Seems like just adding an item to the budget is a much easier way.
She plays polo. There are no costs right now for the hobby, but at some point down the road this hobby would cost $1-2k a month (owning horses, boarding them, etc). I'm trying to find the best way to prepare for this. My DW works and gets to ride other people's horses for free since she works so hard at maintaining them, but eventually, she's going to need her own to keep up with the sport. She can't really pick up a side gig making money through the sport because she receives a ton of non-monetary benefits from the people who own all the horses and she'd be competing with them which is not a place she wants to be. Compared to what the normal customers pay, it's a steal that she gets to play polo as much as she does for free, so stepping on their toes by charging other people wouldn't fly. My goals here are twofold:
1) Prepare now for a cost down the road while we're not paying any money
2) Motivate her to invest more by having tangible progress to a goal other than generic FIRE (Like I said, she's great with saving, but doesn't really feel like our saving is moving her toward this long-term goal)
A part of me knows that maximizing overall returns is the best long-term strategy (I'm 95% stock / 5% bonds in my normal investing), but as I said in the original post, I have very little experience receiving distributions from an account. I'm still struggling with the best way to approach this. The "autopilot dividends" is an attractive option knowing that you don't have to think about it and just have money show up, but I know this will be suboptimal over time. Maybe I should just do what I do with my other retirement accounts and build them up until they're fully able to support themselves. Should I just go with an S&P index and let it ride out over time? (pun totally intended)
Ugh. Thanks for the help, guys. This is uncharted territory for me.