Hi, I'm brand new to MMM and absolutely love it. I'm 37, my wife is 38, and we have been saving (though not at Mustachian levels) for years. We have amassed $1.7 million in net worth. About $780K of that is in tax-deferred accounts invested in Vanguard ETFs (mostly) and a target-date retirement fund set way out into the future. We own our house outright and it would net us about $400K in a sale. The other $520K or so is spread in various things - cash, rental property equity, stock options, and assets in a business. We also have a trust (long story - would rather not explain) that pays us $40,000 per year tax-free for the next 8 years. This trust is a recent thing that's come up and it's separate from our other assets.
My wife is a stay at home mom and a home schooler. She homeschools all 5 of our kids.
I have what most would consider a "fantastic" career job. I make $300K per year in marketing and sales. Our side business generates another $30K or so in revenue (but it is unstable - not necessarily reliable), and of course we get the trust payout of $40K per year that I mentioned above. So financially, life is easy. I've been maxing 401Ks for the last 6 years.
I am seriously contemplating "retiring" from my marketing job to pursue my side business full time. I feel as though with effort I could grow that to be substantially more than what it is. But if I'm honest, it may never generate that $300K+ that my main job generates pretty reliably every year. Also, I enjoy my side business now, but I have some fear that if I did it full time, I might grow to dislike it. (Although it would be building a business that I could potentially sell). The marketing job I have now comes with some pretty substantial stressers from time to time, but obviously money is never one of them.
We currently live in the mid-Atlantic region and have also considered moving South for two reasons: 1) people are nicer, and 2) our school system where we live is bad, and to get into the "good" school districts here, we'd have to spend about 50% more on housing. If we move South, we could land ourselves in a good school district at even-money or potentially even a few bucks cheaper.
I've done up a budget and I keep working to trim it - reduce ongoing expenses, etc. My budget says that we can make it without touching any of our assets on just the trust payouts and my small side business as is... but it would mean a BIG change in lifestyle - at least until I could get my business really going.
Let me know how you would think of this and what you would do in my situation.
