Courtney Adcock, 36, and Steve Adcock, 39, retired in their mid-30s with a combined net worth of $870,000. This FIRE couple lives off the grid in the Arizona desert and spends $40,000 a year.
This is an installment of CNBC Make It’s Millennial Money series, which profiles people around the world and details how they earn, spend and save their money.
Read more about about their budget breakdown here: https://cnb.cx/2TNfUmS
Steve Adcock wakes up at 6 a.m. every day. He starts his morning with a workout in his home gym before settling down at his desk to check emails and browse social media. By 10, when most of America’s other 39-year-olds have logged on for work, he’s getting ready to take his dog for a walk around his desert property in Pearce, Arizona. It’s a tried and true routine for Adcock, who has been retired for the past five years.
Adcock didn’t always have such a relaxed life though. He spent 14 years working in information technology, a career that “pays well, but tends to drain the life out of you,” he tells CNBC Make It. After more than a decade of work, he realized it was time for a switch.
“In my early 30s, I came to the realization that I just could not spend the rest of my life sitting in front of a computer, working 10 to 12 hours a day, writing computer code or fixing problems,” he says. “I just couldn’t do that.”
He approached his wife Courtney, now 36, with the idea to retire early. Though she was less sure about retiring than Steve, thanks in part to her fondness for her job as an engineer, she eventually came around to it. The couple formed a plan to cut their spending and save 70% of their combined income so they could quit their jobs and travel the country, living only off of the growth of their investment accounts.
Steve and Courtney retired in 2016 and 2017, respectively, with a combined net worth of $870,000. Despite not adding a penny to their investments in the ensuing half-decade, they are now worth about $1.2 million and don’t plan to head back to the office any time soon.
How the Adcocks retired in their 30s
In 2014, when Steve and Courtney decided to join the FIRE (financial independence, retire early) movement, their net worth was roughly $650,000, including the estimated equity in their home, which they planned to sell. They determined that they needed a total of $800,000 to $900,000 in order to retire in their 30s. They were bringing in around $230,000 combined each year.
Thanks to their high salaries, Steve and Courtney were able to max out their 401(k) contributions in the years leading up to their retirement. They also slashed their spending, eliminating monthly subscriptions and streamlining their grocery budget. “At one point we were saving 70% of our combined income,” Courtney says. They funneled all of the extra savings into a Roth IRA, brokerage account and savings account.
The couple also moved out of their 1,600-square-foot home in Tucson, complete with a swimming pool, and into a 2005 Airstream that they purchased for $42,000 in cash.
By August of 2015 their net worth was up to $775,000, and they eventually hit their goal in late 2016, a little less than three years since Steve decided he wanted to retire.
Courtney has always been more of a saver, Steve says, and even though retiring early was his idea, he had the harder time reigning in his spending habits. Perhaps the most drastic change they made was limiting their restaurant budget to $50 per month, a difficult task for Steve, a restaurant aficionado who says he once made a point to visit an eatery a day for a full year.
“Before we got married, I spent a lot of money. I had a supercharged Corvette convertible. I had a brand new Cadillac CTS. I had a Yamaha sportbike. I had all the toys,” he says, noting that they have all since been sold. Now, the couple shares one pickup truck, which they use to pull their Airstream when they travel around the country.
Subscribe to CNBC Make It.: http://cnb.cx/2kxl2rf
About CNBC Make It.: CNBC Make It. is a new section of CNBC dedicated to making you smarter about managing your business, career, and money.
Connect with CNBC Make It. Online
Get the latest updates: https://www.cnbc.com/make-it
Find CNBC Make It. on Facebook: https://cnb.cx/LikeCNBCMakeIt
Find CNBC Make It. on Twitter: https://cnb.cx/FollowCNBCMakeIt
Find CNBC Make It. on Instagram: https://bit.ly/InstagramCNBCMakeIt
#CNBC
#CNBCMakeIt
#MillennialMoney
Retiring Early Together With $870K In Arizona | Millennial Money
source
What's your budget breakdown? We're looking for stories from all ages, not just millennials! Share your story with us for a chance to be featured in a future installment of Millennial Money: https://cnb.cx/32TYZ2K
You basically did Dave Ramsey !!!! Good Job !!!! You killed your debt which got you back your biggest wealth building asset and thats for income !!!! LOL !!!!!
Amazing video, A friend of mine referred me to a financial adviser sometime ago and we got to talking about investment and money. I started investing with $150k and in the first 2 months, my portfolio was reading $274,800. Crazy right!, I decided to reinvest my profit and get more interesting. For over a year we have been working together making consistent profit just bought my second home 2 weeks ago and care for my family.
Great job most importantly don't have kids in this generation
Yeahhh i personally want to travel and see the world. I can’t do that with 50k budget. To each their own
Poor guy, met his way then he got rid of all his toys 😂
Most Americans find it hard to retire comfortably amid economy downtrend. Some have close to nothing going into retirement, my question is, will you pay off mortgage as a near-retiree, or spread money for cashflow, to afford lifestyle after retirement?
❤❤❤
How can this lifestyle be possible? Heartcare insurance costs $454/month (Bronze) level per person (age 30-40 years old).
So roughly the healthcare insurance costs a total $12,000/year.
That’s a really small nest egg considering their age.
That ain’t worth much they gonna start working again
No kids….. that's the key.
investing requires good experience and knowledge to carry out a good and successful trade, I have lost a lot trying to trade all by myself May I ask which investments are good??>>>>
I doubt they retired entirely. A lot of these people who stop working 9-5 are still doing some kind of work that makes money. For me specifically, I would not retire entirely until I have $10M.
Rather than attempting to predict future recessions and risking financial losses, a more effective strategy is to build a well-diversified portfolio that can withstand various market conditions. This approach has allowed some individuals to consistently generate substantial returns,….
what a miserable couple
Am 58 retiring next year but the thought of retirement gives me weakness. My apologies to everyone who have retired and filing social security during this time after putting in all those years of work just to lose everything to a problem you never imagined to happen. It’s so difficult for people who are retired and have no savings or loved ones to fall back on.
Yeah, all these stories about early retirement is only possible as none of them have kids or family to take care of. I had $870K net worth by the time I was 27 and I didn’t retire then as that’s way too little. I needed to add at least a zero before considering that as who wants to live out a lonely retirement with no future for the next 50 years.
No kids…
Did they withdraw from their 401(k) early in order to retire early? Or are there investments still sitting untouched?
That is a ROUGH 30
No way they’re 35 and 36 they look way older wth 🤦🏻♀️
The market crash and high inflation are stressing me about retirement. Despite the challenges, I know investing is a long-term game, so I'm staying focused on the future.
Courtney is really cute…in that weird sort of way
I've been diligently working, saving, and investing toward financial independence and early retirement, but the economy since the pandemic has eaten up the majority of my $3 million portfolio. I want to know: Do I keep contributing to my portfolio in these unstable markets, or do I look into alternative sectors?
That FIRE figure would be a little too lean for me to feel comfortable. Then again it does look like they are living in the middle of nowhere so if they focus on doing stuff like homesteading then they could probably live a self sufficient life.
I’d move to Mexico on that income to live like a king instead of barely surviving in the US
To the person reading this: Even though I don’t know you, I wish you the best of what life has to offer ❤
what can I do? I have been disabled since 2009 and I am 58 years old at the verge of retirement. My portfoliio of $750k is down to $492k, How can I profit from the present market" , I mean I've heard of people making upto $250k in couple weeks during this crash and I'd like to know how.
Looks boring
I'd like to see a follow up – how is that $870k lasting after all the inflation… I doubt it will last them their lives
Financial books have been so helpful. >> I’m 54 and my wife 50 we are both retired with over $3 million in net worth and no debts. We got to realize that the secret to financial freedom is making better investments.
Comments are closed.