Long time reader first time poster. Just looking for a little advice or reassurance for our future plans and current situation.
Some background. My wife and I are both 38. We have 2 kids (4 and 10). I am an engineer and she is an MRI Tech at a local hospital. We both work full time. I'll skip all the boring historical details.
Combined Income: 120K
Retirement: 401k - $110,000, 403b - $55,000, Roth IRA - $20,000
Mortgage: $1460/mo.
Debt: $198,000 mortgage, $1,000 CC, $1500 student loan
Savings: $2K
I recently paid off over 7K in student loan debt and paid off a low interest loan incurred when we purchased a solar array. We have two cars paid for and a lot of life left. Obviously my next step is continuing to pay off the small debt we have left.
We have a beautiful house that we bought in a down market in which we have sunk a lot of money into. As stated above, we have a large solar array that was installed by myself. It saves about $1000 on energy every year. I installed a 10 zone irrigation system and completely renovated the yard and landscape. We've been told by many, many folks including landscapers that we have the nicest yard in our large town. The grass has become sort of a hobby for me. We also have a large 22,500 gallon pool in the backyard surrounded by beautiful landscaping that I put in myself. We had a new concrete driveway put in last year. I renovated my daughters room over the winter. So much has been done to our house. I am confident we could get 250K out of it or more.
Over the last couple of years I have grown tired of taking care of everything. It's a half acre of landscaping, grass and pool. I do it on my own. It's fun for the most part and rewarding, but it's a lot of daily work. My kids are growing up and I feel sad that I cannot spend as much time with them. They get shoved to the side a lot because the pool needs maintenance or the yard needs mowed. I am also a FIRM proponent of achieving early retirement. It's been a goal for a while now.
Here is my planned proposal:
1. Sell the house - Our home was originally valued at 230K in 2009. We bought it for 210K and currently I would estimate it is worth at least 250K. Similar sized homes with deplorable landscaping and no solar sell for about 250K in this area.
2. Downsize - Use the roughly 50K leftover from the sale as a down payment on a bit of a fixer upper in the price range of about 150K. That basically halves our mortgage payment.
3. Fix it up - Work on building some equity by keeping the home and putting a lot of sweat into it. Make it ours.
4. Invest - With early retirement on the mind I would like to possibly start investing in rental Real Estate or something to provide an income stream during my pre-old man years (40s and 50s). I believe freeing up thousands every year by downsizing would give me the ability to do this. I have recently lowered my 401k contribution to 6% which is what my company matches. Between company match, my investment and dividends it will still come out to 14K every year invested. I'll let that ride for the next 22 years so I have plenty of old man money.
5. Retire!!! Or work part-time doing what I really enjoy.
Ultimately I want more time with my kids hiking, riding bikes, etc. I want more financial freedom to start investing in things I enjoy like working on homes even installing solar panels. Doing the above will net a lot more time, a lot more money and certainly the possibility of very early retirement.
Any feedback, suggestions are welcome.