Life Situation: We are a married couple (filing jointly) in our early 30s living in Chicago. No kids (but trying to change that) and one elderly dog. Both of us have advanced professional degrees and work full-time. We have a desire to retire earlier than "normal" but both enjoy working at our jobs and plan to work at least until our 50s.
We own 2 mortgaged properties (Chicago condo and SFH out-of-state) and a boat. We may have the opportunity in the near future to move to our SFH permanently (in a state with a very low COL) and sell the condo. We also love to travel and utilize all of our vacation time every year.
Gross Salary/Wages:
Earner1: $165,000
Earner2: 170,000
Individual amounts of each Pre-tax deductions 401k, HSA, FSA, IRA, insurance, etc. - whatever you have
Pretax Health Ins. $202
Pretax Vision/Dental Ins. $32
Healthcare Flex Savings Acct. (FSA) $196
Daycare FSA $0
Employer-sponsored HSA $258
Pretax Commuter costs $200
Traditional IRA $916.00
401(k) / 403(b) / TSP / etc. $1,220
457 plans $0.00
Personal HSA
Employer Match $1,395.00
ESPP/After-tax 401k $1,590
Pension contribution $0
Life/LTD Insurance $33
Other Ordinary Income:
We both qualify for bonuses and Earner2 receives long-term incentives. For 2017, this was as follows:
Earner1 (paid in December) - 18k (32k pre-tax) cash bonus
Earner2 (paid in March) - 26k (41k pre-tax) cash bonus; 34k in RSU vesting over 3 years
Qualified Dividends & Long Term Capital Gains:
Dividends = approximately 1k in 2017
Rental Income, Actual Expenses, and Depreciation: None
Adjusted Gross Income:
23,245 (pretax)
$15,570 (post-tax, ouch)
Taxes:
Federal tax $5,298
State/City tax $1,011
Soc. Sec. tax $1,314.40
Medicare tax $447.09
Medicare premium $0
Self-employment Tax $0
Total income taxes $8,070
Despite having a 0 on our W4, we each also have an additional $350/month removed from our checks as we ended up having to pay a lot in taxes one year (with requirements for quarterly taxes the following year). To be honest, I don't have a strong hold on our tax situation. I'm hoping to engage with a tax specialist/accountant for 2018.
Current expenses:
Mortgage 1 (condo) $1,026
Mortgage 1 (SFH) $1,121
HOA (condo) $473
Property Tax (condo) $446
Property Tax (SFH) $364
Home Insurance (condo) $29
Home Insurance (SFH) $80
Boat Storage/Maintenance $220
Netflix/Prime $15
Car Insurance $71
Car Maintenance, Registration, etc. $35
Charitable contributions $500
Clothing/Shoes $100
Dentist $5
Dining (Lunch/Dinner/Etc.) $200
Gifts (not charitable contributions) $75
Electricity $80
Entertainment $50
Fuel/Public Transport $50
Groceries $250
Hair Care $25
Household; Maintenance $200
Internet $56
Life Insurance $244
Medical (Doctor, Hospital, etc.) $25
Medicine (OTC + Prescription) $10
Miscellaneous $1000 (random items plus saving for a large piece of furniture we need)
Parking/Tolls $20
Pets $260
Phone (cell) $146
Sports/Recreation $25
Subscriptions (paper/magazines/etc.) $10
Travel/Vacation $2,000
Water/Sewer $37
Non-mortgage total $8,213
Assets:
We have approximately 100k in equity in our condo and 60k in our SFH.
401(k) plans: 170k
Roth(k)/backdoor Roth IRA: 175k
Brokerage acct (low-fee index/mutual funds): 50k
Cash savings: 40k
Liabilities: None
Specific Question(s):
We are hoping to retire early (between 50-55) - where should we be putting our extra cash every month?
What is the best strategy for leveraging restricted stock units? We have been using them to make our charitable donations but are open to other ideas as the stock grows.
We are also trying to grow our family. Any financial considerations while planning for children?
If we have the opportunity to move and sell our condo, what should we do with the 100k equity?
I realize we are so very fortunate that our upbringing and hard work has allowed us to build a successful life for ourselves. We work hard to save although at this point we aren't ready (nor is there a need) to dive deep into the MMM lifestyle. I would appreciate any and all feedback on our situation as we plan for the future. Please let me know if you need more information.