Sadly giving up on early retirement and going back to work

[ofcourseyoudo]

I'm really uncomfortable with this guy's reasoning. One of the motivations for him to go back to work is to feel less rejected by his children. In this post and a linked post he says he thinks he's spent too much time at home with them and is deeply hurt that they prefer their mother over him. So he wants to go back to work to "protect his heart".

I think that's a waaaaay bigger issue for him to address than the financial ones. Maybe there's truth to that experience but going back to avoid your children makes it seem like something is seriously out of whack here.

[ethicalsmacker]

Odd to me, I have always been the "fun parent" the kids wants to play with constantly. My wife probably feels like he does, but she basks in it because it's finally time for her to be alone and recharge.

[HeyLaughingBoy]

If it's going to cost $1,500,000 for two kids to go to college in 12 years, the result will be that almost no one goes to college. At that point, any post-secondary education is going to look good to employers.

[listenallyall]

Seems logical, but even today, how many families have $250-350,000 per kid to send to college? I'd argue, not many, even among relatively high earners. Yet college applications and enrollments seem to be at all-time highs.

[s09dfhks]

Sounds like the bigger listen here is if you want to fire, don’t have kids

[toomuchtodo]

Per Brookings, it costs $310k to raise 1 kid 0-18. That doesn’t include college, daycare, and opportunity costs.

If you want to FIRE, don’t have kids. I have kids, they’re expensive.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33991744

[Giorgi]

especially two

[oxw]

“OK, this is my belated April Fool’s Day post[...]”

The $1.5 million number is a joke

[BizarroLand]

Not really. If your kids go to an Ivy League school that could be $75,000/year for tuition alone in 13 years, (assuming $40k/year/person for tuition now plus 5%/year increases), plus room and board and spending money for 5 years (assuming they both go for Masters Degrees) you're looking at maybe not $1.5 million but over $1,000,000 for 2 children.

[__lbracket__]

Feels like a trivial message ("yeah you need a regular job to raise a family unless you have FU money") packaged as a grand experiment. On the flip side, single folks or those without kids have been retiring for a long time (without calling it FIRE)

[kylehotchkiss]

> However, the Fed needs to pivot by the end of the year to prevent a 10%+ nationwide decline in real estate prices.

No they don’t! Think of how many couples are holding off on kids because of the housing prices.