I'm working on a longer post, but for now I figured I would stop lurking and say hi.
I'm 26 and married. My not-so-secret dream is to work 30 hours or less a week by the time we have children. Right now I work about 40 and am the primary breadwinner in our household. Because of the combination of the aforementioned goal and fact, I've taken a keen interest in financial independence this year.
Here's where we're at, big picture:
50k in loans
25k in checking/saving
400k in investments
approximately 60k in combined income
A certain amount of familial gifts have been promised us this year, with 1/2 being dumped directly into the investment account (my spouse's) and the other 1/2 going to me. I don't count on money I don't have, but given the gifters' situation, this is very likely to happen.
My spouse works some weeknights and most weekends, and I work weekdays 8-5. I'm at the beginning of my career, and I would like to figure out what we need to do to get to a financially stable enough place so that I can cut down my hours to part-time in the next 5-10 years (or at least find a work situation where I can work through all or part of the weekend to actually have some time with my SO during the week). A lot of this will depend upon me growing my career in the right direction.
I'm in the process of getting our budgets in the same arena using mint.com so we can actually take a look at what we're spending. I was able to save consistently between $800-$1000 a month, but when we hit our Emergency Fund goal this money is primarily going to be reallocated to my 401k.
SO seems to break even each month or save a little, though I'll know more soon. If more figures would be helpful, let me know and I can try to track them down.
So as you can see, there are two things going on here: On the one hand, we're just starting out in our careers, entry-level, with student loan debt that we're paying, modest monthly savings, and lofty dreams of financial independence. On the other, we're already backed by 400k in investments and have been told we will receive more than our salaries in gift money this year, half of which will go directly into my bank account or any other account I wish it to go to.
So what do I do now? Thinking about personal finance as a series of stages, I'd already mastered the Don't-Carry-Credit-Card-Debt stage before meeting my spouse (SO has never carried a balance, either). Our cars were both purchased with cash, and while I might want to replace my car in the next year or few, I would only buy one that I could afford to buy with cash. (I currently drive a '98 Honda with something over 200,000 miles on it--it needs some work but is still running.) The next stage I guess is retirement investing--which like I said I will start doing April 1st and most likely will finish 2013 having maxed out my 401k and IRA or Roth IRAs for both of us. Then I guess I start my own investment account? Or tuck money away for a house? I feel like I accidentally "leveled up" a little too early--it's great, but I am in a bit over my head here.
Big picture, or specific advice: How do I make sure that I make the smartest moves possible in service of my eventual goal to move from breadwinner to part-time employment?