just looking for opinions, I haven't really shared my personal situation with anyone nor have I seeked advice (when I've tried to talk to some of the financial advisers they are trying to sell me stuff I don't want or think I need so I've stayed away). posting it here is kind of anonymous, you know my name but really that's about it. first my philosophy....we've got to live for today because tomorrow is never guaranteed but at the same time we might live to be over 100 and so we must save for retirement. Not an easy thing to do for so many it seems. I consider myself lucky in that I make good money, and I love what I do. my plan, that I really got aggressive on just a few years ago, is to become financially independent (FI) and then cut back on working. My wife would quit or go part time at her job, her choice. I would give up the supervisor position taking a small pay cut (about 6k a year) and stop working so much overtime (I currently do on average about 700 hours per year).
so what is FI for me you might ask? well to be honest I'm not entirely sure. I'm thinking 1.3 to 1.5 million in investments. an amount that could have me bringing home roughly 50k per year. I don't have any pensions, just Social Security, if that exists when I get there.
Life situation:
Married (file joint), kids are grown so no dependents at home. We live in central Florida. I'm 46 my wife is 43.
Gross wages:
last year we brought home $170,000. but our guaranteed pay is more like 110,000. I work overtime when ever I get the chance and right now I'm also a consultant for a short term ending December 2020 which give me an additional 24,000 per year, all of which goes directly into my brokerage account (well, 20k of it, 4k I keep out to pay taxes at the end of the year). so the total take home amount fluctuates depending on how much OT I can find.
pre tax deductions
I max my 401k at 19,000 per year (company matches about 5%)
my wife maxes her 401k but it's different since they give shares of stock, she can only put in 10%
HSA for me maxed each year $3,450
medical insurance is pretty cheap with the high deductible plan at only $20 per paycheck (26 per year)
adjusted gross income
I expect that this year we'll take home about $124,000 per year after deductions.
no other income to speak of.
Current expenses
this is where it gets fun:
Last year we spent about $80,000, way more than I realized we were spending in a year. This year I thought by tracking it each month I'd get a better handle on spending but so far no so much. Hoping to get things under control for the next 6 months of this year. We've had a couple of large expenses that I didn't expect plus a big vacation which I did plan for...kinda.
Here's is the average monthly spending so far for 2019:
Rent/Mortgage $1,134.33
Water $96.58
Electric $6.67 (we have solar that's paid for)
home maintenance $53.33
hoa fees $55.00
dining out $263.17
Groceries $495.00
internet $70.50
cell phones $127.00
pets $485.08 (we had two dogs, just had to put one to rest this week due to bone cancer. This is one of those unexpected expenses, spend over 3k on medical) Average for the remaining dog should be no more than $75 per month going forward.
truck payment $400.00 (5 year loan at 3.25% interest)
gasoline $192.17
sunpass Tolls $28.25
auto insurance $134.42
auto tags $6.42 (once per year averaged per month)
harley insurance $18.83
auto Maint. $229.50 (another surprise expense in this category, a few hundred per year is the norm)
life insurance $104.67 (term life)
home décor $22.92
Home Improvement $247.67
office supplies $67.00
postage $8.33
clothing shoes $198.83 (way more than I expected gonna have to look into this)
general merchandise $616.75 (this is typically stuff we don't necessarily need but buy)
entertainment $139.58 (local entertainment, non vacation spending)
Vacation $769.42 (planned trips, we just got back from 2 weeks in Italy)
gifts $594.08 (not normally this high either, but I was feeling generous and paid for my daughters car - she's been working hard in school and I had the cash so I spent it)
Health care $82.25 (wife had some diagnostics tests done, lucky they turned to be nothing but still costs money)
Assets
we have a home we are paying for. Mortgage was for 198,000 @ 3.6% interest. We bought in 2016 with a 30 year mortgage.
2018 chevy colarado @ 400 a month for 5 years @ 3.25% interest
2012 Kia sportage paid off (100k miles)
2003 Harley Davidson paid off (60K miles)
no other property worth mentioning.
in total we have $640,000 invested for retirement at at 85% stocks (15% of that international), 8% bonds, 7% REITS Mostly all Index mutual funds.
Liabilities
we owe
$168,000 on the house
$18,000 to my truck
no other debt
Last year we invested $87,000 in total. So far this year I've invested $54,000 I expect to hit the 80k mark again this year. 20k of that is from the side hustle so next year and going forward 50k-60k is more realistic.
We keep 2 months worth of cash in our checking and savings account ($10,000) We charge everything to a credit card that gets paid off each month and earn 2% cash back on that.
I'm hoping that in about 5 years (51-52) we'll be FI at $1.5 million. meaning if the SHTF we could easily just live in our home on investments. no extras and still have some extra cash if we needed to. After FI, I'll keep working, wife quits, we'll make about $100k per year on my job alone and do more travel still investing about 30k per year. Do this until I dont' want to anymore, or can't maybe about 60 or so. by then the total invested should be at or over 2 million and we can quit forever.
I'd like to get my spending down to a more reasonable amount, then I can invest more. We need about $45k for all the basic stuff as is, but we spend almost an equal amount on other things. I want to enjoy and live my life so spending 5-10k on vacation every year is not a problem but there are other areas where we definitely need to be more frugal. we've been used to not really paying attention to what we spend money on (must be nice I know) but my attention has been to shovel all money left over each month into investments, thus how we were able to invest so much. I also kinda look at it like if we invest 50k or more to investments every year we have earned the right to do what makes us feel good.
anyway, there's my life spilled out.