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We did it! We moved from Switzerland to Sweden and now we are FI thanks to a massive reduction in living costs and freeing up a chunk of home equity to add into our portfolio. Life is great so far. Our quality of life has improved and we like our new country much better despite (?) it being...

This is the million dollar question. If the net additional cost of raising children in Switzerland compared with Sweden is approximately $1M, and we have to earn this money by spending a lot of additional time working over the next couple of decades, and the standard of life is equivalent in our...

We have done some window shopping. I think it is fair to say that all of our costs would be halved, including food/transport/housing/etc, except for healthcare which be free instead of costing ~$10K/year for the family. The equity in our current house should be sufficient to buy a new one...

Thank you everybody for the replies so far. There is a lot of food for thought here. I have come upon one really striking way to frame the issue: that we are spending approximately $50K/year on the luxury of living in Switzerland. This would amount to an extra one million dollars of spending...

If we stay in our HCOL country then we are not in that position, and so you would not be comfortable with our plan as it is today. If we moved to an LCOL country then we would be in that position, and so then you would be comfortable with our plan. Question is: How about if we stay in our HCOL...

One aspect of this plan that I have trouble articulating is that "stepping back" for me is really more like do more "professional development." I want to make more time for my own interests which are closely aligned with my profession and should improve my earning capacity better than simply...

x I have not been counting this in my retirement planning but the answer is yes. We have both been paying into mandatory social security systems for our whole adult lives (though not always in the same country...) and according to an online estimator we could expect $25K/year (combined) from...

This is hard to answer because we are living in the reality of having preschool kids at home all day every day. I have a lot of free time for activities with the kids but time for professional activities is scarce. The reason I am so concerned about minimizing the "mandatory" amount of work I...

Is there another name for a partial retirement in which you start withdrawing from your portfolio before you have reached your number? This seems like a reasonable approach to downshifting to me and so I am surprised that it is not more widely known. Maybe it is known by another name, or is such...

Sorry, I think I have used "Barista" in a misleading way. My intention is to continue working in my primary profession, for the maximum hourly wage that I can, but be satisfied with earning enough money to cover our costs when supplemented with portfolio withdrawals. I will "hope" to earn...

Thanks for the detailed reply samclem. Currently we are living the median lifestyle (+ expensive part-time childcare) in a HCOL country. There is not too much fat to trim here. However, we could halve our living costs by moving to another "Tier 1" country where we are citizens and where we...

I am expecting the portfolio's value to be more-or-less the same despite withdrawals, based on not withdrawing a constant $50K but rather following the Variable Percentage Withdrawal method from Bogleheads: https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Variable_percentage_withdrawal

We have chosen a seemingly novel "scenic route to retirement." I am a bit uncomfortable with the novelty factor and I am really hoping for feedback from somebody who has made similar choices. (If I'm honest I am also looking for some validation from strangers on the internet, even though I know...