I’m a planner to a fault.
It’s something I look forward to at the beginning of each year (and even throughout as changes occur).
Because 2020 was such a solid year for our investing, I have really been looking forward to planning our 2021 goals. I was going to max out everything– the TSP, the HSA, the Roth IRA. Then adding to the brokerage. The goal was to invest closer to $50,000 this year. But we’ve got a plot twist.
My husband has been working as an employee in his current industry for two decades. He hit burnout a while ago, and while I have my eyes on the FIRE target, we have to take quality of life into account.
We made the decision to support a month-long hiatus from work. He still has a side job, but it’s very relaxed and low-key. He plans to open his own business in the next few months. That means a few things:
- We don’t know when he will be able to open for business.
- We don’t know how much money he will take home, especially not the first year or two.
- We will be investing about $20,000 cash into this project, and he will be borrowing the rest to start up.
So we’ll be living on my income and his side hustle for at least the month break… and then it could be another few months before he actually starts earning revenue.
It’s all fine and good. We’ve worked hard to save money, and this is the perfect illustration of why that’s a good idea. We’re able to allow him to rest, physically and mentally, which is very important.
So it has dictated that we’ve had to make some adjustments. For one, I’ve reduced TSP contributions just to the match amount. I am still maxing out the HSA. The Roth and brokerage accounts will have to wait until income is steadier and more plentiful. We’ve allocated money in our budget to savings each month, and we’ll be shoveling anything extra into that.
So my plans to maxing every possible thing out in 2021 may or may not happen, and I’m just going to have to deal. Sometimes the opportunity needs the attention. On the plus side, it’s forced me to take a long, hard look at our spending. There was definitely some room for culling, and there are some changes we’ve made on a reduced income that will probably stay in place even when he’s making full-time income again.
In the meantime, we’ll be good and busy building a business that will hopefully enable us to max out more than we would have originally!
-K