Although I have very rarely posted, I visited these forums almost daily for most of the last 20 years up until my own retirement 18 months ago. They were a tremendous asset over the years, for which I am very grateful. For those still earlier on in the journey, I thought it might be helpful to see how things panned out and perhaps provide some encouragement to those still slugging through the earlier years.
Here's my belated introduction thread from 2010 (https://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f26/early-30s-and-well-on-our-way-we-hope-51398.html). At the time my wife and I were in our early 30's, envisioning having our first child, and hoping from the flexibility to retire in our mid-40's.
Our daughter was born in 2011, not too long after that post. Now 9, its hard to imagine what our lives would be like without her.
Professionally I continued to advance within the Megacorp I had been with since graduating college, taking on high visibility and impact project leadership roles intermixed with managerial assignments of increasing scope. Eventually I made it to the (low level) executive ranks, with nice increases to compensation including annual RSU awards. The work was generally enjoyable and the people I worked with were fantastic, but the increasing comp was offset by ever increasing hours and travel as the scope of my roles increased. Missed family dinners became the norm, as did late nights logging back in from home, spending much of Sunday prepping for the start of another week of work, and multiple nights on the road each month. Increasingly it became hard to get to sleep on Sunday nights, thinking of the week ahead. My wife also continued her work, enjoying a much better work/life balance than I had.
Savings-wise we continued to live well below our means. 401k's and 403b's were maxed, and all bonuses and extra cash flow were saved in taxable accounts. We established a 529 for our daughter upon birth and funded it to a level such that her college costs will be fully covered. We also threw extra cash flow to our modest mortgage, paying it off in ~10 years instead of 15. We did find ourselves spending more money for "help" due to how busy we were. Daycare, then before/after school care for our daughter was a necessity. Housecleaners were a godsend.
Around 5 years ago we sat down, reviewed the numbers, and realized that our finances were going well enough that we could either both retire comfortably in our mid 40's, or I could step back a bit sooner than that from my overly demanding role with my wife continuing to work in a role she loved. After lots of reflection we picked the later. And after gutting out a couple of really tough years, I retired at in the fall of 2019 to be a stay-at-home Dad.
Although having 1 spouse retiring before another may not work for everyone, for us it has been fantastic. My time spend with my family has increased 100 fold. I happily handle all of the cooking, shopping and cleaning (cancelled the cleaning service) leaving our evenings and weekends completely flexible and stress-free. When COVID hit and our daughter began having to attend school from home, I was able to cover that as well. During school breaks we can pick up and travel without constraint. Although COVID has forced us to adapt those travel plans (Europe - see you summer 2022!) we still will spend weeks more time on the road as a family than we would have been able to in years past.
Financially we have been fortunate to have had the last decade of market returns to propel us into this position. Our NW had grown to ~$2.5m by the time I stepped away in late 2019 (~$2m in investable assets, plus emergency funds, our paid off home, and our daughter's 529). We held to our 70/30 stock/bond targets during the crash last spring, rebalancing in March and April as equity prices fell.
With COVID drastically cutting into our activity level for the last year (no eating out, drastically reduced entertainment costs, local trips instead of international ones) and tax reductions/stimulus - we're unexpectedly still saving money temporarily. That said, we are looking forward to things returning to normal and being able to increase our travel spend. Between lower than expected spending and market returns, our NW has increased to $3.25m since I stopped working.
My wife continues to love her job and at least at the moment plans to work until she can retire with a pension at 55, at which point our daughter will be graduating from college and we can consider extensive travel for much of the year. But if she decides to stop working at any point we'll be fine. I am exceedingly content with the pace of my days now - cooking nice meals, taking long runs, and reading more than I have in years. Plus there might be some video gaming in there too
If this does ever get old, I left my old firm on good terms and have a standing offer to return if I wish and have also received unsolicited offers from colleagues elsewhere. But at this point its hard to envision doing that, at least until our daughter is old enough to drive or off to college. If I do ever return to work, I think its much more likely it'll be something part-time and low key for fun/social interaction than anything else.
Hopefully others find this useful to read. If nothing else, it was fun to reflect while typing it out. Its hard to believe sometimes that it has been two decades since we started saving (and stumbled on these forums) and after all those years of dreaming about a more relaxed and free life we are actually starting to live it. I just realized the other day that the spreadsheet I use to track our accounts/NW is 20 years old (first entry in March of 2001, my first 401k contribution of $193.85). Slow and steady may not be the most exciting way to win a race, but it works! 
Here's my belated introduction thread from 2010 (https://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f26/early-30s-and-well-on-our-way-we-hope-51398.html). At the time my wife and I were in our early 30's, envisioning having our first child, and hoping from the flexibility to retire in our mid-40's.
Our daughter was born in 2011, not too long after that post. Now 9, its hard to imagine what our lives would be like without her.
Professionally I continued to advance within the Megacorp I had been with since graduating college, taking on high visibility and impact project leadership roles intermixed with managerial assignments of increasing scope. Eventually I made it to the (low level) executive ranks, with nice increases to compensation including annual RSU awards. The work was generally enjoyable and the people I worked with were fantastic, but the increasing comp was offset by ever increasing hours and travel as the scope of my roles increased. Missed family dinners became the norm, as did late nights logging back in from home, spending much of Sunday prepping for the start of another week of work, and multiple nights on the road each month. Increasingly it became hard to get to sleep on Sunday nights, thinking of the week ahead. My wife also continued her work, enjoying a much better work/life balance than I had.
Savings-wise we continued to live well below our means. 401k's and 403b's were maxed, and all bonuses and extra cash flow were saved in taxable accounts. We established a 529 for our daughter upon birth and funded it to a level such that her college costs will be fully covered. We also threw extra cash flow to our modest mortgage, paying it off in ~10 years instead of 15. We did find ourselves spending more money for "help" due to how busy we were. Daycare, then before/after school care for our daughter was a necessity. Housecleaners were a godsend.
Around 5 years ago we sat down, reviewed the numbers, and realized that our finances were going well enough that we could either both retire comfortably in our mid 40's, or I could step back a bit sooner than that from my overly demanding role with my wife continuing to work in a role she loved. After lots of reflection we picked the later. And after gutting out a couple of really tough years, I retired at in the fall of 2019 to be a stay-at-home Dad.
Although having 1 spouse retiring before another may not work for everyone, for us it has been fantastic. My time spend with my family has increased 100 fold. I happily handle all of the cooking, shopping and cleaning (cancelled the cleaning service) leaving our evenings and weekends completely flexible and stress-free. When COVID hit and our daughter began having to attend school from home, I was able to cover that as well. During school breaks we can pick up and travel without constraint. Although COVID has forced us to adapt those travel plans (Europe - see you summer 2022!) we still will spend weeks more time on the road as a family than we would have been able to in years past.
Financially we have been fortunate to have had the last decade of market returns to propel us into this position. Our NW had grown to ~$2.5m by the time I stepped away in late 2019 (~$2m in investable assets, plus emergency funds, our paid off home, and our daughter's 529). We held to our 70/30 stock/bond targets during the crash last spring, rebalancing in March and April as equity prices fell.
With COVID drastically cutting into our activity level for the last year (no eating out, drastically reduced entertainment costs, local trips instead of international ones) and tax reductions/stimulus - we're unexpectedly still saving money temporarily. That said, we are looking forward to things returning to normal and being able to increase our travel spend. Between lower than expected spending and market returns, our NW has increased to $3.25m since I stopped working.
My wife continues to love her job and at least at the moment plans to work until she can retire with a pension at 55, at which point our daughter will be graduating from college and we can consider extensive travel for much of the year. But if she decides to stop working at any point we'll be fine. I am exceedingly content with the pace of my days now - cooking nice meals, taking long runs, and reading more than I have in years. Plus there might be some video gaming in there too
If this does ever get old, I left my old firm on good terms and have a standing offer to return if I wish and have also received unsolicited offers from colleagues elsewhere. But at this point its hard to envision doing that, at least until our daughter is old enough to drive or off to college. If I do ever return to work, I think its much more likely it'll be something part-time and low key for fun/social interaction than anything else.Hopefully others find this useful to read. If nothing else, it was fun to reflect while typing it out.
Its hard to believe sometimes that it has been two decades since we started saving (and stumbled on these forums) and after all those years of dreaming about a more relaxed and free life we are actually starting to live it. I just realized the other day that the spreadsheet I use to track our accounts/NW is 20 years old (first entry in March of 2001, my first 401k contribution of $193.85). Slow and steady may not be the most exciting way to win a race, but it works! 
