Hello. I am the person in the news story. One of your members referred me to this site.
Here are answers to some of your comments/questions. Powerplay is correct, my wife is not 100% aboard with the plan. I'd say closer to 90%. To make early retirement work requires very disciplined discretionary spending. She would like more flexibility to spend on wants rather than needs, but she has always been careful with her own spending. My wife worked for a corporate law firm in NYC for 4 years and her salary was more than double that of mine. She has not worked since 2010 and will only seek part-time legal work in the future. I think you can be a stay-at-home-dad and be retired at the same time.
We only need about 3-4% returns on our investments to cover basic living expenses and we can risk investing heavily in equities because of our ages (37 and 35). Two other items the article did not mention. One, I secured a pension from NYC that will kick in at age 57 along with free health care for life. That makes me feel more secure about no longer working. Second, a decent chunk of our retirement assets are in a 457 plan, which is just like a 401K except for one major difference; there is no penalty for withdrawing funds before age 59 and a half. With very little income and tax deductions/credits from two children, that 457 plan is like a big bank account as long as we do not withdraw too much in any calendar year. We are also slowly converting traditional IRA funds to Roth IRAs so that we will eventually have all our retirement assets in Roth IRAs.
I just joined the site and it appears to be very informative. I've enjoyed reading your comments. Thanks.