The Intersection of FIRE and Disney

[speedyfishy]

I like the guy we had, I thought he was reasonable for videography. I also considered something called wedding mix where they send you cameras and you slash who ever you designate films and then they either send you the files to edit into a video yourself or I think you could pay them to do it.

We get to see your park photos, right??? that was one thing I really considered for a long time but they kept raising the price on it before we could book and I had to say no eventually. But from what I remember them costing, $6k for 2 parks plus full wedding is not that bad overall!

I’ll DM you some pictures. The park session alone was so expensive but they gave you one free with a photography package for the wedding and I could add magic kingdom for like $900 ish.

Are you covering our flights and hotels or do those come from my points??? HAHA!

I gotta cover the whole clan?

 

[WVMomof3]

Thank you for this! I tend to feel guilty and anxious about a lot of things. Currently, it’s money. lol For the wedding I’m trying to compromise on things. We aren’t having any flowers and I’m doing just a basic white cake not the $700 crazy one I originally wanted lol. I am trying to figure out what’s important to me. I think we are definitely getting the most expensive photography package through Disney that will be almost 6 grand. We will get two park photo sessions though where we will be alone in the Magic Kingdom and Epcot, plus the full coverage of the wedding. Probably will skip the videographer though.

Six grand?? Just for pictures?? I hope it at least includes pictures and is not just taking the pictures and now then spend more money to order actual prints. Don't mind me I am just the cheapskate, lol. But holy smokes. I would be settling for iPhone photos and videos. I literally have never watched my wedding video, 25 years later. Who knows if it really is my wedding video. lol Wouldn't that be funny if I finally put it in and it was wrong people. It is a VCR tape so its days are numbered anyway. I am so not a photo person though. I see these Prom photo shoots with hundreds of pics and I think I may have about 5 pictures of each of my girls for theirs. They don't cooperate anyway so they don't care either. I keep telling my girls to elope if they ever get married, but take me too.

But I did want to say you are doing great for your age! Your doing great for other ages as well. lol You guys are so young, yet you are already thinking about these things. If you have any money in the market then you are way ahead of most of your peers. Think of all the points you made while spending all that money for your wedding. haha Though I know it is a drop in the bucket to your usual MS spending. I need to step up my game in teaching my kids about finances/savings and credit card game. But I am really impressed with all the young "kids" on our threads.

 

[speedyfishy]

Six grand?? Just for pictures?? I hope it at least includes pictures and is not just taking the pictures and now then spend more money to order actual prints. Don't mind me I am just the cheapskate, lol. But holy smokes. I would be settling for iPhone photos and videos. I literally have never watched my wedding video, 25 years later. Who knows if it really is my wedding video. lol Wouldn't that be funny if I finally put it in and it was wrong people. It is a VCR tape so its days are numbered anyway. I am so not a photo person though. I see these Prom photo shoots with hundreds of pics and I think I may have about 5 pictures of each of my girls for theirs. They don't cooperate anyway so they don't care either. I keep telling my girls to elope if they ever get married, but take me too.

But I did want to say you are doing great for your age! Your doing great for other ages as well. lol You guys are so young, yet you are already thinking about these things. If you have any money in the market then you are way ahead of most of your peers. Think of all the points you made while spending all that money for your wedding. haha Though I know it is a drop in the bucket to your usual MS spending. I need to step up my game in teaching my kids about finances/savings and credit card game. But I am really impressed with all the young "kids" on our threads.

Thank you! I can MS 6 grand in a day but I’m not complaining about more points. The photos are a lot but I think we will frame a lot of them. Especially the ones where we are in the park alone. We get two parent albums and a bigger album plus some like watercolor painting of a photo?? SO says that is so weird but I want it hanging up right away lol I feel like we would definitely look at the photos we tend to go back and look at old photos on our phones from like 7 years ago for no reason I feel like I’d definitely look back at wedding photos. Idk if I’d watch a wedding video. Especially because I’m 99% sure I’m going to awkwardly say my vows and awkwardly dance into the reception. Oh, and our first dance will probably be awkward lol

 

[amalone1013]

I’ll DM you some pictures. The park session alone was so expensive but they gave you one free with a photography package for the wedding and I could add magic kingdom for like $900 ish.

Living vicariously through you! lol. But for Disney, that is a deal for that!

Especially because I’m 99% sure I’m going to awkwardly say my vows and awkwardly dance into the reception. Oh, and our first dance will probably be awkward lol

See we cut the awkward by skipping entrance and first dance and I used a ceremony script from online and tweaked it so I only really had to say I do

 

[amalone1013]

@speedyfishy I'll add that I am glad I got my video though because we had quite a few funny and ad lib moments in our ceremony. And now I can forever watch zack struggle to put my ring on and then see myself give him a superior look for getting his on in one try

 

[WVMomof3]

Thank you! I can MS 6 grand in a day but I’m not complaining about more points. The photos are a lot but I think we will frame a lot of them. Especially the ones where we are in the park alone. We get two parent albums and a bigger album plus some like watercolor painting of a photo?? SO says that is so weird but I want it hanging up right away lol I feel like we would definitely look at the photos we tend to go back and look at old photos on our phones from like 7 years ago for no reason I feel like I’d definitely look back at wedding photos. Idk if I’d watch a wedding video. Especially because I’m 99% sure I’m going to awkwardly say my vows and awkwardly dance into the reception. Oh, and our first dance will probably be awkward lol

It does sound really cool! I am guessing it is early morning for alone in the park? Is that like before the wedding? How does that work? We do have one picture of us at the alter and one picture of our wedding party hanging on the wall, been on one wall or the other for 25 years. My kids were just talking about them recently and said they have never seen anyone else's parents have wedding pictures out. But they also say that they don't know any other parents that still sleep in the same room. lol So maybe those parents have other issues. And now you have me thinking, I am not even sure I have a wedding album. I think I just have pictures in a box. We are terrible. lol Oh and definitely with you on being awkward. But you will have tons of snippets from people videoing from their phones.

 

[amalone1013]

It does sound really cool! I am guessing it is early morning for alone in the park? Is that like before the wedding? How does that work? We do have one picture of us at the alter and one picture of our wedding party hanging on the wall, been on one wall or the other for 25 years. My kids were just talking about them recently and said they have never seen anyone else's parents have wedding pictures out. But they also say that they don't know any other parents that still sleep in the same room. lol So maybe those parents have other issues. And now you have me thinking, I am not even sure I have a wedding album. I think I just have pictures in a box. We are terrible. lol

My parents had a little flip album out for the first 15ish years that I used to look at all the time. And for a long time kept framed photos in their bedroom of dad/daughter and mother/son dances plus q wedding party photo.

But the separate beds thing really caught my eye! Lol. So for me, I dont know of anyone officially in separate beds... parents, grandparents, aunts uncles great aunts and uncles... there are a few that could but a majority of them at least by appearance looks like they still share a bed. DHs family, his parents and both sets of grandparents sleep apart, and it sounds like it's been like that for a long time. So it's really strange to me, but DH doesnt really think anything of it. His grandparents even always say, Jack's room or Connie's room, and his parents and their siblings say mom or dad's room. that kind of thing. Never our room. I guess cause it's not lol

 

[speedyfishy]

It does sound really cool! I am guessing it is early morning for alone in the park? Is that like before the wedding? How does that work? We do have one picture of us at the alter and one picture of our wedding party hanging on the wall, been on one wall or the other for 25 years. My kids were just talking about them recently and said they have never seen anyone else's parents have wedding pictures out. But they also say that they don't know any other parents that still sleep in the same room. lol So maybe those parents have other issues. And now you have me thinking, I am not even sure I have a wedding album. I think I just have pictures in a box. We are terrible. lol Oh and definitely with you on being awkward. But you will have tons of snippets from people videoing from their phones.

It’s in the morning at like 6am. I’m doing it the day of my wedding but I could of had it done any day within a year of the wedding. I felt like doing it on the wedding day would be best didn’t want to get back into the dress after and obviously didn’t want to wear the dress before.

My parents are divorced now but before they had their wedding photos displayed in our house.

 

[rinnythepooh]

We retired early.
When we got married my brother inlaw took the photos as part of our wedding gift. I got the photos enlarged and put togethor a very nice photo album myself. Also still have two framed wedding photos out. If I could go back in time, I wouldnt change anything about my wedding or my retirement.

 

[castoral]

Had an interesting discussion with a former colleague this week that made me think of a lot of the money vs. life discussions we have here. She is now a partner with a Big 4 accounting firm. High pressure, tons of work, very little actual time off (working 2 or 3 hours a day on vacation is normal). Well compensated. Mandatory retirement age is in your early 60s. She is thinking of leaving a few years earlier than that - but that is still 8 or 9 years away. She's getting grief from other partners about "walking away" from all the money she'd earn by sticking around until she's 60.

And I'm sitting there thinking how glad I am that I left public accounting and get to go home and have dinner with my family most nights.

Its so easy to get wrapped up in the culture of the people you are around and think whatever it is they are doing is "normal". Everyone you know live in a gigantic house with a huge car? Seems normal. Everyone around you works all the time and then takes a week long fancy vacation once every 3 years so they get to see their kids for a couple of days? Seems normal. Everyone around you runs up huge debts and spends every cent they get? Seems normal.

Biggest benefit of this whole FIRE thing for me is the focus on making intentional choices about lifestyle and money. Every time I see this person she asks me to come back and work with her (as do all the partners I used to work with), but they can see it in my eyes that I'm not going back to that particular rat race anytime soon. My retirement will be less fancy than theirs, but it will also cost much less of my pre-retirement life.

And with that, I'm going home to make dinner for my kids

My husband and I are only 35, but had our 4 kids early (1st when we were 23/24 and the last at 30) so we're easily 10 yrs younger than most of the "successful" parents. I see them showing up at soccer practice, dressed in their $500 suits, Jr in the back seat trying to eat Mcdonalds and change between $2,000/mo daycare and $2,000/yr select soccer. Here I am, took the federal gov't route which still PAYS well and even opted to go part time 2 yrs ago. My husband is "frowned upon" because he didn't get his college degree (despite getting several full rides for football.....errr, I couldn't convince him to go). He works part time at UPS where despite only making $25k a year, his healthcare and pensions are incredible (and he has 15 yrs in at age 35!) and then cuts grass. a "kid" job some may say. And hes embaressed if he has to pick up the kids in his "work clothes" or that we have to go to a closing. But funny, its all afforded us to never put our kids in daycare, live off one income (mine) and save the other, and in the winters he was either remodeling our houses to increase equity or remodeling a flip/rental. We both get 5+ weeks of vacation (despite both working part time) and a ton of holidays/sick leave. And we take EVERY DARN DAY of those! My husband may joke its easier to be at work than vacation with 4 kids but that's another story. We do have our dream house, we do have the boat as ive mentioned and we do have "newer" cars they just aren't flashy. People look down on us but at the same time are curious and ask questions. I'm pretty open about it. I say we're thrifty and we work really hard.

 

[Navychica]

Spend extravagantly on what matters to you, and cut mercilessly where it doesn't. (I'm on a Ramit Sethi kick right now!)

My husband and I eloped- top of a lighthouse, a chaplain and his wife, a friend to take pictures, and the two of us. We took them out for a nice dinner afterwards, total for our wedding was ~$500. The big wedding wasn't important to us, but our honeymoon was.

A friend recently had a huge extravagant wedding, with copious amounts of food and alcohol, at a gorgeous venue. But she said she didn't care about flowers AT ALL, and all the bouquets were fake and cost her less than $100.

If the pictures are worth it to you, than go for it and don't regret it!

 

[QueenIsabella]

Spend extravagantly on what matters to you, and cut mercilessly where it doesn't. (I'm on a Ramit Sethi kick right now!)

My husband and I eloped- top of a lighthouse, a chaplain and his wife, a friend to take pictures, and the two of us. We took them out for a nice dinner afterwards, total for our wedding was ~$500. The big wedding wasn't important to us, but our honeymoon was.

A friend recently had a huge extravagant wedding, with copious amounts of food and alcohol, at a gorgeous venue. But she said she didn't care about flowers AT ALL, and all the bouquets were fake and cost her less than $100.

If the pictures are worth it to you, than go for it and don't regret it!

This. My sister, who is cheaper than I am, always dreamed of arriving at her wedding in a horse-drawn carriage. So, she did. Of course, she was wearing a thrift-shop wedding gown that I literally had to sew her into that morning, but she didn't care.

Saving money isn't about never spending, ever--it's about saving money on what doesn't matter to you, so that you have money for the things that do. Everyone's choices are a little different, but it's about what makes YOU happy.

 

[disneyandme]

What do people do for health insurance when they retire early? The cost as an individual is so high.

 

[AmyAnne]

This. My sister, who is cheaper than I am, always dreamed of arriving at her wedding in a horse-drawn carriage. So, she did. Of course, she was wearing a thrift-shop wedding gown that I literally had to sew her into that morning, but she didn't care.

I love this story. DH and I had a courthouse ceremony, which we have never regretted. (Although now that I've followed some people here who have had or are planning WDW weddings, I will say that I am secretly hoping that at least one of my kids will someday want one.) We have always spent a lot on education (first DH's and mine and now our kids) and more recently on travel. But we have spent far less than we could on houses and cars and clothes--I am sure some of DH's colleagues wonder about some of our choices, since most people in his position drive BMWs and live in the upscale neighborhoods. We do need to catch up on the FI thing, since we have only had sufficient income to save significantly in the past few years. Fortunately neither one of us is in a hurry to retire, and we actually might never fully retire, since we have jobs we like and that allow some flexibility as far as part-time options.

 

[Mkhrun]

Cool, didn't know there was a thread on this. I started to listen to financial podcasts about a year ago and started being much more purposeful since that time. My wife and I have really focused our spending to get rid of the rest of our loans (paid a small car loan off in 6 months vs another 18 months. Have paid $13k in student loans in about 11 months). We are not as hardcore as some of the groups out there (MMM) but it's more about spending with a purpose. That's where Disney and FI can match up. We used credit card points and saving extra cash from extra work to pay for our trip in February. Other groups would scoff at the idea of spending that much, but it was important to us.

My main focus now is getting rid of the $15k left of student loans. Then saving for a new to us car in a few years when we plan another child. Also want to start investing in real estate.
Big fan of ChooseFI, Afford Anything and Bigger Pockets podcasts for those interested in finance.

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

Welcome back to the new boards FIRE friends. It’s so awesome to live in this country where we have the freedom to pursue FIRE. If any folks on our thread have family or loved ones who have given the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom - thank you! Their selfless actions for others are so appreciated!

 

[georgina]

Had an interesting discussion with a former colleague this week that made me think of a lot of the money vs. life discussions we have here. She is now a partner with a Big 4 accounting firm. High pressure, tons of work, very little actual time off (working 2 or 3 hours a day on vacation is normal). Well compensated. Mandatory retirement age is in your early 60s. She is thinking of leaving a few years earlier than that - but that is still 8 or 9 years away. She's getting grief from other partners about "walking away" from all the money she'd earn by sticking around until she's 60.

And I'm sitting there thinking how glad I am that I left public accounting and get to go home and have dinner with my family most nights.

Its so easy to get wrapped up in the culture of the people you are around and think whatever it is they are doing is "normal". Everyone you know live in a gigantic house with a huge car? Seems normal. Everyone around you works all the time and then takes a week long fancy vacation once every 3 years so they get to see their kids for a couple of days? Seems normal. Everyone around you runs up huge debts and spends every cent they get? Seems normal.

Biggest benefit of this whole FIRE thing for me is the focus on making intentional choices about lifestyle and money. Every time I see this person she asks me to come back and work with her (as do all the partners I used to work with), but they can see it in my eyes that I'm not going back to that particular rat race anytime soon. My retirement will be less fancy than theirs, but it will also cost much less of my pre-retirement life.

And with that, I'm going home to make dinner for my kids

My DD is potentially on track to become a partner in one of these (she is on the consulting side). She is 29, just took 2 years off to get her MBA, going back to work there so they will reimburse her tuition. She and her DH want to buy a house (DC area so expensive) and start a family in the next 2 years. It will be interesting to see how it unfolds. Her in-laws are in the area, and we are planning to move that way in a couple of years, so she will have family support. The company does offer great benefits. I was a SAHM and DH was a research scientist, so she does not come from high-power business stock! They are certainly not the big house, expensive car type, but she does love to travel.

 

[bernina]

Happy Sunday all!

DH and I are debating about where to invest a portion of our liquid savings.

Both of us max out our 401K, Roth IRA, DH maxes out and invests our HSA, and we’re both contributing members to our respective employers pension plans.

We have a 4% interest rate on our mortgage and have about 8 years left of the fixed 15 year term. (~$165k balance remaining)

Our liquid emergency fund consists of about $60k in high yield (2%) savings accounts. We also have another $60k available to us via a low interest rate HELOC. Of course our plan is never to pull from that but it’s there if needed.

We’re looking at investing $20-$30k of our liquid emergency fund. Any suggestions for a safeish investment vehicle? Neither of us is really interested in playing the stock market (directly). I was thinking maybe VTSAX? Are there any other investment vehicles I should be researching?

 

[QueenIsabella]

Happy Sunday all!

DH and I are debating about where to invest a portion of our liquid savings.

Both of us max out our 401K, Roth IRA, DH maxes out and invests our HSA, and we’re both contributing members to our respective employers pension plans.

We have a 4% interest rate on our mortgage and have about 8 years left of the fixed 15 year term. (~$165k balance remaining)

Our liquid emergency fund consists of about $60k in high yield (2%) savings accounts. We also have another $60k available to us via a low interest rate HELOC. Of course our plan is never to pull from that but it’s there if needed.

We’re looking at investing $20-$30k of our liquid emergency fund. Any suggestions for a safeish investment vehicle? Neither of us is really interested in playing the stock market (directly). I was thinking maybe VTSAX? Are there any other investment vehicles I should be researching?

We use a Vanguard Money Market account for $$ like these. It earns some interest (like, 2%--not fabulous), and you can access it by writing a check. Right now, ours has a high balance because we're starting a kitchen remodel, plus we keep vacation money in there, emergency funds, etc. But the good part is, essentially it's "out of sight, out of mind".

 

[bernina]

We use a Vanguard Money Market account for $$ like these. It earns some interest (like, 2%--not fabulous), and you can access it by writing a check. Right now, ours has a high balance because we're starting a kitchen remodel, plus we keep vacation money in there, emergency funds, etc. But the good part is, essentially it's "out of sight, out of mind".

Thanks! We do something similar with our mad money as we like to call it. It’s easily accessible (have it split between Amex and Discover high yield savings) and secure. I mostly use it to trigger new account bonuses by bouncing funds around for a few months as needed. I just feel like we’re potentially missing out on higher returns (with some risk of course) and feel comfortable putting $20-$30k into a low/moderate risk account. We’re 10 years (minimum) away from early retirement (I’m 42, DH 47, DD 8) and also DD’s college but we have plans in place for both of those things (and likely one of us will continue working past 10 years but hopefully with less stress and more flexibility).

VTSAX (Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund) has 10.95% for an average 5 year return but of course I understand past performance is not indicative of future results.

Curious to hear what others in this situation do with their “excess” emergency funds.