As much as I love DW, she has a very different relationship with money than I do and is much more of a live in the moment personality- which can be great for life but not necessarily for a budget. We've talked and she's expressed an openness in going to therapy to help her with her money approach (related to some childhood upbringing issues) but haven't gotten to it yet. I've tried throughout the years to express the freedom that FIRE would give us using some of the different approaches I've seen in this forum, but nothing has ever really landed. We've also tried budgeting apps and other tools but they only work for a month or so. And I've tried to be really intentional about not nit-picking every purchase she makes knowing that she's incredibly sacrificial with her time and energy.
Right now the biggest priority is to allow her to be a SAHP to both daughters while they're young. Buying the house definitely set us back financially but has been great for us from a family point of view. So I've just accepted that I can't have FIRE at 40 along with a SAHP and an expensive house.
And the various calculators I've used all have shown 95%+ success rate with retirement at 55 or so, so it's really just seeing what I can do before then. Trying to remind myself that I'm still doing good compared to many others.
FWIW, I think you have your head on straight. I emphasize with the spendypants spouse -- I have one of those myself, and part of the tradeoff is a significant increase in lifestyle beyond what I had thought and watching him throw away stupid money on frivolous things we don't need (like $120 Oakleys vs. $10 Walgreens sunglasses -- still a sore spot 26 yrs later ;-)). The difference in my mind is that we both worked throughout our marriage, with comparable salaries, so it was easy for me to tell myself that he's earned the money, and if he wants to be a dumb-ass about it, that's his right. I think there's more potential for stress when there's only one spouse bringing in the money (and wants to FIRE) and the other one wants to spend more of it (and thus delay FIRE). So you're going to need to pay attention to potential resentment and disagreements as you move through life.
One thing: those childhood triggers are really, really powerful. All that talk about the freedom FIRE would provide just does not resonate with her, because she doesn't give a shit about freedom -- and in fact cutting back to get that freedom would interfere with whatever her priority is.* The only way through that is to find a way to frame things up in a way that focuses on
her priorities and values.
I'll give you an example: I grew up with both no money and an anti-consumerist mother; I was raised to see money as a scarce good that must be hoarded instead of spent. DH grew up UMC; to him, money did, in fact, grow on trees, so if he wanted more of it, he'd just go earn it. So to him, if he wanted Oakleys, he'd worked for the money, he could afford them, so why shouldn't he treat himself? And when he came home with them, my Inner Bag Lady went apeshit and could see only the extra $100 he'd blown on completely unnecessary show-off branding (and they weren't even polarized! I mean, come on!).
I had to realize, though, that my view of the world wasn't the only one, and that his was just as valid (stupid, but valid) -- that just as I had a strong need to save extra, he had an equally strong desire to treat himself to nice things, because knowing that he could afford nice things made him feel like a success. And there was no question but that we could "afford" his stupid Oakleys (DINKs at the time). For us, the solution was separate "fun money" budgets every month -- he got an extra $200 that he could spend on whatever stupid thing he wanted, with zero input or criticism from me, and I got an extra $200 that I could stick right into savings. That approach allowed us both to serve those emotional drivers, while corraling them into a defined zone that avoided constant disagreements and ensured that the extras didn't interfere with our long-term goals.**
I'd also suggest that when you talk to her about FIRE, you do it from an emotional level, not as rational discussion of the benefits. "Freedom" is amorphous and hard to wrap your arms around if it's not something that really speaks to you. What does it mean on a daily basis to you? Really, what I'm going for is: you have to get up every morning and spend long hours at work to provide for the family. That's hours and hours a day that you spend away from her and the kids. It is a sacrifice you are willing to make, because they are your priority, and their happiness is more than worth continuing to work longer. But boy, you'd really like to be able to spend more time with her and the kids before they're grown and off to college -- whether that's a less-demanding job, going part-time, or quitting entirely. The problem is that you can't afford that now, or at any point in the near future; you'd need to save more and lower expenses to be able to afford it. If you felt like you guys were making progress as a team toward that goal, so you'd know that in, say, 10 years, you could go part-time, that would make it all worth it. But it's hard to see every month that you're just treading water and not making any progress toward freeing you to spend more time with the kids. You can't work any harder to bring in more money to allow you to save, so it seems like the only choices are to cut some of the "extras," or for you to keep postponing your own dreams and goals. And right now, it seems like the only option is the second one, and that is just really, really hard for you to accept. Having her home with the kids now is the single-most important thing. But you'd like to know that the two of you are at least working on making your own dreams come true, too -- even if it's just managing to save a few hundred dollars a month for now.
*The first time I read MMM, it was more for amusement than anything else. Living on $24K/yr? Seriously? I busted my ass in college and law school and my job specifically so I
wouldn't have to live on $24K/yr! So why tf would I quit just so I could go back to that voluntarily? It took probably 15 years of hedonic adaptation and job/kid stress to start to see that "more" didn't make me happier and that there's strength in realizing that you don't actually need all that stuff to be happy. Yes, some of us have to learn things the hard way. ;-)
**I do want to pat myself on the back some here, because while I had to understand his needs and find a way to accommodate them -- and really, I found I liked some of the things we spent stupid money on -- he had to do the same. And when his job got caught up in the first tech crash, and we went through four jobs and three states in five years,
boy was he happy that I had insisted we save a lot and keep our basic expenses to what we could afford on one salary. ;-)
