Here's my scenario:
Age 33, income is $80K. Wife and lots of kids at home, so expenses are up there. However I have always been a bit of a mustachian and have a bit of a jump on things.
Roth 401k is at about $90K- employer matches up to 4% if I put in at least 5%
Vanguard Mutual funds = 16K
House has 13.5 years left at 2.75% (yeah baby, refinanced at just the right time to a 15 year!) Balance is about 185k, home is worth about 280k.
Only other debt is $415 a month towards a car loan (of the most un-mustacian mistakes I ever made) with 2.5 years left at 0% (that was nice)
I just recently lowered my 401k contribution from 15% to 5%, so I'm still getting the match, but I can invest the rest of the money in more flexible assets (mostly my Vanguard Index fund). My target FI date is age 50, and the earliest I could get at the 401k is age 59.5 (or 55 if I quit my job, but the details are hazy), so I'd like to have some of that money more available- thus my reasoning for changing the contributions. The advantage to the 401k is tax free growth of course, but I'm still pumping in the equivalent of 9%.
I also have an employer sponsored pension that should give me a couple thousand bucks a month when I reach age 65, assuming ER at 50.
Is changing my contributions a good idea or dumb?
I'm unsure of whether I might want to invest in a rental property as well once I save enough to put a considerable down payment down from my Vanguard funds. As non-rational as it may sound, I also fantasize about having the cash on hand in 5-7 years to completely knock out my mortgage. I just love the idea of having no payment. In reality I don't think I'd do that, but paying off my house has always been my biggest fantasy.
I know there are ways to try to get at 401k money earlier, but I'm not really interested in trying to work the system.
Would you get back to investing more in the 401k or keep it flexible in the case of earlier FI?