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Hello all,

I still remember my first SIP on 31st March, 2020 after the COVID crash. Finally reached 60 Lakhs portfolio this week with allocation as follows

Mutual Funds - 26.35 Lakhs

Stocks - 6.74 Lakhs

NPS - 7.79 Lakhs

EPF - 14.74 Lakhs

PPF - 1.06 Lakhs

SGB - 1.24 Lakhs

Emergency Cash - 2.5 Lakhs

My portfolio over the years is as follows (excluding emergency funds)

|| || |2021-12-01|9,87,052.43| |2022-01-01|10,81,831.82| |2022-02-01|11,72,027.66| |2022-03-01|12,31,742.58| |2022-04-01|13,60,782.73| |2022-05-01|14,41,383.98| |2022-06-01|15,28,233.70| |2022-07-01|15,88,199.17| |2022-08-01|17,19,019.87| |2022-09-01|18,01,547.88| |2022-10-01|18,39,143.20| |2022-11-01|18,95,535.00| |2022-12-01|19,89,169.97| |2023-01-01|20,27,495.99| |2023-02-01|20,97,133.26| |2023-03-01|21,54,018.00| |2023-04-01|22,08,452.45| |2023-05-01|23,15,239.73| |2023-06-01|25,19,145.14| |2023-07-01|27,93,202.57| |2023-08-01|29,00,000.00| |2023-09-01|30,04,609.43| |2023-10-01|31,17,295.45| |2023-11-01|31,43,979.88| |2023-12-01|33,72,289.00| |2024-01-01|35,48,348.47| |2024-02-01|37,08,080.61| |2024-03-01|39,73,211.21| |2024-04-01|40,68,609.14| |2024-05-01|42,08,705.35| |2024-06-01|44,48,112.97| |2024-07-01|47,59,925.43| |2024-08-01|50,09,772.69| |2024-09-01|49,60,974.27| |2024-10-01|51,06,702.12| |2024-11-01|55,27,157.90| |2024-12-01|57,95,645.24 |

I have not included generational wealth. Some of my expenses such as complete Medical for self & dependents and insurances taken care by employer.

I'm married and we're planning for a child in an year. Currently, i expect my monthly expenses to be 70,000 for above average lifestyle. I would like to retire as soon as possible after achieving 35 times of my yearly expenses at that time.

Any Suggestion, course of correction please ?

Edit: few friends have some concerns over the way I reached the corpus. My salary structure includes 24% of monthly salary towards EPF and 12% of monthly salary towards NPS. That's why almost 22.5 Lakhs is through EPF + NPS itself. Coming to rest, I almost invested just 30 Lakhs in 4 year 10 months rest 7.5 lakhs almost is unrealised gain. Out of this 4 year 10 months I was bachelor for 3 year 9 months with subsidised food facility in company canteen hence very minimal expenses.

Current Assets: US S&P Index funds: $310k US 401K: $190k Expected Home Equity: $600k after sale/taxes Indian Bank A/c: ~50 lakhs Paid off Apt in Bangalore: 3cr

Aligned with most posts here that a stint in the US is a game changer. In a non-tech role in FAANG, Moved to the states about 9 years ago on an L1A. Had nothing saved up when i left India at 30. I'm 39 now but plan too move back to India in about a year as soon as I get my US citizenship. I should have around $1.2M by then (after selling my house). I plan to split assets equally between stocks and bonds. I will have 10 years of contribution into Social Security, so I can use that too if it's still around by the time I'm 62. 😄

I'm separated amicably and have already split assets with my wife and separately for my son's education. So this is just for me. Although I'm happy with where i am, a bunch of things i could have done differently to be twice as comfortable (invest in stock early, take up 401k match as soon as i moved). I'm not sure what i plan to do in India but hopefully what i have saved up gives me leeway. I plan to work but not put up with shifty bosses. I can be more comfortable with low pay but fulfilling jobs. With the citizenship, I can also move back if i feel like.

Hi FIRE community,

I reached the first milestone I had set for myself when I was 18 ~ 1.5Crore total NW (Without including any inheritance) I will be attaching all the details for you guys unlike other posts which give half baked details.

How did I get here ?

I am 28 now so will give very detailed timeline from 2014 to 2024

Years : 18-20 (2014-2016)

1. Swing Trading
2. Picking well known stocks, reinvesting the dividends
3. Keeping cash in FDs to take benefits during drawdowns based on Buffet Principles I had read back then

Years : 20 - 22

1. Evolved as an Investor along side did few gigs and completed my MBA
2. Mainly focussed on buying established companies that were cheap during drawdowns, I never invested monthly. All Investments were during drawdowns
3. Read Peter Lynch books and picked 5 stocks for my concentrated portfolio with 20% allocated to Microcap (SME)
4. As markets did not move much I was just holding these stocks and focussed on my career

Years: 23 - Current

1. Covid came in, the SME position I had started building was down by 50% other stocks that I had somehow never went below my buy price and overall Portfolio was in green
2. The words from buffet echoed : sell when everyone is greedy and buy when everyone is scared to touch stocks, I closed out all FDs and went 100% into the markets. Invested Stipend from MBA internship too. Total Portfolio value was at 10L at this point (this is after investing/trading from 2014-2020 with very less capital to start with)
3. Got a job started working and due to covid it was not the job I wanted, with efforts I switched companies and my salary went 3x in a span of 3 years (2021 to 2024)
4. What Happened in 2021 end was that SME stocks started exploding and this position that I built of 20% in an SME and added further into went up 30 times (Post tax 27.8times) ~ 2 lakhs that was invested became 40L post taxes
5. I started earning from 2021 so kept investing into all sorts of companies by pure play research

Perspective change : From being a wealth chaser to preserving wealth

1. Started investing in mutual funds in 2022 fall reallocated some capital and added further capital mainly into Flexicap, Midcap and small cap funds (Apart from tax saver ELSS at any given time I just keep 5 Mutual funds in my entire portfolio)
2. Had to switch to Mutual funds due to job involving high efforts from my side
3. On the side direct investing I pick undervalued companies and continued to experiment
4. So overall Portfolio kept performing through the years and I have finally touched 1.5crores

Breakdown of current portfolio (Not counting EPF/PPF Etc.)

Equity : 99%

Mutual funds : 53% (Set aside 10% as emergency funds whenever required) Direct Stocks : 46% ~ closed all SME positions as maket was way overvalued for SMEs

Debt : 1%

FD : 100% (Use this only for near term expenses)

Help required :

People who went from 1.5 to 5+ Crores do give your inputs on how I can reach 5+(Warn me about any pitfalls I will experience)

Note :

1. I have enjoyed my life through the process it took me roughly 10Years to reach here of which I was working for 3 years.
2. My parents have multiple homes in my hometown and I don't intend to buy a home at this age in my place of working as I prefer flexibility
3. I will continue to work till I can as I like my job but want to reach FI

Salary growth last 3yrs

1st Job - 11LPA 2nd - 15LPA 3rd - 30LPA (including hikes till now) Place of work : India (One of the Metros)

Have no plans of going abroad, want to be near to my parents and family. Have got no ESOPs/RSUs till now.

I am open to helping folks who want help on their journey, do let me know if you need additional details.

Basic facts

Age: 33

Balance: 9.2CR

Have a fully paid off apartment.
Single.
Expenses initially: 12 Lakhs per annum

Equities to Debt split: 80 to 20

Assumptions

Life expectancy: 100 Years

Inflation: Mean 6.75, Standard deviation 2.8 (Actually computed from inflation data from RBI for the last 10 years)

Equities: Mean 13.28, Standard deviation 15.82 (Actually computed using Sensex data from 2015 to 2024)

FD Interest rate: Mean 6.5, Standard deviation 1.0 (Not computed. Just my assumption)

Tax: Flat 20%. (Makes my life easy. Using tax brackets will require more coding work. Maybe in the future I will do this).

Code

(Where ever I used the word debt, I mean FD).

(Deleted a lot of code from the original version of code I was using for my simulation, for the sake of posting on Reddit. The following code may or may not work)

import numpy as np

starting_balance = 92000000

inflation_mean = 6.75
inflation_sd = 2.8

interest_mean = 6.5
interest_sd = 1

equities_mean = 13.28
equities_sd = 15.82

equities_to_debt_ratio = 80

expenses = 1200000

simulation_years = 100-33

tax = 20

premature_exit_count = 0
iterations = 50000
for iter in range(1, iterations):
    current_balance = starting_balance

    # Split current balance into equities and debt.
    equities = current_balance * (equities_to_debt_ratio/100)
    debt = current_balance * ((100 - equities_to_debt_ratio)/100)

    current_expenses = expenses
    interest, equities_growth = 0, 0

    for year in range(1, simulation_years + 1):
        inflation = np.random.normal(inflation_mean, inflation_sd)

        interest = np.random.normal(interest_mean, interest_sd)

        # Caping it at 30. Above 30% growth in a year is unrealistic.
        equities_growth = min(30, np.random.normal(equities_mean, equities_sd))

        prev_expenses = current_expenses
    
        # Adjust current expenses for taxes.
        current_expenses = (100/(100 - tax)) * current_expenses

        # Drain debt first.
        debt, current_expenses = max(0, debt - current_expenses), max(0, current_expenses - debt)

        # If we still need money drain equities.
        if current_expenses > 0:
            equities, current_expenses = max(0, equities - current_expenses), max(0, current_expenses - equities)
        
        
        current_balance = equities + debt
        if(current_balance <= 0):
            premature_exit_count += 1
            break

        # Compute state of the world for next year.
        equities = equities * (1 + (equities_growth/100))
        debt = debt * (1 + (interest/100))
        current_expenses = (1 + (inflation/100)) * prev_expenses

print(premature_exit_count)
print(premature_exit_count/iterations)

Analysis

So essentially I ran this simulation for 50,000 iterations. Each iteration for 67 years.

In roughly 96% of the cases. I manage to live up to 100 years of age without running out of money.

But I wanted to see what are the conditions in which I would run out of money and the results were shocking:

Here is the data for the 1% of the cases(sorted by the ending balance)

Inflation:
['7.25', '3.59', '6.41', '9.28', '8.12', '4.46', '2.72', '8.07', '11.65', '13.09', '2.68', '9.25', '6.69', '11.6', '7.45', '7.69', '8.98', '7.47', '6.1', '9.11', '-1.54', '7.38', '8.42', '7.78', '10.18', '10.35', '4.11', '4.79', '7.11', '9.95', '3.35', '7.38', '6.38', '3.43', '3.49', '2.41', '5.06', '3.58', '4.56', '6.96', '8.08', '7.12', '7.24', '6.46', '14.96', '3.89', '3.49']



Equities growth:
['-0.27', '-31.3', '-16.66', '22.87', '10.12', '19.75', '-2.29', '-14.36', '10.19', '15.47', '30', '-1.65', '30', '25.57', '14.83', '-1.48', '30', '-11.98', '0.37', '3.73', '9.56', '2.79', '13.64', '9.8', '-26.47', '1.05', '3.92', '26.99', '8.14', '20.88', '-4.79', '21.66', '9.58', '1.99', '27.11', '12.01', '26.77', '30', '19.2', '-14.13', '9.0', '30', '-2.38', '30', '30', '-8.0', '4.16']



FD Interest rate:
['6.91', '6.58', '5.29', '6.66', '5.37', '6.43', '6.02', '7.04', '6.03', '6.9', '6.4', '6.18', '7.1', '7.21', '5.34', '6.96', '6.45', '6.58', '7.45', '4.93', '7.74', '5.89', '7.65', '5.65', '6.67', '5.04', '7.3', '6.17', '7.87', '7.89', '7.52', '6.74', '5.93', '7.68', '4.5', '6.16', '7.26', '6.41', '6.72', '5.89', '6.13', '8.9', '6.41', '4.92', '7.52', '7.32', '7.26']



Expenses:
['1,200,000', '1,287,003.79', '1,333,161.31', '1,418,587.73', '1,550,256.48', '1,676,142.49', '1,750,978.1', '1,798,639.01', '1,943,813.33', '2,170,355.36', '2,454,541.15', '2,520,357.78', '2,753,515.05', '2,937,852.1', '3,278,762.99', '3,522,871.61', '3,793,934.23', '4,134,578.94', '4,443,626.49', '4,714,898.85', '5,144,265.33', '5,065,065.67', '5,438,627.67', '5,896,507.18', '6,355,246.81', '7,002,311.26', '7,727,290.74', '8,045,016.17', '8,430,326.58', '9,029,484.16', '9,927,921.76', '10,260,929.9', '11,018,168.07', '11,721,318.14', '12,123,435.21', '12,546,904.43', '12,849,209.42', '13,499,456.38', '13,982,450.19', '14,620,268.21', '15,638,116.16', '16,901,601.15', '18,104,327.23', '19,415,200.44', '20,668,621.97', '23,761,589.07', '24,685,320.55']

On the surface it doesn't look abnormal at all. If hypothetically I retired and this was the exact data I was looking at, then there would be no way for me to tell that I would be running out of money by the age of 80 years!

Which is really scary. Because I am starting with a balance of 9.2 Crores which is exceptionally high. My expenses are barely 12 Lakhs per annum. I have an apartment. I have no kids or dependents!

I would think that the situation in which I run out of money would look less realistic. Like Equities yielding -10% return for multiple years. And even when they grow, they grow only by 3% to 4%. Inflation at 12% consistently for several years. But the actual situation in which I would run out of money seems far more realistic.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Fire/comments/1h081l4/warren_buffets_inheritance_plan/

"...wealthy parents should leave their children enough so they can do anything but not enough that they can do nothing"

What is the groups thought on leaving inheritance for kids (or Grand kids)? Or its just provide the best education and at best marriage fund

or the group believes in "Die with Zero" but give out when necessary and be done with it. If one dies early it goes to kids else ...

Edit1: This post is on Inheritance and not Buffet :), interested to know your thoughts on Inheritance

So, this is not really a question but want to just see what people think about this. I was recently reading about some construction project like metro or some bridge/flyover and a small section costed 100Cr. Some machine parts cost was 10Cr. These are minimum costs. I hear random local elections seats candidates are paying 50cr or being paid 50cr just to switch parties. Forget their net worth easily more than 200cr. So many people playing IPL are being paid 10Cr every year (good thing is it's at least based on skill set and talent). If you play couple of seasons of IPL then you can easily make it to 20Cr even for an average player. These are just what meets the eye, there's so many professions which easily pay a lot more. And then there's NRIs returning to India who I think are least bit of a concern here. At least not as much as what the members of this sub make it to be.

With all of these how are people here keeping 5-10Cr as their fire target.

The expenses and inflation are bound to grow as time passes on with all these people raising the costs. I know mathematically it works out and even reducing all your wants and living a basic needs based lifestyle also checks out. Lots of people can live a hermit or sage life. There's nothing wrong in that. Maybe that is the higher form of lifestyle. I don't know. I'm not talking about them. I'm talking about regular people, isn't it human nature to strive to be the best ? To be the best in the society or command respect. Wealth certainly seems to be one of the factors deciding that. Or maybe even the easier one between best in what you do vs acquiring more wealth. So shouldn't everyone strive towards that as a human race ? And can you call people who fired as lazy people ? And they are not the right inspiration for people. It is not for general public, who can work towards betterment of human society. What is a better society ? I do not know.

I'm not someone who is going to take a laid back lifestyle after fire. Coast/barista/fat/lean whatever. If I am working towards betterment of society in turn creating more wealth, then I wonder am I even in the right profession ? Why didn't my education provide me what was needed by this society ? Why didn't I opt for something which taught me how to provide greater value to the society ? I know it's never too late but I certainly feel like a failure so far in life where I haven't created much value to the society in turn not making myself any kind of wealth.

That's it. I lost track of my thoughts. What do you guys think ?

Maybe this is not an everyday post on this sub, but I would like some perspective about soft FIRE from abroad into a faculty position in a tier 1 city in India; and what difference should I expect between working in an elite institute (IISC/CSIR/IIT) vs a local college coming from a western academia/industry background. For context I am 30 and mostly FI and looking from a 20-30 year career horizon perspective.

I also have some potential to become an industrial consultant in India if academia does not work out, so I will always have options to go back to industry if needed. I am not looking to grind like a fresh prof though, so wanted to compare the lifestyles. The main idea is to be in control of your own time and have the freedom to be involved in family events at will.

What are the pros and cons in this stratergy, from mostly the work contententment perspective but also financial? If anyone has done anything similar would love to hear stories.

Edit: I wanted to keep this post more general as a though excercise, though it is causing some confusion. I have a PhD and currently work in an industrial research on some cutting edge semiconductor research in the US (4 year work ex post PhD). One of my motivations is also to give back to the country. I know it sounds cheesy, but that also adds to the work contentment.

I had shared my story #2 years back

https://www.reddit.com/r/FIREIndia/comments/10kw7kv/retired_a_few_months_back

Here is followup:

My equity investments have taken off well, sitting on close to 15cr+ networth, 80% exposed to equity, mostly invest via paylater/MTF

Tax outgo has been a pain point, exploring ways to optimise

Planning to diversify a bit into real estate

Life is good otherwise, spend a lot of time reading or travelling

Initally felt i might get bored in 6months, but not so far.. investing, academic hobbies may have kept me engaged.

Also, getting into VC/strartups game, once NW doubles, may venture more boldly

Mentoring family, friends and colleagues in their investment journey..

AMA

I am 30 yo software engineer and have reached total savings of 1cr. This is 90% equity MF and the rest 10% is in total of bank fd, gold and others.

How i achieved this: Half of this was achieved by savings from my salary and the rest half was a one time gain of 50L unlikely to get repeated. My current savings is around 1lpm.

Sacrifices I made: I don't eat out or go to movies or concerts or pubs. I travel rarely and that too frugally via backpacking. I have decided not to get married or have children. FIRE seems to be impossible while having a family.

What I want suggestions about: At my current savings rate of 1L per month, does the FIRE target to 10cr seems achievable? What can i change to achieve it as soon as possible?

https://affordanything.com/560-the-father-of-the-4-rule-finally-sets-the-record-straight/

Listen to this podcast - Bengen is the one who is Mr. 4% (Dont miss listening - take time)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Bengen

Recent research has pushed the “safe” withdrawal rate closer to 5 percent. But Bengen identifies eight key factors that affect how much you can withdraw, including how long you’ll be retired and whether you’re drawing from taxable or tax-deferred accounts.

For early retirees planning for 50-60 years, Bengen says the safe withdrawal rate asymptotically approaches 4.2 percent — meaning even with an infinite time horizon, it won’t drop below that. He thinks the common advice to use 3 percent for early retirement is unnecessarily conservative.

Hello folks,

Me(M36) and my wife(31) have networth of 2.9 cr, all liquid and no real estate(RE).

In 2020 we had 0 savings(combined ~1 lakh in EPF to be honest).

I have been working for 14 years, and wife for 10 years.

---- Savings journey till 2017, just before our marriage ----

I have been earning since 2010 and a had a few years of gap between jobs, I always worked on my terms, left when I felt things are not moving per my liking, never stayed long enough for a hike, never had an offer before resigning and given I had no financial backing and no generational wealth, all of those decisions were pretty stupid and self destructing.

All those years, I sent some money home, invested ~1.5 lakh in sister's home and EMIs, but didn't save much.

Wife was working, but her salary was going in EMIs and personal expenses, and mind you at that time IT salaries for normal folks used to be 12-15k for freshers.

Met my wife, asked her to marry me after a few years and it was the first time when I started thinking about future, created a five year plan(till 2022) with our combined salaries, which included a paid for home, being debt free and projected 10 lakh savings at the end of said 5 years.

Cut to 2017.
I had around 1.2 lac savings and wife around 80k in her EPF, we used everything to pay her personal loan, which was incurring 15% interest, Had a wedding with 1.5 lakh from parents money(families didn't agree for court marriage), it was a good function with close family and few friends in a nice hotel, don't regret that a bit. Didn't go for a honeymoon as I was obsessed with not wasting any money(regret it to date).

---- status of 5 year Plan(till 2022) ----

With the personal loan closed, we focused on closing wife's education loan of around 5.5 lac. Wife had a stable job(as stable as it can be in IT), I stayed in a single organisation for years and had to fight myself to not resign on a daily basis, old habits die hard).

Alfter edu load payment, we increased home loan EMI, saved around ~1 lac and decided to buy a car, around 11 lac, had an old car which wife was using to drive for work, and i was commuting on a scooty, realised we'll need to buy another vehicle, as I didn't wife to travel alone without a car, and a scooty is not safe.

We started with smaller options, 4-5 lakh car, but ended up buying a 12 lac car, although we closed the loan in 1.5 years, but still it messed up my 5 year plan.

We worked like crazy till 2021, we rarely went out for trips or to meet family, working 12-14 hours a day and basically living as roommates rather then husband-wife, but we never fought or had any major fallout, she has been my rock throughout the journey.

I worked even when I was in hospital for surgery and on painkillers for months, but I was obsessed with working, without any expectation for any hikes, I just wanted to learn as much as I could and based on my previous experience I knew that I could get a better job if i'm good.

By 2022, we had closed the car loan, had enough savings to close the home loan, we thought a lot about closing the home loan and decided to sell of the house, mainly because we were not going to use it as primary residence and don't want the hassle of being a landlord.

End of 2022, we sold the home(no profit) and closed off the home loan.

---- Accumulation phase ----

By end of 2022, we were debt free, had decent savings, around 30 lacs, we started relaxing and working less(8 hours instead of 12). I relaxed for a few months and got obsessed again, but with earning money now, started exploring how I can earn ..a lot.. and the only way i knew of making money was by using my technical skills.

We both switched jobs, I took on side jobs and kept interviewing and putting the experience I gained all these years to get paid well ,end of 2023 we saved around 1 cr total.

Started taking more risks, and started a consultancy firm a few months ago, I'm still doing the same work I did in other companies but for now my gain instead of someone else. We pay all the employees very well, in few cases even 3 times of what they were earning before(becaues they are worth that much and can get this same money if they apply to good firms), diwali gifts, bonuses on project launches, because to few people we have to ask them to work extra during launches, extra payday if we ask them to work on holiday or weekend. Stupid business decisions and I can cut the salary expenses in half easily, but we are making enough from them, we don't want to suck their blood and soul and not compensate them.

We made 2 cr this year, after tax, projected 1 cr(after tax) more by dec. totalling 4 cr by year end.

I have been working and planning for close to a decade for this moment and this success, but now that its here, I don't have the mental energy or the health to sustain it.

---- FIRE Planning ----

Our current expenses are around 1.5 lac per month, we are planning to reduce it to 70k per month after retirenment.

- 70k per month = 8.4 lac per year

- 35x = 3 cr. (which we have)

- 1 cr for child's education (which we'll have by year end)

Only piece of puzzle remaining is a home, we don't want to stay on rent because of uncertainity and not being able to call it our own means we never quite grow our roots.

Considering that our business is not stable and relies on constantly getting new contracts, I not sure how long I can sustain it, and after all of these years of grinding i don't have the fire left in me, i'm not obsessed anymore.

So I just want to accumulate till next year end and take a break for a year atleast or permanently, i'm not sure.

We don't have visibility on next year, we might do well or substantially lower then this year, since i'm not going out in the market actively for new contracts.

The house we want to purchase will cost around 1.5 cr for 2 BHK(registration + interior) or 2.5 cr for 3 bhk. I would love for it to be a 3 BHK, but if we don't save enough by 2025 end, 2 BHK it will be.

Sorry if the post was too long, I hope its not incoherent, I'll post my expenses, salary progressions throughout the years in separate post(hopefully soon).

TL;DR and my Question:

- Do you think for monthly expenses of 70k, 3 cr is enough

- 1 cr for child college education(inheritance if no college) is enough

- 2 BHK for nuclear family will suffice?

- Family: M36, F31, Child:2

- Current savings: 4 cr, with majority in mutual funds, no real estate yet( 3 cr in present, included the projected 1 cr additional we'll have by dec)

- Monthly expense: 70k is without vacations, but included everything else. We'll manage living a normal life and go on vacation if any one of us earns additional through contracts

- Future prospects of job, not sure yet, wife wants to work, but i want her to focus on her health, she might work in a less stressful job and earn 1-1.5 lac per month. i might go back to my original ways of not giving a damn and might not have a stable source of income. but if push comes to shove, we were both earning close to 1cr combined in our last jobs, we can go back to being a working bee for a few years, but i really need a year off for me.

I noticed most people get triggered when I use the term loser to define FIRE aspirants.

I want to clarify once for all. I actually call myself a loser. I wear it as a badge of honour.

To give some context; The society expects you to top in your school, top in your college. Then they expect you to top in your organisation and get fastest promotion.

Get the hottest wife, get hottest car and swankiest house. This is the definition of the society of a winner.

If you were a winner in life and you were actually that topper in class and got into top institute and then got into top companies and got the top promotions etc then you are mainstream definition of the winner.

Whereas FIRE is about going against the societal norms. It is for people who were not winners, it is for people who didn't get top marks, who didn't want to get into engineering, but still got into it because of society pressure, didn't like IT but still got into it because of societal pressure.

So being a loser is actually a great thing, because you don't want to be that winner as per society definition. You want to be a loser and there is nothing wrong in it. Be proud, if you make peace with the fact that you are a loser, then nobody can defeat you. You will be a winner in your own mind.

But if you try to be a winner, you will forever be stuck in the rat race.

If still you get triggered by the term loser, then sorry FIRE is not for you, you are fooling yourself.

Update since last post, finally decided to quit my corporate job in Jan. Retirement corpus 5 cr, own house with all renovation complete, not expecting any upgrades for 10 years at least, daughters education done and is working in Europe, 3 family members, husband, myself and MIL. Medical insurance taken care of. Annual expense 15 lacs approx. Will continue 50k MF investments for next 10 to 15 years. Remaining corpus will give us an income of 3 lakhs approx per month. Will start a consulting company after resting for 3 months (gig based) and husband will continue NGO work. Thoughts? Husband is 51 years and l am 45.

Came across this post
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEuyeX__tDI

He says

1. Losers retire early - because they are not successful

2. Lousy life - retirement at 35 even 45 he says !

3. He even goes to says - plan to 55/60/65 retirement

4. All finfluencers and any one who talsk of FIRE must be Fired

Stopped watching it after that !

I just found out what a stark contrast exists between people in the FIRE community and depending on who you are choose your role models wisely.

1)There are those high achiever multi talented people, who were rock stars in their job. If they passed out from IIT/IIM, then without doubt. Maybe they didn't enjoy it entirely yet or maybe they did(you know some of them explicity say they dont hate their job, they want FI and not RE) they did very well for themselves careerwise.

But also they are multi talented, so they start thinking one life, I can't spend only winning in corporate life. I need to win in other areas too. Typically Indian fomo mentality. I want to write books, I want to plant trees, I want to travel, I want to trek, I want to become a financial advisor. Basically these people are so multi talented they were rockstars in corporate life. They will be rockstars in FIRE also.

2. Then there are those who passed out of tier 3 college, got into IT not because we like the job, but because that was the only way to get a social standing for ourselves in society. We are like naturally losers, but getting into Engg and IT was a way to mask it and live with an imposter syndrome. But now the society expects us to remain winners and keep up on the hamster wheel and buy properties and cars and iPhone etc. But we hate our jobs, we don't want the latest cars nor the iPhones. Hence enter FIRE. FIRE is the masiha for people like us, to make hay while the sun shines and get out of our torturous corporate jobs.

The aim to get out is not to plant trees or make some social impact for under privileged children nor is it to change career to something else like how the category of multi talented people can do without much effort.

So, it is important to know which category you belong and choose your FIRE hero wisely.

Glad to know my previous post was well received and I appreciate your questions.
Some clarifications may be necessary. The intent of posting was not to gloat or show that my corpus puts me at a different level.

I've been a corporate employee like most people here - albeit with good jobs since my MBA.
I come from a middle class family - Dad was armed forces. I've built my corpus because I saved a large percentage of salary and saved early. Compound interest did the rest. It also involved making sacrifices, postponing spending in my youth for future enjoyment. I have a conservative lifestyle, I drive a car which cost 10 lac. My preferred alcohol is beer.

I do not consider myself very fit. The best I can say is I don't have any medical problems, no stress and get a good night's sleep. I do some trekking etc as a way to push the envelope and prove to myself I can do something. I am envious of batchmates who run marathons, when I don't even gym.

Before retiring, I took almost a year off in 2012 to test the waters. It was the best time I had and I realized there's so much I wanted to do, but my high pressure job left me no time for it. It was also very difficult to get my next job, so when I did, I was clear that it should be my last. I wanted to run a company and create a world class business, which I did in that role, after which I no longer wanted to be part of the rat race.

Hi Folks, This is my first post on this sub.
A bit about me. Did my MBA from IIM and semi-retired when I was 46, when I decided not to pursue full time work. Completely retired at 48. I'm 54 now, so living a retired life for 6 years.
I did so as I met my personal financial goals and was a CEO - which is where I wanted to end things.
It helps that I'm single and live in my own house.

Some observations:
I saved the bulk of my salary from the beginning and invested in mutual funds. The income from my investments is more than what I need (without affecting the principal) and as much as what I'd make as a CEO of a mid sized company.

Time is my most important asset. Money is a means of spending that time optimally.

Have a serious hobby. I blog on Indian national security and geopolitics and would like to be considered an authority on the subject. I probably read more than a book a week.
I have a bucket list of 'things to do before I die'. I've written a book, created a world class business,
trekked in the Himalayas etc. There are some things I just fail to do, like exercise.

It can be boring. I'd love to take up board positions or part time work, but at C level positions the Indian corporate world expects you to work full time. I don't want to risk my money starting on my own. It can be upsetting to meet with my peers - who are all at the peak of their careers in leading companies, VCs etc when I have nothing to talk about professionally.

I have been an introvert, but while I'm single I do date. Its a great feeling to travel to exotic places with a gorgeous lady with whom I vibe well. In the past year, I've trekked in Nepal, then done a luxury trip there, visited Sri Lanka, gone diving in the Andamans, planning a trip to Croatia shortly. I would not be able to do some of these things when I cross 60, or in a C level position.

Taking care of elderly parents has been very stressful as their problems are as much mental as physical. It has detracted from what should be the best years of my life.

My life's goal is to die broke - what that means it use your money to do all the things you wanted to.

I've been reading people’s journey here and wanted to understand what can I do about my current profile:

INDMoney Profile

Background:
28F, single, was working as a software engineer at one of the top companies of the world by market cap. Well it became toxic last year because of a re-org and I left in October so that I don’t get piped because my manager was eating me alive every day.

Anyway right now:
Current expenses: ~5 lakhs/year but as I have shifted back with my parents it is now 1.5 lakhs/year.
Income was: 64-70 lakhs/year
I am very frugal, a big time kanjoos as my mom would say.

I got lucky with the ESOPs and RSUs that is now 2.5 crores+ and I have not included some of the gold purchases(I bought 22 carat gold ornaments when it 30k/10 gm) around 5 lakhs and the cash I have kept for emergencies (around 12-14 lakhs). I invested most of my saving in ESOPs and paid significant amount of prerequisite taxes as well (35.9%). So I spent a lot of my income covering taxes. My parents are okay for now and will keep living comfortably as my dad will be having a pension flow.

What I want:
I want to have a fulfilling life ahead, want to do MBA so around 30 lakhs for that should be enough in India. Retire by 40. A small bakery of my own and a house somewhere in a Tier-3 city, maybe Shantiniketan.

What I do these days: Right now just giving interviews which I get reached out for and grinding on leetcode and building kernels and stuff to keep myself ready for the job market.

My questions are:

1. Am I prepared enough for this career break with my current networth? Or should I just start the maniac journey of getting into a FAANGMULA or adjacent something again?
2. Are career breaks frowned upon currently? Well I have been taking care of my ailing parents too because both of my parents need me right now; have a 17 year old brother who needs the moral support to go through the grueling JEE journey as well.
3. I don't have a clear FIRE goal in my mind currently. I still feel I have a lot left in my career but I know that burn out is eventually going to happen very soon, working 12 hours every day especially at my age I felt exhausted all the time and was hospitalised twice last year.
4. I want to understand what can I do with the stocks? I have no knowledge of mutual funds/SIPs etc.

Thanks :)

I have repaid my home loan where I reside and I am considering what to do next with the monthly emi I am going to save now. Thinking of these lines for now-

1. Reit or fractional ownership
2. Buy a flat
3. Add the amt to current monthly SIP.

People who achieved fire or about to, what do you suggest? Your response would be highly appreciated 👍

Hi, I was wondering why do people who have achieved high positions like AVP, VP and above they seem to continue to work with high pressure stakes and not seen to retire early. In my organization, I see them either retire at normal age or continue in same org or join other company. Is it the lure of more money or the high adrenaline of more achievements or powe?

Is FIRE only for normal Joes, for the rank and file who seem to detest their job so much and crave for that promised land beonyd job? But even then it requires a high level of income combined with high savings rate to even consider FIRE.

Hear out the argument and tell me if it makes sense

(+) Predictable hours. Often guest faculty do not have to offer definite time commitment

(+) Predictable work. Same lecture material, some examination material. Make it as fun as you would like. No pressure

(+) Being around the young. Being alive in a non toxic corporate work environment we all have grown too familiar with

(+) You’re pulling away financially but not completely. Lecturers can make 1LPM. Asst / assoc professors / professors even more

(+) Societal acceptance. You are still in a community. And you still are ‘doing something’.

What do you guys think?

I just saw a comment yesterday from a successfully FIREd person that he plans to tell everyone including his family that he will look for a job and wont disclose his FIRE plans and also his main question was how to deal with people who feel sympathy for him when he tells them he lost his job and is looking for a new one.

I just feel, this aspect of FIRE hasnt been discussed enough, by even experts who have successfully FIREd. Usually in podcasts of successful FIREd people like u/RaviHanda they just mention that yes it is difficult and that our society value goes down. But they never explain why this happens and how to deal with it.

So here is my thought process: If you see the evolution, when we pass out of college or even long before that; our entire aspiration and match with peers/collegues. It is always a competition we try to match up with the toppers/high performers etc.

When we start our jobs, it is more often than not about our salary/appraisals etc which we use as a benchmark to compare with the people who we want to match up.

Then somewhere along the line this FIRE idea kicks up. This is where we deviate from the peers. While our peers are busy aiming for the highest salary and the best things/experiences in life, we quietly start squirrelling away our excess savings, sometimes even targetting the excess savings.

Slowly overtime, our identity is no longer the salary or the position in the company, it is our networth. However, in the beginning when we started our career; our identity was salary and position but somewhere along the line, we deviated from the rest and made networth as our identity and we stopped competing with our peers on salary and position.

Since networth is usually anonymous while salary and position are more or less known to everyone and then the mainstream people flaunt their salary via latest cars, latest gadgets and latest property and they get their kick from it, where does the FIRE person get their kick from? It is from being anonymously rich, it is from being stress free, it is from being in control of their own time.

But is it important for us to convince our peers/family that our definition of success has changed? These were the same people whom we used to once upon a time, flaunt our salary and position and now we have changed the rules of the game or we are playing a different game, while they are playing the same game.

People like u/RaviHanda and other finfluencers have done a great job, by not staying anonymous and educating the masses about the FIRE movement, so atleast now, some people among your peers would have heard about it and know what it is. But still vast majority dont know about it.

Should we take them time to educate them, atleast our own family members and then extended family members? I personally think yes, we dont have to tell them how much our networth is. Anyways they dont know what SWR means, what is inflation, what is real returns etc. But they do know about things like LIC and pension where you get passive income and flow.

So my approach (and this is what my wife also suggested to me) is; we should tell them that we have planned such that our basic necessities are met via passive income flow. It is a bit like the people who took VRS, my dad himself took VRS at age 54 and he never had any problem explaining to people that now he gets a pension enough to take care of his living expenses.

Anyways as FIRE people our lifestyle is modest, we dont flaunt stuff, so that kind of gels well with this explanation.

Regarding how to deal with lower social value, well we had abandoned the race long back when we got into the FIRE journey. So how does it matter? In a way you are now the owner of your own time, you have a passive income flow, you can always proudly say that you are self employed, which is technically true.

Hi guys,

I am 33m, have 2 year old daughter. I am working in IT earning 15 LPA. I have around 50L in savings (including MF, FD, PPF etc). I kind of lack motivation to do more in terms of career, and a bit stressed about work, although there is no pressure from the company as such. But I can easily manage. My wife had to quit work due to personal reasons and she has very less savings (around 10L). I have ancestral property in bangalore where we stay currently and it is pretty rich locality. And it's worth is around 5cr. What I am thinking of is to sell it and buy a decent flat for 1cr, and invest the rest i.e 4cr and to have a decent income from the FD and other investments. I would like to travel the world and spend time with my family and friends by travelling and spend some quality with them. I need to upgrade my income in order to do this(which comes with a lot of stress and subtracting family time) or sell this property. Is it a disastrous idea to do this? Thoughts please.

I have been a lurker on this subreddit for a long time and was a lurker on the older subreddit before that. I started my FIRE journey in 2015. Skip to the TLDR at the bottom for a quick summary. However, I hope my FIRE journey is interesting to read.

In 2012, I was having lunch with my team mates and we started discussing on retirement. I was 32 years then (turned 44 this year). We were throwing numbers around and after much discussion, we came to the conclusion that the high level numbers is 4-5 Cr. 3 Cr for retirement and 1 Cr for each child's education/marriage expenses. This was 2012, so we were over budgeting. However, I got to know about this much later.

I started my journey in 2014 as normal SIPs in various mutual funds. At that time some "free" financial consultant contacted me and made me do a bunch of SIPs in regular funds. I was naive and very soon I was doing SIPs in more than 30 different mutual funds. I also burned my hands in F&O and lost a good sum there.

2017-18 was when I started investing seriously. I narrowed down the list of funds I was investing into. Moved all regular mutual funds to direct funds and also started doing SIP in some large cap stocks. I was investing around 50% of my income at that time.

In 2022 I engaged a fee-only financial advisor. We went over my numbers and as per his recommendation, I was in line to be financially free in the beginning of 2024. I finished off my home loan in June 2024 and was waiting for the year to end to collect my bonus and drop my resignation. However, fate had other plans. I was laid-off last month with a 2.5 month salary. And now, I am FIRE.

I have not conveyed my plan to "not-work" to my parents/siblings/wife. I will mostly tell them that I am looking for a job and not getting one. There are 2 challenges that I saw in the first 15 days of FIRE

• I have a lot of free time and I do not know how to spend it. My friend circle(s) is still busy with their jobs and I kind of miss those coffee-chats in office. As of now, I am engaging in playing video games and catching up on some pending books and web series. But, i can foresee that I will get bored of this soon.
• Most of my friends are shocked when I tell them that I am not planning to work anymore. When I tell them that I got laid off and am not planning to work, I can feel the sympathy in their voice - (feels as if they believe i have lost it). I hope experienced FIREd folks can guide me on how to tackle such situations.

As for my numbers. I am married with 2 kids both in school as of now.

Broadly, I have around 35x of my yearly expenses (including yearly vacation & school fees). I am expecting the next 10 years to be expense heavy as kids would be finishing school and going to college and I plan to travel a bit. After that the expenses should come down with age. I am using a bucket strategy for more detailed yearly planning.

70% of the funds are in equity mutual funds & direct stocks. Remaining 30% of the funds are parked in EPF, PPF, ULIP and debt mutual funds. I have invested in real-estate and hold 2 properties in Delhi-NCR. The real-estate should be worth around 3 Cr now. I have not included this in the above calculation. They are to act as buffer in case of need.

BTW, I have never been abroad for work - not even for a tiny assignment. All my earning are from working in India. With dedication and perseverance and a bit of luck, folks in India can also FIRE.

TLDR; Started my journey in 2014. Currently have around 35x of my annual expenses + real-estate. Got laid off and am not planning to work. All income is from working in India only.

I am 43m, current corpus of 5.5cr. All in MFs, EPF, and some shares. Not owning a home so far but plan to in a place where I will retire. Married and no kids and no plans as well. Our mother stays with us. Planning to fire in 4 yrs with a Corpus of ~16Cr.

Currently living in Bangalore. Looking for options for Tier 2/3 cities with good quality of life, gated community villas, access to healthcare, airport and accepting local community. I am TamBram who grew up in Delhi and wife is a north Indian. We both are into our spiritual journey, yoga, etc. wife is a yoga teacher and a life coach.

Request for suggestions on city options to retire and build our home.

You have a great salary, you are saving as per your plan, you are on track to FIRE basis your glidepath- but, what if that means compromise on your career progression? You see your peers in higher positions, succeeding in rat race or taking risks that you can’t afford to take - as you have to stay put for FIRE.

Nobody knows everything about everything. Sooner or later, all of us reach a point where we have to make a decision regarding something we know next to nothing about. At that point, we seek out subject matter experts. 20 years ago, you could reach out only to your elder cousins, neighbors, teachers or acquaintances for guidance. Nowadays, you can get expert advice, solicited and unsolicited, from all over the world.

But whose advice do we listen to and whose we ignore? Well…our biases decide that.

When I was in my 20s, I had no respect for the guys who had opted for arranged marriage. My thinking was…this guy voluntarily entered into a legal agreement where he risked loosing half of his assets in the hope of some unspecified, unguaranteed rewards. Asinine and reckless considering live-in relationships are not illegal. On top of that, he did not even have the will or confidence to select his own life partner. I felt contempt towards such people and there were times when I had received good advice from such someone but I dismissed it simply because of my biases against arranged marriage.

It is possible that the same thing is happening with you because of your possible biases against people with different political ideology, lifestyle, religion, nationality, profession, social class, persona etc. If you don't respect someone, you are not going to listen to their advice. And the reverse is also likely to be true. You might be receptive to bad advice from someone simply because you are biased towards that person.

When it comes to FIRE, there are many questions with no straightforward answers. What should be the ideal corpus, SWR, life expectancy, future inflation, equity-debt split, retirement location and so forth. And when you seek expert opinions on these, your biases will jump into the action and automatically filter out some opinions. You won't be able to overcome your biases cause their genesis is more emotional than logical. But just acknowledging that you have biases will be a good first step.

So even if you dislike NRIs, don't automatically dismiss their stories as flex posts. Give them a dispassionate read first. If crypto-bros creep you out, that's fine as long as you give their proposal of having Bitcoin as a part of FIRE corpus a fair hearing. If you have contempt for pessimists, don't reject zero real rate of return retirement planning out of hand. Listen to their arguments attentively…. And then reject it cause that one is idiotic.

Our biases wants us to believe that people we dislike are wrong everytime about everything. If we are able to see problems in that argument, we will be more tolerant towards opposing viewpoints and maybe gain some perspective on FIRE journey once in a while.