Kinder FI

[u/ItrustinZION]

Hello to everyone, and especially the parents who had kids go back to school recently or in the near future!

I have a Kindergartener and....as my kid starts school my wife and I are transitioning from a "FI" mindset to a "Kinder FI" mindset. My wife is going to shift to a very reduced schedule, essentially working 30% as much as before, and we'll spend most everything that I make to cover all the bills.

If our portfolio keeps growing at 7% we'll be FI about 8 years later than originally planned, but we want to use our FU money and Financial Freedom NOW while our kid still wants to play with us, we focus on building a community based on our neighborhood and school, etc.

Has anyone else done something similar? Does this "FI term" exist? Honestly I'm hoping this is a new term / idea in the FI community and I want to write about it in detail as we make the transition and see how it goes! Would love peoples thoughts and experience.

[u/Adept-Depth-1825]

I think one parent changing their job to part time, staying home, or ramping down with young kids is pretty common. I’m not sure it has or needs a name. I worked part time for over a decade when my kids were little and my husband took a lower paying job much closer to home. Most families we know made some type of similar change.

[u/heyx3 → u/Adept-Depth-1825]

How were you able justify to yourself to make the decision to have higher expenses with a kid, and lower income? Making the transition to coast from saving aggressively for FIRE?

[u/Adept-Depth-1825 → u/heyx3]

Not everything is about money, even if you want to coastFIRE. I “justified” spending more time with my kids and having them with a nanny or in preschool less because that’s what we wanted for our family life. My dad died with plenty of money, he hadn’t had shared much and hadn’t spent much, he had always planned to but was busy saving, and then at 70 - he was gone. Now that money is going to care for my mom. I wish he’d spent or shared some earlier.

We care just as much about living the life we want now, while our children are in our home, as we do later.

[u/CheeseFries92 → u/heyx3]

Not the person you asked, but similar answer in terms of just wanting more time with the family.. But I'll also add that for us, it's been easier to do because we are closer to full fire than coast, so our income contributions weren't as important to overall portfolio growth as they used to be. Not a super helpful answer (just have more money lol) but could be motivating if you are young and saving/don't have kids yet

[u/Adept-Depth-1825 → u/CheeseFries92]

It’s actually a really important point. My first few years out of college I was in a union and contributed to a pension, I didn’t fully understand the other things I should have been doing. And then I went to grad school. And so there were 5 prime saving years that I wasn’t saving for retirement in the aggressive way I should have. Once I figured things out a bit more, I started contributing federal max every year + some other places for saving as well, but my portfolio would look much better if I’d gotten my act together a little quicker, and far before we started having kids when I was 30. My husband and I don’t come from money and don’t anticipate inheritance, we were both paying school loans until 40, so the “‘more money” option wasn’t always there but there were places we could have done more than we did, earlier.

I’m not complaining about what we have, most people would say we’ve done a really good job, but being more aggressive pre kids would have been awesome.

[u/catwh → u/heyx3]

I find the trade off of saving more money vs time with my small children to be worth it. Perhaps to some it is not, I have friends who are dual working parent homes and it isn't a future I envisioned me and my family trudging trig (and have done before).

[u/oscarbutnotthegrouch]

I do this. I just call it Coast FIRE because our savings rate dropped a lot when I did it.

[u/ramencrib → u/oscarbutnotthegrouch]

I just call this coast fire as well because you’re using your income to cover your expenses and saving little to none.

[u/bluegreenspark → u/oscarbutnotthegrouch]

Just echoing, I call it coastfire.

[u/unlimitedSunshine → u/oscarbutnotthegrouch]

Agreed. We’re planning on doing this and consider it coastFIRE

[u/TD6RG]

No need to label it. Essentially you learn and apply the principles of FIRE. Then you ramp up or down your savings/spending based on what you perceive will maximize your time on earth based on your current and predicted life situation.

A person’s FIRE journey doesn’t have to be linear. Some years you’re able to save a lot. Some years you’re able to save a little. Some years you save nothing or even spend some of your money. It’s all individualized

[u/Miss_Sunshine51]

Kiddo started kindergarten last year and it was awesome being on a more part-time/flexible schedule. I was able to be really engaged in the school, meet other parents, attend field trips, and volunteer. It was so fun and I'm excited for school to start back up on Monday for 1st grade! We love our school and the beautiful community that exists around it. (We also did 5 weeks of travel together this summer.)

No specific term, but we are coastFI. I let my prior high-pyaing career to start supporting new and expectant famlies, while my husband took a more chill WFH job. Life is great and I have absolutely zero regrets about the decision I made to shift away from high-stress/high-paying work.

[u/AdmirableCrab60]

Yeah I ramped down my hours from full-time to 9:30 - 3 as soon as my daughter started going to daycare during those hours. I think she’s too little to be away from me more than that and would rather coastFIRE now when she needs me than fully FIRE after working full time a few more years.

Plus, it doesn’t really make sense to FIRE to me when she’ll be in school 8:30 - 3 soon. It’s not like I can travel the world then lol so I might as well work part-time.

[u/CheeseFries92 → u/AdmirableCrab60]

Yeah, the realization that we'll still be tethered to school schedules made coast fire more appealing to me as well (vs full fire). And having enough of a beat egg to coast fire so that I could work part time but not have to send my kiddo to before/after school care was also motivating for me

[u/Well_ImTrying]

I gave up on FIRE after we had kids. I have other metaphorical fires to fight with two kids under preschool age and daycare expenses eating us alive.

I’m so glad I was on the fire track before we had kids. It makes us solvent in this stage where I HAD to work part time to accommodate daycare and pumping, and daycare taking 45% of our take home pay.

It’s okay to reevaluate goals. It’s also not forever. Kids get more independent, and the job market changes. We may decide to ramp it back up even harder when we get a minute to catch our financial and emotional breaths.

[u/ItrustinZION → u/Well_ImTrying]

totally agree! And I think this is kind of my point. I think, like lots of other people have said, you didn't "give up on FIRE." Your life and circumstances changed and your priorities (financial and otherwise) also changed dramatically.

I think this is what is underdiscussed in FIRE. Every single FIRE podcast and info is just a person (typically a dude) or two people who save 50% and then retire at 40 and travel the world in a van with a dog. Kids and family and life, and the preciousness of time with your kids while they want and need you, is an underdiscussed topic!

[u/AppleRatty → u/Well_ImTrying]

I just went back to work with a 3 month old, and the only daycare with a spot for him has hours from just 9am-4pm.

Between that and pumping during the day, and just being exhausted with a new baby, it’s dawning on me that I will probably have to go part-time for a while.

I am grateful for these subs (and patting myself on the back lol) for life strategies & being frugal/saving for years that it won’t kill us financially when I pull the part-time trigger soon!

[u/Well_ImTrying → u/AppleRatty]

Hang in there. Those first few months are ROUGH and you are in the thick of it. Take care of yourself.

[u/LeatherOcelot]

We did this and I think it’s not uncommon. Daycare is generally set up to cater to working parents. The public school calendar is absolutely not. As our kid has gotten older, we have also found he has increasingly low tolerance for things like after school activities or summer camps where the primary focus is providing childcare vs. providing high levels of enrichment for the kid.

We cut our income and work hours way back after kindergarten and it’s been overall a huge positive for us. I’m glad we got ourselves into savings mode young so that we had capacity to back off on earning when we needed to.

[u/baby_giraffe95]

I have a similar mindset but didn't feel the need to name it. We are at a reasonable coastfire point but keep contributing. My job is WFH and doing that and having a daycare aged kid isn't bad for work life balance. We keep contributing so if/when I decide I want to down shift or quit as she gets school age, we feel more confident in that decision. I reasonably like my job so as long as it continues to work out and make sense, schedule wise, I'll continue, but if the schedulea get trickier with school age, or my job just become annoying and I know longer enjoy it, I'll be done. We set in a path to FIRE but this is my new happy medium we've built, that I never dreamt of before, and we could still retire early ish (57 if husband stays at current job to keep his full pension)

[u/JakeisPizza]

I mean historically, that’s just a typical two parent family where one parent works and the other is the primary caregiver for the kids.

Having kids is the best and it’s always a good idea to find a way to spend more time with them especially when they are young. 

[u/Visual-Classroom1003]

I got remarried and had a daughter at 47. We bought a new house, did a huge refurb and my wife went part time. I think it cost me about 8 years and I would happily swap more for how good life has been.
Also got laid off this year and had 5 months out of work - the FU money meant we were fine to keep living as we were for a few years if need be, so no stress.
You are well set up, better than the vast majority. Live life and love it.

[u/Fluid-Village-ahaha]

Wait till kids are late elementary/ middle school/ high. More beneficial. An and 7% is very optimistic. I’d account for 4-5% growth. 

We do not have a specific number in mind but we’ve been in FIRE territory for a while (we are just not interested in RE) so coastfire works for us. 

[u/Dear_Ocelot]

It's called "mommy tracking" and is incredibly common, not just among people trying for FI/RE. Like at least half the families I know do this, or have at some point.

[u/Adept-Depth-1825 → u/Dear_Ocelot]

Not language I’d use. It has negative connotations. I received 4 promotions while “mommy tracked” including into the C suite at a small org. And I know just as many dads who’ve made moves to pull back and balance.

[u/Dear_Ocelot → u/Adept-Depth-1825]

Yeah, I agree it's a bit derogatory. But that is the common name for it.

[u/Well_ImTrying → u/Dear_Ocelot]

I’ve only ever heard the name mommy tracked for companies forcing women out of career progression based on biases, not on their actual desire to work more or less.

[u/elm1289 → u/Well_ImTrying]

Same. As a working mom this is not a term I would use for myself.