ShieldWolf13
Confused about dryer sheets
I am 33 years old living in Charlotte, NC. I have been with my wife since college and we are expecting our first (likely only) child in February. Financial independence has long been a goal of mine, particularly seeing the large role financial constraints played in my family growing up.
Our current approximate stats are:
Checking/Savings accounts $93k
401ks/IRAs $750k
Roth IRAs $100k
After-tax brokerage $210k
I-bonds $20k (just started this year as CPI-U remains elevated)
Home equity $230k
Using a 4% withdrawal rate, this would already have us around $47k in yearly income. Although we make around $300k in total, a lot of my compensation is weighted in Jan/Feb so we will actually be over $50k on the 4% withdrawal assuming the market returns 0%.
We are good on most expenses but not as good as we would need to be if we retired now. We make around $300k together and probably spend close to $100k. There is alot of spending on my side (particularly pre-covid) on going out with friends to sports, concerts, or fancy dinners.
Our current mortgage is around $2.2k making retiring tight at current rates, but it may be beneficial to move to closer to family outside of Columbia, SC later on to both save money and have more childcare help. We live in a great house that is a short walk from the local train station, so moving to the suburbs is not super appealing. Yet, a lot of the reasons for living in Charlotte would vanish if we no longer worked.
I think the biggest concern we would have with early retirement is the health care angle. My wife has some longer term issues and I recently have become aware of some foot issues that will likely involve surgery. Very curious how people's experiences have been with plans on the ACA exchanges.
Neither of us particularly like our jobs, but I make 2x my wife's compensation so it probably would make sense for me to continue working for a bit. I don't think paying $2k a month for childcare is a great idea and I think it would be important to be able to be there for our upcoming child. I worry about the stress for either of us balancing that with our careers for too long.
So the basic question is for any advice or questions that could help sharpen my thinking around next steps. I recognize we are in a great place on a lot of angles and am uncertain how much longer we should be trading our time for money.
Thanks for reading.
-Randy
Our current approximate stats are:
Checking/Savings accounts $93k
401ks/IRAs $750k
Roth IRAs $100k
After-tax brokerage $210k
I-bonds $20k (just started this year as CPI-U remains elevated)
Home equity $230k
Using a 4% withdrawal rate, this would already have us around $47k in yearly income. Although we make around $300k in total, a lot of my compensation is weighted in Jan/Feb so we will actually be over $50k on the 4% withdrawal assuming the market returns 0%.
We are good on most expenses but not as good as we would need to be if we retired now. We make around $300k together and probably spend close to $100k. There is alot of spending on my side (particularly pre-covid) on going out with friends to sports, concerts, or fancy dinners.
Our current mortgage is around $2.2k making retiring tight at current rates, but it may be beneficial to move to closer to family outside of Columbia, SC later on to both save money and have more childcare help. We live in a great house that is a short walk from the local train station, so moving to the suburbs is not super appealing. Yet, a lot of the reasons for living in Charlotte would vanish if we no longer worked.
I think the biggest concern we would have with early retirement is the health care angle. My wife has some longer term issues and I recently have become aware of some foot issues that will likely involve surgery. Very curious how people's experiences have been with plans on the ACA exchanges.
Neither of us particularly like our jobs, but I make 2x my wife's compensation so it probably would make sense for me to continue working for a bit. I don't think paying $2k a month for childcare is a great idea and I think it would be important to be able to be there for our upcoming child. I worry about the stress for either of us balancing that with our careers for too long.
So the basic question is for any advice or questions that could help sharpen my thinking around next steps. I recognize we are in a great place on a lot of angles and am uncertain how much longer we should be trading our time for money.
Thanks for reading.
-Randy