“If readers are interested and Jacob has space available I can write more on the merits of pensions or the perils of group health insurance at a later date.”

Yeah, I’m in!

Right on… generally speaking, one would not
try the additional part time strategy with spouse and kids unless it is very high paying.

Along the same lines, in cases where overtime
is possible and paid at a higher rate, one should
take it and take more vacation later to
make up the time with family.

My theory is, if I’m going to be away from my family, I want to be paid as much as possible
while I’m gone.

-FF

One tactic we’re going to try to use is find a P/T working-from-home job for her when our #2 child arrives next summer and she quits her current P/T outside the home gig.

If it helps, I have found that “catch-up”
is not as hard as it seems. Essentially
that is what we were doing during the
three years my wife and I were both
working…catching her up to speed on
retirement. Here’s a twist on that which
I’ve used to help up the savings rate:

Part-time jobs or overtime at current jobs
combined with strategic use of vacation
can be very helpful in boosting the savings
rate/making up for lost time. If the part
time job has a separate retirement plan,
so much the better.

A few days a month of extra work is very easy while on shift work (< 5 days/week) , but actually is not too hard while working the standard five days a week either. I worked a traditional work schedule (5 days/ wk) for 1.5 yrs and here is what I did.

3 weeks vacation+ 1 wk sick leave
= 20 days of leave= 40 half days
of leave. Add 10 holidays/yr and that's
1 day a week you can be off in some
fashion. For me, taking a half day
morning off work is 90% as good as taking
the full day off. (I do not like getting
up early). Take a Wed, or Thurs morning off,
or schedule a dentist appt. at 10am and
take the morning off (if you need to
properly use your sick leave). Then find
an enjoyable part-time job one day/wk on the weekend. (This is much, much easier than you might think in a metro area, even now… everyone else wants to be off on a weekend) Keep the other day of the weekend completely free to rest. Save all the money from the part-time job, do not touch it at all.

You can easily boost your savings rate 10%-
20% without feeling it much and you will
quickly catch up for lost time.

Best of luck-
FF

the %’s were after SS taken out.
Thanks for the well wishes.

-FF

Fubek, FI3 in ~2 years.

firefighter, great post. just the right amount of details and written well. i’m interested in your health care findings.

A Roth wouldn’t be almost as good as a traditional IRA if it’s getting taxed on both ends. I’m not saying you are wrong to use the Roth, just that whatever calculations you are using to suggest a future tax on Roth IRAs/401ks won’t be that damaging is incorrect.

As for the Roth, I plan to start mine ASAP. I’ve been considering it for months and have come to the conclusion that even if Congress reneges on the deal, the only way I’ll likely come out worse is if they tax it more than capital gains. Whereas, if they leave it alone I stand to gain immensely. Too bad I waited till age 26 to get it going, but thats life.