Hello all,
I would like to present you my situation and ask for an opinion about the 2 alternatives I’ve been thinking about. I’ve been lurking the forum for about 2.5 years now and I value the opinion of this forum members as I would value my father’s or my grandfather’s because of the stock of knowledge and experience accumulated by you all.
I’m 38 yo and am a father of two (a 7 yo boy and a 5 yo girl). I’m currently working in a highly stressed job in an investment bank and am interested in getting out of it as soon as possible. Life changes and this job and it’s values (or lack of them) are not aligned with my owns. For the past 6 years I’ve been controlling my expenses (not letting lifestyle inflation creep in) and accumulating money and currently I’ve managed to accumulate approximately 16 times my current yearly expenses. From my point of view I’m yet very far from ER possibility as I have yet a big mortgage that I would like to early repay before I would ER. My initial goal has been to be able to ER in order to be able to get out of the current stress level and do things more aligned with my current interests.
Nevertheless, as that goal will take some time to be reached I’ve been considering other alternative. One of the changes that I would like to implement in the short time is to be able to be more present (both physically and mentally) with my children. I consider that the next 10 years (besides the already passed 5/7 years) are the more beautiful and fulfilling that a father can have, in terms of interacting with its children – I’m assuming somehow that after kids reach 18 yo they will somehow be less interested in the relationship with parents – obviously this is debatable but I’m using it as a rule of thumb.
So, basically I’m internally weighting what should I do with my life in the next 10 years: should I keep doing like today, working and saving like mad in this stressful job – increasing my ER possibilities (and losing this one in a life opportunity of better following my children growth); or should I move to the slower lane, be able to be more present for my children and, by doing that, delaying (or eventually killing) my ER possibilities. I know I’m (kinda) young and that for several reasons (not only financial ones) I won’t probably ER in the next few years. So, my question is if I should sacrifice what apparently I value so much which is to be present for my kids, for ER sake.
I know there is no right or wrong answer here and that in the end only me knows the answer, but I very much value your opinion and would appreciate listen from you.
Best Regards, sinbad
I would like to present you my situation and ask for an opinion about the 2 alternatives I’ve been thinking about. I’ve been lurking the forum for about 2.5 years now and I value the opinion of this forum members as I would value my father’s or my grandfather’s because of the stock of knowledge and experience accumulated by you all.
I’m 38 yo and am a father of two (a 7 yo boy and a 5 yo girl). I’m currently working in a highly stressed job in an investment bank and am interested in getting out of it as soon as possible. Life changes and this job and it’s values (or lack of them) are not aligned with my owns. For the past 6 years I’ve been controlling my expenses (not letting lifestyle inflation creep in) and accumulating money and currently I’ve managed to accumulate approximately 16 times my current yearly expenses. From my point of view I’m yet very far from ER possibility as I have yet a big mortgage that I would like to early repay before I would ER. My initial goal has been to be able to ER in order to be able to get out of the current stress level and do things more aligned with my current interests.
Nevertheless, as that goal will take some time to be reached I’ve been considering other alternative. One of the changes that I would like to implement in the short time is to be able to be more present (both physically and mentally) with my children. I consider that the next 10 years (besides the already passed 5/7 years) are the more beautiful and fulfilling that a father can have, in terms of interacting with its children – I’m assuming somehow that after kids reach 18 yo they will somehow be less interested in the relationship with parents – obviously this is debatable but I’m using it as a rule of thumb.
So, basically I’m internally weighting what should I do with my life in the next 10 years: should I keep doing like today, working and saving like mad in this stressful job – increasing my ER possibilities (and losing this one in a life opportunity of better following my children growth); or should I move to the slower lane, be able to be more present for my children and, by doing that, delaying (or eventually killing) my ER possibilities. I know I’m (kinda) young and that for several reasons (not only financial ones) I won’t probably ER in the next few years. So, my question is if I should sacrifice what apparently I value so much which is to be present for my kids, for ER sake.
I know there is no right or wrong answer here and that in the end only me knows the answer, but I very much value your opinion and would appreciate listen from you.
Best Regards, sinbad