200K to 225K amount just seems to be what it costs for care and feeding of four teenagers, aged 12 – 20, in urban setting, one in U. No big ticket items really, just endless smaller expenditures on food, dining out, ultilites, clothes, movies, house tax, insurance, gas, cable, getting stuff fixed, concerts, lessons, tuition, residence, school trip, family vacation, camps etc etc.
I am a recently semi-retired lawyer with 3 adolescent children. My husband recently retired from his work as well. Back in the day we had spending a little less, but similar, to yours. We are retiring on far less net worth than you have. A few comments:
1. For me I was able to structure a very part-time arrangement (one day a week) doing the part of my work that I really enjoy. I have no ongoing responsibilities on cases but essentially consult with the lawyers that I used to work with. I am being paid a very nice amount for doing this. This made it easier for us to retire/sem-retire while kids are still at home. I will be glad to keep doing this work while I enjoy it, but could manage without it.
2. There are two basic ways to cut expenses. Cuts lots of litte ones (a bottom up approach) or cut a few big ones (a top down approach). Most people, in my experience, focus on the former. This is often easy to do and gives immediate rewards. This is where you cut out some of the lunches out, dine out less frequently, cut down Starbucks, buy clothes on sale, get books from the library instead of buying, and so on.
You undoubtedly can do a lot of this. I never felt that I was living a very lavish lifestyle, particularly since so much our expenses were child related. That said, I took certain things as a given. I was quick to replace things or upgrade them. I didn't sweat the small stuff. I would sometimes see lists of other peoples expenses and had to realize at some point that many of my ordinary expenses were things that most people could live without.
I knew people who had an income a quarter or a third of mine yet somehow managed to support a family with 3 children. So, yes, people were managing to somehow not have a $200 a month cell phone bill or a $150 internet and cable bill and so on.
I found that there were a lot of those small expenditures that could be cut.
But here's the deal. Doing that wasn't enough. (In your case, maybe it would be enough). In some instances I could have cut more, but I also felt that doing so was cutting into hobbies and activities that I truly enjoy. I knew they were luxuries but luxuries I didn't want to give up. So that led to:
3. Cut the big stuff. Ultimately you get much more bang for your buck by cutting the really big expenses. Here is an example. Right now, we have our big, expensive house on the market. Nice house. But we decided to downsize to a smaller house less expensve to maintain. Doing this will have us about $40,000 a year. Just that one change. I could vow to never go out to lunch, read only library books and never go to Starbucks...and I still wouldn't save as much money as simply moving to a smaller, lower maintenance house.
So I encourage you to look at not just your little expenses but the big ones as well. Those can be more difficult to cut but the rewards can be huge, so huge that those may be the only changes you need to make.