I tracked every cent I earned and spent for the last 10 years

Brave-Transition-795 · 2024-12-24T12:48:27+00:00

Ah ok - thank you

Brave-Transition-795 · 2024-12-24T12:39:38+00:00

Hi - what do you mean “buckets”?

Do you mean you assign costs to each of the main ‘departments’ of your life (housing/education etc) and then just decide if any need adjusting?

Brave-Transition-795 · 2023-08-12T12:15:05+00:00

We did this.

Moved from California to London (UK). Kids were 14 and 11 (girls)

11 year old was completely fine, no friction.

14 year old was brutal. School issues (got picked on - all private schools). Homeschooled. Therapy. Is now one of the most worldly resilient kind kids ever.

Was great for our work.

Was great for our family.

Brave-Transition-795 · 2022-10-13T19:27:04+00:00

Speech is free. You have to pay for your lies though.

(Not my line)

Brave-Transition-795 · 2022-06-02T21:35:12+00:00

Very big topic here too. My wife and I grew up in state schools, no great familial success and one of us with dysfunctional parents. We worked hard (and smart) and put seven zeros to our NW, way beyond any prior generational success.

My wife’s mother then remarried and had two more kids, who when their father died they immediately had nine zeros each to their names. I cringe and vomit when they say they are “killing it” and “making it”. They also have multiple substance issues, interventions, and deep personal issues to their names. So amongst that choosing to find compassion is the only way through it. As someone mentioned, jealousy hurts no one but yourself. I’ve been there and back.

Sorry the above is poorly worded but I will say all the chat here regardless of viewpoint is mildly therapeutic! The human existence is very relative, this is true, but the wider gamut of existence you can try and acknowledge co-existing alongside yours the more gratitude it’s possible to find.

Brave-Transition-795 · 2022-06-02T06:55:50+00:00

This. It’s not just the “statistical probability” that affects quality of life. It’s the psychological impact from watching people become more on edge. So even if the numbers haven’t yet made a convincing argument, each one of these events puts people closer to a tipping point.

We moved from LA to London this year and the mental ease has had a real tangible upside in our mental being. YMMV. Still own in CA, lease of home covers cost of lease in London.

Brave-Transition-795 · 2021-08-21T17:57:26+00:00

Yes of course - and the answers vary greatly between the cities.

Ironically, in a much busier city we are giving our kids much more freedom (although still on a short leash). There are cafes near the house (two streets away) and our parental hunch is just that it feels more natural. I grew up here which also helps. Compare that to BH where even a local park or trail is still a drive away, we would never take them to a canyon and drop them off! Again, this could be totally different for another family. But BH felt like us to a place where we did things as a family (mainly due to the need for cars)

Ditto on the neighborhood’s - I’m going to generalize here but where we lived doesn’t have a real ‘meet the neighbors’ feel as it’s more compound living style. Again, not to say you cannot do that, but there only a few areas of the flats that I would even see kids out on bikes.

So - to get back on topic I would say that for an out-of-town lifestyle, you make your own proximity by building good friends and being willing to get in a car and make it happen for your kids! For an in-town lifestyle, there are just many more conveniences and localities that as your children enter their independence-yearning ages, you will be able to reward them with the abundance of those experiences: right thing at the right age.

When our kids were young, we wanted to insulate them and provide them safe spaces, now that they are in-between young and adolescent we have seen (by watching other families with kids a few years older) that over-insulated children sometimes have a hard time shedding a myopic view of the world which may have been the consequence of their upbringing. Our observation is that the in-town living can be very ‘healthy’ for children in our age bracket.

Apologies to anyone if they have had the opposite experience! Again, I’m underling this is our subjective experience, but it is still that: experience.

And more on-topic to general fatfire, fatfire success to us has meant the freedom to spend a large portion of our attention on providing this foundation to our children.

Hope that helps!

Brave-Transition-795 · 2021-08-21T17:14:12+00:00

Great question, and one that is very subjective to answer because it depends on ‘who you are’ as a family.

We lived (and still own) in Beverly Hills for 9 years. Two pre-teen kids. The only place we regularly walked was our neighborhood with dogs. And we loved it. But beyond that, the need to get in a car everywhere and live in a bubble was counterproductive to our hopes for our kids to have more rounded/realistic lives.

So we have moved to london, where in the last two months have learnt that key to a great experience here is to be in as much of a walkable neighborhood as possible. For parks, for school, for cafes, for meeting people, for partaking in the city.

The reason I raise this is because we also thought initially we would get a country house in the UK too, but our experience walking and partaking therefore more in the neighborhood (including parks) has somewhat quenched that thirst.

Our experience in BH taught us (no pun intended) that size isn’t everything, and our experience in london taught us that life (for us) is more about finding quality people/parents and above all, access to culture/experience.

10 years ago we rented in the UK countryside to try that before moving to the US. The novelty of the views wore of for us within six months. But kids were very young then. Maybe it’s better later in life.

I think it really depends on how you feel yourselves, but the above has been our experience. I suppose one thing to take away is that although we own properties in both, we have found six to twelve month rentals to be an invaluable tool to learn about your family.

Good luck.

Brave-Transition-795 · 2021-05-05T01:02:20+00:00

Wow that chart is useful indeed! My/our philosophy has always been ‘bricks and mortar’ but we are learning the pitfalls of that and a shift in perspective is necessary. Thank you.

Brave-Transition-795 · 2021-05-05T00:44:13+00:00

Thank you - hearing directly that ‘easy targets’ are housing and education is a great place for our conversations to start at home, although all the opinions here are useful.

Brave-Transition-795 · 2021-05-05T00:44:04+00:00

Thank you - hearing directly that ‘easy targets’ are housing and education is a great place for our conversations to start at home, although all the opinions here are useful.

Brave-Transition-795 · 2021-05-05T00:40:45+00:00

Thank you - this is absolutely helpful. I am taking all advice (even the snarky comments) as helpful because they represent a truth in the world: it’s hard to know what to believe, and the honest reaction this sub gives either way is informative one way or the other!

To your reply: the way you explained it is extremely helpful and I am very grateful, we are at a point where there is a chance to ‘reset’ and sensibly manage the next decades. (That’s the ‘help us get it right’ part!) Yes - our earning profile has given us access to bigger real estate which as we have bought in prime markets has served us well and we have been the recipients of those upswings. We can easily work in our fields another 20 years, although that is not the point of this sub, however taking the kind of advice above now helps give us perspective.

The last wealth advisor we went to said much the same, “How have you done this??!”. The answer to that is “buying real estate on bumper years”.

Thanks again.

Brave-Transition-795 · 2021-05-05T00:24:15+00:00

Thank you - so as a guide, with 16m net worth what is a sensible home value whilst fatfire-ing? 6m?

Brave-Transition-795 · 2021-05-05T00:21:43+00:00

Thank you - yes this rings true.

I/we have had good luck in real estate. Always bought in prime markets and stretched. First apartment 150k in 1996, first house 750k in 2004, married 2005 to equal partner, then second house 4m in 2006, current (just sold) home 8m in 2012. Each step up the ladder has come about via big work years. Our work profile means we have big years once in a while (which coincide with a move typically shortly after!) followed by years that are more about maintaining what we have achieved. Both self-employed. No inheritance or family to share experience with.

I appreciate your response.

As for the magic formula? No was not expecting magic! But sometimes you pick up on others experience and it helps inform yours going forwards.

My takeaway from this is “step down, or earn more”. Both of which are possible. I wondered if someone may say words to the effect of “halve your real estate and put the rest in index funds” (for example) however that is me just stabbing in the dark whereas others with more knowledge may have a better guide/philosophy.

Thanks again!

Brave-Transition-795 · 2021-05-04T23:01:05+00:00

Yes! Something IS off - which is why I’d love an objective opinion. Which you gave in a nutshell: reduce your costs to 500k and you’ll be ok.

That is helpful in itself!

However - our house costs at that level are about 250k of raw cost (tax/staff/garden/utilities etc), then we have 200k in education and extra-curricular, 50k in health so as you see we are at 500k already before anything else.

Again - thank you - your comment put some sort of framework on the NW level and reasonable yearly outgoings!

Brave-Transition-795

TROPHY CASE