Planning for sabbatical year; overcoming fear of spending $$$

[Melisande]

My husband will have the opportunity to take a sabbatical abroad for a year starting next June (although we may start in September if our country of choice hasn’t re-opened its borders by June). Current options in order of preference are: New Zealand; Israel; The Netherlands; Costa Rica.

My husband really wants to do this ... and I think we should. It could be the experience of a lifetime. But I have to admit, I am afraid of how much $$$ it will cost. On the one hand, our expenses will be somewhat higher than usual while on the other hand, my husband will be making considerably less money than usual. Nothing at all for the first three months, then some fraction of his salary for nine months, then nothing at all for the three months after we get back. So six months with no salary and nine months on a reduced salary.

Our plan (or rather my plan, because although my husband is making all the money at this point, he doesn’t really do household finance) is to only use the cash that we have let accumulate in various bank accounts and not touch our investments. As of now we have $170,000 in cash and can probably get up to $200,000 by the beginning of the sabbatical. It seems like it should be enough if we keep up our current frugal lifestyle. However, I have to admit I am scared of all the unknowns, financial and otherwise.

Some unknowns:

1) I am an advanced lung cancer survivor and am still considered at high risk of a recurrence. Our preliminary research suggests that we will probably be able to change our insurance to Blue Cross Blue Shield International, but I still don’t know if this will cover immunotherapy for me (which I may or may not need). Also, if I get really sick, I may want to come back to the US, but don’t know how this will work with the insurance.

2) Ideally, we would rent out our home in the US while we are abroad, so we don’t have to pay for a place abroad and pay our monthly mortgage payments at the same time. My husband is against the renting out idea (and I have to admit, it would be nice to have our home here available in case we did have to abort, for whatever reason.) We currently pay $1,900/month for mortgage & property taxes. So we would have to pay that for the 15 months, plus the rent on an apartment abroad (say around $2,000/month) for 9 months.

3) We could sell our cars, then lease new ones abroad. Maybe there is a better option?

4) My husband doesn’t know how much of his salary he will be making. Current take home pay (after tax withholding, health insurance and retirement contribution) is about $13,000/month. He will be earning probably somewhere between 50 to 80% of that for the nine months he will be paid. Hopefully, he will eventually figure out what this will be (I have asked multiple times),  but I’m just assuming 50% to be on the safe side.

5) Airfare for two there and back, plus maybe for one trip home and back in the middle?

6) Expenses while we are there. One of the reasons my husband is really keen on taking this sabbatical is that he is seeing it partly as an amazing vacation (not just all work). This vacation is going to include lots of little vacations nested inside of it. When we talk about New Zealand (hopefully their borders will have re-opened between now and September 2021), I hear about how we can go all over the country and take multiple vacations to Australia (since it is so close) with private birding guides (!)

Actually, now that I write this I think I see the source of my angst more clearly. If it were simply a mattered of surviving for 15months, I don’t think we’d have any problems. But who wants to go to another county and just survive? Of course, you want to make the absolute most of your once-in-a-lifetime experience! But then I cycle back to angst about the budget ....

Any tips on how to proceed and have fun planning, how to have fun taking the plunge, how to avoid worrying about this?

[maizefolk]

4) My husband doesn’t know how much of his salary he will be making. Current take home pay (after tax withholding, health insurance and retirement contribution) is about $13,000/month. He will be earning probably somewhere between 50 to 80% of that for the nine months he will be paid. Hopefully, he will eventually figure out what this will be (I have asked multiple times),  but I’m just assuming 50% to be on the safe side.

So I'm assuming he's on a 9 month appointment and his employer is covering part of his salary while he is away on sabbatical? Does he normally get summer salary from other funding sources? If so, I'm surprised he'd have to go without summer pay for the three months after you return home. I can tell you at my university if I went on sabbatical, the university would either cover my pay my full salary for one semester or 1/2 salary for two semesters, but they'd still cover healthcare/retirement contributions, and I'd still be allowed to pay myself summer salary out of my grants.

Have you factored in that if his salary for the year drops by half or more he'll see a lot less federal and state taxes withheld from his paycheck, so the decline in take-home pay should be significantly less than the decline in pre-tax income?

FWIW, the people I know who have taken successfully sabbaticals in different parts of the world seem to uniformly consider them amazing, fulfilling, life changing decisions.

[bacchi]

We never had a sabbatical but SO did a year of study in another city. The entire year was like a vacation -- seeing new things, visiting new sites, and living a different life. Highly recommended.

2) Rent out the house. Put valuables in storage or with a friend/family and get a tenant. If you have to return early, you can rent or airbnb until the tenant lease is up.

3) Get an apartment where you don't need a car. Rent cars when you want to get out of town.

5) Get an airline credit card. AA, Delta, United, whatever -- earn enough miles to cover your airfare.

[cool7hand]

I grew up in a family where my mother dumped her financial insecurities on me. Even at 1.5 x (25 x expenses), I was still stressed about money. No amount of planning or additional money would have solved it. It was all in my head. I finally got some help. Now I have so much more space between those fears and my ability to choose another response. I hope sharing my journey is of use.

[Kayad]

Wow!  What a great opportunity:  The ability to spend a year abroad during which your family will still earn 65k or more.  You can and should do it.  I think you will have zero regrets, and this is not remotely a financially irresponsible or precarious situation given your massive cash on hand and the sabbatical salary.

A few thoughts.

First, the finances piece, and your angst about that.  You haven't put out your approximate annual spend, but you say you live a "frugal lifestyle."  Traveling abroad does not need to change that.  Even if you budget 20 or 30k above your current annual spend, that would afford you a luxurious year at any of these locations (and an obscenely opulent one in Central America).  You have a massive (and I mean massive) amount of cash on hand.  Many families could travel the world for 3 or 4 years (or more!) on that amount of cash.  You do not need to add another 30k to your cash savings to make this plan viable. 

I'm honestly not sure where your angst is coming from, and I'd encourage you to think that through.  Is the real worry that you will have to forgo your FIRE savings for a year? 

I am also inferring that you have not travelled much before.  One way to overcome your anxiety might be to embrace the fun project of learning and planning to travel affordably.  And just to be clear, this doesn't have to be extreme.  Airbnb instead of hotels, mid range hotels instead of fancy hotels, some periods of trekking and camping if you are into that.  Consider slow or semi-slow travel (i.e. a month or even just a week in a place instead of a weekend).  Target destinations slightly off the tourist trail, or on the shoulders of peak season.  Use public transportation.  Go to grocery stores and eat some of your meals at home.  Embrace cheap street food (almost always among the most delicious meals I have traveling anyways).  Bank some travel rewards from credit cards.  Be flexible on flight times and destinations (this works esp. well for Europe).  Do group birding tour instead of a private birding tour.  Etc. etc.

Still, at the end of the day, seems like some piece of this is psychological.  Others on this forum will speak to this more eloquently, but opportunities like this are what FI is all about.  The $ is a means to an end:  Living a fulfilling life.  You have an opportunity to enjoy a great year with your SO at no risk to your financial health (that is the point of the sabbatical $!!).  What is holding you back?

Second, on some of the nitty-gritty:

The medical insurance:  My initial thought is, if your current insurance covers treatment in the event of relapse, be very careful of changing to a different insurance if there is any uncertainty about coverage.  Is the worse case scenario something worse than you have to cut short your vacation and buy a plane ticket home?  If so, that plane ticket is cheap to self-insure.  In terms of other medical concerns while traveling, you can buy travel insurance for fairly cheap that will cover you for traumatic injuries and such.

Cars:  You don't need to lease one abroad for a full year.  Other than maybe New Zealand (not sure there) public transportation options will get you most places you need to go and as bacchi said, you can rent a car for a week here and there as needed.  If I was doing this, I wouldn't sell my cars here, I'd cancel or suspend insurance and squeeze them into the garage.

Home:  It doesn't sound to me like you need to rent to make this financially viable.  I'd do whatever makes you most comfortable.  Renting will be a hassle, but then you don't have to be anxious about "wasting" 24k or whatever on your mortgage payments.

Finally, just to give you some perspective and encouragement from my own life:  Our tentative plan and goal is to downshift to a coast fire path soon.  My SO has already transitioned to part-time self-employment, and I hope to leave my job in ~ a year.  We have one kid.  When I do that, we are planning a semi-sabbatical year, where I will have no income, but SO will still work some.  We won't get to leave the country for a full year like you (too many dogs and cats we are responsible for), but we hope to take a three month trip, several one month trips, and lots of travel in the U.S. in between.  Our base annual spend (accounting for a new slightly larger mortgage) is ~50k.  SO will still make money that sabbatical year, possibly enough to cover all expenses.  But being conservative, our goal is to bank ~35k, which would mean if SO only makes 35 or 40k, we will be fine.  I'm very confident that we can have a great year within that 70k figure, there is a pretty good margin of safety built in.

The point?  One, you should just be way more excited than anxious about this opportunity.  Others (like me!) are planning and striving and motivated to put in place opportunities that are just a taste of the full year experience that is all T-ed up for you.  Second, your financial margin of safety on this is so immense.  With your cash hoard, you could do this 2x over without trying particularly hard, never mind the sabbatical salary.

Go for it!

[Metalcat]

Why are you afraid of spending some money?

This is really the simple question you need to answer. Sure, there are ways to mitigate the costs of all of this, but the bigger question to answer in the first place is why it bothers you at all?

Are you both desperately in a rush to FIRE?
It doesn't sound like it, otherwise your DH wouldn't be all gung ho for a sabbatical.

So if you aren't desperately in a rush to FIRE, then why the sense of urgency about reaching a savings goal? Because that's the only rational reason to be afraid of spending.

The whole point of FIRE is to live your best life, but you reaching FIRE first is not a prerequisite for that. If this sabbatical is part of your best life, then what's the harm with slightly delaying FIRE?

What do you want from your life and what role do you want money to play in it? Money isn't anything in and of itself, it's just a placeholder for time and energy. So this all really comes down to what you want to do with whatever remaining time and energy you have left.

[BikeFanatic]

I totally get the trepidation with insurance, cancer treatment is expensive and some insurance companies will fight to pay for treatments like immunotherapy. Still BCBS has a great reputation as far as paying for treatments. I hope you can get that insurance.

As far as renting the place out maybe try for a roomate situation?  That way they can have the house to themselves but you can come back and live with them if needed? For me I know alot of people who have children that are moved back home and really need a place of their own ( working from home or study at home ) maybe you can charge only 800-900 and that will save you some dollars.

I Think put some money aside for the trip and if you have to spend more oh well it is a trip of a liftetime and like Trial FI. If I had lung cancer I would definately do it. There are many people cured especially with surgery, but you never know, we are all destined to go at some point.

[researcher1]

As of now we have $170,000 in cash and can probably get up to $200,000 by the beginning of the sabbatical.
Current take home pay is about $13,000/month. He will be earning probably somewhere between 50 to 80% of that for the nine months he will be paid.
It seems like it should be enough if we keep up our current frugal lifestyle.

2) Ideally, we would rent out our home in the US while we are abroad
3) We could sell our cars, then lease new ones abroad. Maybe there is a better option?

I think you need to CHILL OUT and enjoy the opportunities afforded to you, which 99.999% of the world's population can only dream of.
- You are afraid of the cost, even though you'll be sitting on a $200,000 stockpile of cash set aside for just this purpose?
- You are afraid of the cost, even though your husband will earn between $58,500 - $93,600 in TAKE HOME PAY during this time?

Go freaking enjoy yourself and stop worrying about money.
If you are somehow able to burn through all $259K - $294K of funds available, then just cut the trip short and come home early.

Don't, under any circumstances, rent your house out.
I'd probably also keep both of the cars, and maybe look into the cost of shipping one to where you will be staying.

[NonprofitER]

Congratulations! It sounds like a wonderful opportunity!

My only feedback is that it will be crucial to have a clear picture of your husband's income before falling in love with a destination. There's a big cost of living different between Costa Rica and New Zealand!  We lived in New Zealand for 5 years and I recommend it to anyone - but its not an inexpensive place to be in terms of average housing, food, petrol, etc.. Do you have an idea of where in NZ you'd want to be? Auckland would be far more expensive than Christchurch, or Dunedin, for example. (We have since moved back to the states, and regularly return to NZ about every other year for 3 - 4weeks at a time, but even then our travel costs are mitigated by borrowing a car from a local friend, staying at friend's homes, etc.).

It's manageable on a budget, but as you say, there's a big spread between 50% of your husband's income vs 80% of his income -- so the very first thing I would do is nail down the money you have to spend. That will help determine whether or not to rent out your current home, etc. to pad yourself a little more. FWIW, if I did a 9 - 12 month sabbatical, I would make the effort the to rent out my personal home too, even if it was at a major discount for a family friend to "house sit" etc. That still keeps eyes on your property, keeps it not looking vacant, and adds a little $ to your cushion.

Wherever you end up, its going to be wonderful adventure.

[Smokystache]

Any chance you live near a college/university community? You could likely find a responsible graduate student or two  (or a new visiting professor) who would rather be in a house than an apartment from June-June. You give them a good deal on rent and they make sure you don't come back to busted pipes or break-ins, etc.

Virtually no one comes back from these types of trips and says, "We shouldn't have spent the money." In fact the opposite usually happens and they come back and say, "Thank God we did that when we could." The fact that you're a cancer survivor only intensifies this.

Congrats on living within your means over the past X years - so you can now say "YES!" to this opportunity.

[researcher1]

Any tips on how to proceed and have fun planning, how to have fun taking the plunge, how to avoid worrying about this?

Seems like many are suggesting renting the house out.  Let's put this in perspective...
At a minimum, you will have $258,500 to cover your expenses during this sabbatical ($200K in cash + $58,500 in reduced take-home pay).

You only plan to be away from your primary residence for 9 months.
Your mortgage and taxes during this time would be $17,100, but let's round up to $20,000 for the hell of it.
This still leaves you with $238,500!

You don't need the little amount of money you would get by renting your house out.  It's not worth worrying about how the house is being treated...
- Some stranger's dirt, food, bodily fluids all over YOUR furniture, carpet, beds, pillows, ect.
- And what if they throw parties or stop paying rent while you are half way around the world?
- What if they don't move out when you get back?
- What if you want/have to come home during those 9 months, or decide to cut your trip short?

[Melisande]

4) My husband doesn’t know how much of his salary he will be making. Current take home pay (after tax withholding, health insurance and retirement contribution) is about $13,000/month. He will be earning probably somewhere between 50 to 80% of that for the nine months he will be paid. Hopefully, he will eventually figure out what this will be (I have asked multiple times),  but I’m just assuming 50% to be on the safe side.

So I'm assuming he's on a 9 month appointment and his employer is covering part of his salary while he is away on sabbatical? Does he normally get summer salary from other funding sources? If so, I'm surprised he'd have to go without summer pay for the three months after you return home. I can tell you at my university if I went on sabbatical, the university would either cover my pay my full salary for one semester or 1/2 salary for two semesters, but they'd still cover healthcare/retirement contributions, and I'd still be allowed to pay myself summer salary out of my grants.

Have you factored in that if his salary for the year drops by half or more he'll see a lot less federal and state taxes withheld from his paycheck, so the decline in take-home pay should be significantly less than the decline in pre-tax income?

FWIW, the people I know who have taken successfully sabbaticals in different parts of the world seem to uniformly consider them amazing, fulfilling, life changing decisions.

He’s been department chair (of an extremely large department)  on a 12-month salary for a long time now. He is stepping down from the position and trying to get his research program going again  (it was funded year after year until about 6 years into being chair, when it all just became too much and he lost his funding).

The idea is indeed to get grant money for the three months in the summer, and he may be able to swing that for the summer after next, but frankly I am not optimistic it is going to happen. My husband is already 63 and I just don’t think the motivation for endless research is truly there anymore. (I lost my appetite for research a long time ago, so I can definitely see his point of view.)

Thanks for mentioning the taxes. I hadn’t thought of that.

[Melisande]

I grew up in a family where my mother dumped her financial insecurities on me. Even at 1.5 x (25 x expenses), I was still stressed about money. No amount of planning or additional money would have solved it. It was all in my head. I finally got some help. Now I have so much more space between those fears and my ability to choose another response. I hope sharing my journey is of use.

Interesting. I too grew up with a mother who had exactly the same fears and they were definitely dumped on me too. That plus I did go through a year when I was younger when I truly did not have enough money (my parents refused to help me in any way after my fourth year in college - I.e. when I failed to graduate on schedule). It was exhausting and scary. I worked three jobs while also taking the remaining classes I needed and still wound up borrowing from (rich) friends and not getting enough to eat at times. So so un-fun. I guess I am still haunted by that a little.

[Melisande]

Wow!  What a great opportunity:  The ability to spend a year abroad during which your family will still earn 65k or more.  You can and should do it.  I think you will have zero regrets, and this is not remotely a financially irresponsible or precarious situation given your massive cash on hand and the sabbatical salary.

A few thoughts.

First, the finances piece, and your angst about that.  You haven't put out your approximate annual spend, but you say you live a "frugal lifestyle."  Traveling abroad does not need to change that.  Even if you budget 20 or 30k above your current annual spend, that would afford you a luxurious year at any of these locations (and an obscenely opulent one in Central America).  You have a massive (and I mean massive) amount of cash on hand.  Many families could travel the world for 3 or 4 years (or more!) on that amount of cash.  You do not need to add another 30k to your cash savings to make this plan viable. 

I'm honestly not sure where your angst is coming from, and I'd encourage you to think that through.  Is the real worry that you will have to forgo your FIRE savings for a year? 

I am also inferring that you have not travelled much before. One way to overcome your anxiety might be to embrace the fun project of learning and planning to travel affordably.  And just to be clear, this doesn't have to be extreme.  Airbnb instead of hotels, mid range hotels instead of fancy hotels, some periods of trekking and camping if you are into that.  Consider slow or semi-slow travel (i.e. a month or even just a week in a place instead of a weekend).  Target destinations slightly off the tourist trail, or on the shoulders of peak season.  Use public transportation.  Go to grocery stores and eat some of your meals at home.  Embrace cheap street food (almost always among the most delicious meals I have traveling anyways).  Bank some travel rewards from credit cards.  Be flexible on flight times and destinations (this works esp. well for Europe).  Do group birding tour instead of a private birding tour.  Etc. etc.

Still, at the end of the day, seems like some piece of this is psychological.  Others on this forum will speak to this more eloquently, but opportunities like this are what FI is all about.  The $ is a means to an end:  Living a fulfilling life.  You have an opportunity to enjoy a great year with your SO at no risk to your financial health (that is the point of the sabbatical $!!).  What is holding you back?

Second, on some of the nitty-gritty:

The medical insurance:  My initial thought is, if your current insurance covers treatment in the event of relapse, be very careful of changing to a different insurance if there is any uncertainty about coverage.  Is the worse case scenario something worse than you have to cut short your vacation and buy a plane ticket home?  If so, that plane ticket is cheap to self-insure.  In terms of other medical concerns while traveling, you can buy travel insurance for fairly cheap that will cover you for traumatic injuries and such.

Cars:  You don't need to lease one abroad for a full year.  Other than maybe New Zealand (not sure there) public transportation options will get you most places you need to go and as bacchi said, you can rent a car for a week here and there as needed.  If I was doing this, I wouldn't sell my cars here, I'd cancel or suspend insurance and squeeze them into the garage.

Home: It doesn't sound to me like you need to rent to make this financially viable. I'd do whatever makes you most comfortable.  Renting will be a hassle, but then you don't have to be anxious about "wasting" 24k or whatever on your mortgage payments.

Finally, just to give you some perspective and encouragement from my own life:  Our tentative plan and goal is to downshift to a coast fire path soon.  My SO has already transitioned to part-time self-employment, and I hope to leave my job in ~ a year.  We have one kid.  When I do that, we are planning a semi-sabbatical year, where I will have no income, but SO will still work some.  We won't get to leave the country for a full year like you (too many dogs and cats we are responsible for), but we hope to take a three month trip, several one month trips, and lots of travel in the U.S. in between.  Our base annual spend (accounting for a new slightly larger mortgage) is ~50k.  SO will still make money that sabbatical year, possibly enough to cover all expenses.  But being conservative, our goal is to bank ~35k, which would mean if SO only makes 35 or 40k, we will be fine.  I'm very confident that we can have a great year within that 70k figure, there is a pretty good margin of safety built in.

The point?  One, you should just be way more excited than anxious about this opportunity.  Others (like me!) are planning and striving and motivated to put in place opportunities that are just a taste of the full year experience that is all T-ed up for you.  Second, your financial margin of safety on this is so immense.  With your cash hoard, you could do this 2x over without trying particularly hard, never mind the sabbatical salary.

Go for it!

I have travelled a lot before (about 30 countries on 6 continents). It’s just that I am really anxious about a kind of entanglement of medical, financial and relationship issues. I just finished cancer treatment at the end of 2019 .... and until the end of 2022, I have about a 50% chance of recurrence .... which will mean having to deal with immunotherapy. Apparently, I am a bad candidate for immunotherapy and they are expecting at least some serious complications/side effects. So, it probably would be best just to come home.

But then, I worry about being in a situation where: I am dying from cancer, have lots of side effects from treatment,  having to deal with finding a place to stay and finding transportation.... and being alone (without my husband) ... and missing out on all the fun he is having in NZ. If I were truly dying, I am sure he would come home, but if I were just getting treatments, he’d probably stay in NZ for a while. This is why I want to make sure we get international health insurance — so I can be with him, and have that support if the cancer does come back (and also still enjoy being in NZ if the side effects aren’t too bad at first. They expect the side effects to get bad eventually, not right away).

But then I do worry about exactly what the insurance will cover ... and where. Let’s say we do get international health insurance, but I really do need to come home, will it cover me here? The insurance we have now is terrific, but it just doesn’t have great international options.

I agree about not needing to rent out the house. However, many people don’t know this, but homeowner’s insurance usually doesn’t cover anything if the house is left without an occupant (I.e. “abandoned”) for more than 30 days. We are thinking about asking a grad student to come do some house-sitting. Maybe that will be one way of getting around it. This is also important because we live in an area with frequent hurricanes. So, we just can’t leave the house without supervision 😊.

[Melisande]

As of now we have $170,000 in cash and can probably get up to $200,000 by the beginning of the sabbatical.
Current take home pay is about $13,000/month. He will be earning probably somewhere between 50 to 80% of that for the nine months he will be paid.
It seems like it should be enough if we keep up our current frugal lifestyle.

2) Ideally, we would rent out our home in the US while we are abroad
3) We could sell our cars, then lease new ones abroad. Maybe there is a better option?

I think you need to CHILL OUT and enjoy the opportunities afforded to you, which 99.999% of the world's population can only dream of.
- You are afraid of the cost, even though you'll be sitting on a $200,000 stockpile of cash set aside for just this purpose?
- You are afraid of the cost, even though your husband will earn between $58,500 - $93,600 in TAKE HOME PAY during this time?

Go freaking enjoy yourself and stop worrying about money.
If you are somehow able to burn through all $259K - $294K of funds available, then just cut the trip short and come home early.

Don't, under any circumstances, rent your house out.
I'd probably also keep both of the cars, and maybe look into the cost of shipping one to where you will be staying.

We only have $170,000 currently ... and we didn’t “set it aside just for this purpose.” It has been slowly accumulating, then rapid accumulating since March 2020 and I keep thinking I really need to invest it, but procrastinating. And now I see it’s actually a pretty great situation to be in, because we will need this stash for next year ...

[maizefolk]

He’s been department chair (of an extremely large department)  on a 12-month salary for a long time now. He is stepping down from the position and trying to get his research program going again  (it was funded year after year until about 6 years into being chair, when it all just became too much and he lost his funding).

The idea is indeed to get grant money for the three months in the summer, and he may be able to swing that for the summer after next, but frankly I am not optimistic it is going to happen. My husband is already 63 and I just don’t think the motivation for endless research is truly there anymore. (I lost my appetite for research a long time ago, so I can definitely see his point of view.)

Thanks for mentioning the taxes. I hadn’t thought of that.

This context makes a lot more sense. So at least two unsettling things are happening at once:

1) A lot of potential planned spending and going from being net savers to net spenders for a year.
2) Your household moving past its peak earning years with your husband taking a 25% pay cut, assuming he cannot restart his full time research program, which is a plausible concern after being department chair, that burns folks out a lot even more than regular faculty work (which already burns plenty of people out).

Either of these changes would be plenty unsettling on its own and in my experience putting together multiple unsettling changes results in a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.

How close are the two of you to being FI overall? Is it possible this sabbatical could become a transition into retirement?

[researcher1]

We only have $170,000 currently ... and we didn’t “set it aside just for this purpose.” It has been slowly accumulating, then rapid accumulating since March 2020 and I keep thinking I really need to invest it, but procrastinating. And now I see it’s actually a pretty great situation to be in, because we will need this stash for next year ...

However you want to phrase it, the fact is that you intend to have $200K in cash to cover expenses during the sabbatical, plus another $50K+ in pay.
Unless you plan to live ridiculously extravagant during those 9 months, you should have ZERO financial concern.
I don't know how you could possibly blow through $250K in such a short time, considering you generally maintain a "frugal lifestyle."

It seems your concerns are really about health and relationship.  This comment is concerning...
But then, I worry about being in a situation where: I am dying from cancer.... and being alone (without my husband) ... and missing out on all the fun he is having in NZ. If I were truly dying, I am sure he would come home, but if I were just getting treatments, he’d probably stay in NZ for a while. This is why I want to make sure we get international health insurance — so I can be with him, and have that support if the cancer does come back.

If you need any type of treatment in the future, the smart thing is for both of you to cut the trip short and come back home.
Your husband deciding to stay in NZ while you are alone in the US getting treatments, sounds really unsupportive, and is likely the cause of your anxiety.

If I were in your shoes and had any sort of recurrence, I would want to be in comfortable familiar surroundings...my own city, house, doctors, ect.
Being trapped in NZ while getting treatments and trying to enjoy a vacation sounds miserable.
Hopefully your husband understands and agrees with this.

I don't think I'd worry about international insurance.  Your current insurance is "great", so just keep it.  Come back home if you need any treatment.
Then there is no worry about what is covered and what isn't.

Regarding the house, my grandparents kept a second house on the FL coast for decades.  It was unoccupied for 6 months/year during every hurricane season.
Additionally, there are tens of thousands of people in the US who split their time between houses. 
A 5 minute call to your insurance agent should clear up any concerns you might have.

[Melisande]

He’s been department chair (of an extremely large department)  on a 12-month salary for a long time now. He is stepping down from the position and trying to get his research program going again  (it was funded year after year until about 6 years into being chair, when it all just became too much and he lost his funding).

The idea is indeed to get grant money for the three months in the summer, and he may be able to swing that for the summer after next, but frankly I am not optimistic it is going to happen. My husband is already 63 and I just don’t think the motivation for endless research is truly there anymore. (I lost my appetite for research a long time ago, so I can definitely see his point of view.)

Thanks for mentioning the taxes. I hadn’t thought of that.

This context makes a lot more sense. So at least two unsettling things are happening at once:

1) A lot of potential planned spending and going from being net savers to net spenders for a year.
2) Your household moving past its peak earning years with your husband taking a 25% pay cut, assuming he cannot restart his full time research program, which is a plausible concern after being department chair, that burns folks out a lot even more than regular faculty work (which already burns plenty of people out).

Either of these changes would be plenty unsettling on its own and in my experience putting together multiple unsettling changes results in a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.

How close are the two of you to being FI overall? Is it possible this sabbatical could become a transition into retirement?

We could already be FI, if we didn’t want to travel a lot, but we do. Our net worth is close to 3M, with only about $350,000 of that being tied up in the house. Our SS will be over $50,000/year (I think), if we hold out for another 4 years or so.

I think it may become some sort of transition to retirement, but of course, he is required to work for a full year after the end of the sabbatical. By that time, he will be 65. I expect he will be using all his vacation and personal days by that time, if not actually retiring .... It will really depend on whether or not he falls back in love with the research.

[Melisande]

We only have $170,000 currently ... and we didn’t “set it aside just for this purpose.” It has been slowly accumulating, then rapid accumulating since March 2020 and I keep thinking I really need to invest it, but procrastinating. And now I see it’s actually a pretty great situation to be in, because we will need this stash for next year ...

However you want to phrase it, the fact is that you intend to have $200K in cash to cover expenses during the sabbatical, plus another $50K+ in pay.
Unless you plan to live ridiculously extravagant during those 9 months, you should have ZERO financial concern.
I don't know how you could possibly blow through $250K in such a short time, considering you generally maintain a "frugal lifestyle."

It seems your concerns are really about health and relationship.  This comment is concerning...
But then, I worry about being in a situation where: I am dying from cancer.... and being alone (without my husband) ... and missing out on all the fun he is having in NZ. If I were truly dying, I am sure he would come home, but if I were just getting treatments, he’d probably stay in NZ for a while. This is why I want to make sure we get international health insurance — so I can be with him, and have that support if the cancer does come back.[/i]

If you need any type of treatment in the future, the smart thing is for both of you to cut the trip short and come back home.
Your husband deciding to stay in NZ while you are alone in the US getting treatments, sounds really unsupportive, and is likely the cause of your anxiety.

If I were in your shoes and had any sort of recurrence, I would want to be in comfortable familiar surroundings...my own city, house, doctors, ect.
Being trapped in NZ while getting treatments and trying to enjoy a vacation sounds miserable.
Hopefully your husband understands and agrees with this.

I don't think I'd worry about international insurance.  Your current insurance is "great", so just keep it.  Come back home if you need any treatment.
Then there is no worry about what is covered and what isn't.

Regarding the house, my grandparents kept a second house on the FL coast for decades.  It was unoccupied for 6 months/year during every hurricane season.
Additionally, there are tens of thousands of people in the US who split their time between houses. 
A 5 minute call to your insurance agent should clear up any concerns you might have.

I am thinking more and more like you — that we should just keep our great insurance and come home if I need cancer treatments.

It may sound like my husband is uncaring, but that is not true. We have had an unusual marriage in that I lived away from him for about 8 years to pursue my grad studies in the program of my choice (and these were not the first 8 years of our marriage ... they were in the middle). Two of these years I spent alone in Europe doing research (but also having fun sometimes). It’s one reason we never had children. The whole arrangement was my choice and he was very supportive. So, now it feels like he should be able to have his year abroad while I stay home. Of course, for me things look different when the shoes is on the other foot ...


My hunch is that if worst comes to worst and I need to return for treatment, he would continue abroad ... unless or until I started having serious side effects and/or cancer progression. Then he would come home. If everything was going well (minor side effects/tumors shrinking, he would probably stay abroad ... and I would do my best to accept that.

[cincystache]

I think others have already covered things pretty well. I vote YES on the trip, life is short (being a cancer survivor, you probably know this better than most) you make a ton of money, you have a ton of money, you aren't quitting entirely, you are frugal and can probably live on the reduced salary anyways.

To me, the whole point of MMM is to reach a point where your primary decision making is based on happiness rather than money. I forget where I heard this but it is like reaching a point where you stop looking at the prices on a menu when you go out to eat and only look at the food that sounds the best to you. Using that analogy, you are still looking at the prices in this situation and ordering the cheapest thing. Buy what you WANT and enjoy it, stop obsessing about the prices on the menu...