Specific Question(s):
Are we doing even remotely good @ life!?!? We both come from paycheck to paycheck families, and don't share our financial information with anyone, so why not strangers on the internet?
The primary reason I typed all this up, was to force myself to look at the numbers, and try to assess how we are doing. We absolutely have to get a handle on our spending if we ever want to retire, be able to afford vehicles for kids, college, weddings and anything else life sends our way. After my wife finishes school, and we have our basement work completed, I don’t anticipate any more large expenditures besides family vacations. I don’t feel like we are living an extremely lavish lifestyle, but we aren’t saving a whole lot either, but we have been able to pay cash for some rather large purchases over the past 18 months, so I feel good about that, but also feel like we aren’t making progress.
There are a bunch of things at play here, but let me focus on two of them.
1. You need to readjust your expectations of what a "lavish lifestyle" really is. The reality is that, for every single salary level you list -- even when you guys first started out -- there are people here who FIRE'd on that income (and they sure don't think they're deprived). Think about that: you could be FIRE'd
now if you had avoided lifestyle inflation since graduation. Read MMM front to back -- he is particularly powerful on this topic. The fact is, having food and shelter and clothing and reliable power and accessible medical care and all of the other things we get from living in the first world, and the mental ease that comes from not having to worry where your next meal comes from, means that you already had a lavish lifestyle. All the stuff you piled on top of that was just trimmings.
Not that this makes you wrong -- it just makes you normal. That's how we are all raised. And it is especially true when you come from more humble beginnings: when you grow up with not a lot, things like six-figure salaries seem like massive amounts of money. And so when you get there, you just assume that now you can have the house and the cars and the vacations and the snowblowers and the patios and everything else. And then you wonder where the heck did all the money go, right? [Ask me how I know] When you are in that cycle, it can be rather depressing, because you make so much more than you ever expected, and yet you are
still not getting ahead. It feels like everyone else is in on some secret, and you just didn't get the memo.
But there is no secret. No matter how much money you have, it only goes so far. So the people who seem like they have everything either are financing with debt, or are much older than you and have much more saved/have higher salaries, or have some other form of income. And the folks who are really wealthy around you probably don't look like it -- read "The Millionaire Next Door" if you haven't already.
2. All of which brings me to my second point: I think your paycheck-to-paycheck background has imprinted certain habits and thought patterns about money that are hurting you now. People who are struggling tend to see money as a fleeting thing; there is no guarantee that it will be around tomorrow, so better spend it on something now so you can at least get the enjoyment of it. Read everything White Trash Can has written on this topic. I read about a reboot of the infamous marshmallow study that concluded that poor kids are actually acting rationally by taking the first marshmallow rather than waiting for the second -- because they have learned that the second marshmallow doesn't always appear, and if you wait too long, the first one goes away, too.
And then along with that, you probably developed a list in your mind of all of the stuff that you'd have once you got money -- that picture of what your future life would be with money. And now that you have money, you are busily working to create that picture. Honestly, from looking at all the stuff you have thrown money at in the last year or two, it seems almost as if you are a little frantic, running around throwing money every which way in an almost desperate attempt to grab All The Stuff that your head says is necessary and that you deserve at this point in your life.
Again, not that this makes you bad or wrong -- it's completely normal. But those mental habits are completely antithetical to FIRE. You need to get to the point where you understand that your happiness and success in life does not revolve around having a patio, and a snowblower, and a cruise, and all that. And most important:
you need to stop thinking that as soon as you get past X, you won't have any other big things to spend money on. That is just bullshitting yourself. The reality is that no matter how big and "final" X seems, there is always a Y, and then a Z, A, B, C, and so on. Not because all those things are necessary -- because, again, this is how your brain works. When you view happiness and success as tied to the trappings you surround yourself with, you will
always find more trappings that you need just as much as the old ones. Look at your own history for the proof. Something always comes up.
The way you break the cycle is to realize, as you seem to be doing, that adding more stuff doesn't make life better; it just makes the hamster wheel turn faster. And then make a conscious choice to step off it. I say conscious choice because it will require retraining your brain -- you have been thinking one way your whole life, and so it is natural and comfortable to want more. In fact, it probably gives you a great (momentary) feeling to buy All The Things, because doing so reminds you of how far you have come. You need to tell yourself that stuff does not equal happiness, that you are better and stronger than that, that Future You is just as important as Current You -- and you need to keep saying it until you see that it works and you finally believe it.
So for now, start with those future spending plans, recognize they are all optional, and realign your spending with your real priorities. The fact is, your values are what you do, not what you say. As of now, today, you are choosing a finished basement over funding your kids' college, and over your own retirement. Is that really where your priorities are? If not, make a different choice. You have a very healthy income that has more than ample room for both your long-term priorities and your current wants; you just can't do everything all at once. So cut back on the things that don't matter to make room for those that do. You can do this.