Welcome to Money Talks! New approaches to money have exploded. Yet money remains taboo. Less than half of you share personal finance information with your friends and family.
But that’s all changing. Now more and more of you are talking about money because it leads to better outcomes.
In an effort to provide personal finance insights through transparency (and have a bit of fun), I’ve created a series titled Money Talks that showcases how real people in Charlotte approach money.
It’s an anonymous way for you to share your money experiences and insights with our city. Want to participate? Take the Money Talks survey.
Here’s a look into the personal finances of a married guy in his early 30’s with a toddler.
Living situation:
We moved back to Charlotte from up north and bought a home. We are currently paying $1,000 more a month for a house that is 1,000 square-foot larger.
We decided to go for a 2-1 buydown, 30-year mortgage where we got the full 3% concession and used it to lower our mortgage rate to 4.99% in year 1, 5.99% in year 2, and 6.99% in year 3. We will probably refinance down to a permanent 5%+ before year 2.
Job:
I’m an executive at an education nonprofit and my wife is a licensed social worker.
Salary:
I make $110K and she makes $50K working part-time. We split childcare duties. I also have 3 other revenue streams (coaching, consulting, teaching).
- My salary journey: I began my career working as a graduate assistant making $400/month (1yr), $15-20k (2yrs), $40k (2yrs), $67-82k (3yrs), $135k (1.5yrs), $110K currently.
Other income:
I have a doctorate and love to give students what I did not receive in my undergraduate and graduate work. So, I have put myself out there to find adjunct roles by way of cold emails and connections.
Additionally, I’m a private sports coach on the side because of my love for the game — and I just began nonprofit consulting because I love to problem solve and want to help smaller nonprofits succeed.
Work/life balance:
It’s pretty solid, actually. Since we share childcare in the home, it is nice to step away from the computer sometimes.
We don’t travel as much as we’d like because we want to ensure we have an emergency fund (finally getting there), but we are getting more comfortable with enjoying ourselves.
Also, why can’t someone figure out the childcare model for all families? We tried the nanny route in Pennsylvania and it was so expensive we couldn’t do it! If the government could just subsidize the real estate cost for childcare facilities, I think It’d begin to make a difference. Studies have shown that access to pre-k can benefit our society as whole.
Debt:
I still have $17K in student loans between 3 degrees. I have paid off $40K over the last 5-6 years. My spouse has $30K+. We have the house obviously, but beyond that we only have a couple thousand dollars left on a 0% financed AC unit ($500 a month).
We feel grateful. We’ve prioritized making sure our debts don’t hold us back — but also that we are ready to pay them if necessary.
Credit Card setup:
Visa Travel card (it’s okay), 2x Discover cards (I love their 5% cashback each month, Amazon & Target cards (we use these October-December WOOO), and a Bank America rewards card (shrugs).
I’ve looked into a Capital One rewards card for the future.
Budgeting:
We have a “Life Budget” Google Doc that we began two years ago. It is about 90-95% accurate most of the time. It gives us an idea of what we’ll have saved at the end of the month, and if we need to adjust our spending. We’ve taken Remit Sethi’s advice and added fixed costs and flexible costs sections to it.
I’m very consistent in spending. We lay out all of our expenses (20) and break them down from CC payments, to investments, philanthropic, student loans, therapy, etc.
Best/Worst Recurring Expense:
- Best recurring is the Schwab investment account for our son, and our Hulu/Netflix/YouTube TV/Spotify.
- Worst is the AC financing. I could pay it off it I wanted to! But we’d rather have the money in the emergency fund.
Charlotte Money Hack:
Find the thing that causes you the most stress/takes your time, and pay for it. I have continued to follow the protocol of “buy your time back”.
I love mowing the lawn, but I don’t have time, so I pay someone so that I can spend 1-2 hours with my family.
Charlotte restaurant that’s worth the money:
Indaco. We get the focaccia, marinated olives, roasted half chicken, and their “Honeydew This” cocktail.
Total Savings/Investments:
I’ve had a 401k since 2016 and always used my match. We are saving $400/month in an investment account for our toddler. We have life insurance (a little whole and more term), financial advisors, investments in Schwab, TIAA, and Northwest Mutual.
We keep it pretty simple, but you need to make sure that you keep the general amount of funds in one place so that it can compound… and please invest your money from your Schwab account. So many people forget to do that.
We have around $150K between the both of us. You can see from my salaries, it has been tough to invest, but we’ve worked hard to get where we are.
Saving for anything specific?
I would love to buy a simple used manual transmission sports car for us to ride around in and enjoy the weather.
We’d like to have 5-months of emergency funds ($50K) in our high yield savings account, so that it can grow each year — then we can start diverting some of our money to travel! We love Europe (Netherlands are a fav).
Retirement:
We have an aggressive goal of $10M by retirement age (60-ish years old) and we are on our way. Every few months I look at projections to ensure we are on track.
That means we need to invest at the max of $23K for our 401k, ROTH, Individual Investment accounts, backdoor ROTH, and HSA. I’ll probably move to consulting in my late 50’s or so, and might just be focusing on that. We’ve spoken about our plan for the last couple of years.
How much money would you need to feel complete financial freedom?
$250K in income each year. This amount of money would cover all we need, and then any other income would be savings and bonus money. I want to go to the grocery store and not worry about $200 a week, or even look at the bill!
What do you consider “rich” in Charlotte and why?
Individual making $200K or a couple making $300K.
Best/Worst Money Decision:
- The worst was buying Under Armour stock when I was in high school.
- The best was getting my doctorate.
Financial goals:
- Feel financially comfortable – increasing my revenue streams (working on it)
- Pay off my student loans in 2025 and begin paying my wife’s loans down – I am on track and will be able to do more with my alternate revenue streams.
- Paying off the AC in 2025 will give us $500 extra dollars a month to play with – we are on track and it only has a few thousand left. In 2025 we should be able to pay it off in about 8 months.
Where did you learn how to manage your money?
My dad is an accountant, and so was his father. I learned how to save EARLY, but I didn’t know much else.
When I got into my 20’s I met a lot of people because I was in the nonprofit world. They exposed me to much more than I knew.
In my mid-late 20’s I began to love learning about personal finance myself and sharing what I’ve learned with friends.
Want to participate? Take the Money Talks survey. Got feedback for this couple? Email ted(at)tinymoney and I’ll include it in our newsletter Mailbag section. New to Tiny Money? Join 2,114 smart Charlotteans and subscribe to my 1x/wk newsletter. Job hunting? View job board.
