Topic Title: Reader Case Study - Would you pull the trigger in 2023, or at the very least begin part-time work?
Life Situation: 40F married to 40F. 2 children (9 and 6). We live in a HCOL area in the Northern Virginia suburbs of DC.
Gross Salary/Wages: ~$200,000 + $5-15k bonuses yearly.
Investment Contributions: We are maxing out both 401k's, along with $4k/yr to 529 plans, and some going toward a post-tax brokerage.
Total yearly "investments", including matches: $75k
Current expenses: Here are some of the primary categories, but "Other Discretionary" contains a lot of not-well-tracked things.
Mortgage: $2500/mo (15 years left on the loan @ 2.875%)
Utilities: $450/mo
Groceries: $900/mo
Restaurants: $350/mo
Car: $250/mo
Other Discretionary: $4000/mo
Total Expenses: $8400/mo ($100k/yr) - For the purposes of planning in RE, I knock down our non-mortgage expenses to $5000/mo due to reduction in spending on conveniences we needed to work, but add on $1000/mo for a health plan bumps that back up to $6000/mo.
Expected ER expenses: Primary non-living expenses will be covering 2 children in college (or helping to a large extent).
For this, we budget $15k/yr in today's dollars for each year of school, whether or not that totally covers it.
Assets: Allocation: ~95% equities, 5% bonds
House: $800k value
Pre-tax: $880k
Roth: $210k
Post-tax: $170k
529: $80k
RSAs: $333k
Crypto: $60k (don't harass me too much, this was all from mining, which was a little experiment of mine for a few years)
Cash/Savings: $50k
Pension @ 62: $16k/yr
Total Investable Assets: $1,783,000
Liabilities: Mortgage: $365k @ 2.875% for 20yrs. We're paying extra to kill this in 15.
Total Net Worth: $2.21M
Withdrawal Plan: Whenever I decide to drop to part-time or quit entirely, we're planning on living off of the RSA proceeds (it is reasonably liquid) and our brokerage account while we start a Roth Conversion ladder.
Specific Question(s): Primarily, it's a classic case of "should I OMY or not?". Given our assets, contributions per year, and expenses... 2023 is going to be a milestone for us (some RSAs vest). I'm considering the idea of asking my employer to go part-time, or just RE'ing altogether, but if you've seen my signature line, you'd understand how obsessed with the planning I am. I like my job a lot, but I feel strangled for free-time. I'm also considering quitting altogether and trying to monetize some of my software dev ideas. cFIREsim has been a passion project of mine for years, but I haven't had the free time to make it what I wanted, OR to start other projects that could develop some income (maybe).
If I go part-time in 2023, just for a couple of years, the numbers tell me that it's 100% success rate.
https://www.cfiresim.com/09543616-a5c1-4cf9-ae19-1f01a4f5fa30If we both just RE in 2023, there is a slim chance (historically) of our plan failing.
https://www.cfiresim.com/0c0223aa-a79b-48c0-a069-118e735f2898