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Awkward Davies
Sep 3, 2009
Grimey Drawer

leper khan posted:

Congrats. We didn't even realize when we hit the milestone. It's one of those things where it's objectively a lot but it's not enough where we can stop working/etc.

There's always someone richer. And a lot of the people who flaunt money are actually massively in debt and barely holding on.

Yeah, it's "could retire and maybe even early" money, but that's still ~20 years down the road.

H110Hawk posted:

First off: :toot: - congratulations it's a huge accomplishment.

The important thing here is not to compare yourself to these friends, compare it to what you and your wife value in life and what brings you joy. If you've realized you want to spend some more of your income in 2024 to do something - that's fine. You didn't mention an age, $1M at 20 is a very different number than $1M at 65. Both impressive, one is :stare: . Sounds like you have a good head on your shoulders. Look at your budget, set a goal, and go do it. Leverage your million bucks in the bank to take a risk. That's what it's there for and why generational wealth tends to accumulate (see: grandma, family business, free education.)

Also: You're doing the right thing not rubbing your friends faces in it. I know some of our friends got a shock when we bought a new house and immediately started in on renovations with no firm moving plans. I work in tech, most of our friends work normal skilled person jobs. We also drive a 2016 priusv and 2013 honda civic. They look beat. Who cares? It's gauche to talk about money - but that's somewhat "old thinking" where employers didn't want you talking about compensation with your peers lest they not be able to underpay you (remember the fancy jobs?) It's gauche to talk about money by way of bragging.

And may it stay that way, gently caress cancer. :toot:

This is good advice, thank you. I'm 38, my wife is 36. I've been talking to her about goal setting, and I think I need to sit down and commit to something.

Side note, but we were borrowing her parents 2014 Prius for a while, gotta say I really liked it. Great gas mileage, comfortable, will fit a bike with the seats down, surprising acceleration when you really stomp it. Too bad the catalytic converter got stolen.


Brain Curry posted:

Sup fellow 1mm net worth and breast cancer survivor! We are still trying to fully integrate the desire to live now and not defer our dreams for a time that may never come. So far she’s reduced her hours and stress at work and traveled more, but everything else is the same.

I do feel like we could stop saving for retirement if we wanted to and still retire with millions since we have 20+ years unless we want to retire early. Seems like as long as we don’t touch our retirement savings we will be OK, but right now I’m contributing 75% of my paycheck to my 401k in case I get laid off or quit later this year.

Hello! So glad to hear that you're both doing well. Before my wife got sick her mom told us a story about a friend who worked her whole life, retired to her dream house in the country and immediately got cancer and died. Never got to enjoy it. The story was scary as an intellectual exercise, but now I think we understand it a little more viscerally and we're trying to enjoy ourselves. We've also traveled a bunch. We took a big trip to Japan this year and it was a milestone for post treatment life.

I've been coming back to CoastFIRE calculators which say that I'm already set. I'd like to make a career switch and try something new eventually but I make good money and I like my job and there's a lot more expenses in the future. Might as well keep going.

Awkward Davies fucked around with this message at 21:28 on Jan 9, 2024

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H110Hawk
Dec 28, 2006

Awkward Davies posted:

This is good advice, thank you. I'm 38, my wife is 36. I've been talking to her about goal setting, and I think I need to sit down and commit to something.

I've personally found that setting a date nominally in stone then looking at what I could do during that time has helped. "Ok, we're going to take a week in december. Let's go <here>." and "This is a 4-week vacation block. How far from home can we get on our budget?" Having the date decided lets us narrow it down - I'm not going to Alaska in the US winter, but I might go to Australia. Either way, look at your available vacation balance and book it.

Awkward Davies posted:

I've been coming back to CoastFIRE calculators which say that I'm already set. I'd like to make a career switch and try something new eventually but I make good money and I like my job and there's a lot more expenses in the future. Might as well keep going.

The FIRE folks scare me. I feel like for every story you see on reddit there are 100 others where "oops: {untreated mental health issues, turns out they had no plan for doing stuff and are bored, health insurance, apparently my spouse isn't on board with this major decision I made unilaterally as though we don't share resources, my friends all hate me because I rub it in their faces}" that quietly don't get said. It's like Trying To Conceive boards - once people are pregnant they don't post there anymore so it's all people struggling. I feel like you see a lot of people who focus on how nice it would be to not have to work anymore as their identity.

A million bucks in the bank gives you a lot of flexibility - it's FU money to losing your job or some awful boss. It also isn't an unlimited sum, especially when you two definitely need top notch health insurance for the next long while.

Baddog
May 12, 2001

H110Hawk posted:


The FIRE folks scare me.



Always having a fallback plan, and being able to make at least some money from whatever catches your eye/interest is sort of necessary. And yah, needing health care sort of really puts a crimp in things. Buying your own decent plan is just insanely expensive.

The past couple years of inflation has to have really hammered a lot of folks as well, many of these calculators just don't account for that kind of hiccup.

Brain Curry
Feb 15, 2007

People think that I'm lazy
People think that I'm this fool because
I give a fuck about the government
I didn't graduate from high school



leper khan posted:

401k money is usually locked up :confused:
if i was expecting an issue, id save into a brokerage account or HYSA or short-mid term treasuries

you do you tho

We have plenty of cash in hysa/money market funds since I was preparing to quit last October and move cross-country. The tax advantaged space is more important to us than the paychecks at the moment.

Awkward Davies posted:

Hello! So glad to hear that you're both doing well. Before my wife got sick her mom told us a story about a friend who worked her whole life, retired to her dream house in the country and immediately got cancer and died. Never got to enjoy it. The story was scary as an intellectual exercise, but now I think we understand it a little more viscerally and we're trying to enjoy ourselves. We've also traveled a bunch. We took a big trip to Japan this year and it was a milestone for post treatment life.

Thank you. It’s fantastic you took that trip. I think it’s incredibly important to make those milestones and create events that can serve as delineations when you look back. We lost her mom to ALS during my wife’s cancer treatment so we’re painfully aware that we can lose our ability to do the things we want while still being alive. One of my big fears is that we’ll finally move somewhere with mountains but not be healthy enough to hike and camp when we do.

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