Maybe mustacians should look away

[sol]

Well, we have 3 kids so one bedroom for each of them, 1 for us, and 1 for when we have visitors - so downsizing wouldn't really work.

Wait, did you really just say that you can't downsize because your kids each require their own room and you need to have a guest bedrooom?

Maybe we should revisit the wants vs needs distinction?

After you've done that, ask your grandparents how many people lived in how many rooms in the houses they grew up in.

[faramund]

Well, we have 3 kids so one bedroom for each of them, 1 for us, and 1 for when we have visitors - so downsizing wouldn't really work.

Wait, did you really just say that you can't downsize because your kids each require their own room and you need to have a guest bedrooom?

Maybe we should revisit the wants vs needs distinction?

After you've done that, ask your grandparents how many people lived in how many rooms in the houses they grew up in.

Well, its really just the joys of balancing a relationship. To put it in context, my wife earns about 50% more than I do, and she doesn't really want to retire. So, if we can retire in 7 years, and that's what it takes to keep her/us happy. I'm fine with it. The interest on the house loan is only 7.9% of my income.

And in any case, we have a lot of equity in the house, well or we did until we took it out to build a large share portfolio. And the dividend's on those shares pay 80% of all the interest we owe. I'm estimating at the end of this year, the dividend's will pay all the interest we owe. Roughly each year the house appreciates by 4%, and each year, I take 80% of that out and invest it - so the house isn't really dead money anyway.

The fact I have a 'fixed point' retirement, means I don't chase after every possible saving. Of course, I'm fairly frugal, that's why I have my retirement stash, but at the moment, I could downsize the house, and then invest the money, and then in 7 years when I retire, I'd have even more money, so what would I do with it then?

So with me its always a choice, do I want to spend on something now, or spend on something later. There isn't really any point in just saving money, although I suppose I could do that, and pass it onto my kids, and then they could spend it???

Essentially my spreadsheets have my current spending and income, and then I project far into the future, and I have calculated at what rate I can increase spending so that I can comfortably retire in 6.7 years, I don't see any reason for why I'd want to reduce spending now, with compound interest, I will have ridiculous amounts of money in the future. So why would poorer me, want to give more money, to richer me.

[Apples]

Well, we have 3 kids so one bedroom for each of them, 1 for us, and 1 for when we have visitors - so downsizing wouldn't really work.

Wait, did you really just say that you can't downsize because your kids each require their own room and you need to have a guest bedrooom?

Maybe we should revisit the wants vs needs distinction?

After you've done that, ask your grandparents how many people lived in how many rooms in the houses they grew up in.

Just to be contradictory, both of my paternal grandparents grew up in houses with 4-5 bedrooms.  Now there were 6 kids in one family and 4 in the other, so there was still some sharing going on.  I believe both of my maternal grandparents grew up in houses with 3-4 bedrooms and 4 siblings each.  So again, a bit of sharing but still lots of room.  But maybe that's just because I live in the country and big houses and families are a "thing" here, and have been for over a century.

However, kids share rooms all the time.  My brothers did.  I had friends who did.  Nbd.  Also, who has a special extra guest bedroom???  That was always my room growing up, and I went to sleep on the couch.   

[Chris22]

I love the casual, flippant way "downsizing" is tossed around here.  A guy who would be ridiculed for spending, say, $75/wk on a housekeeper would be encouraged to spend, I dunno, $18k in realtor fees alone to sell a $300k house to get something smaller that he doesn't want. 

[tj]

I love the casual, flippant way "downsizing" is tossed around here.  A guy who would be ridiculed for spending, say, $75/wk on a housekeeper would be encouraged to spend, I dunno, $18k in realtor fees alone to sell a $300k house to get something smaller that he doesn't want.

Well, that's $4k/year on housekeeping, breakeven would be less than 5 years! :D But yes, that's another god point, why not just hire a housekeeper if the concern of early retirement is being responsible for all the cleaning?

To me it almost sounds like the OP doesn't want to retire unless his wife joins him.

[faramund]

Well.. movement at the station, my work has just offered voluntary redundancies - their about 3 times my annual take home income, or 2x that+my superannuation investments each year.

My DW has also said she wants to work for another 8-10 years. So now, my mind is really ticking over, if I took this, our spending to net assets would be   6-8%, but given if I stopped working we'd still have her income, the drawdown would be more like 2.4-4% (the x-y% indicates how generously I call things an asset). When she did eventually retire, our NAs should have grown enough to make that ratio good enough.

I have to make a decision on this in the next 14 days. The PRO would be that I could retire, the CONS are that this isn't as comfortable a ratio as I'd like (this would move forward retirement by 6 years), and possible spouse jealousy/expectation issues. My original plan was to live off dividends, this would now mean, gradually running down the redundancy over the next 14 years, until I could access the superannuation. This isn't too bad, but I'm a buy-and-hold investor, selling things seems painful.

That's about it, now I have to think about decisions, decisions, decisions.

[potm]

Your redundancy package is worth 3 years income?? That is very very generous.
I would take it! You can find other work if you want to add more to the stash.

[faramund]

It would be hard to find a job with better conditions then what I've got. So if I'm leaving, its to retirement, not to another job.

[Sibley]

Curious as to what relationship peace means?  In my household if I were to retire before my wife I'd have a lot more time to help out with chores and keeping things in order which would make her life a lot more enjoyable.

I think its expectations, when she works, and I'm at home, she expects me to do many more things then I expect I should do.. Life is just smoother when either we both work, or are both at home.

You need to sit down and specifically discuss this. Get down to the real nitty gritty, and figure out what works. Then try it for a while and then revisit. Resentment will quickly kill a relationship.

[golfreak12]

Must be a rich people's problem.....can't relate.

[Mtngrl]

One of the most interesting things about this board to me is that there is no one-size-fits-all FIRE plan.
My husband retired two years ago and I kept working. I love having him home. He did take on most of the housework, but I still do the cooking and laundry and pitch in with other things -- I happen to enjoy cooking and laundry much more than he does, so it works for us.
I'm fortunate in that I work at home and am self-employed, so have a lot of flexibility in my schedule so that we are able to do things together - though there are still days when he wants to do stuff and I have to say 'nope, I have to work.'

[zephyr911]

Well.. movement at the station, my work has just offered voluntary redundancies - their about 3 times my annual take home income, or 2x that+my superannuation investments each year.

My DW has also said she wants to work for another 8-10 years. So now, my mind is really ticking over, if I took this, our spending to net assets would be   6-8%, but given if I stopped working we'd still have her income, the drawdown would be more like 2.4-4% (the x-y% indicates how generously I call things an asset). When she did eventually retire, our NAs should have grown enough to make that ratio good enough.

I have to make a decision on this in the next 14 days. The PRO would be that I could retire, the CONS are that this isn't as comfortable a ratio as I'd like (this would move forward retirement by 6 years), and possible spouse jealousy/expectation issues. My original plan was to live off dividends, this would now mean, gradually running down the redundancy over the next 14 years, until I could access the superannuation. This isn't too bad, but I'm a buy-and-hold investor, selling things seems painful.

That's about it, now I have to think about decisions, decisions, decisions.

Work part-time. Be a consultant. Use your newfound free time to cut costs further (more DIY, other). Getting 3 years' pay right now to leave and have no responsibilities is a better offer than most of us will ever get in our lives. TAKE IT.

[Cannot Wait!]

So what did you decide???

[faramund]

So what did you decide???

Well I realised it was 2x[my additional super + income] years because I have 1 year of long service leave saved up. So when I was thinking about this, I was counting on 6.5 years income until retirement, so 1 extra year was only 1/6th of what I was counting for. To top this off, my wife said she wants to work for another 8.5 years.

So, I've decided to keep working, but especially since my wife wants to keep working, I've decided to cut a year off my time to retirement. So.. its now 5.5 years to go.  Which really means, I should say hi on the 2021 FIRE cohort thread, and bye to the 2022 thread, but I don't quite want to do that yet.

I should add, its still not finalized - last Friday was the deadline for when people could put their hand up for voluntary redundancies, but they've said that if they don't get enough, they'll start a compulsory redundancy process - so there's still a chance I'll be retired at the end of this year - I don't think I will - but its in the hands of the gods now.

[sol]

its in the hands of the gods now.

You have WAY too much respect for your middle management team.