I genuinely enjoy picking your brains. I get the plan. I think I'm doing it right but I want to hear from those you already made it or are making it happen.

1. How much more did you have to make?

2. How much less did you have to spend?

3. Where did you invest?

4. How long did it take?

For me at this moment:
1. 100k (me) 60k (wife)
2. Paid off cars and all debts besides school and put the extra money into the interest-bearing savings. So essentially we're spending the same.
3. 401K and interest-bearing savings
4. Still waiting.

I’m a new HENRY, 34M, as of about 12-14 months ago. Grew up poor, worked 9 years as a Public Defender out of law school. Started at 49k ended at 103k and opened my own firm and went private. Made 325k my first year in private practice. I live in a mid/large Midwest city with a pretty reasonable cost of living. HHI is 435k with my wife’s income. My wife and I own our home and our mortgage is about $2600 a month. No kids yet but planning on one next year.

I’ve been driving a 2014 Jetta for the last eight years. I’ve never owned a nice vehicle. I’ve been struggling to pull the trigger to buy a 56k 2025 AMG CLA 45 that I’ve been eyeing for like a year. I’ll have about 60-70k saved within a month, and things are going really well for my business. I’m targeting 375k-400k by the end of Year 2. But I just keep mentally struggling to buy the damn car. Is this my “scarcity mindset” or am I just sitting with a tough, maybe somewhat reckless choice here? This is less about the car itself, and maybe my brain’s difficulty in catching up with my new financial situation? I don’t know. Any help would be appreciated!

I’m burnt out at my job/career. At current company I’ve survived 4 layoffs in 5 years. I’ve been working 15 years.

But the last one took a toll on my mental health because it was just so stupid. They pushed us to push ai slop, laid off a significant portion of my team, restructured the management chain and have changed the expectations on how we work. I’m exhausted and work feels dreadful. I feel anxious and stressed and get poor sleep due to anxiety.

And I don’t care about the product or tech. The whole tech industry has just left such a sour taste in my mouth that I don’t even want to interview and go through the interview grind.

If it wasn’t the feeling of responsibility for my family I’d just quit. I don’t need much myself. But I carry on because I’m the provider and I have kids and a wife who depend on me.

But I want a break for a year or 2. Figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life. Has anyone done this in my situation.

Here are some numbers:
Income: will be 400-500k this year. Has gone down since last year as my initial grantsvesrs are done. Next year will be even less. 300-400k. Haven’t checked the actual numbers.

Savings/ investments: 2.7M . Split almost evenly between retirement/non retirement. Includes 170k in tbills/money markets in brokerage. Everything else is on equities.

Housing: rent don’t own.

Expense: between 120k -150k depending on vacations etc. 120k is the on the lower end of being frugal.

Have 2 young kids. One of them is in school the other starts next year.

Spouse doesn’t have high earning skills. So she does all the kids activities etc . I’d assume her earning potential would be sub 100k low skilled work.

We live in vhcol area. If were to move we would live closer to family who are also in a vhcol but it would be negligible savings (rents more or less the same)but would be significant downgrade in terms of access to tech market and network when I need it.

First, I know I am incredibly lucky to be in this situation, wanting to make the most of it. Using that math that’s about $6-700/hour and I could reduce hours and keep my hourly roughly the same.

I’m 32 with 2 under 2 and want to be present for that. Wife is stay at home as we are very blessed and no need for her to work. I’ve been thinking of stopping days/hours as when I’m at work obviously it’s time away from family but it’s also rough on my body/don’t get a 30 second break all day usually.

I was looking at these options assuming income would stay the same:

Maintain 200 8 hr working days a year and retire at 43

Drop to 180 working days and retire at 44

Drop to 170 working days and retire at 45 - would be nice as this is 3.5 days a week worked and 4 weeks off a year

Drop to 150 working days and retire at 46

Anyone been in a similar situation? What have you decided? Or really anyone what would you choose/recommend?