I am 59, being recently downsized has me taking stock of where I am financially. Married if that matters. I have 780k in one 401k, 113k in another 401k and 5k in some stock. I owe 195k on the house - no other debt. Worked in tech for the last 26 years and I am actively seeking the next gig. Was thinking of paying off the mortgage from my 401k, just because I HATE debt. I know it would set me back right now, but man it would feel good to have zero debt (just in case the worst case scenario happens - like I don’t get a job making what I was $120k + 12% bonus. I’d like to hear from the more experienced crowd here - what would you do? Can you help me with the pros and cons?

Title

Our children are both around 30. One is a extremely talented surgeon with massive upside and so is their spouse. That child's spouse comes from a fairly successful family with doctors in their own right. Our other child is going to do well but will be on a slower path

Both of them are extremely responsible and level-headed, good people. I absolutely 100% trust both of them and I feel confident they're going to make excellent financial decisions

With all of that said, I have always been very open about our finances. I give them instructions periodically on what to do with my multiple businesses upon our demise. I haven't gone to the extent of actually sharing my personal financial statement (yet) but they know what both my spouse and I earn and how we earn it and what our net worth is

both my wife and I grew up with very little and very meager backgrounds. Particularly my side of the family. So neither one of us had anyone to guide us and we're just winging it here but I think we're doing the right thing with them

I do think providing that information to them helps to set a bar and expectations for what they can achieve. I realize that might not be good for everybody's family Dynamic but it is for ours. particularly my child that is a surgeon. I share almost everything with that one. We have many long long conversations about business, finances, politics, life, religion.....you name it. That child has always been ready for it from a very young age. The other child has just recently shown much more interest in this kind of thing and I'm starting that Journey with him.

I'm curious what other people do as far as being open with their children.

I know money can screw up a lot of people and cause some weird family Dynamics when settling Estates. I believe my Approach will help avoid some of that because the expectations will already be set but they also will both know exactly what to expect.

They love each other and they get along and extremely well and neither are greedy or have any animosity towards the other. I have absolutely zero doubt that they will treat each other fairly when it comes to our estate. I just don't see any issues from them whatsoever.

I know that maybe a little on the rare side so we are fortunate in that regard but I am curious what other people do with their children

There’s a few things i need help with.

1. I’m currently at $300k+ total comp. It’ll take 7 years to reach my FIRE goal. I live in LA (vHCOL) and have to work from office. No option to work remotely.

Been thinking of starting a side project to increase income and reach my fire goal faster. But time management will be key for that. I’m lazy af. But i was thinking of spending maybe an hour or two here there on it to get it off the ground. Or hire a part time contractor to help me with it.

I’m confident it’ll work out because I’ve had relative success with it. Although, it was 9 years ago and things have changed a lot.

Easiest would be to just put the money in VOO/SPY and let it do its thing. But i feel fomo. Feel like I’m missing out on this opportunity.

What do you recommend?

2. Stress at my job has been increasing a lot. Had a few panic attacks recently and i think it’s time to look for another job or step down. I’m well liked and respected at the office. But the stress is getting to me. And I’ve been working insane hours (10-11hrs a day + weekends).

Problem is, i haven’t spent the time to build my network yet. So i don’t have anyone to talk to this about. I’m thinking of starting to go to conferences and just applying to jobs that are out there. But i also fear that people at my current job would find out that I’m applying and I’d get terminated.

I also enrolled into an online college to get my masters. Would look good on a resume.

What would you recommend doing first? Should i look at starting side projects or first get another job, stabilize, then work on side projects? Should i even focus on a side project? Or just invest in the stock market and use the free time on hobbies, fitness etc?

Hey Team Fire! (I hate that I wrote that, but will keep it in and accept my judgment).

I'm starting to plan my moves for 2025 and have a few questions on the intricacies and limitations of the backdoor roth.

Stats for 2024:

• DINKS - Married, filing separate due to partner's med school loan situation
• Trad IRA - Funded by a previous employer 401k in 2017 (no additional contributions in any tax year since)
• 401k - Current employer maxed out @ $23,000 (+3.5% Employer match but will not exceed $30,000 total)
• HSA - Current employer maxed out @ $4,150 (no employer contribution)

I will have additional funds available to save starting in 2025. From what I understand, it would not be wise to use my current Trad IRA to rollover post-tax contributions to a Roth IRA because of tax aggregation rules.

Question 1:
Would it be wise to roll my current Trad IRA funds over to my current employer 401k and then use my newly cleaned out Trad IRA to roll future post-tax contributions over to a Roth IRA?

Question 2:
For 2025, can I assume the following contribution options are legal? (Tax filing will likely continue as married, filing separate)

• 401k - $23,000 (+4.5% Employer match but will not exceed $30,000 total)
• HSA -$4,300 (+$500 Employer contribution)
• Trad IRA - $7,000 (convert all $7,000 post-tax Trad IRA contributions to Roth IRA in same tax year)
• Total = $34,300 (only personal contributions)

Thanks for any feedback!

I am exploring a career shift to a completely different industry once I achieve FI. The chance of success is pretty slim in this industry (entertainment) so I figure it would help if I was already financially independent. This is something of a fantasy at this point and I am trying to figure what I need to do to make it more of a reality. Has anyone successfully switched careers after FI? How did you prepare? What was your experience?

Early 30s male. ~400k saved up (190k 401k, 100k individual brokerage, 45k IRA, 50k HYSA, 20k HSA, and 10k checking) . No debt

Salary- 185k/year. 40 hours week, public health sector, union, cushy office job, competitive benefits (6 weeks PTO, 5% 401k contribution, great health insurance)

At this point, I’m contributing ~42k a year to my retirement accounts (23k 401k plus 9k from employer, 7k IRA, and 4K HSA)

~355k savings is invested in broad index funds so I will hopefully gain another ~24k annually from growth.

No kids, no wife, no house. I have a cheap used car and a nice apartment (rent 2k/month). I project hitting 1 million in savings at 40yo.

My parents are immigrants and we were poor growing up (food stamps, not enough to eat) I did well in school and went to college (no college fund, 120k in student loans at graduation). My parents asked for financial assistance from me upon graduation. When I received my first paycheck from my job after graduation, my parents came to my room and asked that I give them money monthly. I’ve been giving them $750 a month for the past 10 years- it made me sad bc I had nothing and so much in loans and they came to me for money as soon as I collected my first paycheck

I don’t really feel happy. I chose my profession bc my parents suggested it. It was stressful growing up bc my parents talked about how poor we were and how I needed to study hard and get a good job so I can help support them. I will work and then die. My dad is asking for more money and asked for me to buy him a house. When I said I don’t have enough money and that I don’t even have a house, he said I should go back to school and become a doctor.

Be good to your kids. Don’t put undue pressure on them. And don’t live your life on other people’s terms. If anyone has any advice, I’d love to hear it. I know I would benefit from therapy.

My partner will continue to work for at least ten years after I retire. Can anyone suggest a good calculator that tracks this type of situation?

Hi all,

Hoping to get some sound advice here on next steps; I was able to pick up a second job (temporary, 12 mos) that allowed me to quickly build up savings over the course of this past year. I am now trying to figure out what to do with it. It’s sitting as cash (well, technically in money market, but still) because initially I thought I was going to put a chunk of it towards a down payment for a house - but have since decided to save this and wait a bit longer. I’m a little overwhelmed as this all happened quickly and I came from being quite poor, and needless to say all of this hasn’t been easy; so I want to make the best decisions possible here. Incredibly grateful to be in this position. I don’t have a retirement fund currently, so I was thinking to open a Roth IRA and a 401K (my jobs don’t contribute or offer one, so I’d open them on my own) and make max contributions for the next 3 years- I think it would come out to be around 27k per year (7k Roth IRA max, ~20k in the 401k). Where to put the rest in the meantime? S&P 500 ETFs? Is this sounding like a good plan? What platform do you recommend using for the ETFs?

Would love to hear feedback before moving forward. I am in my late 30s, if that helps. Not looking for general life advice, but rather, advice specific to this scenario.

Please be kind as this has been a tough road (though I know I’m not alone in that!) and thank you in advance for reading this!!

As a German working in the US, I am trying to optimize financials for going back to Germany eventually. Does it make sense to contribute to a 401k, HSA, or long-term invest in US ETFs?

What I've found out so far:

1. 401k pre-tax contributions don't make sense since the dollars are taxed when taking them out. I'm assuming taxes in Germany after retirement are still higher than taxes in the US now.
2. 401k Roth/after-tax contributions might only make sense if there's an employer match. I've read that Germany taxes all gains in the 401k account as capital gains at the time of withdrawal. Therefore, I could just take the after-tax dollars and invest them myself. What makes me contribute some dollars is that my employer matches the contributions up to a certain percentage. This is practically free money if I'm not missing something.
3. HSA: Seems to be a very efficient way to save taxes when retiring in the US. But I haven't found anything about how those are treated in Germany. So I'm still trying to figure out if it makes sense to contribute - assuming I don't need to take out money for medical expenses while living in the US.
4. US-ETFs: What to do with the rest of the after-tax dollars? I would have aimed for long-term investing those in US-ETFs. But I learned the hard way that it's hard to transfer ETFs between German and US brokers. IBKR now seems to offer an easier way, but I need to dig in there still. Are there any other pitfalls for Germans holding US-ETFs I need to be aware of?

Generally, I'm not sure if I should optimize all these US investment options or if I should just take out as much after-tax dollars as possible, keep them in a HYSA or short-term T-Bills, and invest probably once I'm back in Germany.

Hi All, I am new here and could use some judgement free advice on how to allocate leftover/odd accounts by end of year after discovering FIRE.

I feel so sad I just discovered fire in my early 30's and am feeling a bit behind/clueless but am eager to learn. I read the Simple Path to Wealth and liked it quite a bit.

My main question is, I have a Vanguard account from before I had access to a 401k or good knowledge of and IRA, and what to do with it?

Quick snapshot of my current state:

-Zero CC debt

-Zero student loans

-No debt of any kind (thankfully)

-paid off car

-rent

-$12.7K emergency fund in High yield savings account (I live in a HCOL area, this helps me sleep at night)

-$28.5K VTSAX (not IRA or 401k, from before I had access to 401k or knew about IRA's)

-$17.5K ROTH IRA (wealthfront)

-$6.8k Roth 401k in SP500 (Current job)

-$32.2k Roth 401k in SP500 (Old Job)

Question 1: The $28.5K in VTSAX shares, I do not know what to do with them. Leave them? Sell them and add that money to my 401k (and IRA) to hit my 2024 max allowed contribution? But would selling trigger a taxable event?

Question 2: I believe I should roll over my old 401k into my current 401k, right? There is no penalty correct?

Question 3: Checking my strategy: Overall my understanding is to reduce spending, maximize earning potential, max out 401Ks, then IRA, then non tax advantaged accounts in that order (allocating them to broad market index funds) I already have my paycheck automatically contribute to my 401k before I receive my paycheck. Are there any other tips/or insights here I am missing? Is my understanding correct?

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. Hoping to not work till my grave. Still learning over here and would love a little hand holding.

Hello. I haven’t seen many posts about this but I think (or would like to think) that it’s pretty relevant to a lot of people in younger generations. I am in my early 20s and make close to six figures. I am not very passionate about work, and it am not very fulfilled. I would like to be a teacher, but obviously the pay there is pretty terrible.

My question is: how could I go about calculating my “number”, not to retire, but to switch jobs to a much lower paying one. I still would like to retire in my late 50s, and ideally switch jobs from a high paying one, to a low paying one somewhere in my 30s/40s.

At my current job, I can max out a Roth 401, and still have 1-2k a month for investments in funds like VOO. As a teacher this would be significantly less (zero?) but I’m hoping to have a decent amount saved by then to supplement.

Overly complex math is welcome .

So I know the hate on financial advisors coming from this sub, and I know the recommendation for r/bogleheads. I’d appreciate refraining from any of those comments, but I’d like to ask…

So my financial advisor as been with my portfolio for about 2 years now, pretty much on par with the S&P500 (actually a little above just for this year. Previous years have been about the same). I currently have a 401k with my employer which is underperforming significantly (9% YTD). This year has been an unusual one for the stock market for sure. My financial advisor has explained to me the investing strategy for next year while my 401k won’t even answer my emails…

Should I transfer my money to my financial advisor and then continue contributing to my 401k? Or should I just accept it and continue to leave it with my employer’s 401k?

1. just got a 50k windfall. Thinking all should just go into VOO, but also may sitting in the cash to take advantage of any market dips in the near future. What should I do?

2. just went from about 130k to 180K in savings. Passing the 100k milestone was a big accomplishment. Was working on passing 150k, but it just kind of happened. Anyway, question is, at what point did y’all’s nest egg feel like it started to snowball?

Hi all,

My wife and I are learning more about FIRE with the hope of eventually reaching that stage in a few TBD years. Working in finance, I'm pretty familiar with the financial markets overall and I've always agreed with the total return approach (vs. dividend investing) to maximize portfolio growth, given the tax drag of dividends, etc.

I've started reading more and more about the sequence of returns and how it impacts someone's portfolio post fire and I came across this article:

https://www.dividendgrowthinvestor.com/2024/10/living-off-dividends-in-retirement-vs.html

This article touches upon an interesting point which is how a dividend-focus portfolio can help mitigate the impact of sequence of returns during FIRE, with the argument (which seems to be valid) that dividends have historically been more stable than stock price, limiting the effect of a potential downturn on your withdrawal strategy. In a sense, it could be a way to "smoothen" the ride without exiting or reducing one's exposure to the stock market (i.e. not moving to bonds for instance).

Without having done much more research on that particular topic, this approach does seem to make sense so I'm wondering what everybody thinks about it? In particular, a few questions I ask myself now:

1. Would a dividend-focused portfolio make sense during FIRE (i.e. post accumulation phase)?

2. Has the 4% / 3% rule been tested with this type of portfolio? What kind of results did it yield?

3. Without going 100% with one or the other approach, would it make sense to combine both to some extent?

Interested to hear what people think about this. I'm not trying to rehash the total return vs dividend debate itself, I'm specifically interested in the potential for dividends to mitigate downturns / sequence of returns.

Sorry if this topic has already been discussed, it's pretty new to me so happy to read any article / resource you deem valuable!

Thanks

I (30M) am relatively unhappy with my current job, and have reason to believe I may be able to garner at least somewhat higher income elsewhere if I put the hard work in to apply for jobs over the next several months. However, my current job has a pretty nice 5-year anniversary incentive that's giving me pause about putting the effort into job hunting right now.

For context, I will reach my 5 year mark in January of 2026. When we hit 5 years, we get a full month sabbatical (fully paid/with full benefits during), plus $5K to be spent on flights and/or hotels (probably closer to $3K after taxes, but still gives you a very discounted international trip).

Current job: ~$210K comp between base salary & bonus (happy with the comp overall). I also get company options, but we're private & not close to an IPO or acquisition, and frankly I don't have a lot of confidence in it, so I don't count those. I'm well liked/respected by my boss & theirs, but in the past few weeks there was a re-org that changed my scope of work into things I enjoy doing less AND are less advantageous for me on a resume. I feel pretty stable in the job, at least as far out as I reasonably can be, but again I don't have much confidence in the company's leadership/direction. I'm fully remote, which is nice, but not essential to me; I don't work crazy hours generally, but I do have pretty high stress in my role & am fairly unhappy day to day. I expect to receive modest annual raises of 3-7% the next few years, but no big promotion/growth opportunities are currently available to me. I also feel like I've pretty much maxed out the experience I can get/learn from in my current role.

Prospects: based on some people in similar roles who have recently left, plus general research of the job & location I'm in, I believe I could probably increase my comp to $220K-$260K with a successful job search, maybe more with options/RSUs I'd view as valuable, plus likely have more future growth opportunities (both in terms of the work I'm doing being more marketable & promotion options). Obviously new jobs also entail risk though, who knows if I'd feel as stable or well-liked, and there's also of course no guarantee I'd even land the type of job I'd want, even if I put a lot of work into searching.

Several of my friends & coworkers are encouraging me to start looking now, as they believe waiting another ~1.5 years in my early thirties to leave for something with more growth options will hurt me in the long-run. But, one month off (fully paid, with a secure job to come back to) just sounds so, so nice to me right now, and seeing some of my other coworkers take advantage of this makes me want to try it myself. I know a month really isn't that long in the scheme of things, but since I started working 8 years ago I've never even had a week off between jobs (every time I've changed jobs I've started the next one the next business day). I'm still making good progress towards FIRE, my post-tax savings rate is just above 55%, but could probably get that to 60% if I increase my income more.

So, what would you do? Should I even be considering the sabbatical/waiting until after the 5 year mark? Where I'm generally leaning right now is that I should give job-searching an honest effort from now until the spring, and then if I haven't found something approaching next summer, just wait until after the sabbatical. Leaving within 6 months of the sabbatical feels like it would be really silly, but maybe 6-12 months away wouldn't be if I get a raise?

I’m (55M) on FERS disability retirement. One of children is about to start college and I want to get some money out of my TSP. Can I take withdrawal from my TSP in equal payments and later file tax with whatever tax form required to avoid the 10% penalty? If so, how do I do this whole process? If not allow direct withdrawal from TSP then do I transfer a portion of my TSP to an IRA brokerage account and tell them I want to take distribution under rule 72(t).

We are a couple on the way to fire soon. We are doing well as a couple being together for 25 years. While we discussed the SWR to minimize risks, neither me or my partner brought up the risk of divorce. By looking at the statistics, this is much larger than any SWR discussed in this sub. Some rough math is telling me that what is enough for a couple, most probably, will not be enough for two individuals. The risk is real here. Saying this as a,what I believe, strong couple. It is not simple to discuss this with a partner, they may think that there is something there and may not be received well. I would like to consider this important topic and was thinking of a few options.Maybe this smart community has more ideas? The options:

1. We are not the type of people that get divorce, this is for the other guys. Is not happening to us. Keep 4% SWR and don't discuss this non-sense.- not my preferred

2. Discuss with a partner openly and decide on how to consider this risk together. This will make sense in a business situation but the discussion will have implications far larger than the FIRE risk. This needs to be brought so carefully that I am afraid to mess up.

Bring up the idea to reduce the SWR to account for unknown risks. This is the case, since in addition to divorce, I see other risks with low probability but cathastrofic. I am inclined to choose this one but acknowledge that I will it be 100% open with a partner

Did you discuss this with your partner? The focus of the question is in the discussion more than what can be done in terms of having more money, reducing SWR etc.

Looking forward to your suggestions, mainly from people that have talk about this large risk.

Edit: This post brought very strong reactions. Seems that divorce cannot ever happen for many of the responders. Most of the responses are to not even think about this possibility. Many others are sure I need therapy for my anxiety. If I need to choose the best response it will. W the people that suggested to just save some more beyond the 4% for unexpected risks.

46 yo considering FIRE'ing now, $750k in taxable (Mix of money market and total stock mkt), $800k in retirement, home paid off ($1MM), 2 rentals net is $700/mo profit, mortgage owed is $410k (value is $950k) across them both (interest rate on the loans is 4.5-5.5%). My living expenses are close to 9000/mo now, I but I plan to get it down to 7500/mo or so post-FIRE. I also own a small business on the side that I can draw about $2-3,000/mo from, and once I FIRE I will have more time to devote to it and grow it beyond that.

Considering FIRE now but struggling with what to do with the $750k and the rentals. One option is to take $410k and pay off the rentals, resulting in about $3,700/mo passive income (which reduces the amount I need to draw down from investments to make my budget), invest the remaining 340k in VTSAX and draw from it monthly. My question then would be around drawing down the 340k at a more aggressive rate like 6% to bridge the gap between my rental income and my monthly budget. Then in 14 years I can access my non-taxable accounts in retirement accounts easily so they'll grow untouched. Another option is to keep the $750k in VTSAX when I FIRE and draw from that for the next 14 years, at which point the mortgages might be paid off on their own naturally, or easily paid off with smaller balances at that time. Open to other options as well. My question to this community isn't just the math, but from your experience or advice on what it's actually like post-FIRE, which of these scenarios would set me up for success best.

Any Muslims or other individuals on here seeking to fire without the use of riba (interest)?

Any good strategies?

Me and the Brothers have been putting our cash together to buy properties in the Midwest and flip them.

Looking into Wahed accounts as well

Might seem like a stupid question and I get childcare is Spendy. But outside of child care and funding the college fund I don’t see how they will be so expensive. What are you spending on older kids after childcare? How does it compare to 1500+/month per kid for daycare?

What’s a reasonable older kid (5-17) budget per month?

On track to reach $1M before 30. 🤞

I grew up with limited means and attended college on a scholarship, managing to graduate with a net worth of $20K thanks to my internship earnings.

I initially invested in VTI, QQQM, and SOXX, but in June of this year, I rebalanced everything to VTI. I anticipate that tech and semiconductors may underperform over the next few years. While I don’t claim to have a crystal ball, I also don’t believe the future is unknowable. I land somewhere in between, making educated bets informed by models I’ve developed. If they turn out wrong, I’ll refine them and continue learning.

Looking ahead, my priority is to help my parents pay off their mortgage and secure their retirement before I start thinking about retirement for myself.

Long time reader, first time posting, hoping to RE (soon), I appreciate the feedback!

NW - 1.4M (300k in 457, 300k in Roth, 30k HSA, 70k in hysa/bonds, 700k in 403b)

Age - 48, single, no dependents

The plan - use a 5-6% SWR from age 50 to 63, then collect pension and Social Security (for a total of about $72k/yr in todays dollars) and supplement with what’s left in the portfolio at 3-4% SWR.

Aiming for $72k/yr after taxes as a minimum spend. Currently live in SoCal but willing to move to tax free state in retirement.

Main concern is health care, but I think from 50-63 I can qualify for ACA subsidies by keeping my taxable income (from 457, + 403b via 72t) to below $60k/yr and using Roth contributions + cash for the rest of my needs.

However, I was hoping to do Roth conversions, and it’s a tight window to do both, so I’m curious if others have threaded this needle successfully or if it’s not worth the trouble and I should just pick a strategy (pay for healthcare now and do the Roth conversions?).

Thanks for the feedback!

I currently have $850k in a brokerage account invested in blue chip stocks, $1 mil in an IRA, and I own two multi-family properties outright that together cash flow $60k after expenses (I could probably sell them for $1.4 m). I am married with 2 kids, ages 10 and 6, college funds all paid up. My wife earns a good salary and in 20 years will receive a $125k annual pension

I feel like I could retire if I can bring in $125-150k per year in passive income. Can I do this based on these assets? I was thinking of two scenarios:

1. Invest the brokerage account in high-yield ETFs and REITs like PDI, ARCC, NYMT, NLY, AGNC, BAT and STWD that could yield me about 10% and hence about $85 per year (plus the $60k rental income). When I reach 60, I can start withdrawing 4% annually from my IRA, and then later on will take social security

OR

2. Draw down that same $85k per year from the brokerage account for the next 9 years, then start withdrawing at age 60 from my IRA and at some point collect social security.

Both of these scenarios involve me keeping the rental properties. Scenario 1 makes more sense to me, but I know a lot of people are against investing in high dividend plays.

What do people think?

My wife and I are 52 and have hit our number but plan to continue working while my kids are in grad school.( 3 more years). My plan is to draw down from my investments in the amount of 40k per year. Therefore only paying cap gains when I get to this stage. Taxes At a fed level will be zero. (Please correct me if I'm wrong). Should I continue to max out my Roth or put that money in my personal account?

I have always saved a bIg part of my income. I started saving in my lower teens - from small side hustles and day trading - and learnt about FIRE in my upper teens.

I am now 30 yo and have an income of roughly 4x average income in my country thanks to my investments, and could retire on lean FIRE if I so choose.

I am however madly in love and want to build a long lasting relationship with a hard working engineer who has never and will never strive for FIRE.

I made my first chunk of my nestegg mainly from being careful with money and I have stayed careful even as my income has gone up, and this really irritates my partner.

My biggest question is: how do you deal with striving for FIRE when your partner is not on board with the idea?

A bonus question: How do we make it work if I ever decide to move over into early retirement, when my partner is still fully focused on working until 70 yo?

Nothing im planning, just a thought i had. Considering the market have some terrible years through history like 2008, where it dropped 38%. Withrawing during a year like that brings down your average return like crazy

But other than that, from 2003 to 2021 was going up a lot more than 8% per year

Or another idea, have a part time job maybe once a week for years, save that cash split between bank account/gold/bonds and use that the first year of the next crash and leave your stocks alone

Should both these options not allow you to retire much, much sooner?

I wonder if couples have higher spends because you have two people with discretionary expenditures, or if coupledom has efficiencies that mean you can retire with a lower NW? Or does it even out. (Assuming home is paid for in either scenario.)

Hey all. I have some assets but am not sure if I am exposed to too much risk somewhere. What would you do with this at age 37?

Total net worth about $4.3M Stocks: $950k, about 50% in a 401k

CDs and High Yield Savings: $840k

Real estate: $2.5M

House paid off worth about $1.6M. Plan to live in this until my newborn is at least 7 years old.

2 rental properties that will be paid off in 25 years, bought at ~3% interest, that will easily pay for themselves and pump off good cash flow (they basically pay 100% of the significant taxes on my current house after budgeting for capex, PIMI, etc.).

So I have on paper over half tied up in real estate, but I don’t really want to move and my rentals are good investments.

But can’t help but think there may be a more straightforward or optimal way to manage this. Not the most strategic about portfolios and could use some help.

With daycare, a big house, future college expenses, it’s going to add another 10 years at least. I’ll still be retired around 40, but damn.

I love my kids, but looking down the barrel of another decade of work is really making me question things at times.

How many years did having kids delay your FIRE date?