The Intersection of FIRE and Disney

[Starport Seven-Five]

Apparently all of my major threads and groups are experiencing a case of the "Mondays" today as activity is way down...How about a fun FIRE discussion topic today:

If you were NOT pursuing FIRE, what would you spend all of your money on? To achieve savings rates of 25%, 50%, and some even at 75%+ to the normal world we are sacrificing a lot. If you were not pursuing FIRE, where would your money go?

1. Cars. We both drive older vehicles fr our daily drivers and my fun cars are on the cheaper end. A 911 would look nice in the garage and wouldn't be hard to swing.
2. Traveling slightly more luxuriously. We already travel where/when we want (within the allotted vacation time by our employers) but we might go higher end on the hotels.
3. Hiring someone to do a few construction projects around the house. Nothing huge but it'd be nice to have the entire house painted and some other small projects completed to clear my to-do list (we will DIY all of those eventually).

Beyond that... I don't know. We are happy with our house size/location (it's too big for us if we are being honest). Vacation home isn't appealing because we like traveling new places constantly. Maybe an RV but it's a pretty low want and I'm sure the attractiveness would wear off in a year or two.

This is an interesting thought exercise because we are not that far from our initial FI target and neither of us plan to quit working. When we cross that line we will likely do some of the things above as our savings rate relaxes.

 

[QueenIsabella]

This is where our money went for a good 15 years. No regrets at all, even though we are playing catch-up with our retirement funds (good thing neither of us is in a hurry to retire). When my oldest started high school, it hit me that the kids would be leaving us eventually and I really wanted to travel internationally with them before then.

Yeah, our kids are currently ages 13-24. We took them (well, minus the 22yo) to Europe last summer--it was the first trip abroad for the youngest, and he really loved it. FTR, the 22yo chose to stay home--he has Asperger's and is very introverted--heat and crowds aren't his thing. Next year, we have a Baltic cruise planned, with all 4 kids. Our oldest is a teacher, which helps with her availability, and of course she loves traveling on Mom and Dad's dime--on her own, she goes the "hostel and street food" route (not that there's anything wrong with that). But, I don't know how long we'll be able to travel as a group of 6, what with college internships and a serious boyfriend for the oldest and all.

What we hope to do in the future is, we currently live in a coastal town, although our house isn't directly on the coast. So, we figure we can rent a nice beach house for a couple weeks in the summer, and have our adult children visit us and enjoy a beach vacation on whatever schedule works for them. You know that in 10-15 years, a family trip "to" somewhere is going to be virtually impossible.

 

[Mome Rath]

I think the answer depends on situation... if, for some reason, I had to empty our accounts there's very little I'd buy for me and hubby (a new truck and travel trailer, and a trip or two), but I would love to give it away to specific people for specific projects. So, I guess having to save for retirement is preventing me from helping others to get to their goals, and not so much me getting to mine? Interesting question.

 

[1st*toright]

We just had this discussion the other day.

Over the summer we moved into a house that is half the size (and half the cost) of our previous home. My husband keeps checking in with me and the kids to be sure that we're happy and still feel that we made the right decision. The truth is that this house is actually more comfortable for our family, the style fits our personality, and it's just all around better (even unrelated to the money aspect).

We live in an area where it's just automatic that as soon as you can afford a better house you "move up" without question. I think almost everyone we know thought we were insane or secretly having financial problems to make the move we did. But in reality we really were just not seeing any added value for the extra money we were spending, so we would rather allocate those resources somewhere else that would make us happier long term.

I'm sure that for some their house or car is a source of joy, but I think most people just buy those things because "that's just what you're supposed to do" rather than really considering what they really want out of life.

I'm with you - I'm happy to visit friends that have fancy houses, and I do admire pretty architecture, but I like my smaller living space - we use all the space we have, and it isn't a crazy amount to take care of.

I would definitely pay for more services - housecleaning, mani/pedis much more often, eating out more often, snow removal. I like being taken care of . And some home improvement projects that we've been trying to do inexpensively, we'd just cave and hire a gc to take care of all of them.

LIke many of you, we are not really shorting ourselves on travel currently, but that is definitely something that is important to us.

Not many material things on the list, but we might pull the trigger on a 3rd car for our teen.

 

[tzolkin]

Not many material things on the list, but we might pull the trigger on a 3rd car for our teen.

I think for many families that's not really a "material" thing, but more about the time/convenience factor.

Our oldest did not get her license until she was in college and needed to buy a car to get to her job, so I kind of thought buying a car for a teen would be completely unnecessary. But the oldest also really didn't do much socializing, her school had bus transportation home from sports and after-school activities, and her job was walking distance from our home. So there was really no driving on my part.

Our middle child is way more social and where we live now there is one high school for the entire county so some friends and activities can be up to two hours of driving if we have to both drop off and pick up. We haven't made a decision yet, but a car in the next year is a definite possibility.

 

[AmyAnne]

You know that in 10-15 years, a family trip "to" somewhere is going to be virtually impossible.

Indeed--it's almost impossible now. For the past two years, I managed it by traveling Christmas week (one year to WDW and the other to Chicago to see Hamilton). This year, schedules were too unpredictable, so we will be staying home. On the other hand, our kids have ended up in some interesting cities so DH and I (and occasionally a kid or two) have been traveling to see them.

 

[1st*toright]

I think for many families that's not really a "material" thing, but more about the time/convenience factor.

Our oldest did not get her license until she was in college and needed to buy a car to get to her job, so I kind of thought buying a car for a teen would be completely unnecessary. But the oldest also really didn't do much socializing, her school had bus transportation home from sports and after-school activities, and her job was walking distance from our home. So there was really no driving on my part.

Our middle child is way more social and where we live now there is one high school for the entire county so some friends and activities can be up to two hours of driving if we have to both drop off and pick up. We haven't made a decision yet, but a car in the next year is a definite possibility.

Yes - another car should probably go in the "convenience" column instead of the "stuff" column

 

[BridgetBordeaux]

Here is a recent budget/FIRE story. We hate spending big bucks on things!

Problem: We do all our own yard work and our 18 bushes took us hours and hours of hard work to trim. We are getting too old for this chore several times a year!

Plan: Rip them all out, level the ground some, plant young bushes, and lay down mulch.....and then trim the small bushes to keep them small (the other ones were here 13 years before we arrived and they were all huge)

Challenge: find someone to to the really hard/backbreaking work of overhauling the landscaping if we "prep" it by cutting the bushes down to 2 foot stumps to aid in removal.

Bids: came in between 2500 and 5000 dollars.

Decision: No Way!

Alternative: got a friend's 24 year old stepson to do just the stump removal stage for things that were way too hard for us. It was about 2/3 of the stumps. Paid him 35 dollars an hour. Got the labor done for $245

Total cost after doing LOTS of work ourselves and driving to the country and getting the mix of 1 gallon and 3 gallon plants from a wholesale nursery...........Less than 1000 dollars for the entire project!

We saved between 1500 and 3500 dollars and now will have years of easier bush trimming ahead of us.

The money saved will be used for about a year of Disney trips.............Hooray!!

 

[Starport Seven-Five]

We tore out 4 large (10 foot) bushes recently including removing the stumps. I don't know if I'd do it for $35/hour haha.

 

[1st*toright]

Well, I was finally able to exercise some company stock and will be able to add a nice chunk to my savings account! This has been a tough year for me to really move the needle on our savings (other than retirement accounts which happen automatically). Some of our routine costs have gone up (like insurance, thanks to having another driver to insure), and when I got my raise last year I upped my retirement contribution in the same amount, so my take home pay has been flat. Also, there has been some "lifestyle creep", mostly in the form of kid activities that I've agreed to. Add in a couple of trips here and there, and all of a sudden there hasn't been much extra going into savings. I'm now maxing out my 401k contributions, so next year's raise will actually go into my pocket, so that will help a little bit.

 

[Julia M]

So happy to find this thread! Dh and I are almost empty nesters (youngest kiddo just graduated from college and is still job searching). The other two are grown and flown.
Dh retired in July and I have to decide when to retire....anytime between June 2020 and June 2023. I am really nervous about a recession, which makes me hesitant to retire. I am targeting a FatFire, so will probably work longer rather than less.
We are taking our grown children and my mom on a Disney cruise in April. We'd like a trip to WDW, but I won't go in summer. We are basically taking the money we spent on education for our travel budget.

I look forward to participating in this thread.

 

[pillow]

Also, try Costco. I tend to get the best pricing there for meds. Also, check for coupon programs.

Also Sam's. If you have their premium membership, you can get generics at either $4 or $10 depending on the medication. Even with the extra membership cost, we are saving a ton.

 

[1st*toright]

We are basically taking the money we spent on education for our travel budget.

#Goals!!!

 

[monkeydawn]

This isn't exactly FIRE related but I'm looking for some thoughts on HSA/High Deductible Health Insurance. So DH has the opportunity to switch to this next year. I know the basics, that generally these are most beneficial for those who are relatively healthy and tax advantages. This year we contributed $2700 for flex spending, knowing we will spend that for DD braces. DS will also need braces in the next few years. DH does have some chronic health issues, but they are well controlled. But he did have a mild stroke 5 years ago at the age of 46. Yearly cost for his medications will be $320. The kids and myself and healthy and the past few years haven't gone to the Dr. except for checkups, which would be covered 100%. Deductible for HDHP is $6000, deductible for PPO is $1,000 and Max OOP $2200. Savings in annual premium is $870.

Keep in mind that with an HSA plan, that you may be paying full price for medications, which is a drag, but the benefit is that the medication costs count toward the deductible. You should find this out as it caught many of my coworkers off guard and really impacted their finances (even though there were NUMEROUS notices and warnings advising this if you chose the HSA plan at my employer).

As far as drug costs go, if you end up with something super pricey it may be worth checking with the mfr to see if they have a plan to help offset the costs. For example this year I started getting infusions for Crohns Disease. Each batch is about $4K and I go every 8 weeks. I have a high deductable plan with a max of $10K per year. But the drug mfr offers a rebate of up to $20K per year, with a small copay for each batch I receive. I do have to pay the infusion suite costs each time, about $250. However this is where it gets fantastic...that almost $4K that is rebated back each time counts towards my $10K. So after 3 infusions (and less than $1K for me to pay) I have hit my max. This is my first year doing this and I was several thousand in just getting my diagnosis so it actually only took me 2 infusions to meet my max this year. I have no idea why it works this way and honestly it doesnt even seem fair so if it changes in the future, well, I wouldnt be that surprised. But definately something to look into if you are on a high deductible plan and suddenly need a costly medicine.

 

[alryan]

As far as drug costs go, if you end up with something super pricey it may be worth checking with the mfr to see if they have a plan to help offset the costs. For example this year I started getting infusions for Crohns Disease. Each batch is about $4K and I go every 8 weeks. I have a high deductable plan with a max of $10K per year. But the drug mfr offers a rebate of up to $20K per year, with a small copay for each batch I receive. I do have to pay the infusion suite costs each time, about $250. However this is where it gets fantastic...that almost $4K that is rebated back each time counts towards my $10K. So after 3 infusions (and less than $1K for me to pay) I have hit my max. This is my first year doing this and I was several thousand in just getting my diagnosis so it actually only took me 2 infusions to meet my max this year. I have no idea why it works this way and honestly it doesnt even seem fair so if it changes in the future, well, I wouldnt be that surprised. But definately something to look into if you are on a high deductible plan and suddenly need a costly medicine.

Wow, that’s crazy, but glad you are able to have that work for you. I was all set to do the high deductible plan, but because I waited until the last minute to ask HR they couldn’t confirm that the discount I got on my current plan would carry over or if I would be paying full retail. So we decided to stick with our current plan and reevaluate next year. But I will keep everyone’s suggestions in mind. Thanks

 

[coast2coastmickey]

As far as drug costs go, if you end up with something super pricey it may be worth checking with the mfr to see if they have a plan to help offset the costs. For example this year I started getting infusions for Crohns Disease. Each batch is about $4K and I go every 8 weeks. I have a high deductable plan with a max of $10K per year. But the drug mfr offers a rebate of up to $20K per year, with a small copay for each batch I receive. I do have to pay the infusion suite costs each time, about $250. However this is where it gets fantastic...that almost $4K that is rebated back each time counts towards my $10K. So after 3 infusions (and less than $1K for me to pay) I have hit my max. This is my first year doing this and I was several thousand in just getting my diagnosis so it actually only took me 2 infusions to meet my max this year. I have no idea why it works this way and honestly it doesnt even seem fair so if it changes in the future, well, I wouldnt be that surprised. But definately something to look into if you are on a high deductible plan and suddenly need a costly medicine.

Enjoy it while it lasts. That's just the sort of thing that gets closed up once a bean counter takes a hard look. Hope it stays that way for a while for you.

 

[Starport Seven-Five]

Kind of a rant but one thing I've been struggling with on the "path" to FI is we have gotten to the point where everything is on autopilot and the very minor things left to optimize won't move the needle. For context, our YOY increase in NW is ~100k so we have a hard time caring out relatively small improvements in our budget (negotiating internet bill, shopping car insurance, etc). I keep getting the feeling that at this point a lot of the podcasts/blogs/etc focus on $100 questions and we should be moving on to the $1,000 questions. This feeling is probably amplified by the fact that neither of us dislike our current jobs and we're both in our thirties so the risk of extending the timeline for FIRE by a year or two isn't a big deal if there is a possibility of much larger returns down the road.

Anyone gone through this and found resources that are more along the lines of investing and net worth growth? I've ventured into some business/entrepreneurship/real estate stuff but haven't found something I really like. Most stock market stuff seems like shiny suits selling snake oil so I generally nope out of that stuff quickly.

Note: This is in no way me denigrating the typical FI advice. I think it's important to getting your initial investments established and it was critical in getting us to this point. I just feel like we'll hit FI long before the RE portion so we should start putting some irons in the fire now instead of waiting until after we pass the FI target.

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

Kind of a rant but one thing I've been struggling with on the "path" to FI is we have gotten to the point where everything is on autopilot and the very minor things left to optimize won't move the needle. For context, our YOY increase in NW is ~100k so we have a hard time caring out relatively small improvements in our budget (negotiating internet bill, shopping car insurance, etc). I keep getting the feeling that at this point a lot of the podcasts/blogs/etc focus on $100 questions and we should be moving on to the $1,000 questions. This feeling is probably amplified by the fact that neither of us dislike our current jobs and we're both in our thirties so the risk of extending the timeline for FIRE by a year or two isn't a big deal if there is a possibility of much larger returns down the road.

Anyone gone through this and found resources that are more along the lines of investing and net worth growth? I've ventured into some business/entrepreneurship/real estate stuff but haven't found something I really like. Most stock market stuff seems like shiny suits selling snake oil so I generally nope out of that stuff quickly.

Note: This is in no way me denigrating the typical FI advice. I think it's important to getting your initial investments established and it was critical in getting us to this point. I just feel like we'll hit FI long before the RE portion so we should start putting some irons in the fire now instead of waiting until after we pass the FI target.

You are in the longest and most boring stage of reaching FIRE. There is really nothing I’ve found that can inject excitement into this phase. The bloggers know that which is why none of them really write about it. “Keep going to work for 10 years” apparently isn’t sexy enough to anchor a blog post, LOL!

I say this as somebody else who is also in this stage. I’m about 4 years into this particular stage of the journey and autopilot is certainly the best word to describe it. I wish I could impart more wisdom but truthfully it’s all about wake up, don’t get fired, buy VTSAX, repeat... for me at least lol.

 

[QueenIsabella]

Kind of a rant but one thing I've been struggling with on the "path" to FI is we have gotten to the point where everything is on autopilot and the very minor things left to optimize won't move the needle. For context, our YOY increase in NW is ~100k so we have a hard time caring out relatively small improvements in our budget (negotiating internet bill, shopping car insurance, etc). I keep getting the feeling that at this point a lot of the podcasts/blogs/etc focus on $100 questions and we should be moving on to the $1,000 questions. This feeling is probably amplified by the fact that neither of us dislike our current jobs and we're both in our thirties so the risk of extending the timeline for FIRE by a year or two isn't a big deal if there is a possibility of much larger returns down the road.

Anyone gone through this and found resources that are more along the lines of investing and net worth growth? I've ventured into some business/entrepreneurship/real estate stuff but haven't found something I really like. Most stock market stuff seems like shiny suits selling snake oil so I generally nope out of that stuff quickly.

Note: This is in no way me denigrating the typical FI advice. I think it's important to getting your initial investments established and it was critical in getting us to this point. I just feel like we'll hit FI long before the RE portion so we should start putting some irons in the fire now instead of waiting until after we pass the FI target.

You might have fun reading the Bogleheads forum. I see it as more of an investment forum--there are places to discuss regular consumer issues (what kind of fridge should I get) as well as personal financial issues (should I buy into this franchise?) and investing issues (which mutual fund?). I find I learn a lot there. Where the Money Mustache people are more about saving every penny (I read there, too), the Bogleheads are more about prudent investing and spending wisely. Clearly, there's overlap, but I look at MMM as more the "sell plasma and dumpster dive" guys--which is fine, while Bogleheads is more about preserving what they have.

 

[1st*toright]

Kind of a rant but one thing I've been struggling with on the "path" to FI is we have gotten to the point where everything is on autopilot and the very minor things left to optimize won't move the needle. For context, our YOY increase in NW is ~100k so we have a hard time caring out relatively small improvements in our budget (negotiating internet bill, shopping car insurance, etc). I keep getting the feeling that at this point a lot of the podcasts/blogs/etc focus on $100 questions and we should be moving on to the $1,000 questions. This feeling is probably amplified by the fact that neither of us dislike our current jobs and we're both in our thirties so the risk of extending the timeline for FIRE by a year or two isn't a big deal if there is a possibility of much larger returns down the road.

Anyone gone through this and found resources that are more along the lines of investing and net worth growth? I've ventured into some business/entrepreneurship/real estate stuff but haven't found something I really like. Most stock market stuff seems like shiny suits selling snake oil so I generally nope out of that stuff quickly.

Note: This is in no way me denigrating the typical FI advice. I think it's important to getting your initial investments established and it was critical in getting us to this point. I just feel like we'll hit FI long before the RE portion so we should start putting some irons in the fire now instead of waiting until after we pass the FI target.

You are in the longest and most boring stage of reaching FIRE. There is really nothing I’ve found that can inject excitement into this phase. The bloggers know that which is why none of them really write about it. “Keep going to work for 10 years” apparently isn’t sexy enough to anchor a blog post, LOL!

I say this as somebody else who is also in this stage. I’m about 4 years into this particular stage of the journey and autopilot is certainly the best word to describe it. I wish I could impart more wisdom but truthfully it’s all about wake up, don’t get fired, buy VTSAX, repeat... for me at least lol.

Fact of the matter is that pretty much anyone who is telling you that they have investment advice that will help you beat the market probably is selling snake oil. I second @QueenIsabella re. Bogelheads for level headed discussion of investment opportunities. Prudence and patience is a boring formula, but it works.

I think that's why some of us (notably Mr. @SouthFayetteFan) get into things like credit cards - even if you only play the points game to pay for travel, its a way to engage some of the same mental processes and entertain yourself with spreadsheets while you're on auto-pilot with investing and saving. I don't know that it impacts my net worth growth, but it does get me more travel for my travel dollars.

I've made the lifestyle decisions already (not changing jobs or moving to a lower COLA area or taking up dumpster diving anytime soon), so pretty much nothing I do will impact my net worth growth in a meaningful way, other than timing my stock option exercises well, but I still pick up nickels by keeping an eye on our spending habits and doing some small side-hustle work when I have the time. Keeps me engaged.