Fellow Mustachians,
EDIT: I removed intro paragraph to shorten post as it was unnecessary
I am a mid-20s young man about to enter a very profitable financial situation via marriage to a great woman, also in her mid-20s.We are both fairly thrifty and are completely debt-free. We have college degrees and steady jobs. We each have reliable, working cars that are paid-in-full. Our annual combined salary may vary, but will probably stay in the current range of $130-150K in immediate years to come. Because a family member started a successful company years ago, we will receive about $25K per year in cash dividends. We have already saved about $100k in 401k/IRA retirement savings and are maxing out our 401K/IRA accounts every year. We have about $75k in combined cash savings. We don’t own a home or any other noteworthy assets. Once we get married, our monthly expenses will likely be in the neighborhood of $2,000 per month for everything (rent, transportation, food, etc.).
Our goal is to build our nestegg big enough so that if we have kids in a few years, she will be able to be a full time mother and I will be able to do things I really care about, which may produce substantially lower income (I foresee our combined annual income dropping to $50k in a few years if we follow this path). We want to build passive income that will generate enough to live a fairly frugal lifestyle. We are not opposed to any options (real estate, mutual funds, stocks, bonds, P2P lending), and have a working understanding of each.
My question (at risk of sounding like a douche): what am I supposed to do with all this money to help us generate passive income to last a lifetime?
Here are the details again:
Total debt (student, credit, mortgage): $0
Combined annual salary (before tax): about $130-150k
Annual cash dividend: $25k
Current combined retirement savings: $100k
Current Cash savings: $75k
Projected combined monthly expenses: $2k