u/Glittering_Swing5184

Am I there? Am I coastfire? Is it the boring middle transition to anxious end? Am I institutionalized or do I generally enjoy work? Can I just not let go? I don’t know what to think.

A little background…

-42M with 40F wife and two kids (5 and 7)
-yearly spend of $120k
-yearly income $250k (before tax)
-529’s for kids totaling $150k
-Roth savings of $435k
-457/403b of $1,089,000
-taxable investments of $381k
-other miscellaneous savings investments
-total liquid $2.1 mil
-pension of $77k based on my current earnings (will likely be higher and will have annual COLAs-I fully appreciate how lucky I am for this)…can begin collecting at age 50.

-home in mhcl - owe $295k, worth $750k with a 3.25% rate
-2 vehicles and a boat, only owe on one of them.

I’m not sure where to begin. I know we are in great shape, but I have so many mixed feelings. On the one hand, I almost feel like we could reign in our spending and retire now (which the wife would love)…but the thought of that is crazy to me, especially since we are in the prime earning period of our lives and much of our money is tied up in accounts with age restrictions. While we are responsible for most of this success, we have received some help from our parents along the way and I feel obligated to do the same for our kids. I feel like I owe it to them to push and so they also see their parents working and do not feel entitled to financial independence without putting some effort into it.

I also generally love our life. Great house, shift work jobs that we enjoy and give us chunks of meaningful time with the family, decent vehicles, a boat, and great vacations (3-4 per year…I also fully appreciate how lucky we are to be able to take that kind of time).

I like my job, but I work a lot and it is both dangerous and bad for my health. I have resolved to leave as soon as I can collect my pension at age 50...but 8 more years seems difficult, which I’m guessing is because of our solid spot? Despite this position, money still stresses me a bit. I have thought about rolling back how much we save (which is $60k annually right now), but I feel like if we did that, our spending would increase unnecessarily and move the goalposts which is what I don’t want.

Does anyone have any advice or thoughts? I think the answer is to just keep plugging away knowing that we are solid and leave when the clock strikes 50, but I can’t help but think there is another route I should consider…I just don’t know what it is.

Like I’ve seen so many here say before, the only people I can talk to about this are my wife and dad, neither of which fully understand. Anytime money comes up with friends or coworkers, I feel like I’m pretending/lying/being disengenious…not sure if anyone picks up on me being uncomfortable. As much as I want to confess, I see no way that it wouldn’t be construed as a flex so I nod along.

UPDATE:Thank you for the conversation and advice. I think I expected most of what I heard, but sometimes it’s good to hear it and I feel like I needed it. I think I know that deep down the path is clear. I just need to accept it and enjoy as much as possible.