Should I do It?

[torbisen]

Hi. My name is Torbjørn from Norway. I am 39 years old, have two children 5 and 7 and a wife.
Our situation today is this:  I work 100%, its shifts so i enjoy a lot of free days also. I enjoy my work as a Rescue helicopter pilot, and my earnings are around 150000$ a year. My wife work 70% and earns around 50000$ as a school nurse. She likes it, but its hard work at times.
Our financial is like this: 520000$ house countryside, a 300000 apartment in the capital of norway which pays a 17000$ a year. Total debt are around 470000$, but then we have a brand new Tesla worth 90000$ and also another leasing car running out in 1,5 years. In addition to that monthly savings of around 2000$ has gone in to index funds lately and the sum there now is around 200000$.
All in all you could say that if we sold the Tesla ( an absolute dream car for an environmentalist and for those who like fast cars........) and the Apartment we would be roughly left with our house at no debts. The apartment has higher income than the interestrate for the moment and also has doubled its worth in 10 years, so as an investment we keep it, but for the calculation of debt we can say we are at 0 now. Also for info in Norway the Tesla has NO tax, and ALL other fuel cars are double the price in comparison to the US, so the tesla price up at almost the same as a full speced Ford Mondeo here.......... In addition electricity is extreamly cheep, and gas is extreamly expensive. 8,8 dollars a gallon and 1/6th a dollar for a kw/h of electricity. Also no paying on toll roads and ferries for Electrics over here.

Norway is a bit more expensive than US, so food, gas and everything is a lot more pricey. Also they tax your money if you own a few of them. Interest tax on wages 28-55% according to how much you earn,  and also on interest from investments ( 28% ) are also higher.

I figure to be managing ok here, we ned around 1.500.000$ in plus to have a yearly 60000$ to live on.

I retire at 57 as a pilot, and i think that it will take me at least 10years to accomplish this, at least. We easily live on my retire wage, in norway Retirement is better than in the US. The government would pay me the rest of my life from 57. The thing is if i quit at lets say 47, i will have VERY much less retirement money from the government, than if i go on till 57.

The question in my head is: Should i go for it? We both like your stuff, but we dont always seem to agree about what areas is going to be most turned down. I have read the thread "Are moneymoustache ruining my marrige" and sometimes it does :-(.
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Do any of you have any good advise. Would you do it?  Any other comments ill highly appreciate.

[Two9A]

For the moment, I'd take it slowly. You say you'd like $60k/yr to live on, but it's worth listing your monthly expenses and seeing whether that all comes close to that figure. If it doesn't, you can downgrade your estimate of how much you'd need in retirement.

The Norwegian duties on cars and fuel make it a little more reasonable to hold onto the Tesla than it otherwise would be: it may make more sense to drop the leased car, if it works out at a higher cost per month to keep running.

You mention that interest on investments is taxed as if it were income, but there may (should) be tax-free investment vehicles, analogous to the UK's "Individual Savings Account" or the US's IRAs; that's worth looking into, since if you can maximise the amount of cash that goes into investments wrapped in tax-free accounts, that reduces your losses to tax.

Essentially, you can only ever grow a moustache as large as you're willing to bear. If you want to treat the mortgages as a hair-on-fire emergency and pay those down instead of saving more, I wouldn't complain about that. But do make a budget, and see where your figures come out: that's the first step.

[Thegoblinchief]

Mustachianism is less about retiring early so much as aligning your spending with what you truly value. Advertising and modern life live on depriving people of their money through mindless spending on what, at the end of the day, is crap. Worthless crap.

So, come up with a budget you and the wife are both happy with it and live it. Spend mindfully. FI will come inevitably.

Once you've lived on the retirement budget for at least a year, if you realize your investments provide that amount already, there's no reason to keep working until the pension maxes at 57. At the same time, if you enjoy your job and you get plenty of free time...why not keep working?

It's about realizing what YOU value and designing the most optimal path to get there.

[torbisen]

For me since i started reading this i have always been either i am gonna pension, or not. That is because very few reasonable good jobs let you decide how much to work yourself. What i am trying to say is that i cannot work part time the job i have. So either you have freedom, or you dont. I cannot quit it and get it back either. I would probably always prefer total freedom over my work, but then it will probably take ten years or more to get there, and then loose out on all the goods that i get from the government at 57, which is less dependent on the marked than my invested 1500000$ would be out in the open. I should have thouht like this at 18..... Then it would have been easy. We have been looking at a budget a little while ago, dont remember the numbers, but it was more than 60000$ i think. I also have to spend 50$ every day just on gas and taxroads ( which will be practically free with the tesla), so thats why the Tesla are so much better than gas cars, but ofcourse expensive anyway to buy. I did not buy the most expensive one either.