, you dare to retire?

According to the latest data from the Brookings Institution, in 2024, the cost of raising a child from birth to 17 years old in the United States will be about 310,605 US dollars (about 2.2 million yuan);

According to College Data's 2023 data, the average total cost of a four-year private university, an out-of-state public university, and an in-state public university in the United States is $600,000, $290,000, and $470,000, respectively.

In other words, raising a baby from birth to graduation from college can cost as little as 600,000 yuan and as much as 1 million US dollars. And in California, where housing prices, prices, and chicken babies are all against the sky, this cost is not too much.

So, Sam's net worth of 2.5 million is really unbearable.

Some people also gave him advice, after selling the house, he took his existing assets and moved from San Francisco to the Midwest, with a low cost of living, a non-rolling learning atmosphere, and many colleges and universities, which is enough for a family of four to lie flat.

Sam also thought about moving to the Midwest with his family and reducing housing costs by 80 percent alone. But the family has been rooted in San Francisco for many years, and the couple has their own connections and circles, and as a minority Asian American, San Francisco's cultural diversity and technology atmosphere are not found in other cities in the Midwest, and readjusting and integrating into an area with fewer Asian Americans is a big challenge for minorities.

It is the dream of many migrant workers to enter the FIRE family as soon as possible, but the reality is that FIRE and raising a baby can only choose one or the other.

There is a FIRE life group on Douban, where more than 230,000 people talk about their FIRE ideals or the days when they are already FIRE.

I flipped through all the posts and found that almost all of the members were childless or had already decided to be Dink.

Raising a baby is definitely the largest of all expenses, and those who have a baby can still talk about FIRE either have superpowers, or super "money" abilities.

Even if you can really achieve a harmonious picture of raising a baby and FIRE at the same time, it is difficult for parents to be free in life.

In the FIRE Life group, there is a post about this kind of situation:

The couple achieved rudimentary financial freedom (less than the multimillion-dollar level), but found that life hadn't changed much. Although I don't go to work, I still have to get up early to cook for my children, pick up and drop off school and extracurricular classes. Trips also have to wait for the child to take a vacation, and plans are often cancelled due to the child's illness.

She lamented that even if you are financially free, life is not free.

She knows some friends who live in the United States and have assets of more than one million dollars, and after FIRE, they are in a similar situation like her, they have to take care of their children and worry about a lot of things, and there is no help from the elderly when they live abroad, and it is more common for parents to raise children in person, and the quality of life at FIRE has to be discounted.

Therefore, in fact, no matter what country people are, as long as they have a baby and become a parent, they can't escape the life of working as a worker for their children for a lifetime!

Author丨Jing Si Source丨Dad Awesome, "Dad Awesome" is a K12 original education platform dedicated to rational, in-depth and inspiring integrated education exploration.

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