Author Topic: Case Study: Financial Independence Retire EVER???  (Read 25477 times)

Laura33

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Re: Case Study: Financial Independence Retire EVER???
« Reply #150 on: October 24, 2019, 12:22:15 PM »
I just caught up on this, and congratulations for making such significant changes.  My advice, FWIW:

Forget about selling the house right away.  That is a reasonable thing to think about long-term, not just financially, but in terms of lifestyle.  But you have other low-hanging fruit that you should focus your efforts on now.  It's like triage: tackle the immediate bleeding first, while you think about how you really want to live longer-term.  I get the sense that you're a little fixated on the house issue, and I'm wondering if you see that as sort of a get-out-of-jail-free card, that if you can fix this one thing, everything else will fall into place.  If that is even somewhat true, then it's really a distraction from your primary issue:  your mindset.

IMO, both partners need to contribute economically to the functioning of the household.  That means that if one of you chooses not to earn a paycheck, that person's job is to be the best frugalista homemaker ever -- to make sure the money that your partner brings in is allocated to its highest and best use.  At @$150K, you guys have a freaking awesome income; you don't need more money.  What you need is a lifestyle that suits your income, not a lifestyle that suits the income of a two-fulltime-earners couple or a trust-fund baby.  In other words, life is an "or," not an "and."  You can choose to homeschool and not work for pay much or at all; you can choose to have a nice house/car; you can choose to have retirement savings and more time with your DH; you can choose to save for your kids' college; you can choose to hire out chores and maintenance that you don't enjoy.  But you can't choose all of those things.

The way I see it, what you spend your time and money on is what you value.  Your choices demonstrate a serious commitment to your family and your kids' education, and I commend you for that.  But they also say that you don't value future time with your husband as much as you value convenience, because you'd rather have, say, a lawn service and some processed foods than save the money to let him retire earlier.  Now, I don't think that is at all what you actually value.  So your job is to look closely at what you spend money on and why, and then do your best to align your spending with what those real values are.  That is the mindset change that I am talking about.  Your husband brings the money into the house; you have the equally-important job of making sure that you put that hard-earned money toward the choices that support your values and bring you closer to your joint goals instead of taking you further away from them.  If you can re-orient your thinking this way, and approach every spending decision consciously, a lot of the spending will fall into place.

I really like the comments earlier about working gardening and home repairs and stuff into the homeschooling, because that's what I immediately thought of as well.  We did all our own chores when I was a kid, up to and including painting the house, because we had to.  Those are actually life skills that it will benefit your kids to learn.  And "doing for yourself" is a great example to set for your kids -- especially when it's hard or boring or intimidating or you don't know what you're doing.  Because they see mom being a badass and capable of anything -- learning how to do something new, jumping in despite the fears, sticking with it despite the boredom, etc. etc. etc. 

As a cautionary note, you should definitely expect some serious mental relapses.  You have trained yourself that when you want something, you should just buy it, and that probably makes you feel good to be able to do that.  So once you start seriously limiting yourself, at some point your inner 4-yr-old is going to throw a tantrum and demand All The Things.  This is normal -- but it is also good!  Because most of us are completely unaware of why we get triggered to buy something, and so we go through life on autopilot, responding to that emotional trigger like Pavlov's dogs.  When you feel that overpowering need to, say, go on Amazon, or fill your cart with convenience foods, that's a good time to stop and evaluate what you are really feeling, what messages you are telling yourself, and to start replacing those messages with the real truths about your values and life goals.

zee dot

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Re: Case Study: Financial Independence Retire EVER???
« Reply #151 on: December 15, 2019, 04:30:55 PM »
@lookingforadelorean feel like posting an update here in your original case study?

As I was reading your case study I was thinking "this chick has an excuse for everything" but there were some signs of progress...then the stuff about judging you as a mom derailed your case study. 

I ducked over to your journal but it got a bit "dear diary" with a few victories and hard to tell if you are making progress toward FIRE.

Give us the numbers! Give us your new monthly budget now that you've been MMM for awhile.

And p.s. Do you still have the fancy car at  $460/month car payment. $21K remaining @ 3.94%?