Year 5 update

It's an eventful year threequel folks! Events that happened last year in chronological order:

• We bought a house! We had to liquidate my wife's RSUs which were initially tagged for retirement to put in as down payment. This brought our corpus down to 5.92x from 7.84x of our yearly expenses.
• My wife quit her job late last year. She hadn't fully recovered post-partum and the job was taking a toll on her health. She decided to take a break till she felt better.
• We got a car! We decided to pay it in cash because I wanted the sweet credit card rewards (I got ~15% rewards on it ;)). It's an EV so our running costs should be low.
• We sold our existing house and moved to a new place on rent, till our new house would be ready in 2026. We needed to sell the house within a year of purchasing our new house to get the LTCG exemption, so we sold it at about 10-15% discount. We got a slight appreciation on the old house considering our inflation rate, so we were OK. We put the proceeds of the sale into the new home's loan.
• We took a couple of road trips with our kid which was a good change of scenery and we got to meet relatives. We also decided to take an international trip before our kid turned 2. Since she didn't need a separate seat, we saved about 40k in flight costs and got extra legroom seats at the front of economy. Win-win!
• My wife joined back work a couple of weeks ago. She feels much better now and has decided to set strict timings so that work is sustainable for her health.

Updates on the plan I had for the last year:

Get to 10x yearly expenses. I think it'll be achievable with the combined earnings. Still assuming most of the money will be through contributions since the market is volatile right now.

This got impacted majorly because of the down payment for the new house and the car. We're still doing decently well with an 8.35x corpus.

Keep the equity ratio at 70% for a couple of more years before moving to a equity glide path model. That's the plan for now, maybe I'll reevaluate based on future research.

Another item impacted because of the RSU liquidation. It's at about 65% right now. I'm mostly investing only in equity. Debt component is getting filled just by EPF contributions and PPF. I'm not investing in debt funds right now.

Continue investing for my baby's higher education. Wedding is something I personally don't want to plan for, but maybe it'll change over the year. I'll keep you guys posted.

Higher education investments are going smoothly. I'm sticking to Nifty 50 for equity and SSY & PPF for debt. The plan right now is to slowly reduce the equity:debt ratio from 70:30 when she was born to 30:70 when she's 18. It's at ~63% right now, which my allocation is targeted towards. I'm mostly keeping this ratio by modifying investments. I haven't had the need to rebalance yet, I'll check how it goes in the future.

Still undecided on wedding expenses - I'll punt this to 15-years-in-the-future me.

Plan for upcoming year

1. Get to 11x corpus by the end of next update. It's achievable now considering both my wife and I are back to work, barring another eventful year 😅. The stock market growth has been insane, and I don't know how long this will continue. This is assuming a major part of the contribution will be ours.
2. Stick to 70:30 equity to debt ratio for retirement. I think I'll keep this for the next 5 years before I re-evaluate.
3. I've caught the entrepreneur bug, and am looking to get a side-project off the ground. It's still in the MVP-building stage, and TBH I don't know if it can ever be monetised. But it's something I hope will kick off a journey to build another source of income far into the future.

See you next year!

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Btech from tier 100 college.( it got shut down now). Started off in WITCH for a while. Switched to Product based company. Bought own flat in home town also paying several emi, which kind off balances out. Stay in Tier 1 city in rent, dont have any intention to buy flat here, which will cost around 1.5cr. Eventually want to buy a bit of land within 1 hr travelling distance, and build small farmhouse, so that kids spend time well. Hit 1 cr net worth yesterday, including RSU + PF + SIP + stocks. Happy that I have started the journey, long way to go. Dont intend to RE, just FI. Happy Diwali all

Edit: been working since 2010, right after college. Current ctc 40Lpa+

FI(lean) target is 8cr, after buying land.

Lifestyle wise, not much into savings so far, mostly yolo. 3-4 trips per year(domestic) Most of salary goes in emi and credit card. Family of 3, want to expand to 4, plus dependent parent. Age 35, Software industry

Here's the summary of 22L - 24Lacs expense for a family of 4

Refer to my previous post for context

| Item | Amount | Remarks |

|---------------|---------|--------------------------------------------------------------------|

| Rent | 500000 | Rent, maintenance and other urban company expenses

| School Fees | 200000 | For 1 kid - Class 1

| Insurance | 115000 | Personal term + Family Health + Mother's Health

| Holidays | 150000 | Solo Travel for now - Some group tours I join

| House Bills | 350000 | All including groceries, gas, phone, wifi, current and bills from Dmart and stuff

| Eat Out | 150000 | All Swiggy, zomato and dine out

| Maid | 40000 | Only for vessel cleaning & mop. Self cooking

| Outfits | 120000 | Dress for the family

| Gifts | 35000 | For wedding and other functions

| HospMeds | 50000 | Hospital visits and tablets for family, parents and in laws

| Intra City | 75000 | 6K per month - Blu smart, rapido and petrol for two bikes

| Inter City | 50000 | Travel to home town via taxi (5trips X10K)

| Leisure | 75000 | Movies, Alcohols and parties

| Gadgets | 50000 | Phones and other gadgets

| Subscriptions | 40000 | All OTT, newsletters, app and stuff. I have 20+ (refer comments for details)

| One time | 200000 | Functions, Repairs, Furniture purchases and others

| Total | 2200000 |

+- 10% in each category

Edit: I see quite a few comments. Here are my thoughts:

1. Age is a major factor. I'm 40 and have gone through the process. If you're in your 20s, this might be hard to relate to. When I was 30, my monthly expenses were hardly ₹20–30K, and I was sharing a room with friends, unmarried. I got married and had kids—the expenses went through the roof. Be prepared for that, and don't curse me! 😃
2. I have worked for 17 years now. Nothing beats experience. If you are early in your career, there are shortcuts to make more money. Experience takes time When you see people claiming 15 years of experience, it's often just one year of experience multiplied by 15. That's like running on a treadmill—it takes you nowhere.
3. Money is a mindset. I have a policy to spend a certain amount to raise my standard of living. I've worked hard for it, and I want to enjoy this.
4. The whole purpose of money is to not think about it. I don't think twice for any expense below ₹500. That helps free my mind. I don't argue with auto-wallahs or roadside shops, and I don't bargain at all. It's not worth my time. I either buy or look for another option.
5. I know my expenses can't go below ₹18L. There are only two pedestals—savings and earning. You can't save more—there are always fixed expenses. But on the flip side, you can earn more—with a side hustle or a business, the sky's the limit (not applicable for all). So I spend my energy earning more and learning new skills. I spend a lot on newsletters, productivity tools, and AI stuff to save time.
6. You can only be reasonably happy in life. There's a popular saying in my mother tongue which loosely translates to "The mind of enough is the medicine that makes gold".

PEACE!

How do you track expenses during the year? I'm talking about actual spends that go from bank account. I have to sum up all credit card bills, filter out upi payments that were not investments etc. basically a lot of work to figure out how much I ended up spending. Is there an easier way of doing this?

Has anyone read the book 'Die With Zero'? Has it changed your POV on FIRE or retiring early?

The FIRE sub discusses this book a lot, and judging by the posts there, it seems like an anti-FIRE book.

I am planning to read it soon as it is quite stimulating to confront opposing views and ideologies.

Here is the link to the book - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52950915-die-with-zero?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=PqxdoBR1Oj&rank=1

I didn't expect this post to resonate with so many of you
https://www.reddit.com/r/FIRE_Ind/comments/1gdgxo7/bitter_realisation_no_place_is_perfect_life_is/

I intentionally didn't make any conclusion as there is no one right answer.

However here is my hot take. Totally my personal opinion and not asking others to take it.

Short to Mid-term ->

"Live abroad if you get a chance"

++ expedite your earning, get to FIRE faster, you become a better and well rounded person as learn so much from different culture and perspective, overcome cons of living in India

-- sacrifice being way from family/friends/food for the long term gain

Mid to Long-term ->

If you don't have much emotional attachment to India (friends/family/food), then "stay permanently abroad"

++ First world countries will continue to do good at-least for next decade(s). India is not going to change overnight.

-- If first world countries decline faster than we imagine and India develops faster than we imagine then it will be hard to reverse your decision as kids will not adjust back easily even if you want to return.

If you believe that next century (or at least few decades) belong to India and you miss friends/family/food, "Come back to India after earning. Do it before your kids turn max 12-13 years old".

++ You can have best of both world. Earning from West, living a comfortable life in India where Kids have a chance to adjust in India. PPP makes sure that our $ go a long way. You will look smarter if India developers faster and first world countries decline

-- India may once again disappoint the optimists by not doing spectacularly good. Your kids may have to hustle and find ways to immigrate again.

Throwaway account - Getting to the point, i see so many posts on some expenses which are out of imagination for many. Here are my expenses listed (as-is) tracked from 3 years

Family of 3 (2 + 1) - Age 45, kid - 12 @ Bengaluru

Total Corpus - 6.0Cr (todays Value - Investible surplus) Excludes Paid-up Home

Income - 1 Cr at hand, expenses - 12L per year (tracked from 3 years) - Infact expenses are not increasing too much from 3 years (hovering around 85K/Month to 95K/Month)

Well minimalist lifestyle and havent seen much lifestyle creep since 8 years

At age 45 i dont see expenses increasing too much from now (havent seen from past 3 yrs - post Covid) - except for health probably things will go down or best same in expenses

Working with 2 financial advisors - pay them minimal for reviews (if needed)

Details of expenses below -

Rent - Live in a own home (Bengaluru)

Eating Out - 15K / Month (Actual expenses - Yes we go out often)

Grocery - 10K / Month

Utilities (Electricity/Water/Internet) -5K

Pets - 2K

Car - 5K (Only for outings)

Kids /Wife Recreation - 4K (Dance/TT)

Misc - 10K (some random shopping, bills, kids education, transportation, beauty (hair), bday gifts neighbors/kids friends, electronics etc)

No maids - clean home self

No cook - we cook at home

No driver - will drive as much as i can

Annual Expenses:

Property Taxes - 5K

Clothing - 15K (This could go up to 25K)

Term Insurance - 35K

Health Insurance (have 2 of 50L and 1 Cr) - 65K (for 1.5 Cr - have 2 insurances)

Kids School - 1.5L

Car Insurance - 35K (Service is included - under extended warranty and AMC - 4 + 1 yrs)

Home Improvement/Maintenance - 1L (Get something or other done, since we own home)

Vacations (2 vacations - 2 to 3 nights local) - 2L (best case)

Small outings (1 day, sometimes 1 night homestays) - Many - atleast 6 to 8 in a year

International - Never been (Will plan few)

Once kid is teenager - expenses might go up, but anyone can comment who are in similar boat

Genuine question.

Everyone here usually post 1.5L to 2L as their monthly expense post FIRE. I want to understand what are your current income levels and expense levels?

If you are saying you have to 2LPM expense at this point of time, your salary must be above 30 LPA at least just to have those spend levels. Now add savings/investments on top of it to achive FIRE. Won't the pre-tax salary be more than 70LPA just to achive 2LPM savings + 2LPM current expenses (assuming 50% savings)? I mean that 70LPA seems very high that majority of people here won't be making untill they reach 14-15 years experience even in IT and may be never in non-IT.

So what is the actual salary vs expenses vs savings ratio if you are aiming for FIRE. What am I missing?

From Delhi, worked in South India. Lived in Middle East, Singapore, US and Europe. After 20 years of career, I have come to a bitter realisation that no country or place is ideal. People in each of these places are unhappy in their own ways. There are always trade offs and you just can't have it all.

India

+ family, food, culture, sense of belonging, future opportunities, great private healthcare, convenience/service (that you can afford if you have money)

- lack of civic sense, huge competition for opportunities, crime, pollution and political system that is two step forward, one step backwards, unsafe for women

Singapore

+ standard of living, safe, low taxes, political stability

- materialistic society, colonial mindset, entitled next generation, seen its peak days and on a decline, pro-china / hatred toward Indians, boring place beyond a few years, no culture

US

+ high pay, land of opportunities, career progression, clean air and good infrastructure

- too far from India, can get shot for no good reason, mental insanity on the rise, within a decade you and your next generation will forever disconnect from your parents/roots, declining healthcare

Europe

+ nature, decent standard of living, higher saving rates than India, good universities, good public schools

- ridiculous taxes, language barrier, terrible healthcare, lazy people/declining productivity, bureaucracy, declining infrastructure, racism

Middle East

+ no taxes, great infrastructure, can enjoy life as bachelors

- no permanent residency, terrible place to raise family, racism, political instability means you can be kicked out anytime, good till oil run outs

I just realised this current desi FIRE discussions/debates is getting heavily tilted towards delayed gratification Vs not missing out experiences.

I watched a podcast by Deepak Shenoy in which is explained about how a vacation in Goa when you are young just cannot be replicated when you are old and the whatever you saved and invested will ultimately cost the same for the vacation, so you must no delay gratification etc

This sub also I recently saw a few posts along similar lines.

I think all these discussions have completely lost the point of FIRE. FIRE can mean many things to many different types of people. But this above discussion is a very one dimensional thinking.

I think at its core FIRE movement as envisioned by MMM etc is more around minimalism and this is suitable for people who naturally enjoy minimalist life and nature and it doesn't cost a lot of money to be happy and do the things you love. It is a bit like monks. Monks are very happy people and they don't say they are missing out on anything. They don't have a bucket list of places to visit and things to do before they die. They keep meditating and praying day in and day out and they live in the present and they enjoy each a every day, what they are doing.

To me, this is FIRE, where you kind of cancel the societal norms of what kind of life people are expected to lead and going on a Goa trip is exactly that societal trap.

So this delayed gratification Vs enjoying experiences discussion is completely missing the point and whoever is engaged in these kind of debates, please understand that at the core FIRE is not about that.

To the awesome people here in the sub, who are in "retirement" phase, are you using any tool/model for withdrawals?

Please assume its complete retirement and you don't have any side income which you are using for expenses.

I know there are discussions on this in this sub and our earlier sub, but I am not aware of any tool/model/spreadsheet which can be used in the "execution" phase of the RE. If you know if something exists for this, can you please share and I can use as starting point?

Basically,

Input should be: available corpus, age, anticipated cash flow, what funds/asset classes you have, age and value of them, your style (aggressive/conservative/balanced), few other necessary parameters for the "process" mode

Process: the tool should take into account the age of funds, calculate tax outgo, current market health (using some indicator like Nifty PE or market mood index) and provide suggestion on which fund to withdraw, should we fill in equity from debt during crash scenario, how much to fill etc..

Output: when and how much to withdraw from X fund, when and how to fill in the depleted bucket (if using bucket strategy) or balance eq/debt/equity glide etc..

It may sound crazy, but just having a system would help me to take a rational decision on withdrawal and equity glide etc. and stick to it rather than doing some crazy stuff.

I know I can hand it over to some advisory firm who specialise in this, but want to DIY myself. Thought to get inputs from the elders and gurus here on how they do it.

Thanks in advance and happy weekend!

A bit surprised by how much inflation impacts in a long term

Assuming average retails inflation rate of 7.5% (contributing 75% towards budget) and medical inflation of 12% (contributing 25% towards budget) for next 30 years, one would need 12x the current amount to sustain same lifestyle.

• Average Inflation rate = (7.5%*0.75 + 12%*0.25) = 8.625%

For example, Let's say current monthly expense is 1L per month. One would need 12L per month in 30 years to sustain same lifestyle.

I understand the inflation rate can decrease or increase as time passes by (depending on various factors), but what are your thoughts on this?

#Inflation #India

Hi everyone, I am writing this post after many months of struggling after nasty comments on my post in a different sub. Seeing all the great posts in this sub motivated me to write again. Thank you to the amazing people of this sub!

A bit about myself: I grew up in a very middle class family, and then calamity struck us when my father passed away when I was just getting into my teens. Life after that incident was full of hardships. My mother supported me well to come out of the mental and financial hardships to where I am right now. We started with huge financial debt on our shoulders and are now debt free for the past 6 years. I am proud of her!

Where am I now: 28M, Single, SWE at a tech company

I review my portfolio every month. Currently it is at 2.4 Cr. When I made my earlier post, I had reached my 2Cr milestone. Nevertheless, these numbers are from my latest review.

Equity: 77%; Debt: 12.5%; Liquid/Cash: 10.5%

Things I am trying to figure out these days:

• Where to deploy the cash at hand. I am slowly deploying to Low Vol and Momentum Indices. I need to get a financial planner to vet my portfolio. That is on the near term radar.
• Whether to buy a house where I live right now. I own a house in my hometown, it's a backup in case I lose my job and I need a stable nest to go back to.
• Whether to buy a car

Met someone today who had a 'fat FIRE' but, in hindsight, he was too conservative. He retired early, compromised on a lot, and saved aggressively, but now feels like he missed out on experiences and adventures in life. He's older now and can’t fully enjoy what he worked so hard for. Meeting him today was a bittersweet reminder of the importance of balance—saving, but also living along the way.

Here's a reel that kind of resonated with what he shared: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DBAoMyjScjr/?igsh=MWFqZm5seG1mOTcxaQ==

Anyone else experiencing this or have thoughts on balancing FIRE with enjoying life now?

Folks do we have a FIRE whats app community . if not we should have one for NRI and Indians so we can also share once the FIRE is achieved how to live the next stage of life well.. not many people in India focus on this

Hey, folks! Just wanted to share a milestone I recently reached ₹1 crore milestone! I’m 28M working as a software engineer, and have been steadily investing. After reviewing everything yesterday, it feels great to see it all add up. Here’s my current portfolio breakdown:

•	Mutual Funds: ₹19.5 lakh
•	Direct Stocks: ₹1 lakh
•	Company Stocks (vested): ₹39 lakh
•	EPF: ₹13 lakh
•	Fixed Deposits: ₹24 lakh
•	Liquid Funds: ₹5 lakh

I know I’ve put a bit too much into FDs, and it’s on my radar—I’ve started reallocating those funds for better returns. Also, I own a flat worth about ₹85-90 lakh (not included here since I live in it).

Cheers to the journey ahead! 🚀

This is not a usual FIRE post about corpus, inflation and withdrawal rates, so Mods, please feel free to delete this. But I request you to let it be, so that a different and hopefully relevant story gets told on these forums.

Some background first. I am a single father of 2 girls, 11 and 4. I lost my wife a bit over 3 years ago. I had a vision for our family's future back then when she was alive and we lived a usual, normal life. That vision was wiped away in almost an instant.

The last 3+ years have been riddled with grief, mental health issues and a lot of struggle, both physically and mentally. My parents are no more as well, so I have little family support (from in laws) in raising my kids. It is hard as it is to raise 1 kid with 2 parents. Raising 2 kids alone, while suffering with my own grief is probably the hardest thing I'll ever have to do.

I used to be in a mid-senior level management role at work when all this happened. My entire life seemed meaningless, let alone my job. In these rough times though I had one thing that supported me - the corpus I had painstakingly built over the years. My wife and I were on our way to becoming FI and I had lofty dreams of retiring in Goa or some beachside place and living the end of my days with her. While all those plans will forever remain unfulfilled, what was still there was this corpus. It was not enough for FI, but it was enough to enable me to quit working full time to focus on my mental health and my kids. So I quit by the end of 2022, saw a financial planner and came with a plan that will help me take it easy, raise my kids, build a corpus for their education get to FI asap and eventually restore some sanity to my chaotic world.

The plan was to remain coastFI for a few years. So, after quitting full time work, I took up part time consulting roles and worked when I could, designing my own routine and schedule. Working on my terms was an absolute necessity because of my personal situation.

But why do I talk about this now and write this post?

I could not sleep last night at all. My younger daughter got sick last night and she could not sleep, so I took care of her. In the past, when my kids got sick, many times I had to stay awake almost entire nights and then work the next day because of some deliverable. Not anymore. I will rest when I can today or this week, or the next, because I simply can. I can rest because I don't have an insensitive boss who would want some 'urgent' deliverable irrespective of my physical and mental state. I can rest, because after the hell us as a family have gone through, prioritizing my and my kids' health is the right thing to do.

I write this post, because I feel that many people here know the technical way to become FI and that discussion has been done to absolute death here, but many are not really sure how to use that money to get their time back. They may not be 100% sure about the priorities in their lives. In my opinion, each one of us (hopefully) will get there to FI, either today, or tomorrow or the next year or the year after that. But I think it would be wiser to envision your life in a broader context and figure out what you want from the rest of your life and start designing that with your FIRE corpus as your enabler. Or else what's the point of all the struggle? Just to run away from a shitty job? Some folks already have that figured out, but many of us don't and I think they should start working in that direction as well as building their corpus in parallel. I was forced to think about the priorities in my life and how I wanted to live the rest of my days because of the unfortunate events that happened. Please use this as a reminder to not wait for an unfortunate event to happen in your life to make you realize that you live only once and you don't have infinite time to plan and do things that are enabled by money, but really are beyond money - if that makes sense.

P.S. Please excuse the coherence and grammar. I really haven't slept last night at all. :(

House paid off. Kids don't depend on you. For a 50 year old couple in a city like Chennai or Hyderabad, would you say 15 cr will help them live a bare middle class lifestyle?

Someone said this to me and I was wondering how many middle class households will be at this place.

I mean, at 4% withdrawal rate, the annual income will be 60lakhs. Is that bare middle class? Or am I missing something?

Hey folks!

Firstly, don’t get me wrong because I’m sharing something that questions the very reason we are a part of this group. Hear me out before you decide for yourself.

My intention of sharing this: I was in the same boat for a long time. I fully understand how it feels. It feels true and hence we find no reason to think otherwise. Thoughts create feelings, and feelings decide our actions. When thoughts change, everything changes. To change our thoughts, we attempt to look through a different lens. Finally, it's your choice to decide. I am only presenting a possibility.

[[

TLDR;

Sometimes, our unconscious fears appear as abstractions in different forms. Fear’s main job is to protect the organism. Through the variety of life experiences one goes through, the brain may develop unconscious patterns of survival in the form of fear. Remember, its main job is to protect—even at the cost of your own growth. One such survival trick it engages in is disengagement from life. Overthinking, which leads to procrastination is one such other trick. Trying something always involves success or failure. Not trying assures neither, and therefore is the safest.

The concept of retirement from life when alive does not and cannot exist. Only death assures retirement. Life is an active engagement that happens on a moment-to-moment basis. If you can do what you truly desire and, in doing that, put your total attention into the now and act, bringing your true authentic self every moment, that act can never cause you to want to come out of it. The act itself will be so complete that any future worry ceases to exist. Again, as iterated by others, this does not mean 'do not save' or 'do not spill.' It’s all about calibrating according to your needs. But my key point was to convey that the concept of retirement needs to be revisited, as in my experience, I’ve come to observe that one can only retire from a job, but not from life, especially when you still have a lot of youthfulness left. I notice people in their 20s and 30s deciding on FIRE - which may still be a valid choice, but I would suggest caution while deciding by considering all possibilities.

]]

Alright, here I go:

I aimed for FIRE for a long time. Now I don't because I feel that we choose the idea of FIRE mainly because we share a different (I would say out-of-sync) relationship with Life. When Life is seen through the lens of 'I will go through discontent, discomfort, and pain now in exchange for a content, comfortable, and joyous life later,' I feel, it is fundamentally flawed.

This model of thinking assumes two critical points that may not be true:
1: We will be alive till that future date
2: Even if we happen to be alive, our body, and therefore our energy and enthusiasm, will stay vibrant to enjoy what money can facilitate or offer later.

My take is simple:

We have two parallel threads running in our minds all the time. One wants to grow and thrive, while the other wants to safeguard and protect. The latter may seem crippling, but it's fundamentally important to help the organism survive. When we let the survival mechanism take too much control, life becomes complacent, dull, and boring. But when you let the growth mechanism take too much control, it can make serious errors (by taking high reckless risks—in any domain) that can threaten survival and fundamentally defeat the purpose. What we need is balance. You can't do too much or too little of anything. Neither can you eat 10kg of rice every day, nor can you starve for life.

FIRE, I feel, relies on 'too much analyzing, planning, and assuming.' Sure, we need all of that, but we need to calibrate it. We need to allow ourselves to embrace the uncertainty of life. We need to take calculated risks and, at the same time, trust that things will fall into place. We need to let go of our fears and hear our inner voice. Go attempt that thing you always wanted to do. See how it feels. Fail, but get up. In the act of attempting, you will have discovered yourself. You would have seen enough to have built confidence, courage, resiliency, and trust that it becomes inevitable to see Life through a different lens. And when you start operating from there, Life starts making more sense. Life gets aligned. You start experiencing contentment here and now, not there and later. With this model, there is no scope for regret. 'What if I had done that?' gets completely eliminated. And that is liberation. Liberation from the suffering our own minds create through fear, insecurity, and jealousy. Fundamentally, I believe all life craves exuberance, contentment, and joy, and by becoming more aware of what happens in the mind, we get the ability to witness its workings. In the process, we get the opportunity to witness the flaws in our thinking. Actual flaws, not made-up ones. A stone, when thrown up, comes down. Thinking that it will always go up is a flaw. When you really witness, flaws like these become apparent. From there on, you can't unsee what you've seen.

Money is of critical importance—anyone who says otherwise doesn't know what they are talking about. It straight away eliminates a lot of hurdles and empowers us to do things. Money is what we are blessed with when we add 'value' to the world. Value is always in the form of 'how did you make someone feel.' If you make someone's life more comfortable, joyous, or productive, you are adding value. That is the only way you can truly make money—by adding value. That is the law of nature.

I'll leave you with this: If you invest the money you now have on yourself and on the things you wanted to do, how would you feel in the future if you become the person capable of making 10x more money than what you currently have, while experiencing the contentment and joy that you always wished for? Your take on life would be different since your lens would have changed. The only thing you need to do is give yourself a chance.

Cheers!

Edit 1: Added TLDR

Hello.

Joined this group to get a general idea about financial planning for retirement.

Most posts are very informative but somehow I feel you ppl are making an assumption that the current economic cycle will continue as-is with its ups and downs - consequently most of the investments are focussed on equities/MFs/PPFs etc.

However we do live in a very precarious age when there is a near certainty of a war breaking out in the next 5 years: 1.) US - China over Taiwan 2.) EU - Russia once Ukraine is vanquished 3.) N. Korea - S. Korea/Japan

If any of the above happen, then then will be a firesale on equities, jobs will dry up, inflation shoots up etc. etc.

So any notes on how to accommodate these scenarios - they are not exactly doomsday as India will not be directly involved but we will get a lot of collateral damage.

I feel any retirement plan needs to have contingencies in place for such factors too.

I am 27M and very fascinated with this FIRE Approach. But there is a constant internal tussle of why to retire early if we can do so much more.

I have relatives who I know are FI but they are not RE, rather they are still as aggressive towards earning. They know that they are rich but they still dont plan to retire.

When I tried explaining FIRE to my parents and some of my friends they say that this is kind of a selfish approach. I will earn a certain amount and then live off it potentially dying with atleast 1$ (refering to wiki)

I see so many posts where people are FI because they got inheritance. But shouldn't our children get something. Each generation should not be forced to start from 0, they should start where we left off , or atleast somewhere in between.

What are your thoughts?

Edit - Thanks for the replies. From all the discussions so far, it feels like people are either in favour of not having kids but if they are indeed having them, they plan to leave an amount that will atleast be coastFire for the kids to enable them to take risks and make decisions without worrying about creating a cusion for themselves and can focus on creating wealth.

For those who have been living the post-FIRE life for a few years now, I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences on a few key topics. It would be great to get a sense of how things have evolved since reaching FIRE, both the highs and the lows.

1. What was your retirement corpus, and how does your lifestyle look now after a few years?

What are the pros and cons you’ve encountered along the way?

2.Which city did you choose to settle in post-FIRE, and why?How has your choice of location influenced your lifestyle or cost of living?

3.What does your daily life look like now? How do you structure your days, and what fills your time?

4.How has the money management part been for you?Do you feel any concerns around inflation or your corpus shrinking over time?

This is a repost of my last post, as for some reason Reddit keeps removing this post. I have tried to post this twice before this and it got deleted. I'm not sure what's the issue, but this is my last attempt.

I mentioned about this model in my FIRE journey post, and there was some interest about it. Today I'm sharing it. You can tweak and tinker with it to your heart’s content (or frustration, depending on how much you love Excel).

The motivation for this model was my dissatisfaction with thumb rules like SWR-based 'X times your annual expenses'. While that's handy, I’m not a fan of its vagueness, especially since it targets the expense on retirement year, which feels like trying to hit a moving target. So, I decided to unleash my inner spreadsheet nerd and built an extensive model that factors in everything from increasing income and savings rates to recurring and one-off expenses, market returns, and inflation variations.

Here’s the deal: the model is built in Excel, and it simulates portfolio growth over time by taking different factors into account. It’s macro-enabled, so you can run a boatload of simulations if you’re feeling extra fancy. You’ll input things like your current portfolio value, income, expenses, and more. Plus, if you’ve got one-off expenses in the coming years (like house repairs or some expected inheritance etc.), there’s room for that too. When it comes to withdrawals, the model tries to mimic the bucket strategy. Each year, a slice of your equity portfolio (say 5%) is transferred into debt, and your expenses are covered by a blend of withdrawals from both debt and equity (e.g., 80% debt, 20% equity). The rest of the inputs should be self-explanatory, but feel free to ask if anything leaves you scratching your head!

Here’s a screenshot of the main sheet, where you’ll see your inputs, outputs, and some pretty graphs: 

https://preview.redd.it/h2uzpflgyovd1.png?width=1300&format=png&auto=webp&s=7eaabe9d90e22793e4e002b351733a07d2f3377e

Overview:

There are three sheets in this Excel masterpiece:

• FIRE_Model: This is the main sheet, where you’ll enter your inputs on the left. The output on the right shows how your portfolio would grow (or not) over time. If you’re feeling wild, you can hit a button and simulate this 5000 times, with different inflation and market returns each time. The bottom graph will show you the results.
• FIRE_Data: Here’s where the magic happens. It contains the model that simulates the portfolio growth year by year. Most of it is locked down (to keep you from breaking anything!), but you can edit the blue columns to add any one-time income or expenses that you didn’t account for on the main sheet.
• FIRE_Simulation_Data: This is where the 5000 simulations live. Unless you understand what’s happening, hands off!
• Readme*: Added a new sheet explaining each input parameters, and some annotations on the graphs to make it easier on how to make sense of the graphs. This sheet is static, and don't make any changes here.*

Two Ways to Play:

• Single Trial Mode: Just enter your details on the first sheet, and if you’ve got any one-off events (like paying off a loan or winning the lottery), toss them into the blue columns on the second sheet. You’ll get one possible outcome, complete with a fancy graph of your portfolio’s future. If you’re not happy with the result, smash F9 to regenerate it!
• Multiple Trial Mode: Ready to go full data geek? Hit “Simulate 5000 Trials,” and the model will run a ridiculous number of scenarios with different inflation and return rates over the years. Be warned: this can take a bit, depending on how beefy your computer is. The result is a graph showing the probability of your portfolio surviving until a certain age, with average values of X thrown in.

In any case, if you're itching to tweak the formulas and get under the hood, you’ll have to remove the sheet protections to make them editable. But proceed with caution, unless you want to simulate early retirement gone wrong!

Files:

Last time there were lot of issues with the files being deleted or download restricted. I'm sharing them in OneDrive now (link in comments). The simpler version can be tried in online Excel itself, but the macro enabled will need downloading and opening in desktop version of Excel. Also, you'll probably need a latest version of Excel, few people pointed in last post that it doesn't work with Excel 2016.

There are two files:

• Lightweight Version (XLSX): No simulations or macros, just good ol’ one-off data fun.
• Full Version (XLSM): Macro-enabled for all the simulation glory. Just remember to enable macros to get the full experience!

Now, I’m not claiming this is the be-all and end-all of FIRE models. This was a passion project for me, so there might be a few hiccups or inaccuracies here and there. But hey, it works for me! Feel free to poke around and customize it however you like.

Edit: Looks like Reddit keeps deleting any post or comments that refers to macro enable Excel sheet link. Here's the link to OneDrive without actually linking it: "tinyurl.com/3tdv7r2t"

I did a simple calculation for people FIREing. If you have a net worth of $ 1 million (~₹ 9 Cr) and you make 10% return and inflation is 7%, and your monthly expenses are around 2 lacs, you never run out of money. Am I doing something wrong in this calculation?

***THE TITLE IS POSSIBLY MISLEADING.. BY SAFE I MEAN MODERATE RISK IN THE EQUITY MARKET***

This is a futuristic question.. I am 42 (M) now.. could not complete my education due to financial circumstances ....

Not a graduate..Started with 5 lakhs debt in 2002 ...

At 44 - 2 years from now.. I would have built an ..

1. Investible Corpus of 2 crores (1.8 cr in FD and 20 lakhs in stocks.. very conservative approach)
2. 50 lakhs for only child 's education (PF, PPF and stocks)
3. 10 lakhs emergency fund..
4. 30 lakhs on a plot outside Bangalore
5. 10 lakhs - New car + maintenance for 10 years..
6. 10 lakhs in gold jewellery.. can't touch it (women you know) also acts as a safety net...
7. 1 crore term life insurance + company insurance of 1.2 crores
8. Health insurance of 5 lakhs from the company + 5 lakhs personal group cover for self, wife and son..

 All the above made on my own.. can say networth is 3 crore (1+2+3+4+5+6) with 0 liabilities

 ---------------------------‐-------------------------------------------------------------------

 Ancestral Property

• Living in own house in Bangalore. + 2 sites.. Will inherit these in the next 10 years (1.5 crore value)so not including them..
• I am not risk averse and foresee myself working (god willing) for another 10 years at least..
• Current CTC is around 40 lakhs so can build a corpus of another 3 crores over 10 years..
• I intend to build another 4 houses and generate passive income with the 3 crores corpus + post graduation outside India for my son.. over the next 10 years

My question is how do I double the 2 crores in 4-5 years and then double it from 4 to 8 crores in 10 years..

Can dedicate 3-4 hours for active investing a day.. so could be stocks + mutuals funds.. or any alternative ways

Also last years returns from stock trading... 2.66 lakhs on a capital of 7 lakhs that I kept rotating all year..

Not a pro but not a complete idiot either..

https://preview.redd.it/tmh2z864xivd1.png?width=1289&format=png&auto=webp&s=077bc5ff175571ff87e18647008e7fa031ef9d9b