Hi folks, wanted to share an update with you all! I can’t believe it’s been a year and I’m still holding my own in this new role. It is extremely stressful, but I’m proud I made it this far!
Kind of related to my original question, one surprising thing I learned this year was that there is a taxable maximum for Social Security Tax in a calendar year. I noticed a jump in my paycheck and thought there was a bug in my payroll, but turns out I’d surpassed the max for SS tax, so now that money was just landing in my bank account. I had no idea there was a maximum; seems like a missed opportunity for funding the program, in my opinion.
Taking the great advice of you all, I kept a very close eye on any kind of lifestyle upgrades that were committing me to a *recurring* cost and tried to focus our splurges on one time costs. Here are the “out of the ordinary” things we did with our new money:
- Poured a sidewalk and paved the dirt driveway at our rental house
- Installed forced air AC in our house (benefits our unit + the 2 other rental units in our house)
- Ordered some new windows for our unit and our basement rental unit
- Rented a huge house in the mountains and invited extended family up for a weeklong stay on us
- Overnight “staycation” date with no kids in a nearby city
- Sizeable recast on our mortgage*
- Round of charity donations
- Put the rest (an outrageous amount) into investments; now on-track to hit FIRE numbers by the end of 2023.
The biggest increase in the “recurring purchase” category is probably food. We spend a lot more on food at the grocery store, because we aren’t actively looking for deals or planning as meticulously as we used to. We just buy the food we want. Life with 3 kids under 6 is stressful, my job is stressful, so the saved time goes a long way for me. This increase isn’t actually that big relative to what I make, so I’m ok with it.
I wish we could have dropped some serious cash on an outrageous vacation someplace, but it just isn’t in the cards for this season of our life. I’d rather wait until our youngest is a bit older so I don't have to spend the whole trip preventing her from touching outlets (like I did during our mountain getaway this summer 😅 ).
Unfortunately my parents are not accepting of my offers to help with much-needed repairs to their house. I’ll keep trying, but their pride is really getting in the way. It's a tough one.
We definitely could have done a better job rearranging our investment strategy to focus a bit more on tax-deferred / lower tax. However, I actively made the decision to forego that as a deep focus this year, because I needed to dedicate myself fully to ramping up in the new job and becoming effective. It doesn’t really pain me that I’m “losing” that money at this point in my life.
Overall I still find the entire situation a bit strange. There is a part of me that desperately wants to keep living life almost exactly the same way I did before this salary. I don’t know how long I’ll stay in this job, and when I do leave it will be to FIRE, go back to the startup scene, or switch careers entirely. Meaning, it’s almost certain my next job will not have an outrageous salary like this. I don’t want to get used to too much luxury, because I know it will be hard to downshift back to a simpler life.
On the other hand, this job is SO STRESSFUL. There is a reason this salary is so high, and it is really tempting to spend money in an attempt to alleviate some of the stress. In “Your Money Or Your Life,” they talk about assessing your spending and figuring out how much of your expenses are actually related to your job and its stressors (eg, taking a vacation to de-stress from work vs taking a vacation because you actually want to visit a new place). I feel the pressure of this kind of expense very acutely. I sometimes feel like I'm pushing my mental health too close to a breaking point by being under so much stress and not taking advantage of my money to help alleviate some of it. Hoping to find a safe balance here in 2023.
* I understand the math in the long-term is better if we don’t make big payments on the mortgage. However, as the breadwinner (my husband is a stay at home dad) I’m paranoid about what would happen to my family if I died. I’m motivated to lower the monthly obligation for the mortgage, so my husband could afford the mortgage & childcare for 3 if he became a single dad. We originally planned 2 recasts this year, but with inflation the way it is, we pivoted to just one.
