ER after child support

[Blackhills_Bob]

Greetings
Has anyone else managed to ER after enduring long term child support or managed your ER accumulation in less than 10 years.

I have been in ER for a year, and the wife for 3 months.
I have been enjoying your posts for several months and have learned much from you. YMOYL got me started on this journey but your posts have provided much of the ammo to give the wife the courage to jump in with me.
We are both having the time of our lives. Is anyone else crazy enough to ER with horses?

Well, I didn't have long term child support, but I was
still paying when I quit completely. Then, my youngest
chose a very expensive private school and I found myself back in court to see how much more could be
extorted. That battle is still being waged as I type.
As far as doing it with less than 10 years prep., I did it with virtually no prep. but with a lot of luck. However,
even I didn't have the guts to retire as a horse owner.
Four (4) dogs is our limit

Seriously, I cut back pretty severely while I was still
paying child support (cheap apartment, etc), which I thought was fair
and of course I agree with the concept of supporting
your minor children. Picking a high-priced college
without consulting me and then hauling me into
court to squeeze my wallet kind of got my hackles up.

John Galt

[Nords]

Our kid rides dressage and since she appears to have some talent for it, we're starting our fourth year of it. (This must be a major mutation on the family gene pool.) The only way this will end is when our kid moves out and has to support her own horse habit. We don't even OWN a freaking horse or tack but when you add up lessons, clinics, shows, boots, trailering, and membership fees, the cost of this "sport" ranks right up there with our grocery bill.

The local dressage association has over 125 members and I also know quite a few of the hunter/jumpers & western riders. Although net worth is all over the map, not a single one of these 200+ people is ER. One of them has a net worth of eight figures and probably works because she wants to, but that's as close to ER as it gets.

One of the more typical members says that owning horses is like raising kids for 40 or 50 consecutive years. Once you expand the family, they never leave home and your finances never get a chance to recover.

I'm not an equestrian, but to these people it's not a financial issue-- it's purely emotional and their lives would have a big gaping hole without horses. Some of them are "century riders"... the sum of their years of riding and the age of their horse add up to a hundred (or more).

For those of you still gasping at the indulgence of a pre-teen sport the size of a grocery bill, I should point out that our kid was born an equestrian and has been pestering us about it ever since she learned how to use her vocal cords. Even on this small island the equestrian world is full of life, hard work, fun, and rewarding fulfillment. The girl power is staggering and there are positive role models everywhere. When you add horses to school/homework & tae kwon do then the kid has absolutely no free time to get into trouble. For the teenage years, I'm told that the equestrian life is still cheaper than boyfriends & shopping malls. I figure it'll save me a lot of shotgun ammunition too...

Horse people tend to be a dedicated lot. DW has maintained her enthusiam ever since I have know her. I think ours probably is the equivalent of groceries also.
But she enjoys them every day with a large chunk of the black hills just out the back door. I was amazed at how we could reduce expenses once we left the city. We are living on less than 25% of our former wages. And still do the things we love.