Welcome to this thread! You'll "see" a lot of the same faces from your spending thread. We try to be judgement-free (all of us have made mistakes along the way), and will talk to anyone, anywhere on their FIRE journey.
I'm going to discuss travel generally, and my apologies if these are things that I've mentioned earlier in this very long thread. My MIL had a butt-load of money, and when my kids were younger, she would frequently treat us to Disney vacations. When she went, we were all on the Premium plan--it included park hoppers, all meals (incl. tax, tip, apps, specialty drinks, etc.), water parks, mini-golf, you name it. Everything but alcohol. MIL was a world traveler--she took our nieces to Alaska, paid for my oldest to go to Spain and Peru, and travelled all over the world herself.
MIL died in 2017. DH inherited half of her estate, including 7(I think) IRAs that required yearly RMDs. His withdrawal amount is based on the balance and his life expectancy. We have agreed that, to honor his mother, we use this money for family travel. Typically, this means a week at a ranch each summer, then a big blowout trip every other year. The ranch is non-negotiable--MIL used to pay for the entire family to go each year, and my kids wouldn't ever consider skipping it. For the blowout trips: in 2018, we did a luxury tour of Europe (London, Paris, Rome). In 2020, we were supposed to do a Baltic cruise, but instead we did...nothing. Because, pandemic. But, that leaves us plenty of pent-up demand (and money) for 2022's luxury trip to Hawaii (13 days, 4 islands). Hawaii is important to us because DH's father died there in 1990. I promised him, way back then, that one day, we'd bring our kids to see the paradise that his parents loved so much. Well, next year is the year.
So, that's our travel strategy. While saving is important, enjoying yourself along the way is also important. I think you could fit Disney into a FIRE plan, just like you could fit in an expensive hobby or a second home or whatever is important to you--you just have to budget for it, and recognize that there are trade-offs. Are you willing to give up, say, a newer car or restaurant meals in order to budget for Disney? Or swap several smaller trips for one big "wowza!" trip? Totally your choice--do what works for you.
I love this post and I am sure your MIL would be thrilled to know that you are honoring her legacy with wonderful experiences through travel.
This is a very interesting thread. I follow some of the influencers in the FIRE movement...listen to the ChooseFI podcast, and they have had all of the big hitters in that world on there at one time or another. I don't remember when the term FIRE became a thing, but it really seemed to become a *Thing* about 4-5 years ago it seems. My husband and I were just shooting for financial independence initially. In our 30s, we were hell bent on retiring at 40. At the time I was still working as a registered nurse (in critical care), and my husband was climbing the ladder with a very large software company working an insane amount of hours per week. At that time of our lives, we were enjoying life, but also living quite frugally and were saving 60% of our net income. We usually took a two week vacation to Europe and even on our vacations really pushed to see as much as we could. We almost always stayed in 3 star hotels...I was a big Rick Steves fan, and found some gems along the way, others...not as great. I cherish those memories, but even on our vacations, it felt like we were going a million miles an hour.
By the time we were in our late 30s, I had switched careers entirely, left nursing and started a small business in the service sector. My husband left his software job and we moved to Orlando where he and two others were launching a start-up. The other two partners lived in Florida....one on the east coast, and one on the west coast....so we chose the middle and became the meeting place for the three of them. We were pretty big Disney fans at that time and thought it would be fun to live near the parks. We enjoyed our time in Florida for the most part, but for us (and I know this isn't the case for everyone)....living near Disney spoiled the "magic' for us. But...that's ok, because the start-up was a big success and was quickly purchased by a larger company, and because my husband was the technical brains behind the start-up, they offered him a position. He negotiated so that he could work from home, and we moved back to NJ. That was in 2007....and we've been here ever since. I started the same type of business here and it's also been successful.
So, while we really thought we wanted to retire, what we realized was that we weren't ready.....we just hated our jobs. We hit our FI number in our early 40s, which was the original plan, but we were enjoying what we were doing. By our mid-40s, after some consultation with a friend who is a fee-only CFP, we began to let our foot off the gas a bit with respect to how much we were saving/investing. We knew we'd likely work into our 50s because our parents were getting older and we felt like we'd need to hang around until at least then if they needed assistance from us. However, we did back off how much we were saving in order to increase lifestyle a bit. We still save 35% of gross which is 45% of net, but backing off has allowed us to take nicer vacations, which we both really, really enjoy. I'll still look for deals, but we will definitely splurge here and there. Like most people, we didn't travel during the pandemic. We had a really nice two week trip to South Africa planned for May of 2020...and it's only just recently that I got most of the land portion of that trip back. Thankfully we got the airfare by disputing the charges on our AMEX card. I just booked an 8 night stay in Puerto Rico at a 5 star and got a nice deal on the hotel, and a nice fare on business class as well.
Now I am 53 and my husband is 52 and while we hit FI in our early 40s, our FI number changed a bit because we started to enjoy splurging a bit on travel. Now, at our ages...we could retire now, but....my Father is quite ill with end-stage COPD. I have another sister here in NJ and another in NC, and I won't leave her with the responsibility of dealing with my parents and the extra help they need. My husband's parents are older...at 87 and 89. My MIL has had two small strokes and is slowing down, but my FIL is an *amazing* 89...and I think he could easily live into his 100s. He takes vitamins....and that's it. He's not on any medication at all. So, we're kind of watching to see how things will go there.
I will say that the pandemic has changed us both for sure. My business was hit very hard (service business), but is recovering now, still not where it was, but has the promise to do so by the end of this year. I still work in the day to day operations but I'd like to build it and eventually bring in a manager to essentially take over my role. It provides a lot of passive income and we can manage that far into retirement. My husband has never voiced an actual desire to completely stop working...until this pandemic. As a remote employee for a Fortune 100 company (he left the job that resulted from his start-up a few years back).....he had an intense work year with the pandemic. Just a lot more work and more hectic deadlines (more than usual anyway). He was compensated well for this last year (big bonus), but for the first time in his working life, he has said he thinks he's close to ready to punch out. Then, that morphed into...well, I'm ready to at least be a "digital nomad". And that morphed into....well, maybe we could just move somewhere, rent there and rent out our house there. We both like that idea. But we have two older dogs with many health issues, and one young one. So for now, we'll continue as we are....but we have both acknowledged that we're ready for a new adventure. And that's exciting
. My husband is also about 3/4 of the way through the process to establish dual citizenship in Italy. And so long-term travel in Europe is also a part of our FIRE plan for sure.
I just scrolled the last few pages of this thread, and enjoyed seeing what all of you are up to....and impressed with the level of knowledge you all have. Seems like we follow a lot of same people and read the same forums...like the bogleheads...etc. It's always refreshing to me to read about the financial lives of others. I don't think we talk about it enough in our society/culture for the most part. No matter where we were on the FI spectrum, I loved reading about people who were just beginning, and those who were far ahead of me and in the place I hoped to be one day. I hope to pick up some good tips over here
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graduates HS, give or take a few months.
