Hey ERE forum, been a while since I've visited the site but I've been thinking of you all. So much has happened its worth an update, apologies this is more of a brain dump rather than a well thought-out post.
Getting right to the heart of the financials, since this is the ERE forum, our net worth is ~$800K with ~$400K in investible assets. Our townhome is paid off and no debt. We added a new member to our family and we are going to cap it at 4 (two children). The next milestone is $1M in investible assets I think we'll get there before 5 years baring some unforeseen event. At that point I would say we are FI lite, I'll probably work another 5 years or so from there to have more of a safety net for my family.
Right now our family is spending an incredible amount of money, more than we've ever had. Lifestyle inflation definitely happened to us, I think something clicked with me once the house was paid off and my wife got a good job. We bought a new truck and are investing in next level outdoor adventure gear including tent camping, kayaking, skiing, backpacking, etc. things that were on my wish list for years I have already pulled the trigger to get or will here soon (binoculars, new hiking backpack, new tent, sleeping bag, angle grinder, miter saw, skiis, poles, etc). I get a lot from REI garage sale but I also don't get a lot there. We try to buy quality products with the intention of keeping them a long time by repairing, etc, or resell if upgrading.
We traveled around Oregon the past month or so while my wife and I were on new baby leave. Gas prices were so high (almost $6 / gallon) that many people were staying home resulting in attractions big and small with much fewer people. Some first come first serve campgrounds were completely empty with many beautiful sites to choose from. No running water at campsites also tends to frighten off most folks. If higher gas prices means less people in the national forests and parks then I will gladly pay the premium
To me this is a great use of extra savings.
We still do AirBnB type traveling but only when friends and family visit, so maybe 7 nights a year we are at an AirBnB. We've come to the conclusion AirBnB and similar sites are way too expensive though its much better to camp instead just need to be alright getting dirty. We just purchased a 4 season tent and soon a wood stove to go inside, basically a small relatively portable cabin haha. it should last 15 years if taken care of. I have dreams of snow camping ski adventures with friends and family.
Childcare services for our family here soon will be about $3K / month. This will taper down to $2K / month in a couple years, then maybe $1K/ month in 5 years until the kids are out of the house in 20 years (kids will always cost money and make it very difficult to lean FIRE). Overall I think its good the kids go to daycare they are learning from other adults and kids, socializing, learning manners, learning abc's, ...its great. After mulling it over for some time I think its worth the money. We intend to enroll our kids in USA public school but we'll see what happens.
We hired a financial advisor who also happens to be a good friend of mine and outdoor buddy. Its been nice having a trusted third party look thoroughly at our financial situation, work with our goals, and keep us up to date on optimizations (think taxes). My wife is also more involved in the family and her personal financials and my friend has spent reasonable time educating her. After an upfront fee we pay $200/month flat rate to retain his services; I told him we would probably stick with it for a year or two but we'll see if our assets grow it could be a good deal to keep it going.
Its interesting, our FA also kind of coaches my wife with her job / career in such a way so that she sticks with the early FI plan. I can and do talk to her about these strategies but for some reason it helps her to get a presumably un-biased third party opinion. My wife sometimes gets disillusioned with her job and at least for the moment this somehow helps to keep her going.
We fired the cleaning ladies after trying two services. It was fun for a while but in the end they weren't cleaning enough for the money we were paying them. I've taken on a new attitude to cleaning and organizing and its really something I'm putting time into now. The house is cleaner, more organized, and when you don't lose your stuff and instead take care of them you can acquire nice tools for increased learning, proficiency, and experience. I'm not super crazy about being organized just trying to put some effort into keeping up with organization. I have no other choice living in an 1170 sq ft single car garage home with a family of 4, things can quickly get out of control!
We're eating out much less these days. We still do Chipotle and other similar fast food places maybe twice a month. We're tired of paying a lot of money for mediocre food at many sit down places, or the good places have priced us out ($17 for a cheesburger??). We'll still go out to eat a few times a year with friends and family and pay the bill but other than that we won't be going out. We're trying to be more efficient in the kitchen whether at home, at airbnb, or camping: cook better meals, in shorter time, with fewer tools, with less clean up.
ok I think that is a reasonable update, going to spend some time now looking through the forums. Its nice to take a long break there will be a lot of new material
