Newbie, asking for advice

[Melinda Daye]

Hello everyone. I'm a newbie to the official FI movement. However, my husband and i have been on a FAT version for a while; i guess without having a name to call it. I'm a PA and he's a financial advisor. I came in to the marriage with about 35K saved, while making 25-35K in ATL in the early 2000s and a small IRA from a 401K rollover, probably 30-50Kish. He had a good size 401k, but little other savings. I left ATL to go to PA school. Graduated in 2006, with loans, but at 2% student loans. We got married in 2006. We bought our first rental in 2007. We bought it for his mother, which rent basically covers the mortgage. We bought our townhouse in 2005, which turned into a rental in 2008 when we bought our forever home. We bought a vacation property, that is now a 3rd rental. We are both high income earners. Saved and pretty much maxed out 401K and saved some too; but not aggressively. I went part time off and on over the past 7 years, with my boys being small; now 8 yr old twins. Anytime I talk to him about saving more or budgeting, he says "he's a financial advisor. He's sees all kinds of income and accts, and that we're good compared to other people our age.". He feels like I discredit him. I have an acctg background, which is what I did in Atl for 4 years; but that was during the dot com burst, so I wanted something else. I was pretty frugal and spent very little prior to meeting him. I let the last 10 years get away from me. We don't have a lot of credit card debt, but a little; that darn amazon card . I drive a 2003 Volvo, that we bought in 2007, and have been saying just 2 more years since 2011. He changes vehicles about every 4-5 years, but we travel a lot ( drive since having the kids). He wants our travel vehicle to be safe and reliable to travel long distances, which i understand. Our 401ks are in great shape. I should be set with a pension, when I do retire; as well as 20% payment on insurance for life. Neither of us want to " retire early". We started a 529 plan when the boys were born, but then after about 2 years changed it to a high yield dividend fund in our name incase they don't want to go to college. I need advise on how to approach the save more of our "discretionary " money? Why do we just have to buy things to be buying things that we WANT? Again, what's the best approach to bring a spouse on board; especially one with a finance background. Just because we're "above average", doesn't mean we can't strive for more.

[Mindy Jensen]

Hi @Melinda Daye. 

How to get your spouse on board is a tough one. You may not be able to get him totally onboard. 

You don't share your rate of savings, your amount of savings, or what you want to increase to, so this is just general advice. 

I think you should know these things before approaching him again. "I think we should save more" could sound like a veiled accusation that we (or specifically he) is spending too much.

"We're saving $300 a month. I'd like to bump that up to $1,000. I think we can do this easily be eating at restaurants 1 less time per week. Ideally, I'd like our savings account to have $50,000 in it by the end of the year."

This gives him something specific to respond to, rather than ideas and theories. 

He's told you that he thinks you're doing great compared to others and that he feels like you're discrediting him. Make sure to address these arguments when you bring this up with him. 

Another approach I've heard is to ask him what his ideal life looks like. Scott Reickens from the Playing with Fire movie asked his wife to list the Top 10 things that are most important to her. They lived by the beach - and paid a HEFTY premium to do so - but that didn't even make her top 10 list. 

Regarding the "safe car" argument, I have a 2003 and a 2010 and drive my kids literally all over the country in them. They are safe. However, having an older car for everyday travels, and renting a car for a longer trip is still more cost-effective than buying a new car every 4-5 years. (We've done that, too.)