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[quote=Anonymous]OP, what are your priorities? Eating out? Private school? New car? International vacations?

It might help you to prioritize your wants (since all of these are wants) and go from there.

Our HHS is closer to $250K (and only in the past few years); I'm a fed (GS-13) and my spouse has always made within $10K of my salary.

Our #1 priority was retirement, and we've mostly saved ~10% a year for that. Some years we maxed out, some years we put in 5%. We're now mid-40s and have over $2M between us, so it's a fallacy that you have to max out every year or you're screwed (unless you are going to spend a LOT during retirement).

Our #2 priority was a house, and we struggled for a few years to get the down payment for our current house; we put only 5% into retirement for a few years to save for the down payment.

Our #3 priority was to put our kids through private (religious) school (not Catholic). We got financial aid from the more expensive school (it actually brought the price below the cost of the cheaper religious school).

Things on your list that were not a priority for us:
One international vacation - we drove to Canada this year but mostly it's been cheap trips (we didn't even take trips for probably a decade; if I had a do-over, I would have done more vacations and saved less for retirement)
Max out 10K for 529 - we put in $25/month for each kid (Maryland 529) but will probably do $2500 per kid this year since we are spending down for our older kids; just do what you can; if you can pay for private, eventually you can cash flow part of college for them, too
Max out IRA - we did put $ into Roth IRAs when we first started out but only for about 8 years; that money has quintupled over the course of 20+ years
Have a new Subaru car - we only buy used and keep them forever (lots of rust on my car, but also lots of cash in my bank account)
Go out to eat at restaurants - we eat out maybe 1-2 times a month, but this is just something we don't really care about
Two stateside flights to visit family for holidays - our family is local
Cleaners once a month - my spouse cooks, I clean
Organic groceries - the wind blows pesticides from one farm to another so I don't see a point in this

Obviously YMMV. But first, list your priorities, and then find the funds for your top priorities.

Good luck!
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