Oversold the dream life

[Meesh]

My DH has been pretty reluctant to FI but he knows my ability to save has helped us out many times, we even took a year off work when our son was born. So I started talking about all the things we could do in FI to get him more interested, namely travel all over the world while we homeschool through geo arbitrage. I know he doesn't want to retire completely so I mentioned he could do freelance translation part time from all over (he was a translator and is now head of translation at his company), which would allow us to become FI faster (a la madfiendist).

He got so into it he keeps talking about quitting now or really soon and doing freelance full time. We are nowhere close to FI. We are at 35k and will probably hit 75-80k in 12 months. While it is our dream life and we could meet all of our expenses with freelance, we would have a hard time saving on it. So probably no FIRE.

FI conversion fail. I haven't been able to get him on board. Should I encourage him to keep it up at the cushy job a bit longer or just go for the dream life?

[Lady SA]

Is your DH involved in any conversations about your "projections" and assets and general life planning? Sounds like he has no idea what assets you have and how much you need to FIRE and misconstrued your statement thinking that the scenario you mentioned was possible sooner than you meant.

Sit him down and show him the numbers: what you need to semi-FIRE (ie freelance) vs full FIRE (ie no longer working) vs where you are right now, and your savings rate and how long it will take to get from here to semi-FIRE/full-FIRE. Just have a discussion about it and see if there is a compromise somewhere. Sounds like your DH is pretty excited about leaving his job, so you might be able to make some tradeoffs to make that happen sooner. Or, once he fully understands the numbers and the timeline, he could be like "oh duh! Yeah that sounds reasonable".

But right now he sounds utterly in the dark about the state of your finances and timelines. Show him the current state and future state and projected timeline and I'm sure he would be on board with that.

[Sibley]

Well, what kind of income could he earn doing the freelancing? What kind of income do you have? What is your overall expenses/debts look like? If he were doing FT freelancing, how would that impact things? Not just in $, but also day to day. Less commuting? More travel? Depending on how all of that shakes out, it could actually be advantageous. Or not. Part of this process is analyzing the possibilities. Have him participate actively in that process, and really try to list the pros and cons. Because there will be pros and cons.

[Bicycle_B]

Is he the sole earner?  If so, you're not working either way.  In that case, what is the point of FI, supposing that he wishes to keep working?  Is your concern that he will lose enthusiasm for work later, leaving you both destitute unless you start to work? By asking him to put nose to grindstone, are you asking him to trade his present for your future security? Is your thought that his high earning time is limited and should be harvested, leading to his own greater happiness later on the assumption he won't want to work at that point?

I'm normally very pro-FI, just not sure I understand this case.  Please forgive me if I accidentally offend by these questions.  Congratulations in any case on saving, learning about FI, communicating with DH, and finding new work options that are exciting to him.  I will defer to wiser commenters and any further remarks by you.

[okits]

The dream life you and your DH want can be achieved 1) in the future, by being far wealthier than you are now, 2) today, by being willing to live with little financial safety net and continuing to do paid work indefinitely, or 3) some point on the continuum between the first two points.

You and your DH share a vision.  You now need to jointly look at where you are starting from and jointly decide how you will get to your goal.  As Sibley pointed out, every plan will have pros and cons.  If your DH is dead set on having his dream life today, you both need to onside with the risk that entails (to yourselves and to your son, today and in the future).

[Meesh]

@Lady SA We do actually talk about this a lot. He knew I was saying it would make saving up for FI shorter if he freelanced part time rather than wait to save up the whole thing. Since he knows freelancers earn around 50k full time he realized if he just did that full time we'd be fine. Which is true. But I agree I should sit down and really hash out numbers with him.

We are at 35k, to semi-retire we need about 300k (with him making 2000/month) and for full retirement 900k. Part of his disinterest is he feels it's impossible.

@Sibley freelancers can make 50k a year full time (100k if you do it right and specialize, which he is so maybe more) right now we make 93k including employer matches etc. If he were FT freelancing we could live anywhere around the world while he worked from wherever we called home at the time. It is very much up our ally, we get restless after a few years in one place and are pretty extreme minimalists who homeschool and rent so we could pick up and go pretty much. And I guess if done right we might be able to save 25% of our income on the 50k end.

@BicycleB I am honestly not worried about being destitute or him loosing interest in work or my personal financial security. The point of FI is to be together and spend more of our life together as a family unit. I know his dream is to travel, and work part time from home. I also know I am better with money and we as a family do not need much of it to be happy. So I, with his permission invest it, making sure we have enough that DH does not feel constricted by our minimal spending. And no I do not, nor never have, expected him to continue a job he does not like and always encouraged him to pick work he enjoys doing. We as a family, decided to make having a stay at home parent a priority and he had higher earning potential then me so it made sense for me to stay home.

[Meesh]

It sounds like the consensus is to go back and really hash it out with him. Figure out together what we would be comfortable with and when to pull the trigger. I'll keep you posted.

[okits]

Wishing you two a productive conversation (or conversations!  Depending on how his thought processes work, he may prefer to discuss a small amount of detail or a big question, think it over for a few days, then come back and discuss more.  I suggest opening the conversation with understanding that nothing needs to be decided that day/week/month/year.)

[Bicycle_B]

@Meesh, great answers.  Such a judgment call here.  With the good relationship you have and the skills you both display, I bet you'll both have a great life either way.  My intuition actually leans toward supporting him on the adventure (going for the new job) and using your wits to gradually build toward FI, but your decision will be better than mine.  Good luck to you, and keep us posted.

[Meesh]

Thanks @okits I will try to keep that in mind, I think you're right in that there is no rush

and Thanks @Bicycle_B I'm actually really excited of the possibility of doing this sooner than I anticipated, it just threw me a little for a loop when he said lets do it now. Which is why I posted.

[Meesh]

Talked with DH this weekend and he said he wants to stay with his company for a long time. He was having a pretty stressful month at work when he started talking about doing freelance full time.

Honestly though, I think either would be fine. In fact, when I really did the numbers I'm pretty sure he could quit and we could live the same as now off part time work if we wanted to (I guess that's semi-retired?). I had forgotten to factor in that we own a house outright in Italy (free health too!) so we could always move back there. This also means we need less to be fully FI for base expenses. Woo! In the meantime, I'll keep on investing every month and continue to let him know we can always leave. It's pretty awesome to have a great backup plan.