Wow. I honestly wouldn't have thought that just three years after starting this blog, I'd be writing a post like this one. I've actually been sitting on this news for a few weeks now, but my wife, Coral, reaaaalllly wanted me to hold off on sharing it here until it was 100,000% a done deal haha.
Because of how well this site has done so far, my wife officially resigned from her job a few weeks ago, and her last day with her school district is coming up in just a few weeks. She's retiring. Done. Out.
And she's only 29. It's just so cool.
Now before we get started on how we got to this point with the business and how this will all work – I want to brag on my wife a little here for a few reasons:
- It's actually our third anniversary today (talk about killer post timing)
- She had 100% as much to do with this achievement as I did
- She's always really supported all of my crazy ideas, so I'm ridiculously happy that this blog was able to do something special for her
I'll never forget the night that I came to my wife and told her I wanted to leave my teaching job to run this dinky little blog
I'm not sure if I was super nervous talking to her about it or not to be honest. That part of it all seems to be a blur.
But I'll never forget how quickly she agreed to support me while I chased this dream a few years ago. Now, I don't know for sure what other spouses might do in this situation given the fact that I was chasing a completely unproven business, but Coral didn't even flinch.
The conversation of me quitting my job after making a cool $3 in ad revenue for this site basically went down like this:
Me: “Hey…I don't know how to say this…but I want to quit my job so that I can run M$M full-time.”
Her: “Are you sure?”
Me: “Yeah.”
Her: “Alright, we'll make it work.”
And that was pretty much it. She somehow didn't panic or seem too worried, even though internally I was freaking the hell out. I hadn't run a business before. I barely even knew what I was doing.
I was just some random guy writing nonsense about student loans.
You know what's even crazier about the whole thing?
Coral and I were about to get married. Looking back on it now, I can't believe that I went to my soon-to-be wife and told her I was giving up my income right before we became legally and financially spliced together.
She was just so confident in me, and I was floored. It was like she could see something in me that I couldn't see in myself at the time.
She also knew I was miserable at my job, felt trapped, etc. I'm sure she could tell that I wasn't happy and it played a factor in the way she reacted, but there were probably other ways I could have done all of this to step away from teaching more gradually.
What Coral did for me in that moment is probably something I can't ever really repay her for, but I've still always made it my mission to do just that with this blog.
She helped me leave my job, so I would do everything in the world I could to make sure she would have whatever type of life she wanted.
If my wife came to me right now and asked for a pony, there would be two in the backyard before she came home from work.
But she doesn't ever ask for stuff like that (which is nice because ponies are probably really hard to take care of).
The point is – just getting her blessing and support for my dream of running M$M full-time is one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me. There's just no other way to put it. I'll continue to do everything I can to support her dreams in life too.
Here's how we prepared financially for her early retirement:
So obviously, in the first year or so of me running the business I wasn't really making enough money to support us financially. We were basically living on her teaching salary for a while, which wasn't too bad but it did push back a lot of the things that we wanted to do in life (like getting a house).
Try getting a mortgage for a decent house on one teaching salary and less than two years of self-employment. It's…not easy haha.
Fortunately, it actually didn't take too long for me to bring in an amount of money that was pretty close to my old teaching salary. But one thing I learned pretty quickly about having a new business is that you just never feel comfortable month to month financially, even if it seems like things are going pretty well.
This will sound stupid, but even with bringing in nearly $200,000 of revenue from this blog in 2017…I STILL worried about everything at the beginning of each month.
Would the business do as well this month?
What if I lose a marketing client or don't have enough views on the site this month?
What if the whole thing falls apart?
That's one of the reasons that I say that Coral has just as a big a part of this site's success as I do.
My wife is basically my best friend, mentor, and THERAPIST all wrapped up into one human. There are so many times that she had to tell me that everything would be OK, or she'd have to sit there and listen to me complain about all the things I usually complain about or freak out about everything that could possibly go wrong.
It's probably not easy being married to an entrepreneur. I'm already hard enough to deal with as it is and inexplicably leave my laundry on the floor every day, and then you add the hyper-stress of trying to build a business from scratch and I don't even know how we're still married.
But, I digress. Totally got off topic there haha. Back to the money stuff.
Anyways, as the business started to grow, we slowly started to talk more about her leaving her job.
It's not like she hated her job or anything like that. She actually has a pretty sweet gig and really likes the people that she works with. She basically teaches other teachers how to use technology in the classroom, and she's great at it. I'd 100% support her if she wanted to stay and do that for the next 20-30 years.
But when we talked about it, she said she wanted to leave eventually. So that was that.
Last year, we started slowly preparing by flip-flopping over to living off of the salary that I paid myself from the business instead of spending her salary.
We had been doing that for months, and then at the end of 2017 we just talked about it again and she decided that she definitely wanted to leave at the end of the school year.
The next month, I launched the FB Side Hustle course and everything blew up even more. At that point, it was almost a no-brainer.
What are we going to do with her retirement money?
Ah yes, the Teacher Retirement System of Texas.
We're going to pull her retirement funds, directly roll them over to an IRA, and invest the crap out of them.
I've actually been really excited for months now to get my hands on that money because in TRS you have zero control over the funds that you put into retirement. I could write an entire post about things I don't necessarily agree with in that retirement system, but I won't hash that out here.
Basically, I'm just really excited that we'll be able to actually do something with that money from now on.
But what about health insurance?
After doing a ton of research on Health Sharing Ministries and talking to some of my blogging friends about it, we're going to jump on to one of those programs (haven't quite decided which one yet, so if you're on one feel free to share your experience in the comments).
Coral's insurance was OK, but it wasn't like the crown jewel of health insurance policies. I wasn't even on her insurance policy because the monthly premiums were ridiculous, so it's not going to be too big of a shock for me to move over.
Fortunately we're young and in good health for now, so I'm hoping it will go smoothly. You just never know when it comes to health stuff, but I've actually been really impressed by the number of reader stories that are positive in regard to the health shares.
So…what is she going to do now?
Well, we don't exactly know, and that's OK.
The cool thing to me is that she's going to be able to completely wipe the slate clean and just do what she wants to do. As far as the business is concerned, she can be as involved with M$M or not involved as she likes.
My guess is that she will want to help out with some things, but I really don't know.
I hope that she just takes some time to enjoy not having to wake up at 5:00 am to get ready for work, sleeps in, takes her mom shopping randomly…whatever she wants really.
One of our biggest goals is to do a lot more traveling in the coming year, and I want to be better about stepping away from the business and taking mental breaks which this will most definitely force me to do.
It's kinda funny because a lot of my peers in a similar situation as us (being a blogger and spouse not having to work anymore) live in vans/RVs/boats and travel full-time.
And we've talked about that…but Coral really isn't about that life. She gets seasick pretty badly, so that's out. I don't want to live in an RV or a van, so that's out.
We love our house and the area that we live in right now, so even though we see other people living those unique lifestyles…it's just not really for us at this point.
Maybe later down the road though, who knows?
I'm sure we'll figure it all out eventually.
So since I know you're reading this Coral: I love you, thank you again, and let's go eat some awesome steaks and drink wine that's too fancy for me tonight. 🙂
Hypothetical question for you:
If you got your hands on a lump sum of money (let's say $25k), what would you invest it in?
That is so wonderful, Bobby! It’s an amazing thing to have a super supportive and loving spouse. But it’s so great when all the hard work pays off and you can do something awesome for them that sort of validates that trust and faith they had in you. I’m excited to hear more about where the next few years take her! Congrats, friend!
Thanks Jillian! I’m super excited for her. It definitely feels good that the hard work has paid off so far. 🙂
Congrats Coral!!! Super excited for you guys. Can’t wait to read the adventures of the M$M and M$Gal
I do own millennialmoneygal.com………..
You guys make an awesome team! I can say that I couldn’t (and wouldn’t) have taken a mini-retirement if not for the support of my amazing wife, Jaime.
It’s great to see you two finding so much success and supporting each other along the way!
Thank you!
Wow. Just wow.
🙂
Congrats! So exciting! Blogging “retired” my husband as well. There should be a spouses club for all of them – I’m sure they’d all have some fun stories about what it’s like being married to a blogger, haha.
Thank you! haaaa I can’t even imagine what the stories would be.
Congratulations! This is fantastic, and a dream I share for my wife one day! For the time being, she really enjoys her work so that’s not a priority…but I’d love to be able to provide toward that priority the way you are.
Good luck, Coral, in the next adventure! I know how difficult teaching can be, and I’m so happy for you that you’ll be able to relax a bit and figure out the next step from a place of strength the way so many people don’t ever give themselves the opportunity to do.
Thanks Nick! Fortunately Coral really enjoyed her work as well, which made it a lot easier to grow this whole thing while she was holding it down financially. I hope she relaxes too!
I would invest in VTSAX. A lot of people blog about it, it performs well, and has decent dividends with low costs. I’m really excited for you and your wife to be able to share this life together and share this exciting news with us! Such an inspiration! Also, yes horses aren’t expensive to purchase just expensive to keep (feed, vet, shoeing etc).
haha yeah, she actually does love horses so who knows on that one. Maybe someday?
Congratulations!! So happy for you both!
Thank you!
This post is soooo sweet! I loved reading it!! Congratulations, I’m really excited for you guys! I can’t wait to make it there one day, haha. You guys inspire me!
🙂
Thank you so much! You’ll get there!
Congratulations! You both have an inspiring story and I am glad you choose to share it with the world. I hope this period in your lives is fulfilling and enriching.
Thank you Lauren!
What an incredible story! Congrats to you both. You’ve taken significant risks to get here. Now enjoy the rewards.
I’m still not certain how you said “yes” after she asked if you were “sure” about quitting your job to work on a blog with no revenue! You’re very lucky to have somebody that supportive of you.
haha yes I’m incredibly lucky.
I have no idea why, but I was crying the entire time I read your post. Ok, it might have something to do with the fact that I want this so badly for my own husband. But I am just THRILLED to see that you were able to make this work.
I can totally relate to the whole supportive spouse thing. My husband has been AMAZING at letting me just up and leave my job to pursue this crazy online dream. I had the better salary AND the full family health insurance, yet he never questioned what I was doing – and continues to support me three years later.
Congrats! Happy Anniversary! And ponies really aren’t all that expensive. Just sayin’… 😉
Wow that’s incredible – thank you so much! Haha “crazy online dream” is totally right. That’s great that he had the same approach as Coral – helps so much.
Love this— congrats to you both. And of course I vote for a pony! 🙂
Haha thank you!
Absolutely awesome and congrats to both of you!
My new financial freedom definition “Retire Brittany and enjoy life’s adventures without any financial stress”.
Truly inspiring and motivating as always Bobby. Your business team just became even more bad ass!
Dude you’ll get there before you know it. Thank you!
Congratulations to you both! I would take half of the $25k and invest in my business then take the other half and invest in my retirement.
Thank you Peggy! 🙂
Congrats to you both! I think my husband is secretely wishing we can be in the same position as you guys someday! 😊
🙂 he’ll get there!
Congrats on the accomplishment! I’m just starting out on my journey and am in a similar position you’re in. I’m about to venture off on my own to run a blog and flipping business and leave the security of a salary. I’m getting married in 30 days and my fiancé is terrified of my venture but I’m motivated to make good things happen. I hope to be in your position one day!
If I had money to invest, it would certainly be in my blog and business!
haha wow that is similar! Just keep your head down and keep grinding.
Congrats to you both! After meeting you both, I can totally see that is is a very loving and supportive wife. Let me know if you need help with comparing the health ministries self-insured plans. I have an orthopedic surgeon friend that insures thru one. She is also self-employed and has a special needs son. She talks some about what it doesn’t cover.
Thank you Emmie! Yeah she’s pretty awesome. 🙂
I might have to take you up on that – I’ve done a fair amount of research but it would be interesting to hear from someone in the industry.
Wow! What an awesome story! Gotta love the support you two give each other. Congratulations on this new adventure.
Thanks Adam!
This is the sweetest post ever! This made me want to go home and be a more supportive girlfriend! THANK you for writing something like this for her, she’s so lucky and you’re lucky to have her. Just make sure you get her that pony when she asks haha!
Haha will do!
Congratulations! That’s awesome news. How great that Coral gets to really think about what she’d like to do now. Sounds like you guys both make each other better. 🙂
I like to think we do 🙂
In regards to a health share ministry. My husband and I are with Christian health share ministries. We’ve had an excellent experience with them, they’ve covered my pregnancy and birth costs and an ER trip for a suspected gall bladder issue. They are an excellent choice if you choose to have kids. We currently pay $450 a month for their best coverage and that amount will stay the same even with additional children being added.
Thank you for the recommendation!
Congrats Bobby and Coral! So proud of you !
CCISD is losing a great employee .
Anxious to seee what the future holds for you all!
Thank you LeeAnn!
Please blog about whichever Health Sharing Ministry you choose. I’m more than fully financially independent but stay part-time employed to keep my health plan. The tentative existence of the ACA is too much risk for me and healthcare can bankrupt even millionaires. I would love to learn from your experience
I definitely will!
Congrats Bobby!! That’s huge dude.
Hanna was finally able to leave her job last month. And this has easily been the best month of our married life so far. Big deal man. Congrats, and welcome to the bright and beautiful future!
Wow man that’s awesome – I didn’t know that! Congrats to you too. 🙂
Congratulations on early retirement Coral! Such an exciting time for both of you.
Thanks Sara!
Congratulations! Health care is definitely a big expense without an employer-sponsored plan. I’ve been self-employed for about 10 years and my wife left her job 5 years ago. The 2 of us have been on different plans since then because that’s how we’ve been able to get the best prices. My wife has been on a plan with Samaritan Ministries for about a year and a half, and so far it’s been a good experience. We’ll probably move our whole family to that plan at some point.
Thanks Marc! Samaritan is definitely one that I’m considering.
Congratulations to both of you, this has been so cool to watch (from a distance) these last few years!
Thank you!
This is so wonderful! I’m so excited for you guys! Now that our $215k student loan journey is almost over (December!!!) we are looking towards the future. We were just talking the other night about when we want to retire. The goal is 2039 – the year we would have originally paid off our student loans. We will be in our early 50s which is how old my parents are right now and still pulling 12+ hour days almost 7 days a week. However, I finally used your link and signed up for Bluehost/Wordpress to get my blog going (Eekkk!!). The plan is to build the blog to launch my eventual coaching/consulting business. Hopefully that will cut our path to retirement down significantly! Congratulations you guys!
I hope it cuts it down too! Sounds really cool. Thanks so much!
Congratulations!! I love this story.
Thanks Linda!
This was such an inspiring read and great accomplishment. You guys have a great support system. (couple goals) and I vote yes to all the ponies!
Congrats to both of you! As a teacher in Texas, I have the same complaints about the TRS system and have even recently wrote an article about how frustrating it is to have no control over 7.7% of your income. Congratulations on retiring and taking control of the money that you earned!! Good luck and I look forward to reading about more of your journey!
First of all CONGRATS! Current teacher here, so I completely understand how awesome this move is.
Now, if I had 25k to invest what would I do? Probably buy into your blow up my blog course;) but what would I do with the leftover 24kish?
Invest it in my ROTH w/ Edward Jones. I’m a simple guy and I like doing simple things. You may want to reinvest some in your business since it has been going really well:)
Thanks again for the great article.
Haha BUYB is a good investment! That course is definitely less than $1,000 so you’d have plenty of leftover money.
Congratulations guys! All that hard work has really paid off! (Not to be annoying but maybe now you guys could think about a baby?)
Completely OK with you writing an entire post about pulling money out of ERS/TRS and reinvesting! We’re in a similar boat with 11 years of. Y savings sitting in there.
Awesome stuff Bobby, this is one of my long term goals for my business as well. Mrs. CD has had to put up with a lot between my military career and giving up her own work to raise our kids, getting us to a point where she could pursue her own interests is the least I can do! 🙂