I'll be spending a good bit of my time in April, May and June in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Is there much of an expat fatFIRE community?

I hit my FatFIRE goals in 2022, with $20M liquid, two houses, no debt, kids college paid for and annual expenses of $400k in a HCOL city. My wife and I mostly manage our own money, with a mix of bonds, public stocks and private company investments. Several of our previous private investments could add another 10x to the $20M if they pay out.

When we interviewed high end wealth managers they described a suite of "concierge" services that they also provide (e.g., high end tourism, manage staff, find best doctor or lawyer for xxx, etc.).

My question: can you recommend a group that provides these services on a fee-for- service basis? I am happy to mind my own investments but would really like to have someone do stuff like finding the best "fat" medical group for a particular surgery, pay my bills, get citizenship in country x, etc.

Throw away account for obvious reasons. Trying to give some backstory without doxing myself. I’m a young guy, with a great career ahead of him. Graduated in college a few years ago. Good career with a side business as well. Just whenever I explain my accomplishments or goals to my family they never seem happy, they tell me it’s a waste of time to work as hard as I do. For reference my full time job requires at least 50-55 hours a week, it’s strenuous but so is life right? Long story short I’m single, live alone and I’m just doing what every other person my age is doing and trying to make a way for myself.

Why post in this sub? Well, I have a large inheritance that I will be able to tap into in the very near future (9 figs). Not counting on it at all because I can make it on my own and anything could happen but I need to realize this is happening and is real. They basically beg me to settle down and find someone I can trust to live my life. Question is what’s left in life to do? I feel like I don’t know what it’s like to even live yet. Anyone else in here young, if so what do you do? This is a retirement community but I don’t know how to retire. I’m not larping either, typing this out almost feels like I am.

I can’t talk to anyone else about this because I’d immediately lose them as a friend. How do I explain just leaving everything behind to everyone I know? This really affects my mental health. At work I don’t even feel the need to exert any energy because why should I? Everyone around me talks about the future and promotions and I just sit there and play along. I have no aspirations anymore. If you were to quit your job, what would you do for income until the money hits. Working like hell for no reason just doesn’t seem right anymore. Any pointers or advice. I realize most people would kill their own blood for something like this so I’m not complaining. Just stuck

Beyond trusts etc from you, what are you having your hs/college aged kids do with their own money?

Right now, they have incredibly limited expenses (thanks to us) but are making some money.

What accounts/investments are you having them do with their own savings.

Also, knowing how much they will inherit in the far future I feel that they don’t need to be quite as aggressive with early retirement plans. Has anyone else thought about that factor.

I’ve heard there are services that can connect you to a network of people looking to house swap. We have three houses (summer, winter, and primary residence) and would love to get some variety and swapping occasionally. Does anyone have any info on this type of thing or better yet experience with it?

Curious what amount of cash people feel they need to keep in their accounts to feel “safe” or “comfortable.”

Personally, I’ve found it hard to have anything less than one full year’s worth of expenses (including expenses related to our rental properties). That often means forgoing better returns by keeping that money out of the market.

My wife and I (mid-30s) work in FAANG jobs and newly make ~ $1M/yr.

We are nowhere near FatFIRE, but are looking for advice.

Our combined income has risen quickly since the pandemic, so we’re very new to all this.

2019 - $190K 2020 - $180K 2021 - $770K 2022 - $831K 2023 - $913K 2024 - $1.08M estimated

The past few years, come tax time, our accountants just run the numbers and always tell us to pay the IRS some large sum out of pocket, even though we’re maxing out withholdings from our paycheck.

I’ve asked them questions about common ways to reduce that bill, like 529 accounts or backdoor roth or other things, but they don’t seem to be proactively recommending anything.

Who are people using to offer this tax advice to find the best strategies to reduce your taxes each year?

Mentor Monday is your place to discuss relevant early-stage topics, including career advice questions, 'rate my plan' posts, and more numbers-based topics such as 'can I afford XYZ?'. The thread is posted on a once-a-week basis but comments may be left at any time.

In addition to answering questions, more experienced members are also welcome to offer their expertise via a top-level comment. (Eg. "I am a [such and such position] at FAANG / venture capital / biglaw. AMA.")

If a previous top-level comment did not receive a reply then you may try again on subsequent weeks, to a maximum of 3 attempts. However, you should strongly consider re-writing the comment to add additional context or clarity.

As with any information found online, members are always encouraged to view the material on r/fatFIRE with healthy (and respectful) skepticism.

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I am ~40, NW between 25 and 35M. Retired early and realizing I need a lot of intellectual stimulation to be alive. What are some of the ideas that you experimented with and found satisfaction? I am fairly simple & minimalistic person and don't have any expensive hobbies.

This article says you can do that. I’m well aware of mega-backdoor Roth but what else are they talking about?

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/04/13/how-your-401k-ate-the-federal-budget-00150319

I have a 3 month old and a 2 year old. Just curious what everybody thinks. $30M liquid net worth but I still won't take a private jet - at least for now.

I'm of the thought that children don't belong in first class so usually I just fly in the general cabin - curious what your thoughts are (my wife and I are debating.)

Thank you!

Hi all. Long time lurker but first time poster. I am in a situation that I understand is not uncommon for this subreddit.

I am in my mid 20s and live in a VHCOL city with my wife. My total income is a little over $450K/year but around $200K if that is from a side business I started. It is pretty volatile but in an upwards trend. $200K is the average from the past 3 years. Between my job and side business, my work is pretty demanding. My wife makes about $100K/year working a normal job that she loves. After graduating college, my dad and I made a deal where he would buy me an apartment if I met certain conditions. It is a great apartment but still costs me about $3500/month in taxes and common charges. My net worth is currently about $750K USD with $100K of that in US equities and $650K of that in crypto.

My father is a small business owner. The business is owned 100% by him. The company has about $10 million in equities + cash. After all expenses except his salary, it generates about $4 million every year. Lately my dad has been pushing me to get more involved with the family business under the expectation that I will run it entirely some day. I have been managing the company’s funds for about a year.

My strategy so far has been to simply purchase US equities and 6 month treasury bills. Obviously investing in almost anything over the past year has been fruitful. I wonder if anyone here has any thoughts on what else I can do with a sum of this amount.

I also would appreciate advice from people that have taken over similar sized family businesses. I generally like my job and side business. It is a bit sad to know both have an expiration date on them. My wife and I are comfortable but not big spenders in general. The additional money would be nice but I’m not sure the positives of the money outweigh the negatives of changing my professional life entirely.

Using a throwaway for obvious reasons:

I'm a 51yo ( + wife and 2 kids) looking for advice on how to plan hopefully the last stage of my career.

Here's my situation:

• VHCOL, annual household income: $700-800K;
• yearly expenses: $150K (12-13K/year)2 kids, 1 in college (paid for). $110K for the second kid that is 7 years away from college
• NW (excluding primary residence); $3M. In addition, have $2M in equity in primary residence. However, only $1.1M is in non-retirement equity, most is in retirement accounts
• Medical issues in the family, so will probably need to look into some additional insurance etc
• Concerns about kids settling down early, think this is at least 15 years away and they will need "help" Also want to keep living in my primary residence

Have expensive life insurance for myself and spouse

My questions are:

1. Should I be concerned about the heavy weightage in retirement accounts? Or rather I am concerned but don't know if I should be
2. firecalc seems to suggest I may run out of money in 30 years (90% probability).
3. Not sure how I should be thinking of income supplementing
4. Any strategies to minimize health costs in retirement?

​

Thanks for reading this far

late 40's, health care field worker with NW in the low 8 figures. I'm frugal and pretty much practice stealth wealth, but I am just wondering what are the repercussions or dangers(?) if people were to find out you had high net worth? what if you let slip to close friends or colleagues an inkling of your net worth or whatnot.

Hey Guys,

This sub is awesome and I’m glad I found itz

Have been running a business for a few years and it’s been going pretty well…. Profits this year were in the high six figures.

Q1 also went quite well.

Which means tax day FUCKING SUCKS!

My taxes for 2023 and Q1 quarterlies are TOO DAMN HIGH.

All my accountant does is look at my books and send me a quick email that says “you owe x.”

He hasn’t given me any tax planning advice or any strategies on how to lower my tax burden…. Nothing.

All he did was tell me to become an s corp a few years ago to avoid paying self employment tax… this helped a bit.

Is this what am accountant does or is a good accountant pro-active in helping you manage your tax burden?

I don’t know whether or not I should hate my accountant or the federal government and I don’t want my anger to be misplaced.

Aside from opinions like: “Bro just do it yourself” is verifying that your wealth mgmt advisor isn’t pocketing cash, a thing?

And is it possible to verify without them knowing? (I don’t want to create any bad vibes).

I apologize if this is a stupid question. Recently came into mid 8 figures and put it “into management” with a Schwab branded sub-team that has its own company name. They went independent awhile back but still Schwab app. Schwab statements. I assume Schwab oversight.

—-> Always curious if an auditor could really even be effective at tracing all movements of money to sufficiently show no shenanigans. Using just statements. I’m told they don’t have any power of attorney signature from me but I’d prefer to prove that too.

Ideally without the team knowing they’re being monitored.

Thank you 🙏🏼

I'm about $7M net worth excluding my primary residence, so I'm in that CHUBBY crossing into FAT range. We're in a LCOL Michigan area, and let me tell you that Michigan summers are the freaking best (the winters less so). I'm considering buying a ~$1M peach of a property direct on Lake Michigan because we really like it and it's within a 2.5 hour drive of our primary residence that we think we'll use more than flying.

At a $7M net worth, we can afford nice vacations in general, but a $1M commitment to a specific property is a significant investment. If we do this, I expect a lot of internal pressure (from myself) to vacation here instead of doing a lot of ad hoc vacations.

Have any of you doubled down on a specific vacation property? Do you love the ability to build on a true second home, or has it felt limiting when you could be doing high-end vacations in multiple temporary locations?

Hi, I am a 33M British/EU dual national, my wife is a Chinese national with British ILR. Our three kids, 8, 6, and 1, are all dual British/EU nationals. We currently live in the UK and are evaluating our options for where it is best for us to live. A large component of that is the taxation regime.

Currently, we have a NW of roughly £3M, consisting of our primary residence, a rental property in an EU country, and £1.2M in investments. Our current tax burden is low, as the investments are mostly in ISAs and we can use our personal allowances in effective ways between my wife and I. Both my wife and I are full-time parents. We are therefore rather happy with the current situation.

There are however two important factors that we worry about. Firstly, my parents who live abroad are eventually (hopefully not for a long time) going to leave us with about £20M in assets. There will be no inheritance tax on this, as they live in a country without IHT. It will however vastly increase my tax burden here in the UK. It also brings me to the second issue: IHT in the the UK. When my wife and I pass away, the UK will tax us 40% on our assets, which is something I wish to avoid. I realise I could transfer assets to my children early on, but there is always a risk of unforeseen accidents etc. I therefore need to think of future-proofing my tax residency.

I have thought about eventually moving to Monaco (I lived there as a kid, so I feel I kind of know it). But that is not an option until I receive my inheritance, due to the cost of property and expensive costs of the international school. I would prefer to stay in an English speaking country (my wife doesn't speak French) and it would have to be safe (which I think rules out the Bahamas). I don't think I can get a visa for Singapore, as I don't have relevant professional experience. Are the channel islands or IOM my best bets (travel connections to visit China are not great though)? Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated!

My wife (26f) and I (30m) recently hit $1.5m NW and have a rental portfolio + primary residence of $2.5m which we started 3.5 years ago. We both work in tech on high paying W2 jobs we enjoy and last year we made $700k (combination of base salary, stock compensation, sale of existing stock, and rental income) but I expect to make around $550k-$600k next year (I sold a ton of old stock last year)

I’m setting a goal for at least one of us retire from our W2 job in 5 years or less and focus 100% on the real estate business if we can keep up with the nice momentum we’ve had so far and if I can create a good structure for the business so that we can replace our target income to retire. Even though we both enjoy our jobs, they are stressful and demanding, so we would like to replace them with something of our own.

There are also a few software ideas I’d like to explore building and testing that would focus on real estate, and if these work for me, I could possibly sell them to other investors and even start a company for it, but this is a whole other topic.

I’d like to know how other people have fatFIRED specifically with Real Estate to understand different strategies used and other possible learnings/tips for someone with some experience but wanting to go all out on this, especially if someone went through a similar situation.

Thank you!

Edit:

Most of our rental properties are single family homes, we have a 4-plex, and we recently purchased two properties on auctions which we are considering flipping or rehabbing to rent.

We currently have property managers dealing with most things, which also takes around 10% of the rental income, but we’d like to eventually create our own property management company that will manage all of our rentals.

We make about $18.5k/month after taxes (base salary) and we spend around $13k/month. We have a comfortable lifestyle and like to travel. We try to not touch our stock compensation unless we use it to invest on something like real estate.

I (35, married w/a kid) am a C-Level going thru a company sale, with anticipated proceeds of $4M. Buyer (PE) has a baseline "expectation" of 25% rollover. Wife and I are trying to figure out if we want to roll over "base" of 25%, or use this as a diversification tool (into the PE asset class) and allocate 50%.

Some stats:

• $650K HHI (excluding private company stock grants)
• $160K burn, including schooling (child is 5 years old)
• ~$250K in annual savings rate - we are trying to reduce savings and enjoy life more after grinding. Savings $$'s might stay flat while our burn increases due to higher comp.
• Growing up without money, my fire is 2.5% SWR. I probably have some parental care that may dip into burn, hence some additional conservatism.

Net Worth

• $2.0M taxable in VOOG
• $0.8M retirement in VOOG
• $0.4K RSU from wife
• $0.2M 529
• $0.5M equity in house
• With the above, a 2.5% SWR on ~$200K of spend means a $8M FIRE number, and we're ~$3M liquid now. So that's a $5M gap.

My considerations I would welcome perspectives on:

• Have others had good experiences with "second bite of the apple"? Any bad experiences?
• Rolling is obviously a good tax deferred strategy, and the appeal of investing alongside a top-tier PE firm pari-passu is intriguing.
• Should I roll 50%? Anything I am not thinking about? My math is the $2M (50%) could be $5M in a few years. It's cool to think about, but may be overly optimistic. But it would fund the gap to FIRE at let me chill by 40.
• I like the message to new sponsor that we have a ton of conviction. There is some uncertainty about job security going forward (imposter syndrome). But I do think I am employable and could easily get another similarly paying job.
• Any advice more broadly on tax strategy? Thankfully these are all profits interests and subject to LTCG.

Thanks in advance! Trying to figure this one out.

Hi everyone! I (28M) have 2.5M in cash, 2M in a Vanguard account, and 500K income per year (combined with partner), no debt. I'm looking to invest my cash in a primary residence in Los Angeles. With taxes at 1.25% sale price and general home expenses, I'm wondering whether the investment would be worth it if I only plan to live there for the next 5 to 7 years. Thank you!

Current NW ~6MM (not including Primary home)

Breakdown:

3M stocks+Hysa, 1.5M 401k+IRA, 1.5 Investment RE Equity

Current Income: 950k W2 and 70K Rental Income

Current Expenses 350K (including primary home)

2 kids as well (expenses accounting for vacations, cars, daycare, activities etc) - no plans for private schooling

What I havent accounted for here is our primary residence which is 3.8M (appreciated) with a 2M debt. this is a decade long ARM at 2.625 rate. My question to the group is should I be aggressively paying this down to reduce expenses or invest in the market in ETF/s or RE or both?

Also given the diversification on the investment setup should I be gunning for 9M on stocks+cash or 9M on the current setup

Here’s my situation:

-54M, married, 1 child.

- 800K W-2, plan to work for at least 5 more years until our child graduates from high school.

- Reasonably low-stress and enjoyable job for me. Travel a lot for job, take plenty of vacations with family, and generally happy with position.

Finances:

4,800,000 – Vanguard traditional broker

2,500,000 house – owned outright

1,000,000 Vanguard IRA

1,000,000 wife Vanguard IRA

1,000,000 401K

400,000 529 for child

No debt

I am about to buy a second home for 2M. It is the Southern California desert near to where my company has a frequently-used office and where I like to work. I already spend 30+ days a year in the desert for the job. My family loves the area. We spend weeks here together already. Within a few years, we imagine spending 3 winter months here every year and the rest of the time in our primary residence in the PNW. Would not rent out the 2nd house at all.

Yearly spend:
350,000 a year with biggest line item being travel - $125K/year for four trips including midwinter trip, spring holiday trip and major summer adventure, plus off and on Christmas travel. (Midwinter and Christmas would turn into desert stays.)

I know there is a lot of debate on this forum about “should I or shouldn’t I own a second home” and I am committed to purchase one.

My question is – if you were in my financial position – how would you pay for the second house? If I were simply to liquidate from my traditional brokerage and maintain a debt-free situation, I estimate I would owe approximately $105,000 in LTCG.

Would appreciate any structured thoughts about best way to make this kind of purchase.

I have fully funded 529s for my kids. However, my family recently offered to pay for my children's education.

I have some 529 money with no gains, thus no penalty for non-qualified withdrawals. Would it make more sense to withdraw the money or keep the 529 for grandchildren?

Withdrawing would give me more flexibility on how to use the money. Keeping it in 529 for grandchildren provides tax-free growth, but at the risk of overfunding.

I'm about 75% retired and pretty close to being fully retired and just working on forecasting the future as well as anyone can, three young kids which I'm assuming everyone here in the same boat can agree are so much more expensive than I imagined. For those that have gone through it, how much did you see your annual expenses drop once they were out of the house? Did the added travel that came with freedom pick up the slack or did you find there was a pretty decent drop off. Not accounting for the actual costs of college I am dealing with that separately. Thanks!

Edit: Thanks for the responses so far - I guess I’ll modify to ask whether it drops off once they are fully done with college and on their own, although the feeling I’m getting so far is that it never actually drops off!

I have a three year retention agreement, but am finding the new company is integrating us faster than anticipated and many decisions are quickly being transitioned to corporate.

I needed to relocate to their HQ to stay on with them in a larger role and opted out.

Did anyone have a long-ish retention and did you opt out sooner or did they exit you sooner? My other CEO friends are telling me a year is standard, even if they offer a longer agreement. Feeling ready to move on.

Searching past posts, so many of them are littered with SVB, First Republic, Brex (which for some reason stopped catering to small business). For my fatFIRE folks, where do you bank for small business? Trying to avoid places like Chase that aren't really optimal/modernized. I do use Mercury for eCommerce and enjoy the experience, but curious if there are others I should consider for other businesses.

Are there any other banks at which it is worth parking a chunk a money to access additional benefits? For example, parking $100k in Merrill Edge gets you the Platinum Honors rewards on BOA credit cards. A similar thing if you have $25k-100k at Truist or $100k at FifthThird. It doesn’t have to be just credit card rewards though, open to additional benefits you think are worth it.

We are beginning the process of purchasing and then renovating a new home (the recent posts on house renos here were super helpful).

Wanted people’s advice / experience in buying a new home under a Delaware LLC. Primary motivator for us is the privacy afforded under such a structure. For example, there are local media organisations where we are buying that like to trawl local property records and report on transactions.

Looking to FatFire in about 5-7 years but final roles in my firm can be high profile.

What are pros / cons of this approach? (Property value roughly 6m usd).

Thank you in advance for thoughts.

I’ve lurked on this Reddit for over 10 years, I’ve been running at 100% for maybe 15, and 7 years ago I started a company with 4 others, but 2 years ago while it was growing rapidly I had a conflict with the other partners of the startup and they bought me out, I derisked their bad decisions, but after griefing a bit and traveling and having a lot of fun, I’m itching to build something again, and I feel that I tied my self worth to being productive, on the other hand I know that I don’t need to do more, i just get this fomo sometimes and feel like after all these years only now do I have the most experience and tolerance for risk and the network, to do something much bigger.

I grew up in a low-mid income and have a paid off house, I’m not married, my father is still paying off his mortgage but I help my family in a lot of ways.

On one hand I enjoy the no commitment life, and my freedom to fly whenever and wherever and sleep and wake up without alarms and ignore all calls and emails without worry, but I can’t stop feeling guilty that I’m not productive? Should I run again?