UCGal hit the nail on the head when she said “$hit happens” and unfortunately you don’t have nearly enough in reserves to cover any $hit happening. I hate to fuel scaredy’s neuroses, but here’s a sampling of possibilities: 1) you or your wife get a cancer, MS or other awful diagnosis and you risk going beyond the cap of your health insurance or can’t pay for some treatment that isn’t covered by insurance, 2) your child grows up to have an eating disorder, mental health condition or substance abuse problem, all of which cost big bucks in rehab, most of which is not covered by health insurance, 3) you fall off the roof, get in a car accident or somehow have a traumatic brain injury, landing you in long-term rehab or with round-the-clock care to help with “ADL” (activities of daily living), all of which are not covered by health insurance but which your wife cannot provide and still say sane.
There are about a billion other things that could happen, including (and most likely) none of the above, but you get the picture. If you were to talk to an actuary or someone who evaluates risk for a living, they’d tell you that you (and especially your child) have FAR too long to live to be able to reasonably predict how much money you’ll need. The range is far too wide. So, in order to even get close to covering all scenarios, you’d of course need to provide far more in reserves than you currently have.
Of course, you could ignore those thoughts and just wing it, but like walter (scaredy), I’d be too stressed every time a glitch arose to be able to truly enjoy life.
Oh, yeah, one more thing – just wait until your kid grows up a bit and see how things get more and more expensive. Although you and your wife may be very committed to living simply, opportunities will come along involving your kid that you will not want to pass up. Camps, sports, lessons of some sort for some passion he/she develops. Of course you can prioritize these things, but it becomes impossible to ignore their passions as the kids grow and develop them. And then, of course, there’s college. Better hope for a scholarship or just count on community college, which your kid will have to pay for (not a terrible thing but it definitely limits his/her options).
Oh, and one more thing…the longer you’re out of work, the less able you are to get back into it. So if, after enjoying retirement for 10 years, it slowly occurs to you that you really left the rat race a little too early, good luck finding some meaningful income. Not only will your skills be outdated and you won’t be very marketable, but your motivation will not be there, and it will be a major psychological adjustment to settle for a position and income that almost seems not worth going to work for. Also, you’ll be living in an area where decent paying jobs are not exactly plentiful…then what do you do? Move to a more expensive area where you might have a better chance of getting a good-paying job?
Oh, and what if your “safe” investments, which you’re living off of, somehow plummet, even when you thought for sure that couldn’t happen? Meanwhile, you and your wife are feeling the stress, and the resentment is starting to build a bit, and she’s probably thinking, “But I thought you said we had enough to retire!”
Can you tell that I know some of this stuff firsthand? Sorry to be SUCH a downer because your dreams are important! Hang in there, and revisit your plan every year for at least the next 10 years. In the meantime, find work that you don’t dread doing every day, even if it’s not exactly what you want to be doing at every moment. Turn your planning into a game (with specific yearly goals and an end target) and see how quickly you can stockpile more than you think you need. Then, when you take the plunge to retirement, you can truly enjoy it.
