DebtSlaveNoMore's Journal
Re: DebtSlaveNoMore's Journal
Tragic, hope you can find some support and constructive ways to cope.
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cimorene12
- Posts: 8
- Joined: Fri Dec 02, 2011 3:10 am
Re: DebtSlaveNoMore's Journal
Hope your wife improves and you get some help with the kids.
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Western Red Cedar
- Posts: 1519
- Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2020 2:15 pm
Re: DebtSlaveNoMore's Journal
This sounds absolutely terrifying. I'm so sorry you are dealing with all this. Hope you all somehow manage to somehow find a way forward.
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DebtSlaveNoMore
- Posts: 65
- Joined: Sat Feb 02, 2013 7:27 pm
Re: DebtSlaveNoMore's Journal
@ertyu, thanks for your kind words.
@jacob, yes having a FI fund certain helps in this time. I would literally be loosing my mind if my finances were a problem at this stage.
@scott2, thanks for your kind words. I'm trying to keep myself together.
@cimorene12, thanks, I've been getting a lot of help from my SILs as well as from my parents in terms of child care. It really does make a big difference.
@Western Red Cedar, thanks. I'm slowing trying to find a solution.
So as a general update, my wife's physical recovery is in flight. She is now able to have some partial use of both of her hands. 2/3 of her right hand is no longer covered in scabs and blisters. She's also starting to remember the details of the incident. She told me that she had felt this overwhelming sadness for weeks and that once the ideation to end it all came, she moved very quickly. She told me that in that state she thought me and the kids would be better off without her and somehow that thought became all consuming. I told her that she is literally our world and that the entire family would collapse if she was not in it. I told her that if she was gone, every aspect of our family would be infinitely worse off. She is now saying that this suicide attempt was the worst mistake of her life and she thanked me profusely for saving her life that night.
On the mental health front, I did speak with the head psychiatrist at the hospital, and her current thinking is that my wife has some kind of an untreated anxiety disorder and that this was leading to both her earlier psychosis and the bouts of depression. They have put her on an anti-depressant for the time being and observing how she is reacting to it. I do not understand how and why DW would have these terrible thoughts as her life seems to be pretty good to me. She worked a really flexible part time job, lives in a nice neighborhood and had a pretty standard upper middle class lifestyle (vacations, restaurants, tons of consumer goods). The Psychiatrist told me that this could be due to traumatic events earlier in DW's life, she suspects it as having something to do with DW's observation of her sister's mental illness during her early 20s.
Finally in terms of general financial updates, literally 3 days after my FMLA leave was approved, my company had a mass layoff where nearly 10K employees were let go. So it seems like the FMLA might have prevented me from getting laid off. Still, I won't be working for the next few months(and perhaps much longer), and I'm getting a tiny stipend from the medical leave rather than my normal salary. As such, I'm going through a process of reducing household expenses. There seems to be lots of fat in our budget that can be cut, here are a few of the obvious items:
1. Groceries: I switched from shopping at Whole Foods and Stop & Shop to going exclusively with Aldi's and a local Asian grocery. This is reducing the grocery monthly bill from about ~$1100 to $400.
2. Dining: In our current situation, I'm just not going out to eat period. I've been cooking everything at home and am doing more cooking now then I have done in perhaps 10 years. This cuts a ~$1200 per month expense to 0.
3. Amazon Purchases: We were just buying a lot of unnecessary stuff from Amazon. Over the past month, the spending there has gone from ~$1200/month to under ~$100/month.
4. Charity donations: I realized that my wife had been donating to 4 different charities in addition to our church. I paused those which reduced costs by 200/month.
@jacob, yes having a FI fund certain helps in this time. I would literally be loosing my mind if my finances were a problem at this stage.
@scott2, thanks for your kind words. I'm trying to keep myself together.
@cimorene12, thanks, I've been getting a lot of help from my SILs as well as from my parents in terms of child care. It really does make a big difference.
@Western Red Cedar, thanks. I'm slowing trying to find a solution.
So as a general update, my wife's physical recovery is in flight. She is now able to have some partial use of both of her hands. 2/3 of her right hand is no longer covered in scabs and blisters. She's also starting to remember the details of the incident. She told me that she had felt this overwhelming sadness for weeks and that once the ideation to end it all came, she moved very quickly. She told me that in that state she thought me and the kids would be better off without her and somehow that thought became all consuming. I told her that she is literally our world and that the entire family would collapse if she was not in it. I told her that if she was gone, every aspect of our family would be infinitely worse off. She is now saying that this suicide attempt was the worst mistake of her life and she thanked me profusely for saving her life that night.
On the mental health front, I did speak with the head psychiatrist at the hospital, and her current thinking is that my wife has some kind of an untreated anxiety disorder and that this was leading to both her earlier psychosis and the bouts of depression. They have put her on an anti-depressant for the time being and observing how she is reacting to it. I do not understand how and why DW would have these terrible thoughts as her life seems to be pretty good to me. She worked a really flexible part time job, lives in a nice neighborhood and had a pretty standard upper middle class lifestyle (vacations, restaurants, tons of consumer goods). The Psychiatrist told me that this could be due to traumatic events earlier in DW's life, she suspects it as having something to do with DW's observation of her sister's mental illness during her early 20s.
Finally in terms of general financial updates, literally 3 days after my FMLA leave was approved, my company had a mass layoff where nearly 10K employees were let go. So it seems like the FMLA might have prevented me from getting laid off. Still, I won't be working for the next few months(and perhaps much longer), and I'm getting a tiny stipend from the medical leave rather than my normal salary. As such, I'm going through a process of reducing household expenses. There seems to be lots of fat in our budget that can be cut, here are a few of the obvious items:
1. Groceries: I switched from shopping at Whole Foods and Stop & Shop to going exclusively with Aldi's and a local Asian grocery. This is reducing the grocery monthly bill from about ~$1100 to $400.
2. Dining: In our current situation, I'm just not going out to eat period. I've been cooking everything at home and am doing more cooking now then I have done in perhaps 10 years. This cuts a ~$1200 per month expense to 0.
3. Amazon Purchases: We were just buying a lot of unnecessary stuff from Amazon. Over the past month, the spending there has gone from ~$1200/month to under ~$100/month.
4. Charity donations: I realized that my wife had been donating to 4 different charities in addition to our church. I paused those which reduced costs by 200/month.
Re: DebtSlaveNoMore's Journal
It sounds like she was feeling shame. A repressed traumatic memory from childhood could trigger a large amount of shame, since that is how she would have experienced it at the time. Kids don't know enough about themselves or the world to not feel shame when something goes terribly wrong.
I'm not a medical expert so this is just a thought. If you want to explore further, EMDR therapy and Internal Family Systems therapy are clinically shown to help with childhood PTSD.
I'm not a medical expert so this is just a thought. If you want to explore further, EMDR therapy and Internal Family Systems therapy are clinically shown to help with childhood PTSD.
Re: DebtSlaveNoMore's Journal
This must be really hard. I guess it is a great relief that your wife sees her attempt as a mistake. Thank god, you have family support and the finance to help carry you trough it. Congrats for cutting you expenses.
Take care.
Take care.
Re: DebtSlaveNoMore's Journal
What a nightmare. Wishing you both strength through the recovery process.
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suomalainen
- Posts: 1262
- Joined: Sat Oct 18, 2014 12:49 pm
Re: DebtSlaveNoMore's Journal
I’m not sure what any of those things have to do with “the good life”.DebtSlaveNoMore wrote: ↑Tue Apr 08, 2025 8:27 amI do not understand how and why DW would have these terrible thoughts as her life seems to be pretty good to me. She worked a really flexible part time job, lives in a nice neighborhood and had a pretty standard upper middle class lifestyle (vacations, restaurants, tons of consumer goods).
Best wishes to your wife for her mental, emotional and physical recovery.
Re: DebtSlaveNoMore's Journal
Mental illness often has little if anything to do with the material conditions the person is living in. Nor should it be seen as a reflection on her family. It's best to think of it like a physical illness like cancer or heart disease.DebtSlaveNoMore wrote: ↑Tue Apr 08, 2025 8:27 amI do not understand how and why DW would have these terrible thoughts as her life seems to be pretty good to me.
Re: DebtSlaveNoMore's Journal
This. If certain chemical soup is present, certain inner states and experiences occur. Eg you drink alcohol, you feel a certain way, and the condition you're in is determined by the psychoactive effects of alcohol. You take cocaine, you're in a different state. You take sth else, you see the Hat Man. The chemical soup may or may not be triggered by past or present experiences, and if it is, the extent to which it is is different in different people. Your wife's sister having had a stretch of mental illness that was severe enough to have impacted an outside observer is evidence towards their shared genetics and/or childhood experiences being at play. +1 to what chenga says, and +1 to therapy. Good luck, may things work out in your favor, and may you all recover. Must be hard holding it together for everyone, strength.
How are the children? Do you think they will need to see someone to help them process what happened with their mom? I forgot what age they were
How are the children? Do you think they will need to see someone to help them process what happened with their mom? I forgot what age they were
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DebtSlaveNoMore
- Posts: 65
- Joined: Sat Feb 02, 2013 7:27 pm
Re: DebtSlaveNoMore's Journal
@blink2ce, thanks for the advice.
@Jean, thanks for your kind words, it's been a rough time.
@theanimal, thanks for your kind words.
@suomalainen, thanks, I guess it's just there are no apparent triggers for this issue in her life. Everything seems fine to me, and this just came out of nowhere.
@suomalainen, thanks, I really need to condition myself to think of my wife's illness like a heart disease.
@ertyu, kids are ok, my daughter is too young to understand and she just thinks that Mommy got sick and lost her foot. My son suspects suicide but I never confirmed it with him. Also I've gotten him a child therapist as well as a social worker at his middle school.
General Update on the situation:
Wife continues to improve physically, she's able to now walk(or hop) around the hospital room with a walker. She also regained a lot of fine motor control on her hands, she's able to use a phone and a computer now with both hands but the strength of her grip is still pretty weak. All the physical rehab facilities in our area has rejected her for inpatient physical rehab due to her mental health issue. Now her Doctors are trying the reverse approach, get her admitted to a mental health treatment facility first and then to a physical rehab after she is cleared for mental stability. This is a very tricky situation because her admission into a mental health facility will be involuntary until she is deemed stable by the Doctors there. I told DW that she must obey the Psych Doctors and do whatever therapies and medications they give her there to ensure a quick discharge. So far, every anti-depressant medication that the psychiatrists have given her has also given her very bad migraines. I'm hopeful that they will be able to find a medication/therapy combination that works on DW.
While this is all happening, I got a house visit yesterday from Child Protective Services. The Hospital gave them notice of my wife's hospitalizations and suicide attempt and they were making sure that my household would be safe for my children to live in once my wife comes home. After DW comes home, a CPS case worker will visit my home once a month for a period of time to check in on the children to make sure they are safe. This was quite an embarrassing and extremely depressing situation for me. Not dwelling on it too much, but I feel like I will not be able to trust my wife to be alone by herself or with my children for a long time.
Financial Updates
I have continued to reduce household expenses during this time since our household income has been reduced by ~80% due to my medical leave.
1. DW was spending around $700 a month on random art purchases mostly from antique shops and local artists. Given that she's immobile at the hospital, these purchases have naturally dropped to 0.
2. Prior to DW's incident, we were traveling long distances(e.g 50-100 miles one way) to various towns in the tri-state area every weekend for entertainment, meals, and outings. At least once a month we would have longer ranged (150-300 miles one way) visits to family/friends in more distant states. This has effectively been replaced by hyper local travel (to kids' schools, library, DW's hospital, groceries, church...etc). This seems to have a drastic impact on auto expenses. In the last month, auto expenses have gone from $800 to around $400 due to reduced tolls, gas, parking costs.
3. There were a number of monthly expenses that seems entirely unnecessary
$130/month for an eye drop medication that has a small probability of preventing my son's myopia from worsening (almost our entire extended family has myopia)
$50/month for an Endocrinologist visit to see if my son can be made to artificially grow taller (he is average height for his age)
$150/month for an out of insurance network remote pediatric psychiatrist for my son's ADHD as a carry over from Covid (in network costs nothing)
$100/month for a swimming club membership that we visit max 6 times every year during the summer. (cost of each visit without a membership is around $20)
$40/month to rent a violin for a Violin class that my son hates and can't wait to drop at the end of this school year in 1.5 months.
$240/month for an aftercare program that literally watches my daughter Monday to Friday from 3pm to 5pm. (because her school ends at 3pm, but DW or myself gets out of work earliest by 5pm).
After reducing these costs, monthly expenses for our household have gone from 10K to ~5K. I have around 60K cash for a 6 month emergency fund. With these cost savings, the fund can be stretched out to 1 year.
@Jean, thanks for your kind words, it's been a rough time.
@theanimal, thanks for your kind words.
@suomalainen, thanks, I guess it's just there are no apparent triggers for this issue in her life. Everything seems fine to me, and this just came out of nowhere.
@suomalainen, thanks, I really need to condition myself to think of my wife's illness like a heart disease.
@ertyu, kids are ok, my daughter is too young to understand and she just thinks that Mommy got sick and lost her foot. My son suspects suicide but I never confirmed it with him. Also I've gotten him a child therapist as well as a social worker at his middle school.
General Update on the situation:
Wife continues to improve physically, she's able to now walk(or hop) around the hospital room with a walker. She also regained a lot of fine motor control on her hands, she's able to use a phone and a computer now with both hands but the strength of her grip is still pretty weak. All the physical rehab facilities in our area has rejected her for inpatient physical rehab due to her mental health issue. Now her Doctors are trying the reverse approach, get her admitted to a mental health treatment facility first and then to a physical rehab after she is cleared for mental stability. This is a very tricky situation because her admission into a mental health facility will be involuntary until she is deemed stable by the Doctors there. I told DW that she must obey the Psych Doctors and do whatever therapies and medications they give her there to ensure a quick discharge. So far, every anti-depressant medication that the psychiatrists have given her has also given her very bad migraines. I'm hopeful that they will be able to find a medication/therapy combination that works on DW.
While this is all happening, I got a house visit yesterday from Child Protective Services. The Hospital gave them notice of my wife's hospitalizations and suicide attempt and they were making sure that my household would be safe for my children to live in once my wife comes home. After DW comes home, a CPS case worker will visit my home once a month for a period of time to check in on the children to make sure they are safe. This was quite an embarrassing and extremely depressing situation for me. Not dwelling on it too much, but I feel like I will not be able to trust my wife to be alone by herself or with my children for a long time.
Financial Updates
I have continued to reduce household expenses during this time since our household income has been reduced by ~80% due to my medical leave.
1. DW was spending around $700 a month on random art purchases mostly from antique shops and local artists. Given that she's immobile at the hospital, these purchases have naturally dropped to 0.
2. Prior to DW's incident, we were traveling long distances(e.g 50-100 miles one way) to various towns in the tri-state area every weekend for entertainment, meals, and outings. At least once a month we would have longer ranged (150-300 miles one way) visits to family/friends in more distant states. This has effectively been replaced by hyper local travel (to kids' schools, library, DW's hospital, groceries, church...etc). This seems to have a drastic impact on auto expenses. In the last month, auto expenses have gone from $800 to around $400 due to reduced tolls, gas, parking costs.
3. There were a number of monthly expenses that seems entirely unnecessary
$130/month for an eye drop medication that has a small probability of preventing my son's myopia from worsening (almost our entire extended family has myopia)
$50/month for an Endocrinologist visit to see if my son can be made to artificially grow taller (he is average height for his age)
$150/month for an out of insurance network remote pediatric psychiatrist for my son's ADHD as a carry over from Covid (in network costs nothing)
$100/month for a swimming club membership that we visit max 6 times every year during the summer. (cost of each visit without a membership is around $20)
$40/month to rent a violin for a Violin class that my son hates and can't wait to drop at the end of this school year in 1.5 months.
$240/month for an aftercare program that literally watches my daughter Monday to Friday from 3pm to 5pm. (because her school ends at 3pm, but DW or myself gets out of work earliest by 5pm).
After reducing these costs, monthly expenses for our household have gone from 10K to ~5K. I have around 60K cash for a 6 month emergency fund. With these cost savings, the fund can be stretched out to 1 year.
Re: DebtSlaveNoMore's Journal
@ DSNM - I am so sorry to read of your troubles. What an absolutely blindsiding turn of events. Sometimes bad things happen to good people.
You seem to be controlling the things you can control, such as spending, and my experience is that provides a sort of emotionally stable basis to push off to help restore balance more widely.
You seem to be controlling the things you can control, such as spending, and my experience is that provides a sort of emotionally stable basis to push off to help restore balance more widely.
Re: DebtSlaveNoMore's Journal
Well, it's good that you can foot the bill.DebtSlaveNoMore wrote: ↑Fri Apr 04, 2025 2:30 pmHer foot got sepsis and became badly infected and that then gave her a high fever. The Doctors then asked me if they could amputate it prevent her from dying, I had to say yes to save her life.
Dealing with two versions of the same person when they are still alive is difficult, but your mundane posts about her art spending expresses a real hope she will be restored to the person she was before. Best to you and your family.
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DebtSlaveNoMore
- Posts: 65
- Joined: Sat Feb 02, 2013 7:27 pm
Re: DebtSlaveNoMore's Journal
@Kipling thanks for your kind words. I'm focusing on stuff within my control, it helps to keep my mind on positive, actionable things.
@Henry, thanks for your kind words.
General Update on the situation:
DW was admitted to the psych ward in the same hospital last week and so far they have tried 3 different kinds of anti-depressants on her. In the last week, they seem to have found one that she can tolerate. Now, it's a matter for waiting another 2-3 weeks to see if the medication removes her crippling anxiety and depression. It seems like my wife has an unbelievable amount of anxiety about the future and our children. But when I point out to her that there is no objective thing to be worried about which is under our control, she says that she knows that but cannot stop feeling this intense anxiety and worry.
Therapy sessions are on-going with my wife reluctantly talking about the root causes of her anxiety with the psychiatric doctor. There was a kind of breakthrough 2 days ago with DW mentioning that she suffered a period of extreme stress/trauma in her teenage years where her mother had a mental breakdown and mistreated her and her sisters severely. It was difficult for me to hear this. According to DW, the trauma involved crazy amounts of verbal and physical abuse and also being deprived of food and even heating during the winter time. When I asked DW's sister about this, SIL denied that anything unusual happened during that time., At this point I'm just hoping that the anti-depressant medication can do a good enough job to get her stabilized and safe to come home. As a precaution, I'm massively safety proofing our house and anything that could possibly be used by DW to harm herself is being removed.
Financial Updates
While all of this stuff is happening, I have continued to look for areas in the monthly household budget to optimize, and found a few more.
Figuring out my next moves
So I'm midway through my 12 week FMLA leave. And I'm really trying to figure out my options. A lot depends on the condition of DW in 6 weeks.
Option 1: Go back to work when FMLA ends
Assuming DW is discharged home and mentally stable. I could go back to working my corporate job which requires commuting to the city 3 days a week. I would need to hire a care giver to monitor my wife during the day while I'm away since it would still be a couple of months before she can walk using a prosthetic leg. My main concern with this option is that if DW is not entirely stable she might be able to trick the care giver and attempt suicide again. If I am not at home, the unthinkable could happen.
Option 2: Request a 3 month personal Leave Of Absence once FMLA ends
In this option, I could stay at home and take care of DW for another 3 months after FMLA ends. This option gives me more peace of mind since I can keep an eye on DW and make sure she doesn't harm herself. The extra 3 months also gives more time to treat the root cause of her mental illness and maybe even allow for weaning her off anti-depressants. And by the end of this additional LOA, DW should be walking with the prosthetic leg. The major concern with this option is that my job could very well decide to lay me off at some point during the leave since my position would no longer be protected by the law.
Option 3: Quit my job and FIRE once FMLA ends.
So this is a bit of a fantasy option. I could just quit my job when FMLA ends. On a lean household monthly budget of 4600K per month. We could run almost indefinitely on the income of our 2 rental properties (~2800/month), and the minimum 1099 dividend distributions of our post tax brokerage funds (~1300/month). This configuration would still allow the ~ 2.6 million Index fund based financial investments to continue growing at a substantial clip in the background. The big concerns with this option is first if I can get a health insurance plan with ACA that can provide for DW's medical costs, and secondly I'm not sure if I'm ready to retire yet, I still haven't figured out what I want to do in early retirement and fear that all the undirected free time would drive me nuts.
Are there any other options that I didn't think of? Any advice and opinions would be appreciated.
@Henry, thanks for your kind words.
General Update on the situation:
DW was admitted to the psych ward in the same hospital last week and so far they have tried 3 different kinds of anti-depressants on her. In the last week, they seem to have found one that she can tolerate. Now, it's a matter for waiting another 2-3 weeks to see if the medication removes her crippling anxiety and depression. It seems like my wife has an unbelievable amount of anxiety about the future and our children. But when I point out to her that there is no objective thing to be worried about which is under our control, she says that she knows that but cannot stop feeling this intense anxiety and worry.
Therapy sessions are on-going with my wife reluctantly talking about the root causes of her anxiety with the psychiatric doctor. There was a kind of breakthrough 2 days ago with DW mentioning that she suffered a period of extreme stress/trauma in her teenage years where her mother had a mental breakdown and mistreated her and her sisters severely. It was difficult for me to hear this. According to DW, the trauma involved crazy amounts of verbal and physical abuse and also being deprived of food and even heating during the winter time. When I asked DW's sister about this, SIL denied that anything unusual happened during that time., At this point I'm just hoping that the anti-depressant medication can do a good enough job to get her stabilized and safe to come home. As a precaution, I'm massively safety proofing our house and anything that could possibly be used by DW to harm herself is being removed.
Financial Updates
While all of this stuff is happening, I have continued to look for areas in the monthly household budget to optimize, and found a few more.
- Our electricity bill was routed through a clean energy provider that was charging an insane 200% markup to buy renewable energy credits while the actual utility provider already gets most of it's electricity through renewables and nuclear. The middleman provider was charging us 34 cents per KWH, while the utility provider only charges 12 cents per KWH. Removing the middleman reduces monthly electricity costs by ~$100
- I realized that both of my kids have been conditioned to drink the Poland Spring water that DW drinks instead of drinking filtered tap water. Over the last month, I've retrained them to just drink tap water. This allowed me to reduced the monthly Spring water deliveries to just the amount needed for DW's usage, saving ~$80.
- I got some discounts on auto insurance policy via A. Removing comprehensive collision coverage( since I have 2 relatively older cars), B. Taking an online defensive driving course, and C. Installing a tracking app on my mobile phone that tracks my driving statistics. All discounts added together is roughly $80 in savings per month.
- Since I had 3 Property insurance policies under the same insurance company, I did some comparison shopping to find lower offers and presented it to the insurance company. This got them to reduce my property insurance by ~$50 per month.
- I finally figured out how to re-program my house thermostat to dial down the temperature during night time hours from Midnight to 5:30am, I only had a month to observe the effects but it seems to be a savings of around ~$50.
Figuring out my next moves
So I'm midway through my 12 week FMLA leave. And I'm really trying to figure out my options. A lot depends on the condition of DW in 6 weeks.
Option 1: Go back to work when FMLA ends
Assuming DW is discharged home and mentally stable. I could go back to working my corporate job which requires commuting to the city 3 days a week. I would need to hire a care giver to monitor my wife during the day while I'm away since it would still be a couple of months before she can walk using a prosthetic leg. My main concern with this option is that if DW is not entirely stable she might be able to trick the care giver and attempt suicide again. If I am not at home, the unthinkable could happen.
Option 2: Request a 3 month personal Leave Of Absence once FMLA ends
In this option, I could stay at home and take care of DW for another 3 months after FMLA ends. This option gives me more peace of mind since I can keep an eye on DW and make sure she doesn't harm herself. The extra 3 months also gives more time to treat the root cause of her mental illness and maybe even allow for weaning her off anti-depressants. And by the end of this additional LOA, DW should be walking with the prosthetic leg. The major concern with this option is that my job could very well decide to lay me off at some point during the leave since my position would no longer be protected by the law.
Option 3: Quit my job and FIRE once FMLA ends.
So this is a bit of a fantasy option. I could just quit my job when FMLA ends. On a lean household monthly budget of 4600K per month. We could run almost indefinitely on the income of our 2 rental properties (~2800/month), and the minimum 1099 dividend distributions of our post tax brokerage funds (~1300/month). This configuration would still allow the ~ 2.6 million Index fund based financial investments to continue growing at a substantial clip in the background. The big concerns with this option is first if I can get a health insurance plan with ACA that can provide for DW's medical costs, and secondly I'm not sure if I'm ready to retire yet, I still haven't figured out what I want to do in early retirement and fear that all the undirected free time would drive me nuts.
Are there any other options that I didn't think of? Any advice and opinions would be appreciated.
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suomalainen
- Posts: 1262
- Joined: Sat Oct 18, 2014 12:49 pm
Re: DebtSlaveNoMore's Journal
Using 4% rule plus rental income, it appears you have runway forever for 3x as much spending as in your lean scenario. That would easily pay for everything plus health coverage plus emergencies. Money is a solved problem for you. Why even think about it? Seems to me that everything should be viewed through the lens of what’s best for your family. You can go back to work in five years when everything is settled.
Re: DebtSlaveNoMore's Journal
Probably want to figure something out fast, all things considered.DebtSlaveNoMore wrote: ↑Wed Apr 23, 2025 2:29 pm, I still haven't figured out what I want to do in early retirement and fear that all the undirected free time would drive me nuts.
Re: DebtSlaveNoMore's Journal
Request full-time wfh. You certainly have extenuating circumstances even if it is not company-wide policy. It's possible an exception can be made. And if it isn't possible, you lose nothing.DebtSlaveNoMore wrote: ↑Wed Apr 23, 2025 2:29 pmAre there any other options that I didn't think of? Any advice and opinions would be appreciated.
Re: DebtSlaveNoMore's Journal
Reading your recent updates sent an absolute chill through me. I pray that your wife will get better soon. I don't have any useful advice, but sending you internet stranger best wishes.
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DebtSlaveNoMore
- Posts: 65
- Joined: Sat Feb 02, 2013 7:27 pm
Re: DebtSlaveNoMore's Journal
@suomalainen, thanks for your perspective. Yeah I'm really thinking about just taking a sabbatical year off.
@henry, thanks it's a WIP.
@ertyu, I did ask HR and they said it's possible to be able to WFH for 6 months if my exception gets approved.
@Egg, thanks for your kind words and well wishes.
General update on the situation:
In mid May, My wife was finally discharged from the Hospital Psych Ward with an anti-depressant and a mood stabilizer. She was then enrolled into an intensive Mental Health Day program almost immediately upon her discharge. As such, I've been driving her to this day program Monday to Friday for the last 3 weeks. My understanding is that she will get switched to a less intensive outpatient program after this week, this less intensive program will only be 3 days a week but would run for another 6 to 8 weeks. We still need to get her her right leg fitted for a prosthetic foot, the ETA on getting this foot is late July. I also need to modify both SUVs to install a left foot gas pedal so that DW will be able to drive again.
So far though, things are greatly improved from a month ago, my wife seems mentally very stable(though she seems to talk a bit slower now than before the incident) and the children are much happier to have their mom home. My son is no longer pacing in his room at bed time and my daughter is crying way less than before. I'm happier too, it's just a better world when the family is back together.
Finances and life stuff:
So in terms of finances, the streamlined household budget seems to be holding at around $4500 per month. It seems like a fairly lean amount of money, but over the course of the last 3 months, I feel like all of us have gotten used to this lifestyle. In fact, I'm starting to feel that even 4500/month is quite a lot of money and we likely might spend even less than that over the long term. I think an important factor to having a low cost but high quality standard of living is to own your own home and cars free and clear. Here is our current monthly budget:
Housing: (933)
Property Tax 810
Property Insurance 123
Healthcare: (900)
Medical Insurance Premium:400
Medical Costs: 500
Transportation: ( 498 )
Auto Depreciation: 200
Auto Insurance: 138
Auto Maintenance: 50
Fuel: 90
Toll: 20
Food: (500)
Groceries: 450
Dining: 50
Utilities: (395)
Electric 200
Water: 70
Internet: 65
Cell Phone: 60
Child Care: (230)
Childcare: 180
Lunch: 50
Household Spending: (1000)
Random stuff on amazon, gifts, streaming services, charity...etc can reduce to 0 if necessary.
Baseline Monthly Budget: $4456/month
Right now we still have ~60K in cash as an emergency fund. At such a low level of spending, we could live almost indefinitely (~10 years) on just this emergency fund, plus the income of our 2 rental properties (~2800/month), and the minimum 1099 dividend distributions of our post tax brokerage funds (~1300/month).
My FMLA leave ran out last week and I decided to extend it with a 3 month personal leave of absence. That buys us 3 more months for DW to get through her mental health program and get used to her prosthetic foot. It also buys me some more time to figure out what to do. In the back of my mind, I'm semi-hoping for my job to lay me off during this LOA. The severance package for people at my level in the organization is in excess of 150K and that would be a nice chunk of change to have. OTOH I find myself fantasizing(yes FANTASIZING) about going back to the corporate office as a tech executive in September. Yet still on another level I don't really want to do this corporate tech exec work at all, and so on my spare time I started a micro SAAS product. My hope is to monetize this SAAS product by September and get both another revenue stream and something to work on if I get laid off or decide not to go back.
@henry, thanks it's a WIP.
@ertyu, I did ask HR and they said it's possible to be able to WFH for 6 months if my exception gets approved.
@Egg, thanks for your kind words and well wishes.
General update on the situation:
In mid May, My wife was finally discharged from the Hospital Psych Ward with an anti-depressant and a mood stabilizer. She was then enrolled into an intensive Mental Health Day program almost immediately upon her discharge. As such, I've been driving her to this day program Monday to Friday for the last 3 weeks. My understanding is that she will get switched to a less intensive outpatient program after this week, this less intensive program will only be 3 days a week but would run for another 6 to 8 weeks. We still need to get her her right leg fitted for a prosthetic foot, the ETA on getting this foot is late July. I also need to modify both SUVs to install a left foot gas pedal so that DW will be able to drive again.
So far though, things are greatly improved from a month ago, my wife seems mentally very stable(though she seems to talk a bit slower now than before the incident) and the children are much happier to have their mom home. My son is no longer pacing in his room at bed time and my daughter is crying way less than before. I'm happier too, it's just a better world when the family is back together.
Finances and life stuff:
So in terms of finances, the streamlined household budget seems to be holding at around $4500 per month. It seems like a fairly lean amount of money, but over the course of the last 3 months, I feel like all of us have gotten used to this lifestyle. In fact, I'm starting to feel that even 4500/month is quite a lot of money and we likely might spend even less than that over the long term. I think an important factor to having a low cost but high quality standard of living is to own your own home and cars free and clear. Here is our current monthly budget:
Housing: (933)
Property Tax 810
Property Insurance 123
Healthcare: (900)
Medical Insurance Premium:400
Medical Costs: 500
Transportation: ( 498 )
Auto Depreciation: 200
Auto Insurance: 138
Auto Maintenance: 50
Fuel: 90
Toll: 20
Food: (500)
Groceries: 450
Dining: 50
Utilities: (395)
Electric 200
Water: 70
Internet: 65
Cell Phone: 60
Child Care: (230)
Childcare: 180
Lunch: 50
Household Spending: (1000)
Random stuff on amazon, gifts, streaming services, charity...etc can reduce to 0 if necessary.
Baseline Monthly Budget: $4456/month
Right now we still have ~60K in cash as an emergency fund. At such a low level of spending, we could live almost indefinitely (~10 years) on just this emergency fund, plus the income of our 2 rental properties (~2800/month), and the minimum 1099 dividend distributions of our post tax brokerage funds (~1300/month).
My FMLA leave ran out last week and I decided to extend it with a 3 month personal leave of absence. That buys us 3 more months for DW to get through her mental health program and get used to her prosthetic foot. It also buys me some more time to figure out what to do. In the back of my mind, I'm semi-hoping for my job to lay me off during this LOA. The severance package for people at my level in the organization is in excess of 150K and that would be a nice chunk of change to have. OTOH I find myself fantasizing(yes FANTASIZING) about going back to the corporate office as a tech executive in September. Yet still on another level I don't really want to do this corporate tech exec work at all, and so on my spare time I started a micro SAAS product. My hope is to monetize this SAAS product by September and get both another revenue stream and something to work on if I get laid off or decide not to go back.
Re: DebtSlaveNoMore's Journal
Glad to see you've found traction, and there's a path forward with your wife's health.
That's an impressive shift in household spending. Your family's grocery budget now matches my personal grocery budget.
That's an impressive shift in household spending. Your family's grocery budget now matches my personal grocery budget.