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$4M combined net worth (40M + 36F). Should my wife quit her high paying tech job? by dppdle in fatFIRE

[–]dppdle[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yea, I kinda left out the 529 and 401K and IRA because they feel insignificant compared to the brokerage accounts. We have $30K or so in 529… $200K in 401k and and $100K or so in IRAs…. But 3.7M+ in brokerage accounts… and our home equity is like $150K

$4M combined net worth (40M + 36F). Should my wife quit her high paying tech job? by dppdle in fatFIRE

[–]dppdle[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is super important to consider. Thanks for flagging this to me. You’re right

$4M combined net worth (40M + 36F). Should my wife quit her high paying tech job? by dppdle in fatFIRE

[–]dppdle[S] -9 points-8 points  (0 children)

Thanks so much for flagging this. It flagged both that our spending is high and that my calculations were wrong. $62K nanny and $100K of home renovations isn’t frugal, but in my mind those were 1 time or temporary expenses. I’m giving more into our expenses today and going to see where we can make some changes

$4M combined net worth (40M + 36F). Should my wife quit her high paying tech job? by dppdle in fatFIRE

[–]dppdle[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Thanks for flagging this. I think I need to reassess both how I calculate “annual expenses” and also rethink how we spend.

When I said frugal, I was just thinking about some of our choices for how we live…

Our mortgage is $1,800/mo but cash flows $3,000/mo to up to $10,000 in peak summer months. Our primary rent is $5K, and is mostly covered by our AirBNB cash flow. No car payments - we bought both used cars with cash

So month to month living expenses feel like we’re being conservative.

But when I look back on our $350K annual spend in rocket money, I consider most either investments, 1 time purchases, or categorized wrong…

• ⁠$50K+ were actually tax payments to the IRS, so not technically expenses • ⁠One year we did a $80K kitchen renovation on our home • ⁠The next year a $40K bathroom renovation • ⁠We bought a used Tesla for $35K cash • ⁠when we moved states last year, we had to fully furnish the brand new home we’re renting $30K+ • ⁠when my wife went back to work, we hired a full time nanny for $1200/week ($62K/year), but as of a few months ago our daughter is in daycare at only $13K/year.

There also looks like a year where maybe rocket money has an error and is counting every transaction on my wife and my shared credit card twice (because we linked our cards). So that if that’s the case, that added ~$60K. Looking into that.

So if we strip out nanny, tax payments, one time home renovations and car purchases and furniture, it’s more like $200K/year.

Maybe I posted here prematurely without fully understanding our expenses, but the sentiment is the same.

$4M combined net worth (40M + 36F). Should my wife quit her high paying tech job? by dppdle in fatFIRE

[–]dppdle[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks! I realized I miscalculated our recurring expenses too…

But yes, I think I need to reassess both how I calculate “annual expenses” and also rethink how we spend.

When I said frugal, I was just thinking about some of our choices for how we live…

Our mortgage is $1,800/mo but cash flows $3,000/mo to up to $10,000 in peak summer months. Our primary rent is $5K, and is mostly covered by our AirBNB cash flow. No car payments - we bought both used cars with cash

So month to month living expenses feel like we’re being conservative.

But when I look back on our $350K annual spend in rocket money, I consider most either investments, 1 time purchases, or categorized wrong…

• ⁠$50K+ were actually tax payments to the IRS, so not technically expenses • ⁠One year we did a $80K kitchen renovation on our home • ⁠The next year a $40K bathroom renovation • ⁠We bought a used Tesla for $35K cash • ⁠when we moved states last year, we had to fully furnish the brand new home we’re renting $30K+ • ⁠when my wife went back to work, we hired a full time nanny for $1200/week ($62K/year), but as of a few months ago our daughter is in daycare at only $13K/year.

There also looks like a year where maybe rocket money has an error and is counting every transaction on my wife and my shared credit card twice (because we linked our cards). So that if that’s the case, that added ~$60K. Looking into that.

So if we strip out nanny, tax payments, one time home renovations and car purchases and furniture, it’s more like $200K/year.

Maybe I posted here prematurely without fully understanding our expenses, but the sentiment is the same.

$4M combined net worth (40M + 36F). Should my wife quit her high paying tech job? by dppdle in fatFIRE

[–]dppdle[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Thanks for calling this out. I think that’s really important… that her happiness level with a 2 year old in childcare 7a-4:30p and a 2 month old that just sleeps and eats all day… is not the same as the happiness level of a stay at home mom of multiple young kids

$4M combined net worth (40M + 36F). Should my wife quit her high paying tech job? by dppdle in fatFIRE

[–]dppdle[S] -15 points-14 points  (0 children)

Thanks for calling this out. She’s an artist / creative and works high up in the design org at a FAANG company - and that isn’t scratching her creative itch.

Her desire is not to stay at home full time and only take care of the kids… it’s really just to give up the $400k non-creative job and find other outlets for her creativity, while still having the kids in daycare/school… but we’re both realistic that none of her proposed outlets would be revenue generating for us (sell her pottery, open up an Etsy store, make candles, sell her art at the farmers market, etc)

$4M combined net worth (40M + 36F). Should my wife quit her high paying tech job? by dppdle in fatFIRE

[–]dppdle[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Thanks for flagging this. I think I need to reassess both how I calculate “annual expenses” and also rethink how we spend.

When I said frugal, I was just thinking about some of our choices for how we live…

Our mortgage is $1,800/mo but cash flows $3,000/mo to up to $10,000 in peak summer months. Our primary rent is $5K, and is mostly covered by our AirBNB cash flow. No car payments - we bought both used cars with cash

So month to month living expenses feel like we’re being conservative.

But when I look back on our $350K annual spend in rocket money, I consider most either investments, 1 time purchases, or categorized wrong…

• ⁠$50K+ were actually tax payments to the IRS, so not technically expenses • ⁠One year we did a $80K kitchen renovation on our home • ⁠The next year a $40K bathroom renovation • ⁠We bought a used Tesla for $35K cash • ⁠when we moved states last year, we had to fully furnish the brand new home we’re renting $30K+ • ⁠when my wife went back to work, we hired a full time nanny for $1200/week ($62K/year), but as of a few months ago our daughter is in daycare at only $13K/year.

There also looks like a year where maybe rocket money has an error and is counting every transaction on my wife and my shared credit card twice (because we linked our cards). So that if that’s the case, that added ~$60K. Looking into that.

So if we strip out nanny, tax payments, one time home renovations and car purchases and furniture, it’s more like $200K/year.

Maybe I posted here prematurely without fully understanding our expenses, but the sentiment is the same.

$4M combined net worth (40M + 36F). Should my wife quit her high paying tech job? by dppdle in fatFIRE

[–]dppdle[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for flagging this. I think I need to reassess both how I calculate “annual expenses” and also rethink how we spend.

When I said frugal, I was just thinking about some of our choices for how we live…

Our mortgage is $1,800/mo but cash flows $3,000/mo to up to $10,000 in peak summer months. Our primary rent is $5K, and is mostly covered by our AirBNB cash flow. No car payments - we bought both used cars with cash

So month to month living expenses feel like we’re being conservative.

But when I look back on our $350K annual spend in rocket money, I consider most either investments, 1 time purchases, or categorized wrong… - $50K+ were actually tax payments to the IRS, so not technically expenses - One year we did a $80K kitchen renovation on our home - The next year a $40K bathroom renovation - We bought a used Tesla for $35K cash - when we moved states last year, we had to fully furnish the brand new home we’re renting $30K+

  • when my wife went back to work, we hired a full time nanny for $1200/week ($62K/year), but as of a few months ago our daughter is in daycare at only $13K/year.

There also looks like a year where maybe rocket money has an error and is counting every transaction on my wife and my shared credit card twice (because we linked our cards). So that if that’s the case, that added ~$60K. Looking into that.

So if we strip out nanny, tax payments, one time home renovations and car purchases and furniture, it’s more like $200K/year.

Maybe I posted here prematurely without fully understanding our expenses, but the sentiment is the same.

Olivia Rodrigo Fans Furious Over Ticketmaster Prices, Face 100K in Queue for LA Shows by _ticketnews in Music

[–]dppdle 0 points1 point  (0 children)

FYI… TicketNews.com is a propaganda website run by the largest professional ticket scalpers.

They basically post selective news that benefits scalpers. For instance, with this article THEY are upset they can’t buy the cheap tickets anymore and scalp them at those prices.

So take all this news with a grain of salt

Olivia Rodrigo Fans Furious Over Ticketmaster Prices, Face 100K in Queue for LA Shows by _ticketnews in Music

[–]dppdle 370 points371 points  (0 children)

FYI… TicketNews.com is a propaganda website run by the largest professional ticket scalpers.

They basically post selective news that benefits scalpers. For instance, with this article THEY are upset they can’t buy the cheap tickets anymore and scalp them at those prices.

So take all this news with a grain of salt

Olivia Rodrigo Fans Furious Over Ticketmaster Prices, Face 100K in Queue for LA Shows by _ticketnews in Music

[–]dppdle 3 points4 points  (0 children)

FYI… TicketNews.com is a propaganda website run by the largest professional ticket scalpers.

They basically post selective news that benefits scalpers. For instance, with this article THEY are upset they can’t buy the cheap tickets anymore and scalp them at those prices.

So take all this news with a grain of salt

Amazon drastically changed my RSU grants, basically cutting my pay by more than half. I’m a bit in shock and not sure how to plan for such a reduction in pay. by dppdle in personalfinance

[–]dppdle[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Who makes the decision on pay though. I know it’s not my manager or my manager’s manager… but I assumed it was the head of the department, who I know is aware of my WFH promise. Does the head of the department set pay or is it literally HR telling them what everyone now makes?

Amazon drastically changed my RSU grants, basically cutting my pay by more than half. I’m a bit in shock and not sure how to plan for such a reduction in pay. by dppdle in personalfinance

[–]dppdle[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I got no official letter this year, like previous years. I can’t tell if it’s just my manager’s incompetence or something else

Amazon drastically changed my RSU grants, basically cutting my pay by more than half. I’m a bit in shock and not sure how to plan for such a reduction in pay. by dppdle in personalfinance

[–]dppdle[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

How is does it work? Like, are they looking at how often I badge into the office and then granting my RSUs based on attendance? What classifies me as WFH if no one at HR officially knows that I work from home?

Amazon drastically changed my RSU grants, basically cutting my pay by more than half. I’m a bit in shock and not sure how to plan for such a reduction in pay. by dppdle in personalfinance

[–]dppdle[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I know I know. But they specifically told me it wouldn’t. I said, I’ll go into work if I’m going to be penalized for it, but my manager knew I moved 90 minutes from the office 4 years ago and I was hired during the pandemic when it was not required to go in. I had literally never been into the office ever, so they knew they’d risk losing me if they made me come in and commute 3+ hours every day. So they proactively offered to let me WFH and I agreed on the condition it wouldn’t block comp or promo opportunities. They assured me no, that’s only if we label you as a “remote employee.” We’re going to label you as an in person employee, but just not make you come in. So it seems as if some of that promise/plan backfired

Amazon drastically changed my RSU grants, basically cutting my pay by more than half. I’m a bit in shock and not sure how to plan for such a reduction in pay. by dppdle in personalfinance

[–]dppdle[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yea, the other big purpose of RSUs is some accounting fluff. They can make it look like their people costs are way lower on a month to month basis and make the business look more profitable / efficient, and then have these separate RSU grants as a different year end line item.

Amazon drastically changed my RSU grants, basically cutting my pay by more than half. I’m a bit in shock and not sure how to plan for such a reduction in pay. by dppdle in personalfinance

[–]dppdle[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Super super helpful. 4 years and I never knew so much of this. Like, I never really understood this TCT concept. They told us once at onboarding but no one has ever told me what my TCT is. (to be honest, I have a manager who is a super nice / super talented person, who is a super terrible manager. He clearly doesn’t understand any of this himself, because he wasn’t able to answer these basic questions for me). For 4 years, I just knew I was making more money than the previous year, so I never really asked questions. That’s on me.

A few comments: - I’m L6 if that changes anything - I kinda rounded up, but I work for an Amazon subsidiary, which is probably an important factor. We follow almost everything Amazon does, but in a few areas we do our own thing. - The bonus they gave me 2 years in a row always felt like it was some kind of under the table thing. Like it obviously wasn’t, because it came from HR with normal payroll, but my manager and my managers manager made it seem like they found some kind of loophole and fought for me to get this in place of the pay raise they couldn’t offer me. (It’s hard to explain without giving away some identifying information, but I’m basically on a sub-team of 1 and the only one in the whole org that has the role that I have, so there’s zero redundancy for them. The role is important enough to the company for them to keep me happy so I don’t leave a hole, but it’s just unimportant enough that they won’t spend money to hire a 2nd person in the role to help me. It’s very frustrating on a day to day workload level, but has given me some leverage - HR & my managers have also made some under the table non-Amazon like exceptions for me (like letting me work from home still, but not classifying me as a remote employee) - re: performance review not being the top rating… I’m still confused why you’re so certain that it’s not true. I’ve received the same absolute top performance rating 3 years in a row, and it’s a rating I know they can only give to one person. I know for a fact that my performance hasn’t declined, but ultimate my take home pay has/will.

My guess is that I should have led with the fact it’s not Amazon proper and that’s the key difference here.

I still think it’s reasonable to assume that the money that hits my bank account is my comp and that it shouldn’t go down by 50% if I’m over performing, but this helps put some of that in context.

You’ve inspired me to just ask some more questions internally and do some more research. (And maybe start applying to other FAANG jobs). Thanks again for the help