Hello Mustachians,
Just got caught up on reading all the blog posts from the last year and some. Love this community...it puts into perspective a lot of things that have so far been kinda vague and uncrystallized in my head and sorta gives me a kick in the butt (or a punch in the face) to stop being a wimp already and DO IT!
By way of introduction, I'm a 33 y/o female, married, two kids (4 and 3 years old) and a stepson in college. I would have loved to quit working when the kids were born but couldn't as I was on a work visa and it was either work full time or go back to my home country. I'm using the 'forced' work period to build up a small 'stash - a little difficult for the following reasons:
a) my husband and I both work in academia, so the pay kinda sucks, considering we are 'highly educated'
b) stepson in college + two kids in daycare = bleeding at both ends (college tuition and childcare expenses)
c) the husband, although environmentally conscious and not at all spendthrift, is not at Mustachian levels, and is much older (he's 50) so does not want to be told what to do; also, I really cannot and won't question or interfere with his spending decisions with regard to his son.
Despite these, here's where I am (I tend to think of my finances in the singular; although we do joint tax returns, we have separate bank accounts, split household expenses more or less equally, and for the present, he takes care of college and other expenses for his son while I take care of daycare and saving for college for our kids).
Retirement - ~100K (I tend not to take my husbands retirement savings into account when calculating mine, because of the age difference and the other circumstances - there may well be nothing there for me when I am 'retirement age'. If there is, then bonus!)
College savings - ~15K
No car loans, 10 years left on low-interest (3.2%) mortgage with current principal balance of $157K (husband makes these payments ~$1500 per month).
Grocery bills are probably ~$500-$600 per month, again, husband pays these
Daycare expenses ~$1000 per month
Utilities average $350 per month
I put away about $4000 in retirement/savings, and another $1000 into college savings per month.
My husband loves his work and plans to continue at least until our mortgage is paid off. I plan (now that I am off the visa hook) to quit working full time in a few months, and just do some freelance work (scientific editing) and pursue my passion (teaching dance) both of which should bring in enough money to pay the bills and continue saving while allowing me to spend more time at home with the kids. (I currently do both these side-hustles in addition to my full time job, and save more than 100% of my main income stream into retirement and college accounts, using just the side income for expenses).
What do you Mustachians think of my situation? Am I somewhat Mustachian, or still very clean-shaven? Trying my best to maintain marital harmony and live Mustachian-ly :)