Life Situation:
Married filing jointly, we're both 30. 0 dependents but are working on 1. We live in the USA.
Gross Salary/Wages:
$170k annual
~$20k in annual bonus (The company hasn't missed it in 20 years. We do not budget on the bonus)
Individual amounts of each Pre-tax deductions 401k, HSA, FSA, IRA, insurance, etc.
We max out our 401ks ($35k).
Insurance is ~$150/month
Other Ordinary Income: N/A
Qualified Dividends & Long Term Capital Gains: N/A
Rental Income, Actual Expenses, and Depreciation: N/A
Adjusted Gross Income: $96k ($8k cash each month)
Taxes Monthly:
Fed: $1414
State: $580
Current Expenses:
Charitable Giving - $800
Mortgage - $856
Property Taxes - $90
Insurance (life, LTD, home, car) - $420
Utilities - $200
Groceries - $425
Eating Out - $175
Fuel - $120
Misc - $300
Car Payment - $500 (0% interest)
Total Monthly - $3,886
Expected ER expenses:
Expenses after house/car is paid off is $2,750. Our lifestyle should not exceed ~$3,500 even with children.
Assets:
Total not counting house as of 9/1: $358k. We hold VFFVX and VTSAX.
Brokerage: $110k
Roth IRAS: $44k (both max out yearly)
401ks: $144k
Simple IRA: $32k
Cash: $28k
House: ~$189k in equity.
Liabilities:
Car: 0%, $500/month, payoff date is 12/2023
House: $41k left, 3.75%, $856/month
Specific Question(s):
I am seeking guidance to see if DW & I are on the right track for a financially sound future. Both of us want to retire ASAP but I expect 10 more years. I do not like the 9-5 40hr/week work. My goal is to live off our savings and volunteer to occupy our time plus traveling. We track our spending diligently and have averaged $2,500/month (no mortgage/giving) the past 4 years which includes our yearly vacations. We struggle to see where the fat can be cut out of the budget but keep trying to cut out unnecessary spending.
We are in a poor school zone area and are working on baby #1 out of 2. We are looking to move to a HCOL area (Homewood, AL) where the houses have doubled in value since 2011. The city has no more room to build so the trend can only go upward right? The houses we are looking at are $450k. We can still max out our 401ks and Roth IRAs yearly which gives us ~$1,500/month to invest after the higher mortgage.
Main question: Given we want to retire in 10 years would it be financially wise to cough up the $90k down payment and cut our yearly investing by at least $16k in order to get into this HCOL area?
If you made it this far, thank you! I tried my best to detail our entire situation as briefly and descriptive as possible.
Edit: If we buy and sell our current house we will invest all our equity back into VFFVX/VTSAX.