As a parent of a 4 year old and 3 year old who has to travel ~20-40% for work, I can assure you that the flexibility you have has quite a lot of value. Sounds like your kids are perhaps near same age since you mention both having to attend IEPs and that you’re paying childcare and kids aren’t in school.

It definitely sounds like you could make more elsewhere. But I’d agree that it sounds like it would be easier to make that move in 1-3 years or whatever it is until kids are in full time school.

You’re not hurting for money, you’re saving plenty for retirement, and delaying a move to higher income a little longer (combined with no longer having daycare payments) will allow plenty of extra income to achieve your additional goals.

529 is a good option. It takes arguably ~$500 per month from birth through completion of college to fully fund a 529 with realistic expected returns. And that’s per kid.

So for sure 529 is a great option and definitely contribute to that. I have a 4 year old and a 2 year old and trust me I wish my relatives would all stop buying tons of toys my kid doesn’t need and just buy a cheap token toy they’re happy with and contribute rest to college fund. That’s what my brother and I do for each others’ kids. I buy a simple $20 toy my niece loves then stuff another $80 in the 529.

Not sure what state you’re in or they’re in, but I’m in Texas and so there’s no benefit to using a Texas specific plan here. As such I use the Utah plan my529.org which allows “gift links” that are easily usable for donating to someone else’s 529 plan. That way parents maintain control if that’s how you want it. Alternatively, you can set up a plan directly in the kids’ name.

Also, offer to pitch in for the nursery costs or just buy big ticket items on gift registry. The costs of setting up nursery + car seat + stroller + car seat bases + hospital bill + diapers + formula if/when it’s needed is…a lot. Our hospital bill was ~$7k per kid to bring them home, for example.

Beyond that, when the kid is old enough to have earned income (Eg 18-25), you could have kid set up Roth IRA and contribute to it and have discussions with kid about retirement planning and importance of saving early and offer to contribute more to Roth IRA after graduation if they continue to meet 401k savings targets for X% over Y years in order to give them a boost to saving for retirement.

Big ticket items like car at age 16 or paying for kids weddings or helping with down payment on a house are pretty impossibly expensive. But honestly 529 is best place to start

Not really. Labor market hot - suddenly worried about losing some key people or maybe they just lost some key people and don’t want to lose more. Happens. Random retention bonuses can happen even with no mergers in the picture.

Typically it’s a 1 year commitment for that size and type of bonus. You’ll know if there’s strings attached if and when you have to sign something or you’ll get some kind of printed letter from your boss or HR. If you get zero communication about any strings attached or the duration of the commitment, then you can always just ask HR.

Make sure you have 6 months’ worth of expenses in liquid savings account (Eg normal savings account tied to your checking). Make sure when budgeting for 6 months’ of expenses, you’re factoring in expenses per month if you were actually living on your own.

Save up enough money to actually live on your own (moving costs + deposit costs at an apartment or whatever).

After that, you should make sure you’re able to save 15% of gross income going forward to retirement even in future when you live on your own.

For now, while living at home, yes you should be able to save even more than that towards retirement or start building pile of cash for down payment on your own house.