I have a confession to make. I haven't written a post in weeks. I don't know how many. Three, four, maybe six. Not really sure. It's been a while. I know you probably haven't noticed because I schedule posts to run like clockwork, but I do most of my writing in bunches. I may feel particularly inspired and knock out a month's worth of posts in a given week. Over the years I've gradually gotten a few months ahead (which explains why you're reading a post written in June today), and every now and then I take advantage of that.
Pretending Retirement
The reason I haven't written a post in weeks is that my wife and I have been pretending we are retired. Financial independence and early retirement are pretty squishy subjects, but we're essentially financially independent now. It's a little odd because in order to really be at our “number” (which itself is pretty squishy) we'd have to sell WCI for its market value, and we're really not ready to do that. We could also just do minimal work on WCI and ride the residual income stream from it, but we're not really ready to do that either. But either of those options would mean financial independence for us at our current ridiculous level of spending.
Speaking of ridiculous spending, as we were sitting in our monthly budget meeting recently, Katie asked why I was giving her a hard time about a bunch of purchases and restaurant visits. Our monthly total number of transactions had once again reached an all-time high and we had blown through our allocated adjustable spending. I replied something to the effect that if our spending keeps inflating like that, then maybe we're not so financially independent. Her extremely valid reply was basically “Well duh. I wouldn't do that if we didn't have the money.” And since we DID have the money, it's pretty hard to complain.
Lots of good savers and financial advisors of good savers have said that it can be really hard to adjust from a lifetime of saving to a pattern of spending. I don't think we're going to have that problem, even if spending is the most painful for me of the four financial activities (Earn, Save/Invest, Spend, Give) I want to do well.
Lots of people look forward to retirement. When you ask them why it's often so they have more time to do their hobbies and to travel the world. We don't think you have to stop working to do either of those. Over the last couple of years, we've been gradually aligning our actual life with our ideal life. No surprise, this involves a fair amount of travel.
What Prevents Travel?
We have discovered that it is neither work nor money that keeps us from traveling as much as we'd like. I'm only working 12 ER shifts a month (leaving 18-19 days open since I've dropped the night shifts and no longer lose a couple of DOMA days a month) and WCI work can be done from anywhere on the globe with a cell phone connection. And we have plenty of income to pay for travel, at least if we fly coach and don't stay in penthouse suites.
What keeps us from traveling more is our children. So we donated them to Goodwill for the tax deduction.
Just kidding, at least about the donation part. And the tax deduction part. But those kids are a major drag on a hard-core travel schedule. Not only are they too young to do a lot of the adventure trips we'd like to do (and which we may be too old to do by the time the two-year-old is out of the house), but they have a really pesky work schedule–9-10 months a year, 5 days a week, 7 hours a day. If you try working a major travel schedule around that schedule, it means you'll only get trips during the summer, at Christmas, on Spring Break, and over a couple of long weekends. That's not exactly how we envision financial independence/early retirement. We're thinking more like 1-2 trips a month. Plus, those times when kids are out of school are highly competitive requested days off for a group of emergency docs. At best you're only going to get half of them if you want to keep your job.
Don't feel badly for them. We had a family backpacking trip and a road trip to Phoenix during Spring Break, will take a trip to Alaska and a trip to Japan this summer, anticipate a trip to Lake Powell this Fall, and haven't even thought about the holidays yet. They're not living a life of deprivation by any means. Their life is dramatically different from mine, given that I only left my state 3 times prior to going to college.
How We're Traveling
No big deal, right? We'll just leave the kids at home and go travel without them. As my little surprise getaway to Belize showed last year, that's harder to do than it looks. There's a lot of stuff that needs to get done around the house and our kids are involved in a lot of stuff. Who knew a toddler could be so time-consuming? Plus, our closest set of grandparents lives 3000 miles away. You can only ask busy siblings with multiple kids and neighbors to do so much. No way are we getting away once or twice a month together. Could we hire a nanny? Sure, but then comes up the philosophical question of why did we have all these kids if we didn't want to raise them? And just like nobody cares as much about how your money is managed as you, nobody cares how your children are raised as much as you do.
Our solution? We go on separate vacations. While we'd both rather go on trips with each other, that means going on a lot fewer trips. But think about the benefits of doing separate trips:
- We can do adventure trips that kids can't do.
- We can build important friendships, something that is particularly lacking among adult men in our society.
- Our kids are still raised by their parents, even if it is sometimes just one at a time.
- We can still do all the family and couple trips we would have been able to do anyway.
- Sending one person on vacation is dramatically cheaper than taking the whole family.
Recent Trips
The author on Mt. Rainier- A nap in the warm afternoon sun at high camp is a critical aspect of a successful summit bid the next morning
We've been doing this for years, but now are doing it with a lot more frequency. As I write this back in June, my wife is on day two of a 10 day trip to Sweden, Finland, Estonia, and St. Petersburg with a friend. Last week I was climbing Mt. Baker and Mt. Rainier. The week before that I was canyoneering with friends in Glen Canyon. 10 days before that, my wife did a ladies beach trip to California as a bit of a reunion with the friends she made while I was a resident. I was canyoneering in Southern Utah in the beginning half of that week, and the previous weekend she had led a ladies backpacking trip in Southern Utah. 6 trips in six weeks for a grand total of 31 days of “vacation.”
Has it been a little chaotic? Absolutely. Was it probably too much in too short of a time span? Yes, it was. But you live and learn and adjust as you go. We're still new to this retirement stuff; I'm sure we'll figure it out eventually.
What do you think? Why do you want to retire? Have you ever taken separate vacations? Why or why not? Comment below!
I can relate with the idea of separate vacations. My wife and I travel separately from time to time, also. We sometimes refer to these jaunts as “spousal appreciation trips”. The spouse that stays home has plenty of time to realize how much the traveling spouse contributes at home! Just yesterday, my wife returned from a 4-day trip to NYC with a friend, giving me 4 whole days to take care of all the responsibilities that we usually share. Boy, was I glad to see her return home last night!
This week, it will be my turn. I’ll be traveling to Dallas to attend FinCon for the first time. While I’m excited about the trip, I would have loved to take my wife along, especially since we’ve already been apart for several days. But, we’ve still got one kid in high school and we’re not comfortable leaving him home alone. So, I’m on my own this trip.
Our preference is to travel together as a family. With no babysitt, er, grandparents in our city, our solution has almost always been to take the kids everywhere we go. And well-traveled kids they are! They’ve been all over the U.S. and they’ve traveled outside the country quite a bit, too. Now that they’re nearly grown (our oldest is in college), it’s interesting to see how all that travel has shaped them. They both enjoy traveling and hope to live abroad someday. Not only that, but some of our best travel memories were created with the kids, so we’ll always be able to recall those trips together.
Taking separate vacations can be an ideal way to participate in things that the kids can’t do, as you’ve pointed out. Spousal appreciation trips have probably strengthened our (admittedly, already great) marriage, too. But be sure to take the kids along and go together at every opportunity – they will thank you for it someday!
This past April, I took the first separate vacation since I have been together with my wife (19 years!). I did a hiking/camping trip with my brothers that would not have been possible with kids. It was a revelation, and both my wife and I will likely take regular, separate trips periodically while we can.
For multiple reasons, we don’t leave the kids with the grandparents for long periods of time while we jaunt off to Europe. That might change as the kids get older, but then you run into the school problem. Like PoF, we are genuinely considering extended travel with home (or cyber) school for a period of time when the kids are elementary school age. The life experiences they would have on trips like this would far outweigh any “academic” disadvantages of missing regular school, IMO.
When I was a resident, I had more vacation time than my wife. She said I could go anywhere I wanted without her, as long as it was to visit my parents.
LOL!
I think that happens a lot. And I think it’s unfortunate.Instead of both of you getting to do something cool, neither of you get to do anything cool.
It could be worse. She could have said you could go anywhere you wanted without her, as long as it was to visit her parents. 🙂
My spouse and I each take a few individual vacations each year without the other person. We both feel it’s important and necessary to maintain our individuality and keep up with our friendships so they don’t deteriorate. My separate vacations are usually guy trips with friends I’ve known since college or earlier. I’d feel suffocated if I was married to someone who insisted on doing everything together. No thanks.
The explanation you stated in your article is also one of the many reasons I don’t have kids and don’t want any. Travel is a big part of my life, and anyone who puts the proper effort into raising a family has to sacrifice this as well as a lot of other things. I’m happy there are so many people out there willing to do so, but it wouldn’t work for me.
I always find comments like “why have kids if you don’t want to raise them” incredibly off putting. I don’t think leaving them once a year with a nanny or grandparents so you can have time as a couple and experience kid-unfriendly adventures means you aren’t raising your children. As an aside, I often hear this argument in regards to full time working parents (usually directed at the mom) and to that I say it’s important for kids to know they aren’t the center of the universe, and to me it’s important for my daughter to see that women can also have important, fulfilling careers.
My husband and I take one international trip per year without kids bc traveling is important to us and something we did a lot before having kids. We also do a few separate weekend guys/girls only trips. The rest of the trips are with kids usually domestically (ski trips, Hawaii, visiting family) and that seems to work for us.
I absolutely agree (and didn’t mean to “put you off.”) But I’m not talking about one trip a year. I’m talking about two trips a month. You’ve got to admit those are very different things. It’s no big deal to be away from your kids for a week a year, but at 10 days a month, you would expect to see some long-term effects don’t you think?
Don’t extend my comment to other situations like working or single moms. I didn’t intend it that way and thought the piece made that fairly clear. Think of it as more of an internal dialogue with myself trying to figure out what I want to do with my life. One of the things I want to do is spend time with my kids and raise good, responsible kid who will contribute to the world around them. It’s not the only thing I want to do though, so I’ve got to find a balance.
Fully agree homeschooling is not for everyone. That said, we do it, my wife thought about it for almost three years before pulling the trigger on it, and it has worked wonderfully for over two years. As a military family, there can be some stresses on kids, which your wife knows well. Homeschooling gives a ton of flexibility though, hit San Francisco, San Diego, Sequoia National Park, etc, all while other kids are in school. Mostly vacation when we travel, mixed with some school work that count as school days, like a trip to Hoover Dam that the kids then wrote about. If done right, it actually takes far less time than kids spend in school. If you really look at how much time is spent on actual class work in schools, especially in elementary and middle school, a bit depressing. Extensive volunteering at the kids schools is what pushed my wife to homeschool our kids. But again, not for everyone.
In regards to your first paragraph, I noticed.
The neatest arrangement I have ever come across was a married anesthesiologist with two children who home schooled them. They would do extended trips, essentially setting up shop in a given locale / foreign country while renting out a house / condo / whatever and move in for some extended period of time (usually 1-3 months). As long as they had an internet connection they could continue schooling the kids without a problem. This allowed them to “live like the locals” wherever they were at, extensively explore the area they were in and the kids were immersed in whatever culture they were in at that time. I met these kids when they were in their mid-teens and they were two of the most educated and cultured children I have ever encountered. Their ability to carry on an extended discussion of any given topic, especially if it had any international implications, was truly impressive and yet they were still kids who enjoyed the usual kid-type of stuff. I had a more enjoyable time talking with them than I do most adults whose horizon typically extends to the limits of their city / state / etc. and have absolutely no concept of the wide world out there. These were incredibly well adjusted kids due to their exposure at an early age to multiple cultures adn they had seen and experienced things which even I hadn’t managed to get to yet. I thought it a fascinating concept for rearing kids but it does run into the pesky problem of being able to adjust your work schedule to allow yourself to do something like that (locum tenens anyone?). He was not financially independent as far as I could tell at that time but he and his family were fabulously wealthy by just about every other measure that I can come up with. I envied him and his wife for having the foresight, courage and dedication to commit to raising their family in that fashion.
I think the problem with this sort of a plan (and don’t think I haven’t thought about it very seriously given the main source of my income these days) is that we have this idea in our heads of travel being this super fun thing. Well, living in another country is not the same thing as visiting there. Now you wake up, get the kids up, feed them breakfast, sit them down and teach them for 7 or 8 hours, and then move into the evening chores, just like at home. Sure, on Saturday you get to go see the Taj Mahal, but they also don’t get to play on a soccer team because you’re only in this country for 8 weeks and it didn’t work out. Plus, is at least one of the two parents interested in being a professional teacher? Home schooling requires work. Think about the two hours you spend hounding kids to do their homework each night. Now imagine doing that for 8 hours a day AND having to write the lesson plan yourself. My wife IS a professional teacher and I don’t think either one of us would be interested in home-schooling our kids. That’s a serious commitment to child-raising to the exclusion of A LOT of other things you could be doing with your time.
Another issue is that your children would never get the experience of belonging to a community for years on end. It would be very difficult to establish any sort of long-term friendships or relationships when you’re moving 4-6 times a year. It’s like the military brat problem on steroids. With my wife having grown up as a military brat, and having spent 4 years on active duty ourselves, we’re keenly aware of that issue.
Different strokes for different folks, but I think some realism needs to be injected into a lifestyle that a lot of people view way too romantically without taking a realistic view of all the implications and sacrifices required. And that’s assuming the financial and career associated issues can be solved.
I have also found that kids (and dogs!) are a major impediment to couples travel. We have enjoyed traveling with our kids as they were growing up (visiting most of the major national parks, skiing, beaching, Europe, etc.). Nowadays, the teens are not so keen on traveling with the parents, and we are wanting to do some things while we are young enough to enjoy. I also despise traveling over school breaks when it is packed with other tourists almost wherever you go.
I joke that the logistics of getting the President to vacation in Florida are far easier to arrange than our one week couple get-away in Spain later this fall. Coordinating sitters, rides, after school responsibilities, kenneling the dogs, etc. which will all probably come together the day before we leave, not a moment before, and keep me on edge until we get on the plane.
Here’s another impediment to travel— the health of elderly parents, two of whom are now falling regularly (one of whom is in hospice), one of whom had a cancer scare a couple weeks ago, and rarely a week or two goes by without some sort of “emergency”.
It seems like it never gets any easier!
That’s definitely one reason we don’t have a dog. Perhaps the main reason.
^^ my side of the ongoing dog debate with m’girlfriend
Think of all the things you get to learn about your children while travelling. We learned our son is allergic to tree nuts on our flight to Disney World last year. Luckily, there was a critical care pulmonologist on board with some epinephrine from the planes’ medical kit. Tip for the wise, don’t roll out all the various gauge needles in front of a boy with a high aversion to needles.
Great idea and a good post. For myself I don’t like travel that much. Hotels are not that comfortable to me and getting there is also annoying. My great retirement is to have a place that I love and allow others as they want to visit.
I hear ya. We’ve worked from home running our own business(es) for 21 years now. In the past it was our daughter (as much as we LOVE her) that kept us from traveling like we wanted. Now that she’s in college we travel quite a lot more! In fact, we’ve considered traveling full-time and ditching the house. That went over… well, not good. “Funny” that even in her 20s she has an impact on our travel. Not that we let her control our actions but she had a good point. What about holidays? And visits home from college? Where would those be? How about stability and continuity? So… maybe when she’s a bit older, has her own house and family, then we’ll consider the full-time aspect. For now though, she’s right… we value family time and it would be hard to manage when we’re in a different location every month.
I read this book a couple of years ago-The Brainy Bunch: The Harding Family’s Method to College Ready by Age Twelve
https://www.amazon.com/Brainy-Bunch-Harding-Familys-College/dp/1476759340
Mom did all the home schooling and has one year of college. All of the kids graduated from HS by the age of 12. One started her residency at Walter Reed at age of 22, one Masters in computer science at age 17 etc. No prestigious schools but they got their paper. I believe the structured part of the school day was over by 12.
I had a 14 year old on my college dorm floor. I don’t want my kids to have that experience. What’s the rush? Adult life is long enough and childhood is too short as it is.
Agreed. I have done research into home schooling and have friends that currently homeschool their kids, and there are homeschooling groups and ways the kids socialize, but it is not the same as being at a school – any kind of school (whether that be public, private, Montessori style, whatever) for the kids.
The brain does not complete emotional maturation until around 25, and as you noted, childhood is too short. Most schools don’t even like to have children skip grades anymore, as being younger than others in the class can be difficult socially/emotionally, even if the chid is intellectually advanced.
If our children are more likely to live until their 90’s and beyond, and hopefully healthier than current generations, they don’t need to be graduating college at 16 and faced with 70-80 years of adulthood and adult stress. Childhood is hard enough, and human knowledge and information is doubling every 12 months. Let kids be kids, hopefully without their faces lit up by the lights of screens.
My husband is picking out his 8 vacation weeks for 2018 right now with the other partners in his group so this has been on our mind a lot. We try to get 3-4 vacation weeks when our 4 kids are already out of school, if the weeks are available, but then we still have 4-5 weeks when kids are in school. We have taken them out 1-2 weeks per school year for trips but my oldest starts middle school next year so I know that is going to get trickier. I decided we can take them out for 3 days/week if vacation without any major consequences and most domestic trips can be accomplished in 5 days (2 weekend days + 3 weekdays). We still have leftover vacation weeks so that’s where we split at least 1 week for individual trips (usually backpacking with buddies for my husband and a historical city for myself and sisters or girlfriends) and then sometimes a couples only trip, although childcare is hard. We have been able to find young mothers who stay at home or single moms who stay at home to pay for the week of watching our kids, but it ALMOST gets as expensive as taking the kids along with us. So we’ve only managed couple trips every other year so far. I have a good friend who homeschools and really stresses about leaving her kids to go with us on a non-kids trip since they have the ability to travel with their kids year round. But I also think she has a different personality from me as evidenced by the fact she chose homeschooling…I don’t stress about leaving my kids at all as they still travel with us 5-7 times a year and it’s good for them to see I have a life outside of them. However, I would be lying if I said I hadn’t considered the homeschooling route simply for the flexibility. But I don’t think that’s a sufficient reason to pull my kids out of the school where they are very happy and I’m pleased with the bilingual education they are receiving. It sure would take the stress out of vacation week picking though!
Sounds like you could have written this post.
This is the biggest problem we face now. In residency I didn’t have enough time off or money to be able to vacation in places we go now (or want to go now), and now I have the financial means and usually enough vacation time but the kids’ school schedules have really put a damper on our vacation plans. And as they are getting older this will only get worse, since missing school in early elementary school isn’t nearly as big of a deal as it is in junior high or high school.
For example, last year we took two weeklong trips plus spring break, so the kids missed 10 days of school. That was 3 weeks of vacation in the 9 month school calendar. Since I have partners who have school aged kids I can’t get every spring break or every school holiday off, and I dislike traveling in peak season, but it’s looking like that’s the choice.
There aren’t many year round School options here, but that is another alternative, albeit with consequences of its own. First world problem.
I can relate to the non-kid portions of this post.
I’ve hit my “number” ($xM liquid, house paid off), but am still working (not full time, but close enough so that I still get benefits). So I’ve let my spending creep up. While I don’t have a spouse asking me about restaurant purchases (my eating out usually consists of a 6-inch veggie sub from Subway), I do look at my own spending and my particular vices (nice cars and bikes) can consume much of my income if I don’t watch those expenses carefully.
When I give myself a hard time, I point out to myself that I’m spending the money because I have the money, and I’m already where I need to be in terms of savings.
That said, I’m not sure how easy it is to “ramp down” spending when I want to throw in the corporate towel. Not to mention, increased savings now means more spending later. And perhaps I should be diversifying in case this plump stock market bubble pops. Etc…
Regarding taking separate vacations; I have no kids, but my ex-wife and I often found ourselves taking separate vacations. That isn’t the only reason we’re divorced, but it sure didn’t help. I think my 3-4 day weekend trips to Moab were fine, but the 1-2 week trips alone were just a lot of time apart that might otherwise have strengthened the relationship. Of course that was us, and I know many people make this work quite well. And parents, especially, have probably already figured out, by necessity, how to make this work.
Interesting issue. I wonder at what point separate vacations help and at what point they hurt the relationship. Are they deposits into or withdrawals out of the “relationship bank”? Not sure I know the answer, but even if it was a minor withdrawal, we’d probably still do it. It’s either go separate or not go at all, although perhaps there is a middle ground if we learned to use a nanny in some way.
there’s a wise Eastern proverb saying “the separation is like a wind : fans out true love and blows out small infatuation”
I figure if a marriage can survive a 5 month deployment it can survive a 5 day canyoneering trip.
You need a like feature here on blog comments. 6 and 12 month and 6 week for us.
This is what I don’t have an answer for. I had to work our of state for a couple weeks and there was definitely some tension from it. She felt that I had been on a big vacation and I felt I had been working alone. Granted, it’s not a vacation, but I’m not sure I’d want to try this after that. On the other had, the trip to South America and Europe sound amazing, just not as much fun without my best friend…
I will say that I’m much more tolerant of my husband taking a 3-4 day buddy trip when I’ve already scheduled and started planning my own getaway. Multiple and extended trips per year would probably not be good for my marriage and would lead to a lot of disconnect and resentment…but a couple 2-4 day trips per year have been amazing…I come home much happier and less stressed and re-energized for being a good parent, and the same can be said of my husband.
Sad to read about travel not getting easier as kids get bigger! Mine is 16 months and it’s hard to take him on vacation but also hard to leave him on vacation (despite it not mattering at all how many days of daycare he misses). Plus we’re not sure when #2 will happen so it’s REALLY tough to make plans too far out.
Well, the traveling itself gets MUCH easier as kids get older (no more needing to worry about naptimes, early bedtimes, etc. as well as older kids just have more tolerance and patience, which are nice attributes when traveling) but the scheduling of travel gets more complicated the older the kids get.
I wonder if selling WCI for market would mean taking its most valuable asset and making him very unretired for a minimum of 5 years though 🙂
Looking forward to seeing your talk at FinCon Jim.
I am a retired doc interested in taking the 10 day trip to Sweden, Finland, Estonia and St. Petersburg, could you share details: was this a tour or arranged through a particular travel agent. Would greatly appreciate a response.
It was neither. The two of them planned out what they wanted to see, then they went and saw it. Kind of Rick Steves/Do it yourself style.
Not Europe, but they offer tours there (US as well): we greatly enjoyed GAdventures through several parts of India over 10 days. Price good also though we didn’t know until well on that we should tip our awesome guide about 10%. (Probably also true of more expensive tours.)
This is the exact reason I don’t understand the point of “retiring” in any of its squishy meanings, when you have kids at home. You can’t retire when you have to parent. Which is why I plan to work another 17 years. We have already taken two week long trips this school year and will probably do another in the spring. My son is in fourth grade and missing 3-4 weeks is fine. But once he hits middle school we’ll probably lay off because it’s too hard on them to catch up. My husband and I each do one long weekend friends trip ( separately) each year and we love it. I wouldn’t want to do much more than that though, honestly. Nothing is as fun or good as hanging out with my family. I actually just spent a week at home ( with the baby, husband and 9 yo were in school/work) and I have to say I quite enjoyed it. Too much travel is overrated, in my book.
Re retirement, separate vacations: Seeking crew for sailboat in FL panhandle so I can stay home more/ he’ll get more of our money’s worth from the boat. Free room, you buy at least half the meals and all your alcohol, required photo ID able to get you on military base, and if solo can’t be attractive straight female who’d make me jealous. Up to 3 good friends at a time possible, 2 if you couldn’t share a bunk together.
When I read the “6 trips in 6 weeks” it made my head spin was it fun or stressful? Being a dual physician family I dread the solo parent weekends, getting one kid off to ballet, the other to football while also trying to coach his team and at the same time corralling a 13 month old who is starting to mastered her mobility makes playing zone defense impossible especially when it is a 1 on 3 zone. That being said my kids are only 8, 4 and 1 so the dread will significantly decrease as they get older and become more independent. As a full time ICU doc, I only work thirteen 12hr shifts per month (4 nights) and my wife is ER 22 clinical hours (really closer to 32-35 with post shift charting and commute) but every month we each work one weekend so family time during the school year is already limited to 2 weekends per month. My question to everyone, is how do the dual physician couples approach these issues? When you are both working weekends taking time for yourselves is really just taking time away from the family. That being said self preservation is huge and necessary so when you are with your family you can put in 100%. But when one parent is gone for 31 days out of a 6 week stretch you can really miss things in your kids lives both the good and the bad. Are your kids really being raised in a single parent model? How much time away does it take to put your kids at an increased risk similar to single parent households? There is a strong association with increased drug and alcohol use in children raised in single family units male single parents>female? (1, nerdy reference).
Great post very thought provoking. We set our goals to be FI but then have to be careful when we reach our goals early so that we don’t cause harm to our relationships. Is it a midlife crisis? I have accomplished what I set out to do “Now what”? When people win the lottery it’s not during the spending spree that they say I wish I never won. It’s only after they loose something they had before do they have any self reflection.
1)Hemovich V, Crano WD. Family Structure and Adolescent Drug Use: An Exploration of Single-Parent Families. Substance use & misuse. 2009;44(14):2099-2113. doi:10.3109/10826080902858375.
All great questions. I’m not really sure if we’re dual income, triple income, single income, or less than a single income family right now! At various times it feels like all of those!
At any rate, I’m confident we BOTH spend more time with our families than occurs in the majority of dual physician families. I mean, I spend an average of ~25 hours a week at the hospital right now. So I don’t spend too much time worrying about that.
As far as that six week period, it was a little stressful, but it was also only six weeks. We decompress a bit in the Winter. For example, in November I don’t leave town once and my wife only leaves for 3 days. So other than 100 hours during the month at the hospital, I’m basically home the entire rest of the time. Yes, I’m doing WCI stuff for a lot of it, but that’s mostly while the kids are in school.
Do we miss stuff in our kids’ lives? Absolutely. Does that harm them? I don’t think so. I’ve been missing stuff in my kids’ lives for years due to being at the hospital. How is that any different? My father never once made it to something of mine during the day at the school. Because he had a job. Providing for your kids IS parenting. Better for the kids to have a roof over their head, food on the table, and clothes on their back than to have two parents there for every school assembly they have a minor part in or soccer game.
+2.
our kids’ knowing that we’re hard at work IS parenting. Think of hundreds of thousands (or is it millions?) of families where parent(s) do not work and spent all their time at home ( and not because they are FI or running a home based business). Is it a good parenting?
I have a different take then most of the comments. I was fortunate as a EM physician when I was single to work every other week so got plenty of vacations in. However once we had children I treasured that time, and realized (and was advised by other physicians) that the cliche “the time really goes fast” is true. We took great vacations with our kids (doctors can afford them although some were pretty low cost) and though not always “perfect” (and neither are vacations with just a spouse or alone) these were things I remember frequently and miss. I am retired so I travel and enjoy many trips with my wife but being with my kids as much as possible when it was possible was certainly the peak. My wife and I did take a trip or two without them when they were young and felt that was not what we wanted to do with the short amount of time, relatively, we have with them.
One other thing- we stressed the importance of schooling, and I wonder what kind of effect it has on some kids if you pull them out of school for a month, or even a week, and if they do miss some important educational and social activities because of that. They certainly can go to Paris on their own when they are older, or go hiking in South America, but what is the rush? Give them some things to look forward to for finding their adventures.
Thanks for sharing your perspective. It’s definitely a balancing act between getting to do the activities I can do now but won’t be able to when the kids are gone, going on trips with the kids, being home with the kids, and working. If you put too much off, you never get to do it at all, and that applies to all of those activities.
When I was trying to decide between a cardiology and plum/CC fellowship
I meet with a mentor who is the chair of medicine at one of the top hospitals in the country. I told him my dilemma and his advise was to do both a full cards and full pulm cc fellowship. At the end of the chat I asked him if there was anything he would have done differently in his career and he said “I wish I spent more time with my kids”. I took half of his advise.
When my wife came home from her shift last night she played me a recording of a message on her cell phone. A girl from my sons class called and asked to speak with our son. His “first phone call” now that was precious! This morning he told me they want to go trick or treating together. One of my colleagues is coming in early so I can get out of the unit in time to take the kids. I am really fortunate to work with an amazing group of docs.
Yes, our group has learned that lesson well. We bend over backwards to let the night doc come in a little late or the evening doc leave a little early so they can do some evening activities that are so difficult as emergency docs.
Studying for my internal med recert. I need a break.
When we miss stuff for work we accept it as part of the job requirement when we miss stuff to travel that is a choice.
But life is a balance, really curious how others approach it. I think we over sacrafice to be present as much as possible. Definitly need more time with guy friends. I struggle to get a poker game together twice a year when I used to play every other week before having kids. We have two in daycare 4/5 days, (46K, crazy) Thursday off since my son always has a half day on Thursdays, he is in after school 3 other days and our shift based schedules allow us to do 90-95% of our childcare. 1-3 evenings a month we have a baby sitter or grandparent pick them up from school.
Working only 13 Shifts per month has its ups and downs. But I really like having the option to be involved. I have been able to coach my kids sports teams every year and this was the first year they worked together as a team. Watching them turn a legitimate double play at 8 years old was a blast.
Should we work harder to find help so we can work more overlapping shifts? If my wife and I worked the same weekends with help we could get an extra weekend off as a family? For the same cost we could have gone the nanny approach which would also allow us to overlap more shifts but we felt the benefits of daycare/more social interactions with other kids was not worth the trade off.
Maybe when my 4 year old is out of daycare we can hire someone for 20hrs a week to help out. But then I would have to re-read your daugters post to figure out how to deal with reporting that. By the way based on your kids posts you are managing the family time balance very well.
That’s very kind of you.
My jaw dropped when I read that you spend $46K on daycare. That really adds up fast, doesn’t it, especially when paid for with after-tax dollars at your tax rate. One of you may be working 4-5 months just to pay for daycare.
I haven’t yet figured out how I can be a coach. I’ve barely been able to play on a team myself, and I miss about 1/3 of the games doing that. Between being out of town for trips and working random evening shifts, teams are surprisingly tough to do, whether watching, playing, or coaching. I guess it’s okay; my wife coaches more than anyone I know! She’s coaching kids’ teams that our kids aren’t even on!
One of the great benefits of living in the northeast cheap daycare and high physician salaries and cheap housing, did I mention property taxes are cheap (22k).
If we moved to most other parts of the country and bought a similar house and took similar jobs we would probrably already be FI.
In a non sarcastic note we do have great public schools so once daycare is done it’s really just the property taxes so with three kids we are making out. The key is leaving once the last kid heads off to college.
I really need to study. Have a great day.
My property taxes increased to 4K this year and I was very upset…guess I’ll write that check before they change their mind!
Seriously though, between property taxes and childcare, that is a serious budget item.
You made me do some math basically we are using a little less that 2 months gross combined salary to pay for daycare. We really maximise our tax advantaged accounts so we end up in the 33% bracket.
We currently spend $36k/year on childcare (2 kids in daycare 4/5 days a week, older kid in school after care 3/5 days a week). It really is easy to reach that number when you have more than one kid in daycare and don’t use some dirt cheap in home option. You know what town I live in — childcare here is cheaper than a lot of larger midwest or coastal cities. Translate my situation to a larger city and it’s 50% higher.
Seems like our lives are a mirror image. 3 kids 8/4/1, same daycare set up and my midde one is also a terror except girl version.
LG — sounds very similar. Except I *am* in Midwest but not that close to FI. Sounds like I may be a little bit of a lower tax bracket. Geographic arbtitrage doesn’t fix everything I suppose.
A couple things.
1. I would be willing to bet that writing posts is actually only about 10% of your time spent running this website. Just look at all of your replies above! So even if you haven’t written a post, you are definitely not retired from the website.
2. Taking separate vacations also limits risk that your kids will grow up without both parents….think plane crash or terrorist attack etc.
3. Completely agree that kids put a serious drain on the ability to travel freely.
4. Maybe don’t sell the site for a while since some of us have a lot of learning and working to go!
Thanks,
If you take so much time off separate from your spouse at what point you lose connection and move more towards divorce? We have only taken trips with kids so far, for last decade. We are trying now for few kids free trips as I think I need to connect more with my wife. I have started spending more quality time with her as well before it was all about getting house tidied up and kids taken care of and whats tomorrow and lets plan for the next vacations.
I have enough money, but this money only last if I stay with her too.
Little embarrassed to say but I also feel little scared or insecure what if she finds another person on a trip by herself?
I have zero doubt that going on an occasional trip with just your partner strengthens your relationship with your spouse, your overall family, AND your relationships with your kids. That’s a no-brainer and helps prevent divorce.
How many solo trips you can go on a year without an effect on your marriage is a good question. Certainly I think 1-2 that are less than 1 week are fine unless the trip itself leads to infidelity of some sort. Going backpacking with the buddies is fine, going to the beach with a friend that is the same gender as your partner…maybe not.
I think your fear of your spouse finding someone better than you on a trip is probably overblown, but if that is a serious concern…maybe the two of you should consider a little marriage counseling or taking a class together or something. Different strokes for different folks.
How this family of 9 can afford to travel the world year-round. Not saying I’d want to do it.
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/13/how-this-family-of-9-can-afford-to-travel-the-world-year-round.html