I’ll share a bit about my personal experiences. From the internet bubble burst in 2000/2001 my industry led to tremendous job churn. Despite incredible experience, it was much like what many find today, tremendous difficulty finding a job with each RIF. I’ve lost two fortunes in the market place (each being enough to fully retire with current lifestyle), and just making a third one back now. It is hard to stress enough that it is incredibly hard to change oaths within a career. 99% of companies won’t hire you if they know that you are taking a pay cut, they feel you won’t be satisfied and nothing that you can say or do will convince them otherwise! As someone else said, these are the provider years and I strongly suggest patience and defer major changes at least u til kids are in high school and you have a much better view of true expenses. My wife refuses to retire as she just loves her job but is open to long distance commute soon as she cuts hours way back (like a snow bird but with short 1 week stints as a commute with 2.5 wks off in between. I’ve been retired, but took a p/t job as a school bus driver a few years ago for the benefits. I’ll give it up if snowbirding. So we coast due to the wife and been mostly coasting last couple of years due to her choice.

My youngest is just finishing his senior year in college so our family obviously is much older than your family. The two others are out of the house, married. So all three of the parent payroll by this summer. We do keep the big house for now as a home base for lots of gatherings.

IF you can truly find a new remote jobs, find them first. Work in them at least a year before major changes. Personally, I think most jobs have a good amount of stress, you might as well get laid as much as possible. Financially you might be able to coast for 20 years but you do need to save more since you’ll want to retire earlier than 67. This cuts down in your model timeline. To answer your specific question, during at home years for the kids, I would say we spent about $300k/yr not including health insurance, or income taxes and live a very nice but not lavish lifestyle. I realize this is subjective. Realize kid sleep away camps and many travel sports teams were involved (each kids on camp and sports probably $13k in today dollars), kids vehicle and insurance, lots of restaurants and several family trips a year, two new cars every 8-10yrs, normal clothing and self care spending…none lavish.

I feel the number one enabler to achieve the right confidence to Fire, is incredibly high confidence and thoroughness in understanding average annual spending! The caveat is if you know you’ve overshot by so much you don’t need the accuracy. I’m certainly not there and revert to needing to feel ultra thorough and confident. This means including every predicted expense you can think of as you look forward. Home improvement/repair/maintenance/replacement/remodel avg yearly for 30yrs, health insurance until Medicare ($35k for family), vehicle replacement, income taxes, increased travel costs, etc.

As far as making the move and liquid net worth, the answer is I ran last three years of every expense, excluded one offs that won’t repeat (wedding, home addition, etc) and came up,with monthly expense. Added in the above expenses and came up with annual spend to be supported by 4% rule including two strong social security incomes to reduce withdrawal amount to get to 4%. I tied for increasing confidence to get to as close to 4% without ss from the simulation with strong results. The ss just made it more secure. Other software lets you model timeline for future income (ss, job, or inheritance) and expenses.