Hello,
My name is Phil and I'm a full time firefighter. My wife and I are both 36 years old. I am currently on the launching pad for my FI journey and I'm super excited. I read (ok, I listened to) The Simple Path to Wealth. Now I've been formulating a plan, bouncing ideas off of a couple of good buddies who are helping me.
Here's where I'm at so far:
-No vehicle debt. Mortgage at 5.99 percent in a home we can well afford. My wife's student loan debt will be done by EOY. My student loans are done.
-Tracked spending for a few months. Optimizing where I can.
-Currently "breaking up" with the financial advisor I had. Looking to pay myself, not him.
-Set up a ROTH IRA for my wife and I.
-My wife and I both have work retirement plans. Hers is a 401K, she's contributing 6% to get a 3% match. I have a 457 that I have been contributing to since I started working at the fire department 10 years ago.
-Plan is to move everything to Vanguard accounts and then, once my Emergency Fund hits 20k, start fully funding the ROTH IRAs and putting the rest into a joint taxable brokerage account.
My question is this: is there a good way to factor in my WRS pension so I can find my number? I have listened to a handful of episodes, including Episode 13: the unfair advantage of teachers. I liked this but I still have confusion as to how to factor that in.
On a similar note: My wife and I have about 26,000 in traditional IRAs. I have done some searching on Roth conversions and listened to episode 581 "Are Roth Conversions Necessary". My only hesitation to thinking I may still need one is that I know I will have a relatively high taxable income in retirement due to my pension. I am leaning towards just letting these grow and dealing with them as a bonus to supplement our work accounts and the Roth IRAs.
Thanks for any info. If there is a specific podcast ep or article I should look at I would love a point in the right direction.
disclaimer: I'm very new and excited about this. I'm consuming a ton of content so I'm learning more each day.
