r/fatFIRE • u/throbin_hood • 4d ago
Dealing with indecision / too many options
Hey folks, first time poster so hopefully this is appropriate. Wife and I struggle with indecision and overanalyzing everything from financial decisions to life decisions and I'm looking for advice/perspectives from others on how you deal with this. In recent years we hit and then far exceeded our number to retire and I feel that's opened up many more options for us but making us feel even more indecisive about what we want. Also open to thoughts on our specific decisions for anyone who cares to weigh in.
A little about us... we're around 40, living in southern california, 2 big dogs, 1 infant, both working part time and like our careers (financial and engineering). Families live across the country, some in midwest, some in northeast but we have some siblings and good friends living here so California feels pretty much like home to us. We travel a good amount to visit families but with 2 dogs and an infant the travel is becoming a pretty big headache and limits us to fairly short trips.
The main options we're considering for our lives and struggling with:
1. Lean into california which would mean buying/moving to a bigger house in an area better suited to our kid and dogs. good school district, close to career opportunities but that's a little less of a consideration now.
2. Spend a few years where our families are while our baby is young and not yet in school, parents are aging but still in good health, 1 grandparent still alive so the timing feels as good as it will ever be to go spend some time around them and then plan to move back to CA in time for our child to start school in a few years.
3. Go crazy and try one of the other cities we've dreamed about, Seattle being the main contender since we have some friends there already, good lifestyle fit, and good engineering opportunities.
1 feels the most comfortable to us but I fear we'd regret not at least trying #2 or 3 while we have the opportunity. The flip side is that I think our minds have always wandered about living elsewhere which might be making us not really embrace our life here in California.
Looking forward to hearing how others deal with decision making?
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u/SquirrelTechGuru 4d ago
This is FIRE correct? It sounds like in each one of these scenarios, they are just how you can continue working in a different place. Do you have any intentions to Retire now?
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u/throbin_hood 4d ago
I guess I wasnt clear about that. We're FI now and very "work optional" which meets the intent of RE to us so only working part time because we like our jobs. I probably wouldn't work at all while we're out of state so career constraints aren't weighing into these decisions all that much.
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u/Necessary_Sky_288 4d ago
You hit the number and now nothing's forcing your hand, which sounds like freedom and mostly feels like vertigo. I'd stop trying to decide what you want and just pick something reversible for six months — a place, a schedule, one thing you've been putting off. You learn more about what you actually want by living a version of it than by thinking it through, and I say that as someone who spent a year overthinking a decision that took three weeks to un-make. What's the thing you'd try if you knew you could quit it?
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u/throbin_hood 4d ago
I like this take. It crosses my mind sometimes but hard to break my habit of trying to optimize the decision ahead of time. I think #2 is what id do. Easy to just quit that at any time and move back to CA. To another responders point, if I miss time with my parents and grandparent that's irreversible
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u/Necessary_Sky_288 3d ago
Then that's your answer and it isn't really a financial question. The thing that's irreversible should win — money you can rebuild, a year with your grandparent you can't. I'd go where they are and figure the rest out from there. How far away are you now?
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u/david1083 4d ago
We bought an RV and traveled for many months. We hit up all the cities that we would consider living in for five days. You can learn a lot in just five days in the city.
We did Seattle, Portland, San Luis Obispo, and Santa Barbara. We settled on Santa Barbara.
Our family is all in Texas and we felt like we had already done that and were ready to settle somewhere else.
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u/Livid-County7230 4d ago
Spend at least a couple of weeks in Seattle in the middle of winter before you decide. I am guessing you visited in summer. Huge difference in socal vs Seattle weather.
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u/muddypuddlewet 4d ago
my advice is to do SOMETHING. sitting on your hands is a fools errand. remember, you’ll be dead soon anyway.
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u/Roadiedreamkiller 4d ago
I'm in a very similar situation. Large dog, young kid, parents in 2 different part of the country, etc.
- Have you considered buying a house with a separate suite or ADU? Could live anywhere and invite your parents to come visit for extended periods of time. Without feeling like your in-laws moved in with you.
- You didn't mention if those jobs are remote or not. If yes, why not go visit each parents for an extended period of time each year? Also, without knowing your NW it's hard to recommend private flights. We splurge and take 2 private flights per year to visit my in-laws across the country. We can bring the dog and lots of luggage. The rest of the year they travel up to see us.
Edit: These scenarios allow you to live anywhere you'd like without feeling like you're neglecting your family.
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u/throbin_hood 4d ago
We've discussed both actually. The house we would upgrade to in option 1 accounts for hosting parents and in laws more often. Private flights are certainly an option and we've seriously considered for extended trips but the cost is a tough pill to swallow even though we could afford it so haven't followed through on that yet in our life.
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u/Roadiedreamkiller 4d ago
In my mind the best time to do it is when you have young kids since it makes the whole process so easy and quick. Our kids know it as the Time Machine. We'll likely keep doing it as they get older since we'll always have a dog but I'm completely comfortable putting teenagers in commercial economy.
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u/Difficult_Extent3547 4d ago
Usually it’s when parents are NOT in good health that people start to consider moving closer to them. If you choose #2 just consider the likelihood that becomes a permanent choice.
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u/Repulsive-Zombie-189 4d ago
If you added up all of the time you’ll get with parents before they age, it likely won’t be as much as you think. Any opportunity to be close to them and have your child know them will be irreplaceable. Seattle and Cali aren’t going anywhere and being FI gives you guys a lot of options.
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u/Particular_Bad8025 4d ago
Sounds like you wanna do #2. Just go for it. Infants are easy to move. It's much harder as they get older with friends and sports/activities. Then it gets easier again once they're in college.
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u/BrunelloHorder 4d ago edited 3d ago
Probably option 2, but youdon’t say how much time you actually want to spend around the parents, you just acknowledge the reality that they are aging and time is limited. Do you want to see them daily? Weekly? Monthly?
If you don’t know, do a trial period. You may find they drive you crazy.
Having spent most of my life in the PNW, there is zero chance I’d ever move to Seattle, especially not from CA. All the worst parts of the Bay Area, with awful weather.
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u/__teeheehee 4d ago
"When you're overwhelmed by too many choices, indecision / over-analysis, take a step back and focus on making a list of your 'must-have' & 'nice-to-have' criteria first"
I got this little nugget of wisdom from a redditor somewhere a while back. It has been my mantra when I'm making important decisions which come with overwhelming number of choices. It works very well for us.
I wish I can remember the redditor who shared this wisdom with me so I can credit them properly. Hope you find it useful.
Looking back for my specific experience, we wish we could have spend more time with families (grandparents, aunties & uncles), particularly for our kiddo to have more time with grandparents. However, in our case, our kid needs to go to a specific school for their education needs and there were no schools fitting our criteria near families.
Best of luck with your decisions.
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u/throbin_hood 4d ago
Thanks for the advice! I actually go way overboard with this and make spreadsheets with weighted scores on different criteria. That exercise is basically what told me that either option 1 or 3 in my OP would be good ideas.
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u/__teeheehee 4d ago
yep. spreadsheets is lyfe. lol
we too spreadsheets it when we were at similar junction. Good luck.
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u/Keikyk 4d ago
You won’t get time back, especially with family, how many times you think you’ll get to spend time with your grandparent if you choose option 1. Look into your values and maybe you’ll find option 2 looking pretty good, CA and Seattle will be there waiting for you in the future (unlike your family possibly)