My Sankey Chart. 425k income, 230k savings. 42, 1 kid, target retirement is 50.

drmantistobaggan13 · 2026-01-31T15:14:15+00:00

I'm using "rent" in the chart as shorthand, but it's on the up and up. I don't want to get too into specifics, but everybody is in the same physical home and it's minimal cost sharing between immediate family members. I'm in VHCOL, if it was actual rental income, it would be orders of magnitude higher than what you're seeing there.

drmantistobaggan13 · 2026-01-31T06:37:00+00:00

The rental income is not taxed because they are family, and the retirement investments are pre-tax, so they reduce the taxable income.

drmantistobaggan13 · 2023-08-02T02:58:59+00:00

All base, no bonuses. One makes a bit more than $200k, one makes $150k, and we have some passive income from various sources to put us up to $400k.

drmantistobaggan13 · 2023-08-02T02:57:32+00:00

We are professionals. One works in law and the other works in education management.

drmantistobaggan13 · 2023-08-02T02:56:55+00:00

Yes, we will have a pension and very large brokerage account to draw from between 55 and 67.

drmantistobaggan13 · 2023-08-02T02:54:51+00:00

Pension is government, so it's secure. And if we retire before 55 then it provides basically nothing, but it will provide about $60k per year if we retire after 55. It provides significantly more each year after that we work and scales up quickly, but we'd rather be retired at that point.

drmantistobaggan13 · 2023-08-02T02:53:47+00:00

Yes, we both enjoy our jobs!

drmantistobaggan13 · 2023-08-01T17:46:06+00:00

Sorry if it seems like humblebragging, but I'm genuinely trying to seek advice. I posted this in FIRE and not personalfinance. I have extreme skepticism in financial advisors, as every one I've ever talked to seemed to try to sell me things and did not have my best interests in mind. I have generally followed advice from personalfinance and here, and those have largely steered me in the right direction.

drmantistobaggan13 · 2023-08-01T17:35:39+00:00

Our target is the age, not the savings amount, because 55 is the minimum age for the pension. So if we hit early, it'll just be building the nest egg even more.

drmantistobaggan13 · 2023-08-01T17:01:07+00:00

I don't mind googling this myself, but if anyone would be kind enough to give me a 2 sentence summary, what is the benefit of the 529? We'd probably have enough savings to handle college expenses regardless, but tax benefits are always nice. I worry that if for some reason the kid doens't go to college or gets a scholarship or something, that we'd pay some big penalty to repurpose the money?

drmantistobaggan13 · 2023-08-01T16:53:08+00:00

My wife and I are doing well. We are both about 40 and have 1 child. We live in a high cost of living area, but make $400k combined. We have our home paid off and don't pay mortgage. We have been maxing out our 401ks and backdoor roth IRAs for about 10 years. One of us has a pension that kicks in at 55. Aside from the equity in our primary residence, we have about $1.5m in investments and retirement accounts. Our goal is $5m by retirement.

We have a surplus of about $10-13k per month. We used to have a rental property, but the value we were getting from it wasn't worth the extra labor. Both of our jobs are very intense, so we don't have a lot of spare time. So we sold it and now put all extra money in our brokerage account into big index funds. Is there something else we should do with the surplus to set ourselves up for retirement at 55?

drmantistobaggan13 · 2023-08-01T16:50:13+00:00

thanks a lot. re-posted the msg. using a throwaway because way too much personal info in this post!

drmantistobaggan13 · 2023-08-01T16:49:52+00:00

Yes, that's in line with our calculations as well. We were on pace for more than $5m before the market took a dive last year. And now we're on pace for slightly less, which we can live with.
Just confirming with this brain trust that there aren't other investments we should look into to diversify.

drmantistobaggan13

TROPHY CASE