Recent content by eyeonFI

Officially retired June 2016, though I was on unpaid LOA for a year before that. It's been great. I've done a lot of traveling with my kids (now 10 and 13), including a 6-week road trip around the USA in 2017 and trips to Iceland in 2018 and 2019 (The first trip ended in disaster with us...

Yep, I get the same thing with the child tax credit.

Last 8 years before ER I never had to set an alarm because my young kids never slept past 6am. Just about the time I ER'd they finally started sleeping later (or at least not making waking me up their first act upon rising). But they also got old enough for elementary school, so now I have to...

New minivan, New water heater, fix patio and driveway, probably a few thousand on an Amazon shopping spree for some random toys, then plan a summer in Australia/New Zealand.

My kids are on CHIP in MD, and I've been very happy with it. They see the same pediatrician they saw when I had private insurance. Thankfully they haven't had any major issues, but we have been to a specialist and an urgent care and it's all been good. And I've paid $0. My biggest concern...

I do this with my kids unused stuff. On the rare occasion they ask for something I've gotten rid of, I reply something like, "I don't know where that is... maybe if you cleaned your room you'd be able to find it.." (they have never actually attempted to find whatever it was :).

Would an umbrella policy for you/mom address your concerns?

So a few days ago, my 6 year old, who until now has told me he "hates school" and "hates writing," decided to write a book. He worked on it for a few days, and then asked me if he could have it published. Seeing as I'm now retired and have time for this sort of thing :), I told him I would look...

I buy myself something, wrap it, and label it from "santa" because I have young kids. But this may be the last year that they have even a glimmer of doubt about the non-existence of santa, so not sure if I'll do it next year. I do tend to be more likely to indulge in small splurge purchases...

I'd be interested. I'm on the MD side. But rarely go downtown, so afraid I'm no help with restaurants there. Lunch might be easier for me to get my relatives to babysit, but I'll try to make dinner if I can work it out....

I FIRE’d this year, so now I’m trying to guesstimate what my income will be for the year and plan a Roth conversion to get it where I want. All my IRA money is already in Roth accounts, so I will convert money from either my 457 (at Nationwide) or 403b (at TIAA-CREF). I think I have the...

Just hanging out with my kids on days they have off school (random teacher professional development days, snow days) instead of desperately scrambling for childcare all the time.

I took a year unpaid leave and then retired officially 2 weeks ago. It was a nice way to do a sort of ER test run. No downside for me, except the paperwork got screwed up somehow when I did cobra during my LOA, and it is causing some slight headache in getting the paperwork straight for my...

Well, today is my first official day of retirement! Or at least, I think it is. I'm not sure HR has actually processed the paperwork on time (though I turned it in in March). They have not cut off my cellphone or email yet (so I set the out of office message to say I no longer work there and...

Thanks for all the congrats. Pretty typical of folks around here I think: pretty high-paying j@b + LBYM + asset allocation using index funds. I was lucky to have a mother who took me to open a bank account when I was about 8, and who encouraged me to open my first IRA at 15. She very much...