Not currently interested in early retirement, but trying to keep our options open.
Specific Question(s):
Am I crazy to think it’s ok to spend this money (including setting some of it on fire upgrading our cars)?
Is there anyone else dealing with similar issues?
Spending all the money isn't "crazy" but IS antithetical to having options. If you want options, you need to keep some of the money.
We're 8-10 years older than you. Our income is a little lower than yours. We have a 2-year-old and another on the way. We don't have stock options, and my understanding is that stock options are not a "sure thing". It seems like you, however, are really banking on those options, despite saying you ignore them.
We
meant to do some travelling, fix up his lake-side shack, etc. before having kids, but we don't regret that we didn't do these things. Our desires were kinda vague. Now that we have a lot of demands on our time, we've honed our priorities, and know exactly what we want to do: we know exactly what we want the lake-side shack to look like. Husband wants to eat fancy desserts in every country in Europe. We want to take a long vacation in the Nordic countries when the kids are older, and see if we're interested in emigrating. I want to check out some specific foreign architecture. Singly, I did travel, and he did have all manner of boy-toys. Married, we have a lot of luxury... our kid had a French nanny with a Master's for awhile, we only buy new, I get weekly massages, we have house cleaners, we don't cook and have coffee habits.
WE ALSO SAVE 40% OF OUR INCOME. But nearly 50% of
your income goes to debt.
My husband's take home pay from his bonus was $20k last year. I urge him every year to take 10% of the bonus and spend it on himself, which is how we ended up with a monstrous piece of exercise equipment that he does use, but I loathe, specialty gaming equipment that is still in the boxes in storage somewhere, and a fancy keyboard primarily used as a laundry area. At some point, he will probably attend a high-profile, multi-day tennis tournament. (I actually tell him to do this NOW while his favorite players are still in the game.) He tells me to go ahead and buy the $2k designer handbag I've been eyeing for 3 years. So, you know... we believe in a little YOLO.
BUT NEITHER ONE OF US HAS ANY DEBT.
So, we have ALL the options. We can have as many kids as we want, using whatever expensive science is available, and send them all to private schools. We can FIRE. One of us can FIRE in a couple years, and then we can just blow the other's salary like drunken sailors... or give it all to charity... or amass an empire. We can both keep working, and spend
even more. We can emigrate or just live abroad.
If half the money is for today, and half the money is for the future, the future comes pretty darn quick. We're going to be out exercising our options WAY before 59.5, and we would laugh in the face of $1-2M in stock options.
Now a word about family and PT childcare. My sister had her first baby 3 weeks after I had mine. My mother & father moved here expressly because my father was convinced he wanted to be Mr. Poppins to the kids. Within two weeks, he was like, "Oh, god, I have made a mistake." Fortunately, we had been skeptical all along and had already hired a nanny to share. We've paid our nannies $17-18/hr (+ unlimited sick time, 3 weeks vacation), guarantee FIFTY hours a week though we use 40-45, and still had to fire one after 3 weeks for unreliability, two left for better paying jobs, and the current only agreed to 35/hrs/wk with the understanding that it was temporary. She also wants FIFTY hrs/wk minimum.
My family is moving away from the nanny model shortly. My kiddo only needs part-time care, and all the centers list 1-4 day pricing options, but the reality is there's a year-long wait list for full-time slots, so none of them take part-timers. Period. So, we will pay for a full-time slot, but we will use it part-time, and we've just decided to be okay with that. Baby #2 will arrive any day now, and together will cost us $40k/yr in childcare. YMMV.