Still Feel Living Paycheck to Paycheck
Am I doing something wrong or this the boring middle?
Only HENRY for the last 2-3 years after finishing grad school and finally making good money. Used that time to pay off all our debt, so only debt we have is the house, no credit card debt, cars are paid off and plan on driving them until the wheels fall off. Lifestyle inflation is minimal outside of frequency of travel, which we just enjoy.
Doing all the right things now having not been in the greatest financial place because of a combination of being underpaid, grad school, school loans, daycare, and some poor choices and living beyond our means (and the majority related to too high of a frequency of travel over the years, a few designer bags here and there) because we truly weren't making enough to live on the expenses we had. Fast forward to present, maxed out to IRS limit of 401K, maxed out backdoor roth, maxed out to IRS limit of megaback door roth, and full 1-year emergency fund. In addition, spouse became service-time eligible for retirement, took it and has a pension of $80K. Opted for survivor benefit, so that is guaranteed for life. Only place where we are lacking IMO is funding kids' 529 and the horizon for college is 6 years. We could be "saving" elsewhere, but for what? We put aside a few hundred each month to fund other things - vacation, car repairs, home repairs, kids' stuff, etc. The 529s could be better funded if we sacrificed travel (budget is easily $30-40K annually) but we are also focused on enjoying this time and the greater financial freedom we have. We continue to travel a few times a year with 1 international trip, but since becoming HENRY, we now also choose to pay for grandparents to travel with us so they can enjoy the time where they are still physically capable of traveling and vacationing with grandkids.
Why do I feel like the budget is so tight and a few times a month, I need to pull a few hundred from another accounts to pay for things? Is it a mindset thing, cause we are obviously are not living paycheck to paycheck to have areas to pull from and more than enough emergency fund?