We crunched our numbers and are ready to pull the plug in a few years (exact year depending on external factors). However my husband wants to try out RE before he commits to it - he is a guy who feels every day not working or doing something that brings in money is a day wasted. So our Christmas gift to ourselves is RE for four months in 2017. It's not a long period but sufficiently long for us to get daily work out of the system and to get into real RE lifestyle. It's also short enough we are confident we can swing it at work without either of us having to quit. And if my husband hates it, it's a small enough period to know the end is in sight.
Our plan is to do it from October 2017 to February 2018. We have some travel planned but very minimal and most of it would be spent at home. However, here are the caveats:
1) we currently rent in a HCOL area and with no commute to tie us down, we are wondering if it would be easier to just stop renting our current apartment, put things in storage and live in a LCOL area (one we are thinking of moving to in future but are not sure of fit) closer to family - pros: we'll be spending more time with family, scouting the new area to see if it really is a fit for us, save money since our rent here is higher than Airbnb there. Cons: we'll have to downsize a bit so we only store important stuff, I've never used storage units so I'm not sure how mattresses and couches will hold up, hassle involved in doing the move along with kids.
2) we'll have a six month old and an almost three year old at the time of move. We've never moved with a kid. So I'm not sure how it'll be with two :( though we've done plenty of moves before kids, somehow the thought of having to pack and move everything while still taking care of two kids and their needs (not to mention our own sanity) is terrifying to me. But this is the best time to move since we don't have to worry about school schedules or them not adjusting mentally (at this point my daughter is fine with being anywhere as long as her food, sleep and playtime are not affected much - not sure I can say the same if she was older and had friends she didn't want to leave behind).
3) both of us plan to work till the kid#2 is out and then I'll be on maternity leave till our move. I'm concerned how I'll be able to pack up stuff along with taking care of a new born during the months that lead up to the move. My husband will take care of kid#1 most of the time.
4) we have two cars, an Acura RDX 2014 which is our primary car and a Honda Civic 2009 which is a commuter car with 25k miles. Both are paid off and in good shape. I want to sell the Civic and move to be a one car family since only I do the drop off/pickup for daycare and all the grocery stuff over weekdays. During weekends, we don't use both cars simultaneously. My husband's commute is 4.5 miles one way with 25 minute by bike according to Google. But he doesn't want to bike since he feels it's not safe enough and isn't in great physical condition to bike an hour a day. We keep going back and forth on this one. I'd bike to work but can't do both kids daycare and work on bike and still be on time everyday without driving everyone insane. Due to our work differences, he can't take up the daycare part. Our other two options are to sell the civic and get an electric car when we come back (hopefully my husband would be more interested in biking then but we'll have free electricity for the car making our fuel costs go lower than now and maintenance would be less too) or store both cars and use them till one of them gives up or we downsize when we FIRE. What would you suggest?
We are set financially for this experiment and would continue having health insurance, salary and savings, etc since we're taking a sabbatical at work and not really quitting (so not really RE in that sense).
Please poke holes in this experiment. I'm sure I've forgotten something given that this will be a big change for us. Also any advice/tips on handling the above or anything related to a move like this would be great!
Thanks a lot :) and happy holidays!!
PS: I think this is one of the best Christmas gifts I've given/gotten in a long time. Can't wait to see how it turns out. So excited!