We started the travel ball probably later than others - but I LOVE it and live for it.

Our son did it for 2 years (6-7or so years ago).

Our daughter picked up with a team half a year, but went the full year last year (14u). We are now in 16u. I wouldn't trade it for anything but it is easier now just traveling with 1 and not a younger kid in tow like with my son.

Yes it is costly. But it's what she loves and I do too. I'll be really sad when it ends.

If you can afford it and it's your passion, sure. There's nothing wrong with it. Granted, as a child, I wouldn't trade my summers of being relatively free for select travel leagues. I'd also say it's far better than the kids that just sit inside all day on TV or video games. But that isn't what we did. That's just me personally. Most kids don't know what they would be missing, one way or the other, and are both more than fulfilling ways to spend a childhood. One just happens to be about 10% of the cost .

That said, many cannot afford it, but do it anyways. They either feel like they have no choice or feel like they'd be a bad parent for not. I'm just citing someone in my family as one of those, where they absolutely cannot afford it, but feel obligated to keep their child in it anyways. I sure hope it leads to a scholarship for her. Maybe it will pay off long term, but so far, it's been a drag on them. They do enjoy it, though. I will give them that.

My 13 year old plays volleyball for her junior high. Every one of those girls are part of a select league. I think it's insane to pay that kind of money for a 13 year old to play sports. She made A team even though she hadn't played Select. Part of me just snickered.

Mind you, I don't begrudge anyone how they spend their money. People would probably look at my gun collection and say that I'm insane.

Lots of time, money & heartbreak spent on select sports. Good times too though I'm sure. Glad my kids stayed out of it for other activities.

Ultimately my kids & future grandkids (hopefully) will play a large part of my retirement plans. I want to be close to them so they'll know me & vice versa. I want to have the impact on my Grandkids than my Grandfather had on me. Tell them about the good 'ol days of the Gen X Latchkey kid roaming the earth without a cell phone, GPS map, internet, etc. It will be akin to the Generational difference of my Grandfather growing up on a farm during the depression with no A/C, no TV, etc.

I'm looking to retire in about 9 years at 60. Downsize the house, move somewhere in the country. Travel a couple of times per year, volunteer, get more involved with the Association of Former Students, Church, etc.
Maybe learn to play guitar finally and weld. Basically give back, keep learning & stay healthy.

Apache said:

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Quote:

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think once the daycare bills get in the rearview mirror that will help. That is a significant chunk of money that can be switched over to savings/trips.


Except
When they get older they get into expensive activities

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Car insurance.
Braces

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You guys are generous! These are the only two I pay for.

jja79 said:

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I'm 67 with a 21 year old. It is crazy but I wouldn't trade it.

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Ha, I'm 59 with an 11 year old! (Completely on purpose), right here with ya! So glad he's around, lots of fun and a great kid. Doing the Pop Warner thing all over again! (older son just graduated college)

Only time it's sort of a drag is if my wife and I want to do a vacation, maybe in the Fall or Spring, to go low-season. He's got school. . When he gets to High School then maybe we can work that out. But a minor inconvenience in the big picture.

Mine wasn't on purpose but it's great. Older brother is 41 and this weekend they're playing a golf tournament together. Enjoy!!!

Aust Ag said:

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jja79 said:

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I'm 67 with a 21 year old. It is crazy but I wouldn't trade it.

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Ha, I'm 59 with an 11 year old! (Completely on purpose), right here with ya! So glad he's around, lots of fun and a great kid. Doing the Pop Warner thing all over again! (older son just graduated college)

Only time it's sort of a drag is if my wife and I want to do a more "adult" vacation, maybe in the Fall or Spring. He's got school anyway . When he gets to High School then maybe we can work that out. But a minor inconvenience in the big picture.

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I have a good Aggie friend whose DAUGHTER is 2 weeks younger than my GRANDSON. I keep telling him that I can't wait for my grandson to start dating his daughter. He doesn't like that at all.

He should though. My grandson is a really nice kid. Much better than I was.

It was only last week when I learned that FIRE is an actual movement, with conferences, oversharing, etc. I thought it was just something that people did on their own because they wanted to be responsible. I heard a story on NPR about some guy who retired at 25, has bought 2 lambos, and has spent the last 10 years playing pickleball. You be the judge...

Anyway, the extreme amounts of saving (some people hit 70%) would have never flown in my family. First, having 6 kids means that even though YOU may choose extreme frugality, God may not have blessed you to impose that on everyone around you. Not every decision in life is an economic one; or, I should say, not every decision should be made for the most favorable economic outcomes. God places people in our lives to bring balance and difficulty, because even though we may be well-meaning, sometimes our self-benefitting decisions are actually merely selfish and self-destructive. Second, it just seems like such a spiritually lost mentality to pick a career with the goal of getting out as soon as possible. We Americans are so horribly conflicted - we embrace the idol of misery in the hope that it will relinquish the idol of comfort. We tell ourselves it makes sense because we know that everything in life worth having comes with a cost. But we forget that those things should cause us to grow as people, not shrink.

Truer words never spoken

FIRE has been an organized movement for years now

ChoppinDs40 said:

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I write this as I lay in my hotel bed, traveling for work, with what feels like strep throat. Fun trip with fantastic sleep the last couple of nights.

Maybe a bit off topic but reading this thread and everyone's stories resonates with me quite a bit. For those that are "retired now and loving it" to "I'm still grinding and I don't really know why?" And the "im aggressively saving but not sure what the future really holds".

Myself, a newly minted 37, wife 35, 2 kids under 5.

Life has a weird way of molding your fears, desires, goals, dreams and what you want to leave as your legacy. Often times those can directly conflict one another and prioritization of each changes like the color of leaves in the many seasons of life.

I was raised in a lower to middle class family in a small farming community. The word retirement wasn't really in anyone's vocabulary - not uncommon for families that rely on agriculture for survival. The only people I've seen make it to "retirement" are my father (who still works part time because he could never truly be retired) and now uncle. Another uncle is close but has to find a way to offload his chicken farming operation. These are individuals in their late 60s and 70s.

I have many hobbies and interest, none of which I can dedicate enough time to due to current stage in life - corporate grind and 2 small kids. I want to aggressively move to "retire early" - say 55.

My wife and I have both have moderately successful careers that have taken significant time, investment, and sacrifice to reach this point.

As the kids grow (one is an infant), I feel the struggle and pull of those priority items above more than ever.

Fortunately, our careers give us the financial means to have this conflict but it is somewhat a… burden? In making the right decision.

If you got this far, you're probably asking "what the hell is this guy talking about?".

Real life financial questions, planning, and goals we battle with often consume me.

Before kids, we traveled. Not YOLO travel but got to enjoy and see many parts of the world. I didn't get on a plane for the first time until I was 14.

Now, with kids, travel is harder than ever and often times less enjoyable or impactful due to their age (and my god the cost of doing anything these days besides a "cheap trip to the beach"). But, I got my 4 year old up and skiing this spring by herself and it was one of the most proud moments I've felt in my entire life.

Now the conflict… dedicate the time, money, effort, etc to skiing as much as we can to enjoy this time now? Or continue the grind and say "when they're older". Skiing isn't a frugal man's game, especially for a Texan.

Spend money on those memories now? Or make damn well sure their college is fully funded.

Buy that piece of property in Colorado now? Or "sock that away and get to the goal of 55 quicker".

I love to golf and we have a golf club membership. I can in no way justify the cost anymore, today, given how much I play but the moment little man wants to swing a club, I'll be itching to get him out there as much as possible.

Put in a pool so the kids want to be at "your house" or save the $150k (Gdamn the price of pools since Covid feels like a racket)?

We're by no means misers but still feel like we're lacking in both departments - retire early and make awesome memories in our kids younger lives - which fuels our drive to make more money to bridge the gap.

We want to be able to do both (who doesn't?) but unfortunately our careers suck up much of our time and, in the same vein, are the only means (at least it feels) to be able to do both.

I guess what I'm trying to say is… time is the enemy. You need time to make those memories but also have to dedicate time to earn the ability to make the memories you want. I want to provide all those things for them but it comes at a cost. Couple that with family health history and it's not unrealistic for me (or really anyone) to drop dead at 60.

It feels like something will have to give - that decision and its consequences are what keep me up at night the most.

We'll continue to enjoy the ride and make it work but man is it hard to be talking about buying a vacation property in one sentence, retiring early in another, 529ing two colleges, ski trips with the family all whilst scouring the weekly grocery ads to see when strawberries go on sale.

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Ski thread gang unite.

Where are you on the path to Financial Independence? At some point the lever tips from what you put in vs. market returns.

We hit that point last year and have re-oriented our life to prioritize time and attention on our daughter. "Coast FIRE" is the trendy term, for us it just means we've down-scoped savings to only my 401(k), my wife is now part-time (effective this week) and we increased investment in time/memories (via a campervan). I'm fully remote in PST and work EST hours. I'm done at 2P everyday and have no desire to move up or play the corporate game. Work is a means to an end and I'm on the bike / skiing a few afternoons a week or grabbing my daughter from school to go do something. Pre-downshift modeling (we use https://projectionlab.com/), had is FI around 42-43. With downshift it's now 45-46. No regrets stopping the stockpiling to realize time gains today for a delay of FI by a few years. We drilled it (high rate of savings + chased comp/degrees) in our 20s and early 30s to get here and we delayed having kids until 32. We lived in Houston until 33 (37 now) which which was critical to our position today (bought a home in '12, good comp, and low expenses). We wanted the life we have now and made the change to OR.

We contemplated a ski house in Bend or Hood River. But the van made more sense to us. Our weekend warrior ski regime used to be wake up Saturday at 5:30A to fight traffic for the 5 year old's ski school/team drop off at 8A and fight traffic back home. Now we drive up Friday night, ski a little, then sleep in the lot/sno-park, ski, apres in van after, sleep and do it again Sunday. So time efficiency was the main play.

But beyond that, this summer in the van we've been to Yosemite, Glacier, Bend (x4), Tahoe, Redwoods, Crater (x 2). We're somewhere in it almost every weekend (this weekend was Hood River / Hood for MTB). We're back in Bend to ride the aspens in two weeks. North Cascade Nat late October hunting the larch color change. Meeting the TX fam in Park City for Christmas. Wife wants to go back to Tahoe and ski sometime this winter. Spring break we're skiing Crystal > Baker > Whistler. Our memories with her are outside and all over and I'm here for it.

I really like spending time with my wife and daughter. I also really like riding my bikes and skiing. I'll do anything to maximize time for those items now while I'm healthy. There's also this feedback loop of grateful / fulfilled / healthy that fills our cup as parents. I don't really know what I'm trying to say, but my wife is a better mom when she has a few hours in her garden or goes for a hike; I'm a better dad when I have a few hours to ride by bike around the mountain. Every minute is an investment somewhere and an opportunity cost somewhere else. So when it's daughter time I feel fully equipped to commit in the moment. I'm not ruminating work, thinking about XYZ thing I want to do, etc. etc.

I also hope that all those hours on the bike will buy me a few years down the road on life span. At least that's what I tell my wife.

Final on a unrelated note, don't prioritize taxable over tax-advantage to fund an early retirement. We've covered this so many times on this board. Roth Ladder or SEPPs provide you early access to 401(k) or IRAs. They are extremely flexible: Ladders you just need to consider tax brackets; SEPPs you can open an IRA and transfer the amount you need to fund the periodic payments - you can create endless IRAs to structure the right cash flow. For insurance, Obamacare, subsidies and tax cliffs. Do your research and structure your income stream accordingly. As always, it's a game of what amount of income and manipulating your tax bracket.

Great input and perspective. One kid certainly helps! We'd be in a much different position if we said "nope, this is it and the only one we need to focus on". The 2nd one changed the game.

Unfortunately, we don't have the career flexibility you two do. Healthcare focused people can change locations pretty easily (relatively). Sounds like you've also got a very niche carve-out in your Big4 consulting gig which funds the ability to do these things.

Huge kudos for y'all to flip the script on corporate grind to camper van transients (kidding ). Most people who end up in the corporate positions you're in are there for a reason (personality-wise) that isn't conducive to the vanlife people. I admired and somewhat despised the team I used to work with in our Denver office. They worked 75% of the time, did 65% of the productivity but got 90% of the credit as regulars in the grind. Doesn't sound like such a bad trade off (for your comparison, this was also a larger public accounting firm consulting department).

I got extremely bored in my large firm consulting gig even though I could work from home most days and could skate by relatively unscathed. Instead, as the masochist that I am, I willingly chose to jump back into a more demanding role in private equity for an opportunity to hitch my horse to my own wagon (somewhat) and challenge myself. While I've become way more fulfilled in my day to day grind, at home life has changed.

I was somewhat in your position with consulting. Director/MD level but I had chosen to go after partnership and was in the process when I decided to bounce. The thought of grinding it out as a consulting firm partner until 55+ absolutely terrified me. Sure - 2 vacation homes and money coming out my ears would've been nice but man I'd hate my life every day after about 3-4 years of that.

Hah, we're a failed YouTube channel away from true van people. But we've got a normal house in the normal burbs M-F. But weekends are full gazz down by the river in the van. And we're one kido for now; trying for the second. We'll see - we're geriatric now! Ultimately it's not the count (to an extent), it's the timing, imo. Wife downshifting now vs. at 25 is an entirely different trajectory.

Good luck in PE - phew. I hope it pays off for you and your family! Your Denver colleagues have it right. The game of consulting is optics and impression, not actual work. What made me good at my job also makes me good at coasting in my job? If that makes sense. I sell myself up (internally), I sell myself to clients and I enable my team to deliver. Who cares about my effort - it gets done and I have a good team that sticks around me (and they're all EST, so yeah, I'm out early). No appetite to bite off more or play the game any longer.

I firmly believe I could make partnership if I wanted. And my cohort is starting to trickle into the rank. It's not for me or my family.

I say you go back to boring consulting, go remote, move to UT/CO/PNW and unbore yourself with more skiing.

Family is all in Texas otherwise we'd had made the move already.

Unfortunately, I'm too competitive and unruly to malaise around making other morons rich in the consulting world. Instead, I pushed myself to partnership and, after getting to the "you're in, just kiss babies and sign your life away" part, I pulled the ripcord. Empty suits most of them that are just pimps to people's time.

I'd rather actually build something, mold an organization, and, hopefully, get a nice payday at the end of the leveraged buyout gold bricked road. It's risky and more work but I can't turn it off until I can actually turn it off.

Unfortunately, I've worked in and around PE most of my career and seen far too many people get moderately rich that were simply in the right place right time. Smart ones got really stinking rich. I'd be fine with the former.

Get it, my man.

My fam is all in TX as well. Two time zones still isn't far enough sometimes.

hedge said:

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I get what you're saying but if everybody chose a job that was for spiritual purpose we wouldn't be the society we are today.

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No, we wouldn't, would we.

I have never been able to qualify for a Roth position due to the upper limits but figured out how to finally create a "back door" Roth account last december

I believe the maximum contribution is $7400 per year

so do I need to wait until at least December to make another $7400 contribution?

does it go by a calendar year from your last invested maximum?

Its Texas Aggies, dammit said:

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water turkey said:

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What do you guys that retired at 55, or earlier, do for health insurance? That to me seems to be the biggest issue to retiring early, unless you have a bunch of money in your retirement.

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A partial solution I am looking at is getting residency in Guatemala. You can do that pretty easily and maintain it by being in country at least one day per year. Flights are cheap out of Houston and less than three hours in duration. Antigua is a beautiful colonial town I enjoy.

Anyway, the way it works is that you can get an account at one of the big banks if you are a resident. The big banks all offer inexpensive high-quality health insurance for very little compared to US plans and the plans have ridiculously low deductibles. The private hospitals are top notch with US trained doctors who wanted to come back home to practice.

I know a guy who makes a couple of trips down there per year to get a physical and such and has also had a knee and hernia surgery done in GT. He is thrilled.

The Ex Pat files podcast has info on this if you are interested.

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for basic annual checkups/physical is it really that expensive?

I can understand if you need surgery to get foreign country insurance- but just checkups seem to be under $2000

and I used to have health care insurance in Israel through Maccabi Plan but not sure if it is still active. dealing with that bureaucracy is a major PIA

LMCane said:

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Its Texas Aggies, dammit said:

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water turkey said:

---

What do you guys that retired at 55, or earlier, do for health insurance? That to me seems to be the biggest issue to retiring early, unless you have a bunch of money in your retirement.

---

A partial solution I am looking at is getting residency in Guatemala. You can do that pretty easily and maintain it by being in country at least one day per year. Flights are cheap out of Houston and less than three hours in duration. Antigua is a beautiful colonial town I enjoy.

Anyway, the way it works is that you can get an account at one of the big banks if you are a resident. The big banks all offer inexpensive high-quality health insurance for very little compared to US plans and the plans have ridiculously low deductibles. The private hospitals are top notch with US trained doctors who wanted to come back home to practice.

I know a guy who makes a couple of trips down there per year to get a physical and such and has also had a knee and hernia surgery done in GT. He is thrilled.

The Ex Pat files podcast has info on this if you are interested.

---

for basic annual checkups/physical is it really that expensive?

I can understand if you need surgery to get foreign country insurance- but just checkups seem to be under $2000

and I used to have health care insurance in Israel through Maccabi Plan but not sure if it is still active. dealing with that bureaucracy is a major PIA

---

I'm self employed, so my current health insurance sucks for what I pay. Plus I plan to be down there part of the year. It makes sense for me.

Its Texas Aggies, dammit said:

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water turkey said:

---

What do you guys that retired at 55, or earlier, do for health insurance? That to me seems to be the biggest issue to retiring early, unless you have a bunch of money in your retirement.

---

A partial solution I am looking at is getting residency in Guatemala. You can do that pretty easily and maintain it by being in country at least one day per year. Flights are cheap out of Houston and less than three hours in duration. Antigua is a beautiful colonial town I enjoy.

Anyway, the way it works is that you can get an account at one of the big banks if you are a resident. The big banks all offer inexpensive high-quality health insurance for very little compared to US plans and the plans have ridiculously low deductibles. The private hospitals are top notch with US trained doctors who wanted to come back home to practice.

I know a guy who makes a couple of trips down there per year to get a physical and such and has also had a knee and hernia surgery done in GT. He is thrilled.

The Ex Pat files podcast has info on this if you are interested.

---

I love this idea.

Yeah it makes no sense at all for standard physicals, checkups, etc.

I bleed maroon said:

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Ghost of Bisbee said:

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Its Texas Aggies, dammit said:

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water turkey said:

---

What do you guys that retired at 55, or earlier, do for health insurance? That to me seems to be the biggest issue to retiring early, unless you have a bunch of money in your retirement.

---

A partial solution I am looking at is getting residency in Guatemala. You can do that pretty easily and maintain it by being in country at least one day per year. Flights are cheap out of Houston and less than three hours in duration. Antigua is a beautiful colonial town I enjoy.

Anyway, the way it works is that you can get an account at one of the big banks if you are a resident. The big banks all offer inexpensive high-quality health insurance for very little compared to US plans and the plans have ridiculously low deductibles. The private hospitals are top notch with US trained doctors who wanted to come back home to practice.

I know a guy who makes a couple of trips down there per year to get a physical and such and has also had a knee and hernia surgery done in GT. He is thrilled.

The Ex Pat files podcast has info on this if you are interested.

---

I love this idea.

---

I am quite skeptical of this idea. Even if you assume the quality of medical care is equivalent (perhaps a leap of faith?), what do you do about these issues:

• "Cheap" flights are likely still $500-1000 round-trip. Hotels and transportation on top of this. If you have a travel companion, that gets expensive pretty quickly compared to the price of domestic medical procedures, and it's made worse by...
• Most procedures have follow-up appointments to monitor healing and progress. Are these going to be additional periodic round trips? I doubt US providers are going to be too excited about efficiently evaluating the work of an out-of-country medical provider. Getting costlier...
• Language barriers? Different care standards? Less access to second opinions? Pretty likely...
• Potential for "Closing the Loophole". What happens when the host country, banks, and insurance companies figure out Americans are increasingly freeloading on their services. If your whole retirement medical plan is predicated on this situation continuing, you could be SOL.

The main people I've personally seen who benefit from this approach are US immigrants who return to their former home country for certain procedures. For non-natives, I remain doubtful that this is a strong retirement healthcare plan. Tell me what I've missed...

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For surgeries it can make a lot of sense.

but can't you just pay out of pocket for those and likely come out ahead?

not advocating for either but trying to think of bucketing what level of care you want in each silo

ChoppinDs40 said:

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but can't you just pay out of pocket for those and likely come out ahead?

not advocating for either but trying to think of bucketing what level of care you want in each silo

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At the risk of sidelining this very good thread, I'll give one more comment on this sub-topic.

I guess I don't understand the problem that's solved by this approach. If you self-insure the small stuff, and go out of country for the surgeries, what about all the other stuff?

I pay for medical insurance not for either of these, really, but for catastrophic events. I'm talking cancers, parkinson's, car accident reconstruction, other trauma, etc. In the above scenario where you're uninsured, do you either just go ahead and die, or live with these conditions until medicare kicks in? I don't see it as practical at all, even though I philosophically like the idea of going down to San Miguel de Allende for a "medical vacation".

That's my point - cash prices for most simple stuff is very affordable. Even a lot of non-elective surgeries can be surprisngly/relatively affordable - but certainly not all. It's the catastrophic stuff,cancer and terminal diseases that is totally unaffordable/bank breaking. But I'm not flying to Mexico if I get in a really bad wreck...or for cancer treatment..

I bleed maroon said:

---

Ghost of Bisbee said:

---

Its Texas Aggies, dammit said:

---

water turkey said:

---

What do you guys that retired at 55, or earlier, do for health insurance? That to me seems to be the biggest issue to retiring early, unless you have a bunch of money in your retirement.

---

A partial solution I am looking at is getting residency in Guatemala. You can do that pretty easily and maintain it by being in country at least one day per year. Flights are cheap out of Houston and less than three hours in duration. Antigua is a beautiful colonial town I enjoy.

Anyway, the way it works is that you can get an account at one of the big banks if you are a resident. The big banks all offer inexpensive high-quality health insurance for very little compared to US plans and the plans have ridiculously low deductibles. The private hospitals are top notch with US trained doctors who wanted to come back home to practice.

I know a guy who makes a couple of trips down there per year to get a physical and such and has also had a knee and hernia surgery done in GT. He is thrilled.

The Ex Pat files podcast has info on this if you are interested.

---

I love this idea.

---

I am quite skeptical of this idea. Even if you assume the quality of medical care is equivalent (perhaps a leap of faith?), what do you do about these issues:

• "Cheap" flights are likely still $500-1000 round-trip. Hotels and transportation on top of this. If you have a travel companion, that gets expensive pretty quickly compared to the price of domestic medical procedures, and it's made worse by...
• Most procedures have follow-up appointments to monitor healing and progress. Are these going to be additional periodic round trips? I doubt US providers are going to be too excited about efficiently evaluating the work of an out-of-country medical provider. Getting costlier...
• Language barriers? Different care standards? Less access to second opinions? Pretty likely...
• Potential for "Closing the Loophole". What happens when the host country, banks, and insurance companies figure out Americans are increasingly freeloading on their services. If your whole retirement medical plan is predicated on this situation continuing, you could be SOL.

The main people I've personally seen who benefit from this approach are US immigrants who return to their former home country for certain procedures. For non-natives, I remain doubtful that this is a strong retirement healthcare plan. Tell me what I've missed...

---

There are a lot of options, including worldwide coverage options and various levels of coverage. Beyond that, if you find it to be an interesting idea worth investigating, do your own research. I don't have time to try to give you a primer. Sorry.

MAS444 said:

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That's my point - cash prices for most simple stuff is very affordable. Even a lot of non-elective surgeries can be surprisngly/relatively affordable - but certainly not all. It's the catastrophic stuff,cancer and terminal diseases that is totally unaffordable/bank breaking. But I'm not flying to Mexico if I get in a really bad wreck...or for cancer treatment..

---

My spouse recently had elective surgery to fix a hole in her ear drum. $16.5K was billed to insurance. Had we gone the cash route, with this provider we'd expect to pay 80% of that.

Guarantee the medical tourism route likely would have saved us $. Especially if we hadn't already hit our deductible.

anyone on here "snowbirds" where they spend most of the year in the south and then the summers in the North?

how do you set that up?

It's a conundrum because financially it's better to buy a cute home near Gettysburg and be there during summers- but then who in the heck would want to airbnb it during the winters?

vice versa, to buy a home in Florida along the coast would be great to Airbnb..

but the cost of insurance from hurricanes, HOA fees, and maintenance and just the price of homes in florida is so much more expensive than in the north.

The snowbirds I'm familiar with move to Mission/McAllen, Texas although that's not my cup of tea anymore.