Life Situation: Married Filing Joint, 34 years old, 2 kids (under 5)
Gross income - annual
Day job: 95,100
Side gig: 3,000
Max HSA 7,000
Max Roths 12,000
401k - 10,000 (no match offered)
Take home pay monthly: 5,046
Taxes: We have a pretty simple situation, all W-2 income, standard deduction.
Current expenses: We average right under 4,000 per month over the last 3 years, slightly more with our second child added. We are working to improve this and have started actually budgeting our money recently instead of just tracking it. Our goal is to get to 3500 in monthly expenses.
Fixed Costs:
P&I mortgage : 735
Prop Taxes: 350
Term life (wife and I) : 44
Internet : 55
Phone : 40
Water/Sewer: 90
Electric/gas : 200
car ins : 55
home ins: 63
amazon music : 10.69
Disney + : 7.50
Variable costs:
Groceries/house supplies : 800
gasoline : 40
Healthcare : 100 out of pocket (avg last 12 mos)
restaurants : 100 (avg last 12 mos)
home improvement: 130 (avg)
clothes : 50
Misc: 200 (amazon stuff, kids stuff)
Gifts/Charity : 50
Assets: 541,500
House : 215,000
Retirement accts: 254,000
HSA: 30,000
Cash: 28,000
Taxable brokerage: 3,000
Cars: 8,000+3500
We maintain an 20% cash/bonds, 25% Total International Stock and 55% US stock allocation
Liabilities:
Primary mortgage: 157,000 left, fixed 30 year at 3.625%
No other debt and none planned in the future
Specific Question(s):
I'm feeling pretty bored and unmotivated with my work right now. I've been with the same company for 11 years and while I've done okay, I'm pretty tired of the corporate grind. It's not even that my job is all that stressful, there are deadlines but I'm starting to not care pretty obviously. I've told my management I don't want to get promoted anytime soon which helped lower the stress levels a bit but I'm still pretty bored and unmotivated to keep trying at this job. I think I stayed a little too long. It hasn't gotten to the level of getting negative feedback yet but I can tell I'm starting to slip on things and losing my edge. I don't like the feeling of doing a bad job at something (recovering perfectionist) so I'd rather either fix it and get my motivation back or leave and focus on something I want to be good at. I also don't want to be the guy doing the bare minimum to collect a paycheck without getting fired. Nothing against those people but that is difficult for me to do without feeling immoral. If the company offered a severance, I would take it in a heartbeat and find something else but I feel like I have golden handcuffs and until I find something else I don't want to leave.
I'm looking for advice on career but not in the traditional sense of how to increase income etc. I want to find something easier, less stressful, more enjoyable, more rewarding and purposeful even if it involves a paycut. From my perspective, we aren't FI yet but we'll get there around age 50 even if we stop saving entirely so we just need something that pays the bills (around 50k per year takehome). I'd prefer not to grind it out for 10 more years just to get there a few years earlier, our portfolio should start to do most of the heavy lifting now...
If I keep grinding it out and saving roughly 30k per year we'll hit FI in 8-10 years (assuming 7% returns)
If I stop saving entirely we'll get there in 14-17 years
I think that means we are "CoastFI" but I don't really plan on stopping work entirely even when we hit our number. I would like to work part time well into my 70s if possible and if I enjoy my work. Is there anyone out there who realized they were coastFI and actually made a change towards a better job situation?
I know this is rambling a bit but I appreciate any advice or guidance on what to do in our fortunate situation. I know there are several in this community who must have lost motivation to care about their jobs once they realized FI was inevitable regardless of further savings...