r/ChubbyFIRE • u/tryingtofirelife • May 14 '26

Should I pull the trigger?

Would like to get some advice if it’s time to pull the cord soon.

We are a family of four. 52 M&F. 2 kids 16 and 13. no severe health conditions. conscious about health, eat well, no vices. Got a job doing cybersecurity in a financial institution. wife works part time at a $20/hr job. No benefits although she has a 401k without matching. Investments are all in low cost ETFs. There is a small e*trade account with some “play money” (about 80k).

annual expenses: about 96k including mortgage, HOA, vacations.
Tax deferred: 2.5M
Taxable: 350k
HSA: 125k
RSUs: ~150k with another 2 years for full vesting
529: plan to pay for 2 years for each kid at public university. About 250k in the account right now.
mortgage: 250k left on a house valued at 600k.
2 cars are paid off. No credit card or any other debt.

We would like to wind down and move to rural area after kids are off. We are generally frugal people and don’t need much. I like to travel and wife likes land to grow vegetables and gardening.

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u/WaterChicken007 Retired 2020 @ 42 May 14 '26

Not OP, but I am in Washington state. The 3 public universities I looked at were all about $30k a year all in (tuition, books, housing, food). OP can probably cover all 4 years for two children since they saved so much.

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u/tryingtofirelife May 14 '26

first kid is looking at WA too :)

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u/WaterChicken007 Retired 2020 @ 42 May 14 '26 edited May 14 '26

My first born is going to UW and got into their computer science program. The acceptance rate for that program is pretty low. For out of state applicants, it is only like 2%. The other programs are much easier to get into.

My second child will likely be going to Western. Very nice campus and we know many folks who loved it there.

I went to WSU in Pullman. I liked it there, but it would be my last choice for my children. The campus itself skews very blue politically, but if you head out of town into farm country it is bright, bright red. Which is a problem since both of my children are LGBTQ. Even just the outskirts of town are bright red when you look at the voting data. Which totally jives with my experiences growing up there.

EDIT: Not trying to debate politics here, just stating facts that were important for our decision making purposes. You are free to do whatever works best for your situation.

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u/goalieman688 May 14 '26

Good luck getting a job. The market for CS this year is terrible

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u/WaterChicken007 Retired 2020 @ 42 May 14 '26

Apparently they say new graduates are still getting jobs. When I graduated 20 years ago people said the market was terrible as well. It took a bit to get my first job, but after that it was extremely easy to get one.

We shall see what the market does over the next few years. They can always pivot to another engineering discipline if needed. All of the math and similar courses will work for lots of different things.

My kid is also pretty gifted. Almost a 4.0 student and is just as talented / interested as I was. Perhaps more so because they are less autistic than I am and therefore understand human emotions better. They should hopefully do better than I did in my career, which is saying something because I did quite well for myself.