I thought I would update you lovely people, just because I have been making progress:
The savings and investments
The roll over of my Chase IRA (created with old and dusty 401k monies from ages past) is almost complete; once Fidelity get the money in the right account. I did speak with the retirement advisers at Fidelity and they gave me the run down on the mechanics of the Roth IRA and how to fund it so I am clear on that and have opened both an IRA and Roth IRA account to get that moving.
I did some research and while I see the appeal of Vanguard, I have all my accounts with Fidelity as my 401k is there. However I did take note of the advise with regards the types of funds to invest in, the mix and so on. I have changed my mutual fund selection for the 401k, to S&P 500 mutual funds, with a small amount a growth fund that I am fond of.
(For my 401k there is no total market fund available, the S&P500 is as close as I can get, and it is low cost - FUSVX @ 0.035%)
I have also started to fund the tIRA with a view to rolling that money into the Roth by the end of the year. So far I have about $750 in there.
In addition I have opened an individual investment account for all the money that can not go into the IRA. I have about $450 in there - I'm using it like a change jar.
(Because the value is low, I am using ETFs - iTOT which trades for free on Fidelity)
The emergency funds were split - $5k in chase at 0% interest, and the remaining 5K moved to Amex Savings @ 1.7%.
The spending
As I suspected, we are not spending $1000/mth on groceries now that we are not eating out. It looks like we have reduced our monthly spend from $4k down to about $3,300, but I want to get a couple more months under our belts before we call that definitive.
There are still some things we can do with regards the spending that we will likely do as the year rolls on.
In addition, we will be looking into an HSA at the end of the year when DW gets her benefits elections.
I am making good progress on getting the small car loan paid off - currently I am paying it down at about 2500/mth and apparently I get a ~$2000 refund from trading in one Subaru for another so that will help (when it finally gets here). The $2500/mth is less than I intended but the wife has traveled more than anticipated recently, plus some of the funding activity above has taken some of the funds. I am however still on target to have this paid off before the end of the year.
And that is my current focus; car loan gone by the end of the year and Roth IRA fully funded. It is an achievable target.
Next year the plan is to increase the emergency fund up to ~25k, fully fund both our Roth IRAs (DW has one now too), keep fully funding the 401ks, and what ever savings we have left over goes into the individual investment account. At least initially the plan is to invest in index funds - either total market or at the very least, S&P500.
So that is where we are now. I took what you guys told me, I did some reading, and a lot of math, put a plan together and have started to execute on it, so thank you all for helping me get this far.
As for when we retire; we aren't sure about that yet. Its not so much the money as it is when we want to stop what we are doing now. Our best guess at this time maybe in 6-8 years. I like what I do and if it continues to be fun, then I will continue to do it!