Some background: Canadian 33M, recently single after a very LTR, no kids or any real obligations really. Work a government job in healthcare, 90K a year with many good benefits and a full pension. Live in a very Low cost of living area of the country.

Given my new level of freedom and zero responsibilities I seem to have an opportunity to do something I’ve always wanted to do. Work for Dr. With out borders. But I will be taken a very significant pay cut and will no longer contribute to my government pension.

My Current financial situation:

Cash: 34 000$

RRSP: 115 000$

TFSA: 160 000$

Non-Registered Taxable: 415 650$

Government pension (I can’t touch this, but it will grow and be available at 55): 85 000$

Total money I can play with: 691 150$

Dept:  I have zero depts.

Real Estate: fully paid home with a basement apartment that bring in 900$/month.

Depreciative: My car is 5 years old and paid for in full

My Current Monthly Budget

Clear Monthly Income: 4800$/month

Monthly Expense: 1875$/month

Monthly Investing: 2575$+-900$ rental income

Monthly Budget with DWB:

Clear monthly income: 2340$/month

Monthly Expenses: 1260$/month

Monthly investing: 1000$+900 rental income

I have worked the last ten years of my life to put my self in this excellent financial situation.

I want to make the career switch, but I am afraid that I will fuck my self in the long-term. I will have the option to come back to my current employer, but only as an entry level position (75k/year and a lot of shift work.....)

Is this a terrible ideal ?

Edith: wrote the monthly budget, as the excel sheet did not copy properly

Not expecting to get rich tomorrow or retire at 35 but I am at the point where i can't just dismiss this stuff bc i "don't get stocks" lol so

Here's my situation- I'm 28, with a net worth of around $400k breaking down as:

• $60k cash savings
• $20k in equity from a prior employer (this will be cashed out on Jan 1 as they went private)
• $50k in a 401k
• pre IPO equity in current employer (not giving this any value)
• $280k or so in equity on my condo worth about $700k today

As i work in sales, my annual compensation can vary anywhere from $140k in a slow year to $300k in a good year.

However I've had a hard time creating a consistent budget or investing plan due to occasional large windfalls of cash and a lowish base.

I am on a 15 yr mortgage running me about $4k a month all in, and need maybe another $100-150/day for living lol, most of my other expenses are discretionary. However somehow i live paycheck to paycheck because i'm just spending when i have.

I own no stocks once the old company equity gets bought out - i cashed out the majority of my position there to put a down payment on the house awhile back. Would like to be "in the market" in at least some sense.

What would you recommend here to get on track?

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Amazing commentary over at r/AskHistorians, explaining that Andy Dufresne in The Shawshank Redemption would have readily kept up with tax law during his incarceration 1947-1966; but benefited enormously by escaping juuuust as the markets turned and inflation kicked in - one of the cohorts where the 4% Rule failed.

Which also means Andy FIREd (Financial Independence / Released Early) at exactly the wrong time. Could make for a nerdy sequel, but I think it's safe to assume he took way less than a 4% SWR.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1h9hy5i/comment/m13ar41/

I wanted to get input on my current financial situation. I’m turning 27 in a few months. Adulthood is starting to slowly hit me, moreso slap me. I tend to stress about my future a lot & being able to provide for my kids (that I do not have yet, I’m honestly not even married or engaged yet lol) but I think about it!

Accounts include: •IRA: $26K •ROTH IRA: $66K •401K: $30K -Taxable brokerage: $1.2K -Employee stock: $6K -Savings: $84K

I have $0 debt.

I know I have way too much money in my savings. I’m toying with the idea of buying a condo, but I may put more money in my taxable brokerage and invest in index funds.

I also intend to max out my ROTH IRA in the new year.

I only make $85K a year + bonus. I saved a lot from living at home. I now live in an apartment. My monthly expenses are on average $2,600 between rent & credit card payment. (I live in a city and use public transportation so I have no car).

The crazy thing is, I feel so behind. Ever since moving out of my parents, I really haven’t saved much. It’s been a rude awakening. I want to keep saving but it’s rough out here. Life is expensive. I count my blessings but it’s genuinely hard not to stress. I also feel uneducated in wealth management. I try to read and educate myself but I get overwhelmed

Plan to retire June 2028 at age 58. $0 debt. Home value ~$900k-1m

Spouse will be 60 yo at that time (not working, retired early from teaching) no pension expected but do have IRAs (below) we rolled 403b into.

Balances projected in June 2028 (7% avg return used):

Cash account (bridge account) ~$375000

Brokerage account (bridge account) ~$40000

401k Roth (1) ~$12000

IRAs mine Traditional ~$585000

401k (2) Traditional/Roth split ~$527000

IRA spouse Traditional ~$113000

Expected lump sum Pension value ~$80000

Social Security at age 62/64 estimated at $3800-4000

My thought on income was to:

Use cash bridge account in 2028

Use spouses IRA in 2029 (their age will be 61)

Use my IRA starting in 2030. (My age 59.5)

Let everything else continue to grow until needed. I project not tapping into my 401ks until after 70 to take RMDs on the traditional part of the balance. (~balance then $1.2m)

Start Social Security together at 62 (me) and 64 (spouse) yo. (Worksheets show this may be better for us than waiting. Can invest it if not needed and that more than makes up for starting it at <67)

Budget is $7000 month, increasing 1% annually. Also saving for property taxes separately ~10-15k annually.

QUESTION Do I have enough to retire early in 2028 like planned?

*yes I’ve included estimated private health insurance plan expenses in the budget until Medicare eligible at least.

Hi everyone,

I am 21F with 120k in a HYSA. I just opened an individual brokerage account with vanguard but no clue what to do next. Any advice on how to grow my money so I can retire early

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Hi all, extremely long time FIRE fan and lurker, and hoping I include enough info for good advice, here!

Got married last year. My wife (47) and I (47M) have the following assets:
- Home: 430k (100k owed by me)
- 5-Unit Rental: 600k (0 owed, I draw 3k/mo)
- Commercial Rental: 700k (386K owed by me, no draw, currently)
- Service Business (my passion): 200k (0 owed, I draw 2350/mo)
- SFH Rental: 600k (200k owed by us both, we each draw 500/mo)
- Co-Op Rental: 329K (134 owed by her)
- Condo Rental: 127K (0 owed)
- Wife's 401k: 623K
- I just opened a solo 401k through my S-Corp, but it's not funded yet
- Wife's salary: 165k or 13,700/mo

I spend probably 30k/yr, and wife does some supportive spending for her adult daughters, but she would likely be good at 50k/yr.

I feel overloaded in RE. We were thinking of selling my 5-unit and her co-op soon, and putting proceeds into an S&P index fund through a traditional IRA.  I ran the numbers, and even with the tax hit, the money grew much better for us (estimating an average of 7% return in the S&P) by 60 or 65yo, than in the real estate.  I thought that looked like a good plan.

I spoke to a financial advisor friend who said the big market money is actually getting into real estate, and we should hold the real estate, which he said is also a safer investment.  Not sure if he meant "currently." He saw no problem with the heavy RE portfolio.

He also noticed that in my projections, I'd compounded with a "straight line" of 7% each year for the next 20, and he recommended against doing so because it paints too rosy a picture, but when I plugged in the last 20 years' return rates over my 7's, the retirement age numbers for our nest egg only went up. 

I will likely work my passion business as long as I can, but definitely until 60-65. We will sell our current home at some point (likely 55yo), and retire in the SFH we currently rent.

Goals are to have as large a nest egg and monthly incomes as possible, and for wife to be able to stop working as soon as necessary (numerous RIFs in her company lately).

Questions are:

1. Is it crazy to sell real estate and take the tax hit to get more invested in the S&P?
2. Is it possible for my wife to live off her 401k before 59.5? Tax strategy to do so? I'm aware of Roth conversion ladders and 72t, but not sure how she can choose whether to do which, or just take penalties?
3. Open to advice about reaching our goals, given our assets - creative ideas welcome

Up until now, my method for calculating my healthcare costs in retirement was to basically take my premium at my planned income from the kff calculator, add in the OOP max and simply assume I'll hit that every year. Simple right?

Only, I had a health issue earlier this year, and I've had multiple claims denied. I'd heard that insurance companies were increasingly doing this, but I had no idea how widespread it was until recent events got everyone talking about their denials for things that should have been covered.

I used to hear that 2/3rds of bankruptcies were related to medical expenses, and I used to think 'they should have had insurance'. This was before I realized that most actually have insurance.

Honestly, as someone with a disability, and higher than average healthcare costs, this is kind of terrifying to me. I don't know how I'm supposed to have the confidence to FIRE when an insurance company can simply decide not to pay and the patient has little recourse.

Contributions to a Roth come out at any time tax and penalty free.

The earnings which could dwarf the contributions if they compound for 20+ years. Is there a way to pull them out without penalties or taxes before 59.5

If you do a SEPP on the Roth after pulling the contributions you have to pay taxes as ordinary income. This is weird but that is what I have read.

If you pull the earnings out you have to pay a 10% penalty AND taxes.

Just a PSA to the community, I did not realize the earnings were so hard to get to compared to pretax retirement accounts and taxable.

Wanted to update my previous post from 4-5 years ago.

https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/comments/mzvql0/5_year_financial_milestone_nw_0_250k_30m/

The slight change from my previous post is that the numbers in this post will be for both my and my SO since our finances are more intergrated.

In Apr 2016 I had a net worth of $0. My last post had my net worth at $250,615 in April 2021 but Dec 2021 was $347,507.81 and my partner had a net worth of $504,454.53. Which means as of Dec 2021 we had a combined net worth of $836.827 with $365,388.88 in investments.

The following years this is the combined networth we had:

Dec 2022 - $821,223.80 ($343,322.27 invested)

Dec 2023 - $1,045,002.33 ($575,798.32 invested)

As of Today -$1,498,535.20 ($1,076,492.76 invested)

Earlier this month I officially crossed $1M invested in the market and am hoping this is where I see significant compound growth. For others in the community, is this where you saw massive growth?

I am trying to buy a detached home in the GTA Ontario and I'd considered it a VHCOL so we have a portion of our portfolio in cash (10%). We have been on the sidelines for the past 2 years waiting for a house we like. I would look to convert my condo into a rental property which would be 700$ cashflow positive and am hoping that can be another source of growth for my net worth #.

I am hoping to FIRE at $2.5M CAD hoping for a 4% rate which translates to 100K spend annually.

Let me know what you guys think!

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Have about $1.4M in investments. I’ve always just bought and haven’t sold or played around with options too much. The trading app I use just messages me asking if I want to sell covered calls, and I saw in a different subreddit that this is close to guaranteed income. Sounds too good to be true. How do covered calls work and is this a good idea?

Looking for a bit of a pulse check as I just hit $1M. It's surreal seeing the number on screen for the first time. I'm 35, partnered, living in a Midwestern city, making $80K a year. A few years ago (I was 28), one of my parents died and my siblings and I inherited a house and some retirement assets. House was sold and that's the main reason so much is in my taxable portfolio - haven't added to that at all. Started maxing my 401k duiring the pandemic, but split my contributions pretty much down the middle between traditional and Roth. Maxing felt like a stretch at times, but it seemed like the right thing to do. Always been a big saver and find it hard to spend. My hope right now is to stop working my corporate job at 50 at the latest, though earlier might be nice.

Here's the breakdown:

• Total 401(k) - $266K
  • Traditional - $174K
  • Roth - $92K
• Taxable - $327K
• Stretch IRA - $187K
• Roth IRA - $60K
• Cash - $105K (all HYSA at ~4%)
• HSA - $41K
• Individual Stocks: $14K

Other fun facts:

• Current expenses around $40K at the high end. (That's just for me, we haven't fully combined finances). We're renting, though we may buy a house one day depending on our path. No plans for children and we live frugally.
• 401k match is 4%, paid annually toward the beginning of the following year.
• I max my HSA and Roth IRA each year. The individual stocks aren't something I'm terribly interested in, but I've had them for years and keep them around for dividends.
• Stretch IRA is on the grandfathered lifetime expectancy rule because it was inherited before the SECURE Act. Mostly just add the RMDs into regular cash flow or saved.
• Anticipating some health issues as I grow older. Strong family history of heart disease, diabetes, kidney issues, etc. :(
• My partner is about 10 years older and also in a good financial place. We can probably retire together at 50/60, respectively, so I don't anticpate being able to jump onto my partner's health plan.

Main questions:

• Should I continue maxing the 401k (with whichever combination) or lean into the taxable account? My financial advisor suggested cutting down on the 401k (to 10%) to beef up the taxable account some more, but I've had a hard time emotionally reducing the contributions.
• Is this too much cash? Having the cash for emergency and potential house down payment felt "safe" to me, but certainly don't think I need more than what I have. Could I put it to better use?
• Realistically, what's a good budget for an ACA plan in my 50s? I know the situation could change wildly by the time I leave work, but aside from "make number bigger", I'm not sure how best to plan. My advisor told me that I can use the HSA to pay ACA premiums, but I thought this was explicitly disallowed? Maybe I misunderstood.

Thanks for your help and guidance!

I'm about 10 years away from a semi-early retirement (late-50's). I'm pretty comfortable with where my net worth should be by the time I want to pull the trigger but right now my asset split is 25% taxable brokerage and 75% traditional 401k. I have zero Roth balances because 1.) I'm well above the income limit to contribute to a Roth and have been for a long time, 2.) I'm in a high federal tax bracket and currently live in a high tax state, and 3.) I didn't really know about Roth balances when I was starting out and only started to think about this stuff when I was already over the contribution income limit.

Is it worth trying to build any kind of Roth balance now, or do I just keep doing what I'm doing and maybe try to bulk up my taxable brokerage so it's a bit more of the mix in retirement instead?

My goal in retirement has been to sustain my current lifestyle with pretty high spending amounts ($200K plus per year) so while I understand the benefit of using a Roth account to reduce income to potentially qualify for income-based subsidies and to limit tax exposure, etc., I'm not even sure it's worth it to even try. I'd need a massive Roth balance to even make a go of it such that the tax impact of trying to create that balance would make it a pointless effort.

Am I thinking of this the right way, or is there something else I should consider?

Working towards FI, with a goal of pulling the plug on my corporate America job within 6-10 years where I will be somewhere between 49-53 years old. I'm trying to decide which account I should start allocating my “extra retirement” funds above and beyond maxing out my tax advantaged.  The choices I’m looking at are continuing to max out my mega-backdoor roth or changing to my companies DCP and/or taxable savings.

Current Situation

·        Current FI goal of $3m.  Hoping to not move the goal posts too much.  Currently we have ~$1.55m in retirement accounts 80% pre-tax and 20% roth

o   401k - $1.2m ($165k of this in ROTH)

o   ROTH IRA’s - $160k

o   Pension - $105k (treating this as my “bond” allocation)

o   HSA - $66k

·        2024 Contributions

o   401k – Maxed mega backdoor 401k at $69k

o   Roth IRA – Maxed at $14k

o   Pension - $15k per year lump sum by company

o   HSA – Maxed at $8300

·        2025 and beyond

o   I will continue to max out my $23k 401k, Roth IRA, HAS.

o   Question – Looking for advice on the extra $46 that I put into the mega backdoor roth ira moving forward. 

o   Option 1 – Continue to put this money into the mega backdoor Roth IRA, which would leave me with less flexibility in retirement and likely having to use a 72t.

o   Option 2 – Start using my companies DCP plan to move this money into an account that will pay out over the period of time between early retirement and 59.5. My company is a very stable company (food company that as been around for 125 years) so there aren’t a lot of concerns about the risk of this option.

o   Option 3 – Put this money into taxable.

I’m also open to a combination of both (i.e. some into taxable and some into DCP). 

My current thought is I max out the megabackdoor Roth IRA and then get aggressive with the DCP plan starting in 2026.  I do also get RSU’s which aren’t accounted for in here but I’m assuming that these will be used for more “short term goals.

Does anyone have some thoughts on why I wouldn’t do the DCP in the future?  Thanks!

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I am in my early 40s and have seen a lot of people I know continuously have the NEED to buy nicer and nicer homes. What I find weird is the following:

A: Many of these houses aren't cool, remarkable, etc. They don't have epic views or spacious land. In private talks with these friends, it's pretty clear most actually despise the house vs their last house because of the massive opportunity cost, tax bills, etc.

B: There are many opportunities where someone isn't sacrificing-they can literally have a house with a minimal payment or no mortgage that serves ALL their needs yet the big house/house payment comes.

C. Many of these homes are when the family is getting smaller, kids going off to college, etc.

D: Many of these homes are creating severe financial stress, yet they still buy.

E. For the single people I know, they are buying homes that literally make zero sense. Instead of buying a condo in a prime neighborhood, they are buying 2 and 3 bedroom houses as single people. They don't have a gf/bf-literally big house, single person. My neighborhood has mixed home sizes and there are multiple single people who own HOMES. I would think condo? Am I missing something?

Please use this thread to have discussions which you don't feel warrant a new post to the sub. While the Rules for posting questions on the basics of personal finance/investing topics are relaxed a little bit here, the rules against memes/spam/self-promotion/excessive rudeness/politics still apply!

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Since this post does tend to get busy, consider sorting the comments by "new" (instead of "best" or "top") to see the newest posts.

Please use this thread to have discussions which you don't feel warrant a new post to the sub. While the Rules for posting questions on the basics of personal finance/investing topics are relaxed a little bit here, the rules against memes/spam/self-promotion/excessive rudeness/politics still apply!

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https://www.riskparityradio.com/podcast/episode/75658718/episode-209-popular-swr-delusions-and-the-madness-of-gurus-and-portfolio-reviews-as-of-september-30-2022

https://www.riskparityradio.com/podcast/episode/7a8db999/episode-223-a-celebrity-deathmatch-about-cape-ratios-and-related-topics

https://portfoliocharts.com/charts/portfolio-matrix/ sort by Safe WR

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agR1gF_7s8k

Big ERN "Karsten Jeske" is amazing, his writing is prolific, I have learned a lot from him. But...I think he is leading the pack to be too conservative. Listen to these 2 podcasts above and tell me what you think.

Frank was able to use Big ERN's toolbox to get 4.9% SWR from 1926-2022 with:

27.5% large cap growth

27.5% small cap value

30% intermediate treasuries

15% gold

Today we have way more options to construct a more resilient portfolio but that is all that was available with data going back that far. There is older data it sounded like you could not break down the equities into SCV and LCG.

Bill Bengen(Discoverer of 4% rule) says something similar that SWR rates are 4.7%+

Karsten also says 10-15% gold would improve SWR

Edit: I see gold is a controversial part of this post. Don't get hung up on that. What you are looking for are the most uncorrelated assets available. If you don't like gold, there are many other options. gold just has data going back very far.

Edit2: If you really hate gold these two have a 4.9% SWR and no gold: https://portfoliocharts.com/portfolios/coffeehouse-portfolio/

https://portfoliocharts.com/portfolios/swensen-portfolio/

Edit: I mean how can I reach $5M

Here’s my story:

W2 Income: $450K (my wife also earns ~$400K, which has allowed us to invest aggressively in real estate this year).

Real Estate Portfolio:

5 rental properties in California (all purchased this year) with a combined equity of $320K; all cash flowing. This equity only reflects the down payments; I haven’t factored in the slight appreciation already observed through appraisals. My expectation is for significant appreciation over the next 3–5 years.

3 properties are short-term rentals (STRs). 1 property is a long-term rental (LTR). 1 property is currently under rehab and will also be used as an STR once completed. 1 residential property in California, purchased 7 years ago, with $250K in equity.

Other Assets:

401(k): $100K Roll Over IRA: $40K (was over $1M during the C-19 boom, but I lost most gains due to timing and risky penny stock trades).

Brokerage Account: $60K (similar story as the IRA – gains during the pandemic but losses due to market timing). Coinbase: $2K Pension: $40K Employee Stock Purchase: $5K

Liabilities: Student Loans: $94K My Background and Goals:

I was able to increase my W2 income to nearly $500K about two years ago, and with my wife’s income, we’ve used this period to aggressively build our real estate portfolio. While I’ve taken some risks with stocks in the past, my focus has shifted toward real estate as a reliable wealth-building strategy.

I see many people here achieving FIRE with most of their wealth in IRAs and brokerage accounts. In my case, I aim to reach $3M in net worth (excluding home equities) by age 50 – giving me 12 years to achieve this goal.

I’m looking for advice on the best strategy to reach this target. Should I focus more on growing my real estate portfolio or diversifying into other areas? I see that most people here don't factor real estate at all into their FIRE plans, and I honestly would love to do the same. I’d love to hear your thoughts, insights, and recommendations.

Thank you in advance for your guidance!

Throwaway account for privacy. After working towards FIRE since college, I think I'm ready to pull the trigger in January! I'm quite confident in our numbers but figure it can't hurt to look for holes in the plan.

I'm a 38 year old mechanical engineer, ~200k/year income. Wife is 36 and works in Tech, income has varied with stock vests, will peak this year at $550k, dropping to $400k next year and would likely drop further the following year. No kids and no plans to have kids. Live in a VHCOL area. I realize we have been very lucky in our careers as well as with how the market has performed to allow us to consider quitting this early. In the last 12 months our investable net worth has gone up 50% between our savings and market appreciation which has trimmed a year or so off my anticipated timeline. I would have settled for a higher withdrawal rate prior to this last year of crazy market appreciation so we've actually surpassed our "target number" awhile ago.

Current assets:

NW: $4.5m + Primary residence.

Taxable Index Funds: $1.65m
Taxable Bonds: $450k
Taxable Tech Shares: $650k
Cash: $60k
Retirement Index Funds: $1.7m
Primary Home: $1m
Mortgage: $360k @ 2.1%, 11 years remaining on 15 year.
NW: $4.5m + Primary residence.

Spending:

Current annual spending: $155,000.
Annual spending without Principal/Interest on mortgage: $120,000

Projected Health Insurance Spending: $15,000/year NOTE: non insurance healthcare spending is already part of the current annual spending.

Extra Spending for home repairs/car replacement etc: $20,000/year

Future home upgrade: 5+ years down the line we will likely want to upgrade our primary residence after we get some travel out of the way. Will likely spend an additional $750,000 but will be flexible on timing and amount based on circumstances at the time.

Other Income:

We receive approximately $24,000/year in cast gifts from parents. While not absolutely guaranteed, this is unlikely to stop prior to them passing on. Parents are 75 but generally healthy. Likely to receive at minimum $1.5m for inheritance.

Wife will plan to continue working for 1 additional year as insurance against the bottom falling out of the market the day after I quit. That's an extra ~$300k in after tax income between now and both of us pulling the trigger.

Thoughts:

Assuming small but positive market gains between now and my wife pulling the trigger in early 2026, we are on track to have approximately $5m in investable assets as well as receiving $24k/year in gifts.

Our spending, stripping out the principle/interest portion of our mortgage, is $131k/year once I add in the $35k in extra health insurance/durable goods spending but subtract the $24k in gifts. Round it up to $140k after accounting for taxes and a bit of extra spending.

I plan to roll the dice on leaving money invested in the stock market vs paying off our 2.1% mortgage. If the market is still super frothy in 1-2 years when we can start taking advantage of the 0% capital gains rate, I may sell off enough shares to pay off the house and invest that money in bonds to take advantage of the 4% interest rate vs our 2.1% mortgage. Will evaluate at the time based on taxes, ACA subsidies and the state of the stock market.

Over the next year and a bit before my wife retires, I plan to finish putting another $300k into bonds. At that point we will have $750k spread out in $35-$40k lumps that come to term every 3 months. That works out to 5 years of expenses other than our mortgage repayment.

Subtracting the $330k that we will owe on our mortgage from the $5m leaves $4.67m in investable assets. With $140k in recurring expenses, assuming we wanted to plan for a 3.5% withdrawal rate, that would imply we have about $670k more than we need. Given our plan to upgrade our house in the 5-10 year future and that will likely involve a ~$750k expenditure, it seems likely that the $670k current excess will grow to cover that as well as some increased expenses that will come along with the larger home. This is a flexible expense regarding both the amount and timing. Depending on circumstances we could also look into getting a mortgage or loan against our brokerage if the numbers looked favorable instead of selling shares to cover the home upgrade.

Given the fact that we are both in our late 30’s, we also recognize that we have ample opportunity to make some money in the future, whether taking on some work in our old industries or getting a casual job just to ease some pressure on the finances if there has been a big downturn. We also live in one of the most expensive cities on earth, love to travel, and bought a campervan last year that we want to make much more use of. I believe that it is very possible that our expenses could potentially be lower in retirement when we can spend more time traveling to places where things are significantly cheaper. We also plan to be flexible in our spending. If the market drops 30% I’m perfectly happy to use some airline miles or drive our van down to Mexico/Costa Rica and sit on a beach or spend more time backpacking and hiking that year instead of taking a more expensive trip to Europe.

Let me know what you think. I feel confident but want to know if I’m totally neglecting something obvious.

I'm in the boring middle phase of my journey, but the "coast" of Financial Independence is already looming on the horizon. I'm already past FU money. In the best-case scenario, I might be a happily FIREd in 2 years, with 7 days per week to do whatever I want. In the worst-case scenario, I need to keep pretending to be interested in yet another corporate project for another 5-10 years.

Obviously, stock market gains are not in my control. Because of that, I have no clue what my overall lifestyle is going to be in 2-10 years.

This feels like a surprising challenge for dating - a challenge which I didn't expect to occur. When you start seriously dating another person, you are not just aligning your personalities, but also lifestyles. What could I offer to my partner emotionally/timewise during the next 5 years and beyond? How to choose a "compatible" partner, when the range of potential future lifestyles is so broad? I have no clue, because everything seems to depend on the success (and timeline) of the FIRE journey.

Paradoxically, dating felt much simpler in the early phases of this journey, when financial independence was still a distant dream. There was peer support from fellow corporate-drone wingmen, and the potential dating partners pretty much knew what kind of overall package they would get in me. Now the situation feels overall much more unclear. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is a challenge.

The well known "one more year" syndrome of FIRE has started to feel like "one more year of being single" syndrome. And I don't like this feeling, because being single sucks in the long term.

I'd like to hear how this resonates to your experiences of combining the FIRE journey and dating.

UPDATE: Thanks for providing non-judgemental opinions and support. I was in somewhat depressive mood when writing this. Even if pursuing FIRE, remember: Always look on the bright side of life.

Work in big tech. Make around 250k CAD. Most of my compensation was company RSUs which I never sold and exploded along with housing post-covid.

620k in GOOGLE

275k in AMZN

~ 620k in VOO/VFV

30-40k cash

~1.55 million in stocks (~200k TFSA, ~300k in RRSP)

Also have a rental property I bought around 700k with 480k mortgage which is now worth 1.2 million (break even on expenses/rent).

Total NW = 1.55 + 0.72 = 2.27 million

My expenses are around 50-60k a year, which means I can probably retire off of my portfolio (probably after selling the property).

I don't see myself retiring, I like my job, and want to have a family. Not big on traveling or doing expensive hobbies. Like simple things in life.

1. Should I stop contributing to RRSP (other than match)? I get a tax deduction, but wondering if tax rates are higher, and since I'll be withdrawing a larger amount, I may get taxed more in the future. Also prevents me from retiring earlier, if a huge chunk is in RRSP.

2. There is a huge imbalance with partner in terms of income (~60k) and NW (~10k). How would I manage finances if we get married? My biggest worry is a divorce derailing my future (likely the ONLY risk other than a health issue/death).

3. Even if I stop contributing now, assuming I put everything in VOO and get a 8% real yield, I would be at around 25 million by age 65. I highly doubt I'd ever spend over 200k in one year, I enjoy work, and don't enjoy expensive hobbies like travelling or whatever.

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Over 20 years I have gradually been saving cash in my safe at home. A long time ago, I thought it might be good to have cash in case the shtf. I’m kind of a prepper. But this month I realized it’s now $100,000. It’s all my money from my salary, but I don’t have records that far back. Plus nowadays everything is bought with a card or online, so I don’t even use that much cash anymore. So it just occurred to me, how am I going to use this?
I’m concerned that they’ll ask for proof of where I got it if I deposit more that $10,000 in bank or brokerage account. Maybe I should just start depositing $1000/month. It will take only 8 years, which is much less than what it took to accumulate

This is a throwaway account. I was laid off on 12/2/2024. Based on the current tech job market and how hard it is to find a new job right now, I am thinking of staying home to take care of my kid. I am 36 years old and my spouse is 35 years old. We just had our first baby in June 2024, and my retired parents have been helping us a lot to take care of our kid while we both worked. Now that I am laid off and unemployed, I am thinking of just stop working and potentially never going back to work again if possible.

My spouse still wants to work and likes working, and is a public school admin in a growing district, so the job security is pretty good. If the admin job gets cut in the future, a teaching position is still available and guaranteed because it's within the same school district (worked there 10 years as a teacher, and first year as a school admin, since it's in the same school district, tenure still applies). And the school district offers health insurance, so all of us can still have health insurance. 

Here is an overview of our combined assets as of today, I try to be as detailed as possible:

- Spouse salary $150,000 (next year should be $155,000, and about 4-5 thousand increase every year but capped at $190,000 per year as public school vice principal, unless switching to a principal position or district director/vice superintendent, pay can go up higher).

- 435k invested in 401k and 403b accounts, all in S&P 500 index funds.

- 30k invested in Roth IRA, all in S&P 500 index funds.

- 893k invested in Vanguard and Robinhood, 70% S&P 500 ETF and 30% QQQ ETF.

- 150k cash in high yield savings account (4.5% interest currently), this account also acts as an emergency fund if the stock market crash, or something catastrophic happens.

- I will collect unemployment for 6 months, so I should have $450/week for 6 months.

- Home value is about $1.1m, but we still owes about $700k mortgage.

Here is an overview of our expenses, and we live in San Francisco Bay Area, East Bay:

- Mortgage $3500 per month, property tax $11,000 per year, property insurance $1000 per year, No HOA.

- Two cars $500 per month (one car just got paid off this year, the second car is $500 per month for 2 more years), car insurance for both cars is about $150 per month. Both electric cars, so no gas needed per month.

- Electric bill around $250 per month.

- Phone bill $50 per month for 2 phones ($25 each on US Mobile).

- Health insurance $1000 for a family of 3, pre-tax, auto deducted from pay check.

- 403b contribution $23000 per year in 2024, auto deducted from pay check (my spouse still wants to contribute max on 403b).

- Grocery and going out to eat is hard to estimate because it varies monthly. I estimate $150 per week for grocery, and going out to eat is probably $100 - $200 per week, we make food at home during the weekdays, so we only go out to eat on the weekends. 

- Entertainment subscriptions like Netflix, Youtube, Disney, Amazon Prime etc, $50 a month.

- Misc shopping like clothes and shoes probably $200 a month.

- Infant formula $80 per month.

- Travel twice a year, summer break and winter break, probably spent $5000 a year on travel. We try to use credit card points to cover plane tickets, so we mostly just pay for hotel stays. 

We don't have any childcare cost right now because my parents have been helping us a lot. And now I am not working, I can watch our kid full time. My spouse was a teacher for k-8 grades for 10 years, and can do some after school programs for our kid. So we don't really need to send our kid to after school programs that cost a lot.

Most of our expenses goes to mortgage payment, so we also talked about moving to a low cost of living area, but the pay is a lot lower. Maybe we would have an extra $1000-$1500 leftover per month by moving to a low cost of living area, but we would move away from our friends and family (my parents live 10 minutes away, and my spouse parents live 40 minutes away). 

My job has been stressful for the past 10+ years working in tech. I constantly wanted to quit but not sure if I could afford it. We can also withdraw some money out ($1500-$2000/month) from our investments/savings to supplement the 1 income. Do we have enough money for me to stay at home full time and just have 1 income in the family?