Sorry, I’m missing the math. She’s adding 35 but taking away 12, so she’s adding 23 more than before. How has that pushed you farther away from your date than we she was adding 0?
Here’s my advice, and you know, grain of salt: don’t let your pursuit of FIRE add pressure that would destabilize your marriage. So what if it pushes it out a year or two? Honestly. You’re still most likely FIRE 15-20 years for most in your peer group. Look at the big picture. If you can make it to FIRE with a healthy marriage intact, that’s a victory. But if you become a penny pinching, resentful micro-Manager in your marriage, you’ll end up divorced and just so the figures on how far back that will set your FIRE goal. You’re not in a race or a competition. Chill. Have healthy discussions about finances, but above all else, have a healthy marriage.
Very good points MrThatsDifferent as well as Chasingthegoodlife, but watch out for assumptions.
I'm not a [complete] idiot. My wife is a lovely person, and I plan on staying married to her forever. I'm actually a very "big picture" kind of person. The point of the rant is to show folks
the consequences of lifestyle inflation. I'm not about to dictate to the boss what job or how many hours she would want to work.
Didn't mean to touch a nerve with the income ratio. I'm just a math geek and figured that would help folks get a realistic idea of the trade-offs here.
The math is that you need 25 times your yearly spend level. If your spend level increases by 12K, you will need 300K more saved at FIRE. As we are already on course to FIRE in 5-7 years, needing approx 10 times [300/30] her FT gains leads to the fact that her efforts are actually SLOWING us down.
She's not working more in order to make more money or in order to spend more money. She's working more in order to achieve more professional satisfaction. Spending more money appears to be a byproduct of FT work.
No "penny pinching" or "resentful micro-managing" here either. She does what she wants to do to make her happy. If she ain't happy I certainly wont be happy. The end result just happens to be more working time for both of us.
mm1970's comment on the effect of FT work on life energy is 100% correct. There's only so many hours of every day, and weekends can often be spent with kids' activities or "catching up" with daily home tasks. My child care and home care tasks have gone up tremendously since she went from PT to FT (she has about 25 less hours at home per week). My estimate for kids/home work split is 50/50. She'd probably say 60/40. I think the end result of her going FT is that BOTH of us are more run down by the end of every week. But we are fairly good about splitting duties.
Where's it all going? asks LeavesofGrass
-since I don't micromanage, I don't actually know. That's for her to figure out and to adjust (or not) if she feels that fits with her life goals. Separate bank account not linked to Mint.
I'm honestly not at all worried about our end-game. We will get there just the same in the end. That being said, MATH is a very POWERFUL THING.