HenryD
Recycles dryer sheets
- Joined
- Jun 6, 2013
- Messages
- 341
I am 50, DW is 47, both on our second marriages. DW has a corporate job, I’m self-employed, both in tech. In a typical year, we gross $275k. We mostly w*rk from home in a midwest exurb.
These income levels are recent for us and we have only been together a few years. Perhaps ominously I registered here in 2013 a couple of months before my original 2020-ish FIRE plans were thrown out the window and I ran away crying: Divorce dropped my NW from $765k to $125k and I, now we, have spent the time since building it back up. DW spent many years as the sole provider for 2 kids on a modest income so she brought some debt and a small NW to our marriage; her income is much better now. The upshot is that we are behind, but if we can hang in there another 6 years I think/hope we can reach our $2MM NW goal.
Current situation (excl $80k 529 plans):
$ 34k in cash, of which $6k is in HSAs
$575k pre-tax retirement, 90% in various Vanguard funds
$ 60k Roth retirement, Vanguard
$ 32k HSA invested, Vanguard
$110k Home equity, to be sold at RE
$811k NW +/-
We expect income to remain steady or improve a little, and expenses to moderate once the remaining 2 kids leave the house by 2021 (fewer family vacations, our extravagance). College costs should not be a significant drain.
Prior to my divorce I was a sole provider on less than half our current income and managed a 17% average annual NW increase 1999-2014. Since the divorce, we’ve rebuilt at an average 31% thanks to the lowered NW and higher income. The back of the envelope projection looks like this:
If we can meet our specific savings goals, we might do a little better, although I am not sure how realistic it is for us to hit those goals every year. Presumably whatever volatility is going to happen could help or hurt us.
RE involves leaving the country. Hopefully to a relatively inexpensive liveaboard sailboat, or on the hard in someplace like Panama. Hope to do some digital nomad stuff to cover living expenses and keep something trickling into social security until 2029. This all feels like it *could* work out, but only if things go right. It doesn’t seem like there is a lot of contingency in there. Ultimately, I think we’ll just go with whatever we have by then and adjust expenses to match. We both really want to be done with w*rk.
Am I dreaming?
These income levels are recent for us and we have only been together a few years. Perhaps ominously I registered here in 2013 a couple of months before my original 2020-ish FIRE plans were thrown out the window and I ran away crying: Divorce dropped my NW from $765k to $125k and I, now we, have spent the time since building it back up. DW spent many years as the sole provider for 2 kids on a modest income so she brought some debt and a small NW to our marriage; her income is much better now. The upshot is that we are behind, but if we can hang in there another 6 years I think/hope we can reach our $2MM NW goal.
Current situation (excl $80k 529 plans):
$ 34k in cash, of which $6k is in HSAs
$575k pre-tax retirement, 90% in various Vanguard funds
$ 60k Roth retirement, Vanguard
$ 32k HSA invested, Vanguard
$110k Home equity, to be sold at RE
$811k NW +/-
We expect income to remain steady or improve a little, and expenses to moderate once the remaining 2 kids leave the house by 2021 (fewer family vacations, our extravagance). College costs should not be a significant drain.
Prior to my divorce I was a sole provider on less than half our current income and managed a 17% average annual NW increase 1999-2014. Since the divorce, we’ve rebuilt at an average 31% thanks to the lowered NW and higher income. The back of the envelope projection looks like this:
Year | NW | |
2019 | 827000 | 17.5% |
2020 | 967590 | 17.0% |
2021 | 1127242 | 16.5% |
2022 | 1307601 | 16.0% |
2023 | 1510279 | 15.5% |
2024 | 1736821 | 15.0% |
2025 | 1988660 | 14.5% |
If we can meet our specific savings goals, we might do a little better, although I am not sure how realistic it is for us to hit those goals every year. Presumably whatever volatility is going to happen could help or hurt us.
Year | Growth | 401k | HSA | 401k | Cash | Mort | NW | |
2019 | 827000 | |||||||
2020 | 45965 | 25611 | 7100 | 36000 | 40000 | 6486 | 988162 | 19.5% |
2021 | 58003 | 31111 | 7200 | 36000 | 40000 | 6725 | 1167202 | 18.1% |
2022 | 71823 | 31611 | 7300 | 36000 | 40000 | 6973 | 1360909 | 16.6% |
2023 | 87336 | 32111 | 7400 | 36000 | 40000 | 7230 | 1570987 | 15.4% |
2024 | 104747 | 32611 | 8500 | 36000 | 40000 | 7497 | 1800342 | 14.6% |
2025 | 124343 | 33111 | 8600 | 36000 | 40000 | 7773 | 2050169 | 13.9% |
RE involves leaving the country. Hopefully to a relatively inexpensive liveaboard sailboat, or on the hard in someplace like Panama. Hope to do some digital nomad stuff to cover living expenses and keep something trickling into social security until 2029. This all feels like it *could* work out, but only if things go right. It doesn’t seem like there is a lot of contingency in there. Ultimately, I think we’ll just go with whatever we have by then and adjust expenses to match. We both really want to be done with w*rk.
Am I dreaming?