We entered this journey already on it.
With the arrival of our first son, I left the work force. We planned for it only in that we decided it would be great for a parent to stay home, but we did not prepare financially. One salary in Seattle and another kid later, I re-entered the workforce with $20k in debt. That meant we lived beyond our means by $5k/year for four years. Which – probably a shocking thing for the FI community to hear – isn’t bad considering where we were living and not being of the FI-mindset. And we were not depriving ourselves. But we also lived in a very walkable neighborhood – it wasn’t unusual to not use the car all week – and didn’t pay for daily childcare.
We knew exactly what we were doing and we took (baby) steps to minimize that:
- Cut cable
Whistler, BC - Cut magazine subscriptions
- Reduced cell phone and internet bills
- Stopped dry cleaning
- Ate out less
But we also did a lot of things on the opposite end of that spectrum:
- We vacationed. A lot. Mostly weekend warrior trips around the PacNW, but also CA, Whistler, HI and East Coast trips. Miles/points paid for some at first, but certainly not all.
- We went out. A lot. We lived in an incredible neighborhood with great restaurants, breweries, bars and live music. We couldn’t resist.
- We paid a monthly fee for a babysitting service. Then paid them by the hour when we used them!
I could go on with both fronts. This was pre-FI and I don’t regret it, but it’s funny to look back and try to see the logic in these decisions.
So when I say we were already on the journey, we had already trimmed a lot of the unnecessary monthly bills about 10 years ago. It was the FI community that gave us the nudge to take savings a lot more seriously and be a lot more budget-minded. We’re almost 10 months in and we’ve taken the basic steps:
- tracked our spending to shave off more unnecessary spending
- maxed 401k, increasing 529 and increasing Roth IRA
- already paid off one credit card and have a plan to pay off all debt
I thought a W4 adjustment would be a logical optimization because we had a large tax return and it would be great to have a bigger paycheck instead. But I can’t figure out what our ideal withholdings should be on our W4. Files jointly with two kids … he claims 1, I claim 2. I see conflicting information on the internet and I’m confused. At the same time, the IRS calculator is not available while they’re updating it for 2018 tax law changes.
Maybe understanding this will hit me on the head or maybe it’s no big deal. A large tax return isn’t the worst thing in the world. But until then, I’m just keeping on the road of spending less, saving more, and reducing debt.