New to the Forum but not to the sight.

[TwoWorlds]

It is interesting reading the Blog and many of the forum information.  Some info about us and would appreciate any advice.  Most of you I Envy!

Wife and me are both 43 years old.  We make 250+ (just the last 2 years) and are doing what I thought was very good.  We had a lot of medical bills early in our marriage with our child.  We have two boys.  Lived most of the first 16 years spending everything we made either paying bills, mortgage and medical bills. Have changed things to better our situation and start preparing for RE.  We were both always planning to work until 67 but no longer want to do that.  Wife plans to work until 60 as she will be fully funded in her pension and she LOVEs her job.  I no longer have any interest in my job and want to go to part time or just RE early.

Current position:

My salary 200k
Wife 70K ($3,500/month net)
Cash in bank 60K
Debt 405K all on the mortgage (3.375%)  House worth 600k
Retirement for me 250k
Retirement wife 80k also will get a pension
Investment outside retirement 250k
25k gold & silver
No savings for college but plan to pay for all of it for our kids (16 & 12)
Spending 65% of take home pay
My job is not stable but wife's job is very stable and again she loves it.

Issues I see for us to get to FI:

College expense 200k-250k
Mortgage (wife not willing to downsize but willing to let me retire before her)
Need to be saving 50%+ but with college coming that cannot happen

I figure we need 500k in retirement for me and 750k in non-retirement account before I get fired or quit.  Wife will continue to work as I said before because she loves her job and wants her full pension.  That gives us a lot of help.

What do you all think?

[aceyou]

Welcome!!!

I think you are set up to hit just about any time table you want to.  Your income is very high, even for this site.  You have a net worth of about 800k it looks like, and you can easily inject 100k of new capital each year.  MMM FIRE'd on less than that. 

Some random thoughts:

Personally I agree with your thoughts on having about 1.25 million saved, but I'm biased because that's the number where I'll consider myself FI based on our current lifestyle.  I think you can get there by age 50 give or take. 

Advice I would give would be to:

- Figure out what you want your life to be like post work, then figure out how much that'll cost, then work backwards towards how much you have to save each year and work your plan.  The more excited you are for the next thing, the more motivated you'll be to live as efficiently as possible. 
- Post a case study.  If you are looking for ways to trim your spending, people will have TONS of suggestions for you, they always do.  You can take the advice that won't decrease your happiness, and ignore the rest. 

[Altons Bobs]

A few things to consider:

• what happens if your wife dies, will you receive her full pension?
• health care expenses in retirement
• your current annual expenses
• how much do you need in retirement including taxes that you have to pay?