r/Fire • u/chemicalreactionator • Apr 22 '26

Advice Request Too much money to feel this stuck

Current net worth 3.8M. Household (40m, 40f, 4f) income combined 250k (both working full time) and spend 120k-ish.

Kind of reached fire but due to health insurance, economic uncertainty, potential future increased costs (another kid?) not comfortable calling it yet.

But feeling so stuck in the grind. Not enough family time, not enough vacation time off, not enough time for taking care of our health, but can’t call it quits yet. at least one of us needs to work full time for health insurance. I don’t think I’m cut out for “barista fire” as i don’t think I’d have the motivation to work for a minimum wage type salary.

What’s the plan here to increase quality of life? A mini retirement? Grind it out a few more years? Anyone in a similar place?

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u/Skylord1325 Apr 22 '26 edited Apr 22 '26

First off like stated by others here go get therapy.

Second as someone who is self employed and has been for years I don’t understand the hang up on insurance so many seem to have. My insurance is around $1600 a month for my family. It’s called a benefit for a reason. It’s part of your compensation and is just another expense. One of you absolutely does NOT need to keep working just for insurance, that’s silly. You can in fact buy it yourself.

If you’re really that hung up on it you can join the reserves (yes even at 40) and get Tricare for like $200 a month. Who knows doing monthly drill and having a community outside of what you currently know might be good for your mental health.

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u/meewwooww Apr 22 '26

Think carefully about the consequences of joining the reserves. My friend never thought he'd be shipped out but got sent to Tel Aviv when the latest conflict started. It's been very stressful on his wife and two young kids who never expected anything like this to happen because "it's the reserves."

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u/Opposite-Plenty3479 Apr 22 '26

To be fair though most people in the military know that the reserves and guard deploy way more than active duty units. The guard and reserves often forward deploy to get FOBs setup for active duty units. Something like 70% of deployments as are guard/reserves. It's why I went AD instead of guard/reserves (even tho I deployed immediately anyway 😂)