For the first time since 2012, Sam Dogen is getting a day job.
That’s the year that Dogen quit his job as an investment banker, having spent 13 years working, saving, investing and generally burning himself out.
At age 34, his portfolio and real estate investments were generating about $80,000 a year — enough for he and his wife to live on in perpetuity. So, he took his severance and left. His wife did the same in 2015.
“We’ve been a dual, no income household for a while,” Dogen, the founder of Financial Samurai and the author of “Buy This, Not That,” tells CNBC Make It.
Well, not W-2 income anyway. As the couple’s plans changed, the $80,000 a year they thought would last them for life needed to be bumped up. In 2017, the pair welcomed their first child, followed by another in 2019.
Over the years, Dogen built his passive income streams to about $380,000 annually — $288,000 net of taxes. That was enough to cover the family budget while living in San Francisco — until now.
In a recent post on his website, Dogen, now 46, detailed his choice to sell a portion of his stock and bond holdings to buy a multimillion-dollar house in cash.
By swapping income-producing assets for a house, “I basically have a lot more dead money now,” Dogen says. That means his passive income streams no longer cover his family budget — so back to work it is.
Giving up financial independence was always part of the plan
The headline on Dogen’s post reads, “Blew Up My Passive Income, No Longer Financially Independent.” That’s true, although like all good headlines, it makes things sound sudden and exciting and new.
After 12 years of financial independence, Dogen knew giving it up for a while was a possibility. In fact, he sort of planned on it.
After his younger child was born, “I made a promise to be a stay-at-home dad for five years. Then they go to school full-time, and I would like to do something else, like consult or work,” Dogen says. “My daughter is going to school full-time this…
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