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34 M

Income:

• €160k/y in main income source (including bonus). After tax it’s around €120k/y

• €80k/y secondary source of income. After tax around €50k/y

• €850k in brokerage accounts

• €150k in cash/personal loans to family members

Real estate:

• Apartment 1: appraised at €400k, mortgage at around €240k. Pays itself off as it is rented out
• Apartment 2: appraised at €550k, mortgage + amortization at €15k/y (I live in it). Mortgage debt outstanding at €200k
• Apartment 3: appraised at €450k, mortgage at around €200k. Pays itself off as it is rented ou

Expenses:

• Around €35k/y (no kids, no wife)

I don’t really like my job but it’s a high income finance job. My goal was to pull the trigger when I reach €1500k in brokerage account (probably by the time I reach 38). But I’m considering pulling the trigger before as I’m bored. Maybe developing this secondary source of income (within social media).

I do want to get married and have kids. Since I live in Europe, healthcare and education is essentially free.

Thoughts? Boredom is an issue. I was considering moving to Latam and working remotely on my second source of income and renting out my primary residence.

Hey FIRE fam, I want to share a little experiment I’ve been doing that might sound crazy at first, but hear me out—it’s been a game-changer. A few months ago, I decided to give up my overpriced apartment and start living full-time on a cruise ship. Yep, you read that right. And spoiler alert: it’s been cheaper than renting in a High Cost of Living (HCOL) city like Boston or NYC, and honestly, way more fun.

Let me walk you through how this all started, why I did it, and what the experience has been like.

The Setup

I live (or used to live) in Boston, where rent for a decent 1-bedroom apartment is around $3,500/month. Add in utilities, groceries, gym memberships, and entertainment, and I was easily spending $4,500+ per month. It was a lot, especially since I’m aggressively saving for FIRE.

One day, I came across an article about someone who lived on a cruise ship full-time, and it got me thinking. I crunched the numbers and realized a budget or mid-tier cruise could cost me $2,000–$4,000 per month, including housing, food, and entertainment. It sounded insane at first, but I decided to give it a shot.

How I Did It

I started with a month-long cruise in the Caribbean to test the waters (pun intended). I booked an interior cabin on a budget-friendly cruise line for around $2,000. That price included: • A private cabin (way cozier than my apartment, TBH). • Unlimited meals, from buffets to sit-down dinners. • Entertainment every night—live music, Broadway-style shows, poolside movies, you name it. • Utilities like electricity, heating, and even basic Wi-Fi.

By the end of the month, I was hooked. It wasn’t just a vacation—it felt like a lifestyle upgrade. I extended my stay and have been “living at sea” ever since.

Why It’s Better Than Renting 1. 💸 Cheaper Than My Apartment: My all-in costs for a month on the cruise were $2,500 (including gratuities and a few drinks). Compare that to $4,500+ for city living, and I’m saving at least $2,000/month. 2. 🍔 No Grocery Bills: Imagine eating every meal at a restaurant without ever worrying about the bill. That’s my reality now. From omelets in the morning to steak dinners at night, the food is amazing—and unlimited. 3. 🎭 Built-In Entertainment: Forget Netflix. I get live shows, comedy acts, karaoke nights, and pool parties every day. There’s no such thing as boredom on a cruise. 4. 🌍 Travel Included: My “home” docks in new destinations every few days. So far, I’ve been to Mexico, Jamaica, and the Bahamas, all without paying for flights or hotels. 5. 🛠 No Chores, Ever: I don’t clean, cook, or even make my bed. The crew takes care of everything, giving me so much more free time to work on hobbies, read, or just relax.

The Numbers (How It Adds Up)

Here’s a quick breakdown of my monthly costs compared to my old apartment:

Expense Living on Land Living on a Cruise Rent $3,500 $0 Utilities (Heat, etc.) $200 $0 Groceries $600 $0 Entertainment $200 $0 Cruise Fare $0 $2,500 Total $4,500 $2,500

I’m saving $24,000/year while living a life that feels like a permanent vacation.

Is It for Everyone?

Probably not. But if you’re flexible with work (I’m remote), enjoy traveling, and don’t mind cozying up in a small cabin, it’s worth trying. Some things to keep in mind: • Wi-Fi: It’s not lightning-fast, but it works for emails and basic browsing. • Seasickness: I’ve adjusted, but Dramamine is your best friend. • Laundry: Some cruises have self-service laundry or full-service for a fee.

Ready to Try It? Start Here:

If you’re curious, here are a few sites I used to book cruises: • CruiseSheet – Great deals, especially for longer voyages. • Vacations To Go – Tons of discounts on budget and mid-tier cruises. • Cruise Critic – Helpful reviews and tips.

TL;DR: I gave up my overpriced Boston apartment to live full-time on a cruise. It’s cheaper, more fun, and I’m hitting my FIRE goals faster than ever. Have any of you thought about doing this? Would you give it a try? Let me know—I’m happy to answer questions! 🚢🔥

[ VHCOL, Tech, 29M ]

I'm on the 3 year mark after learning about FIRE. I am continuing from my last update that I posted here. Disclaimer, I know this can come off as boastful/arrogant since I am doing well for myself. I apologize for that--most of this is for archival purposes for myself, salary transparency, and inspo for anyone in similar situations or looking to get into this line of work.

The Story

I live in NYC and did a tech bootcamp to switch careers in 2020. I was mostly inspired because my new girlfriend at the time was a data scientist and made more than twice I did, and she became my coach and was super supportive of me. I ended up loving software engineering and lucked my way into a great job. I just got promoted so everything is going according to plan.

Spending Breakdown

https://imgur.com/fHWtNvR

I spent $68k this year, compared to $48k last year. Oof... lifestyle inflation, what can I say.

Net Worth

Strategy and Findings

1. Still trying to save over half my after-tax income, which I succeeded at including retirement accounts
2. Lifestyle inflation is real. I didn't think it would happen to me but after I had a huge salary increase due to stock appreciation, I spent $20k more in 2024 than I did in 2023. While it is okay because I made significantly more money this year, it's a little dangerous to make this a habit.
3. Still taking full advantage of HSA, 401K, backdoor Roth IRA. They are definitely helping me reduce tax burden and key to my net worth increase over time. Would recommend.
4. Doing all of this while living in the best city in the world is a blessing. I used to treat this phase of my life as the "boring middle" starting, but instead I have really become so thankful for my situation and I'm able to enjoy my financial situation.
5. Just got promoted, so this coming year will be about increasing my income as much as possible. I really don't like working, and my job is quite stressful. I am blessed to be able to have good career situation where I can sniff early retirement.

2025 Goals

1. Increase income as much as possible after my promotion, maybe leverage it to switch jobs and earn more.
2. Combat lifestyle inflation, spend less this year than 2024
3. Hit $500k net worth

I'm a 37 year old male with a good paying job ($190-210k depending profit share) living in a low COL area. Recently had a significant inheritance and now I'm starting to look at what retiring early might look like.

I'm not yet certain where I'd retire to, if I'd move at all. I've thought about the PNW which would be an increase in COL as well as require a good bit of capital in addition to the proceeds from the sale of my house (maybe $600k-700k more). I've also thought about Greenville SC and Asheville NC which would be much more moderate on the COL scale.

New expense would be health insurance, currently provided by employer. For actual living expenses, it's probably $60k'ish but in retirement I'm budgeting for $145k/year to account for health insurance, more travel, and more home repairs that will show up in the long run (currently haven't had to do much of this). I'm sure this is a very conservative analysis. Is it realistic I could retire now and plan to live to 92? If past performance is an indicator of the future, based on my family it's very unlikely I will live that long. I just don't want to let life pass me by and not have time to enjoy it after I stop working (or start a newer, lower stress career).

Current assets are as follows:

$330k house, paid off

No car note

$180k bank + HYSA

$260k IRA

$43k Roth IRA

$645k 401k

$1.4MM inherited IRA, to be distributed over next 10 years (distribution strategy not finalized, since this could depend when I decide to stop working)

$3MM brokerage

The fires happening in LA are devastating and I have been thinking of a few things that have come from it.

Insurance: No matter where you are, you should review your insurance policy and see if there’s sufficient coverage. Especially if you live in an area of high natural threats like hurricanes, floods, tornados, snow storms etc.

Principal Residence: Having your retirement plan tied up in your principal residence is a risk. Where I live, a lot of people have that idea that their home is an investment but it’s not. A natural disaster like in LA will wipe out a ton of wealth for many people relying on their home.

Lifestyle creep: As our incomes grow and our nest egg is slowly building, you get that lifestyle creep since you can afford more things. I’ve been thinking about getting a nice watch or even upgrading cars as an example. I saw a video of the aftermath of one of the neighbourhoods and saw Porsche after Porsche that’s burnt up on driveways. At the end of the day, it makes you think about what really matters. All this consumption is just “stuff” which can disappear in a day. Focus on what I have now and try to reach my fire goal faster instead of allowing lifestyle creep in.

Has this event prompted some thoughts for you about financial independence and your pathway towards it?

Hello,

I need some advise on how to proceed going fwd with my current situation. Have never used any financial planner but would love to get any feedback about what all I am doing wrong or right.

I am 39m and wife is 35..One 3 year old daughter. Together we make about 360k and live in the suburbs(MCOL).

Assets

Home Equity - 520k ..Loan at 2.5% and about 330k mortgage remaining.

HSA about 38k

401k combined about 505k (Only about 180k in S&P rest in Safe Income fund..Took out 1 year back thinking market was high and never entered back..I know a very foolish mistake I made)

Cash about 250k sitting in HYSA(Waiting on market to come down lol..I know totally wrong)

Treasury and Other bank accounts - 70k

Vested stock awards through our companies about 55k

529 - 11k saved so far

Monthly Expense runs about 12k average including everything..Not very big spenders but mortgage is 20 years so payment is little high and we do spend about 1k on restaurants and have 2 high end cars which costed about 120k but the loan is almost down to 25k and planning to run them for a couple of years after payoff and rest is normal day to day expense.

If the day care and car expense and mortgage is taken out looks like we get by in about $6500 monthly.

I have been in an out of the market which I now see as a clear mistake considering my waiting on market going down costed me at least 150k had I just stayed in the market.

I am guessing will work till 62 and then retire but if I can get to 3 - 3.5 million before that I will retire. Just want to get ideas on how best to move fwd. Should I just dump all 401k in the S&P without waiting now and move the cash as well to S&P or any other ideas.

With the 4% rule I calculated that we would need minimum 3.5 million for retirement. Looking at the tech market these days not sure when the job market starts affecting us as well so just wanna be prepared and start planning for retirement.

Thanks

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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Hi All,

Thank you all for the invaluable info I've gathered here over the past 4 years. This is my first lengthy post and would appreciate your feedback. I was unexpectedly fired from my job last week and am thinking about next steps.

About: 56 male, 2 kids (15 and 13), wife, moderate cost of living area. 30 years working mostly in high tech/high stress jobs. Last job was actually great, low stress, decent pay, fun people. Wish it lasted longer than 18 months.

Home: $2.4M, $1M mortgage ($1.4 equity)

Equities: $6.1M ($1.5M retirement accounts, $4.6M nonretirement)

Annual expenses: $300K

2 x 529s: $300K total

I have a great home, but its big and expensive to maintain. I plan to sell it in about 10 years when the kids move out and downsize.

On paper I should have enough to FIRE, but I am just not sure if that is the right direction. Maybe a part time job, maybe I could find another job like my last low stress job. With two kids at home, I can't jump on plane and run off to an exotic trip, I am constrained by the school calendar. I do have a bunch of hobbies that I enjoy pursuing, but not sure if they are enough to keep me busy.

Health care is a worry as it's so expensive. The $300K listed in expenses was last year and did not include this expense. However, I do plan on lowering the burn a little to make room for healthcare.

What are your thoughts? Thank you in advance.

Hello everyone,

I found a new kind of FI calculator that runs a Monte-Carlo not to determine your chance of success, but to derive your FI number from said chance of success.

Here's the tool: https://withaffluent.com/en/tools/financial-independence-calculator

Thought it was cool! (it's far from perfect, but I don't remember having seen it done like this before)

Original post by the creator on r/FranceFIRE (French FIRE subreddit): https://www.reddit.com/r/FranceFIRE/comments/1hvo6t6/jai_cr%C3%A9%C3%A9_un_calculateur_dind%C3%A9pendance_financi%C3%A8re/

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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I've been posting in here asking about my numbers but I unexpectedly got laid off today. 41M and 39F, no kids, not having any. LCOL to MCOL in Ohio. I was going to RE at the end of the year but found out this morning my job was eliminated due to restrucuring. So asking officially about my numbers and any advice. Looking to be lean FIRE.

Total investments: 1.63M

Paid off house, newly built in 2023, ~350K in value

10 and 11 year cars, paid off, low mileage, one ultra low

Brokerage: 750K

Trad IRA: 471K

Roth IRA: 309K

401(k): 77K

HYSA: 26K

Spend last year was 36K (decorating and furnishing new house) and this year will be around 28 to 30 (including health insurance- just got that today through the ACA). Tax abatement on house until 2034. Budget accounting for that expiring, cars, and repairs could eventually take us up to 48K.

48K comes out to just under 3%. While I was not expecting to be laid off, from everything I've read and discussion with everyone, it seems I should be OK. I've run the scenarios to death and 3.25% is what gives me 0% failure (I know even this isn't guaranteed, but I can't get any lower).

Any thoughts or advice as we enter this new chapter?

So I have been trying to work out my next steps so instinctively thought it would be best to open a throwaway account and ask the hive mind of Reddit for inspiration, feedback or advice.

I live in the UK and own my own LTD company. I (M40) and married (F39) and have two daughters (F17 & F20).

Both myself and my wife are directors & employees of the company and my daughters are both part time employees around their education. They also have alphabet shares to allow discretionary dividends.

I would say the company is successful (for a family business) and returns an annual net profit (after corp tax etc) of around £250k. After extracting dividends, the company is left with circa £170k each year of distributable profit.

In total, the company has around £700k of assets (£570k cash and £130k Buy to let property that is owned outright).

As a family, we don't have any debt other than the mortgage on our house (£270k outstanding fixed at 1.8% for another 6 years, currently worth around £550k). I don't have any investments but do have £50k across a couple of old work based pensions when I worked in the private sector. I also have around £60k in an instant access savings account at 3.1%.

When the company started to do well, rightly or wrongly I decided to leave the cash in the company as I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with it. I know I could pay into a pension and reduce the corp tax but I have never been a fan of tying up cash that I can't get to for a number of years.

My wife and I earn £100k a year between us made up from PAYE and dividends. We don't need any more.

So I guess my question is: what would you be doing if you were in my situation?

I (M25) and my fiancé (F22) are starting to take our financial journey more seriously, but I spent my early 20’s recovering from some bad debt I accumulated!

Fortunately we made a move and I started earning ~100k At my new job, while she earns ~40k! We expect both our incomes to increase slightly next year and we also have a rental that earns ~250 a month!

We both are on the same page and want to hit retirement super aggressively and want feedback!

DEBT TOTAL: 350.3k 3105 monthly

Primary residence: 212.8k @ 6.625% 1830 monthly (Recently purchased after our move and is valued ~225k)

Rental home: 126.6k @3.875% 991 monthly Rented @1250 monthly Currently valued ~165k

Truck loan: 10.8k @6.25% 283 monthly

ASSETS TOTAL: 84.1k

26.5k in Roth IRA (1)

7.6k in Roth IRA (2)

50k in HYSA

Full disclosure we plan to invest about 20k of what is in our HYSA into retirement accounts but have not taken the step just yet and almost all of our investments are index funds, we are keeping things simple but plan to expand our investments as we learn and grow more! What would you guys do next and are we on track for FIRE?

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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I'm (47M) about two months away from walking away from working my corporate job, and I've been working on my list of things I want to do, after work. I signed up to attend an event at the local community college for adults interested in enrolling. As I scrolled through the list of programs, I saw several that I have always wanted to learn, auto mechanic being the specific example. I'm curious if anyone here has taken a job post RE, but not for money, just to learn/practice learning a skill. I'm thinking of something like Les Schwabb or Midas after taking a few classes.

Drawbacks could be that its going back to limited freedom, having a boss again, repetitive nature of the entry level work, etc. balanced by the value of learning and growing.

Any experience with something like this?

Hi friends - bit of a background first. I graduated school in 2023 with brace yourself roughly $20,000 in credit card debt. I had no excuse for this. I grew up with affluent parents who paid for my college and taught me never to live beyond my means.

In my senior year of school, I found myself having a decent job and a somewhat financially abusive relationship, and I just spent way more than what I realized. To make matters worse, I live in a HCOL city, and was paying 2700/month before utilities for a 1 bed my first year out of school.

Fast forward to this past August. I started to become more and more obsessed with reaching my financial goals in the future. I made a budget and a pretty clear cut savings plan. I’ve paid down all debt, and my expenses/plan are as follows.

Remaining CC debt: roughly $4,000 (will be done in about 1.5 months, will never carry a balance again and only use cards for travel points, also worth noting I’m paying no interest on a 0% APR period, but point stands)

Salary: $97,600, take home is riiiight around $6k/mo, but it varies by hours in a pay period, and there is sometimes overtime available.

Car: paid off Rent: $1675/mo, (2 bed w roommate) Utilities: $150/mo Subscriptions: $50/mo Wifi: $10/mo phone: $25/mo Car insurance: $137/mo Commute/gas: $60/mo (trying to look into company benefit for reimbursement)

After this, I spent $200/wk in groceries and any dining/ubers/dates/going out, and up to $600 a month used for miscellaneous activity. October was my trip to homecoming, November was Friendsgiving/holiday shopping, December was presents for my family and trip home, January is a hockey game with about $400 left over that will go to savings.

I’ve thought a lot about the 200/wk, 600/mo, but the idea here is that I still allow myself room to enjoy my life. If I dedicate money entirely to savings, I’ll have a very difficult time not cutting out a lot of fun things in my life.

There are a few areas where I reeeaallly don’t want to compromise on spending:

1. My apartment. This is the most important. I WFH a lot, and I live in a great area in a nice place that I love and maintain very well, I believe the value I’m paying for the place I live is incredible, and it’s important to continue to live here for me. Everything including friends are super accessible and it’s a great place for my mental health.

2. I really enjoy spending my time with friends/going out. That doesn’t mean spending $100/wk on alcohol, but it’s important that I have some money to make time for the things that I enjoy.

3. Lastly, I’ve loved to golf my whole life. Right now I can’t really afford it, but one goal that I’d really like to save for as I get raises in the coming future is a country club membership. They are egregiously expensive here, and this is really the only area that I care to allow “lifestyle creep”. I love to golf, i played with my dad a ton growing up, and I’d love to have a place for him to play a member guest tournament with me when he visits.

As for savings:

Once my debt is paid off in the next two months or so, I plan to max my 401k, max my Roth IRA, and max my ESPP. My employer match on my 401k is 6%, and my ESPP is a 15% discount on shares that I’ll sell immediately and deposit to a brokerage. I won’t be able to do all of these until I get my next promotion/raise (fingers crossed for November), so until then, my plan is to max 401k and ESPP, and when ESPP is sold to deposit in the Roth, and deposit the rest in a brokerage. The amount I’ll be able to save monthly on my current salary (including match/espp discounting) should be right around 4k

I’m currently 23, and invested in only the Russel 1000 growth index (and vanguard’s version of that in my 401k). I plan to keep it that way for at least the foreseeable future. As my salary grows, my intention is to fully max all three of the above accounts, and then once there is leftover, split the leftover amount between a high yield savings (for travel, golf, home down payment, engagement ring, etc) and a brokerage account and to continue to live on this $200/wk, $600/mo amount.

I know how lucky I am. The credit card debt was a dumb young choice, but I’m making my attempt to rectify it so that I don’t waste the opportunity I’ve been given.

How would you change this plan? Do you have any better ideas/suggestions? I don’t fully know yet how having a family will impact everything here, but I’d like to think my income will have scaled enough then that it won’t affect the basic strategy here while providing for my kids. I don’t have a particular FIRE date in mind, I’d just like to be able to live freely, travel, and pretty much do whatever I want in my mid to late 50s.

Income $260k, ~$14k/mo take-home (after deductions and insurance).  Both 41. 2 kids (5 and 3). MCOL. We live comfortably. We would like to do a home project ($250k), 2-3 vacations a year, 1 international. I don't have clear direction for saving/retirement, but want to balance living now with saving for later. We enjoy our jobs enough ,but we'd like to save enough money where work is a choice, not a necessity. We didn't go up with a lot of guidance or good examples in this area, so we have been making it up as we go.

We figured eventually we would get some professional help (flat fee advisement at some point), but just have never bothered. All investments are mostly total market/S&P ~80% and International/world ~20%. We got a late start to working and lost some time aggressively paid off student loans, so hold very little in bonds.

We have assets of about $1.2m, I assume 2-3 doubles before retirement. I have no idea what our number is or if it will be enough, but just assume we are ahead of most and will make it work.

Expenses

• Mortgage, taxes, insurance $2600/mo  (360k at 2.75%, yr 3 of 30. Home is valued at $550k )
• Utilities $200 $265
• Car insurance $100
• Food: $1200 (Groceries 800/Restaurants 400)
• Daycare and before/after school care: $1900
• Cleaner: $320
• No car debt(2021 SUV and 2017 sedan)
• Deferred Comp: $3.9k (60/40 split between Traditional and Roth)
• Roth IRA: 1.2k
• 529: $12k $1k ($500 for each kid)
• Life Insurance $1200/yr Term life insurance $100/mo (paid annually)

Assets

• HYSA: 75k
• Rollover IRA: $733k ($3k/390/340)
• Rollover Roth IRA: $259k ($40k/130/89)
• Deferred Comp: $100k (46k/60k)
• Brokerage: $73k (45k/28k)
• HSA: $54k (28k/28k)
• Pension TBD (3.5% of average of 5yr salary *yrs served. I am at year 2, partner is year 3)

Give me the good, the bad, and the ugly. What should we keep doing? What should we do differently? Or what am I missing?

Edit, so that I have starting point. Our goal to replace 50% of our pretax income through our portfolio by age 62.

I don't spend a ton of time optimizing my finances but I will do a few things every year or when necessary. Trying to understand how to best allocate my time. Still 30+ years from retirement in a stable job. I'd appreciate any and all tips and thoughts.

• Move all accounts to Vanguard for lower fees. I have some money in Betterment and I think the fees might eat away at returns over the long run. Unsure if there are tax implications if I just want to move things over (IRA and taxable account holding all equities via index funds)
• Try to learn "proper" portfolio allocation and readjust. When I started working and set up my accounts I just picked the least confusing funds. Very US heavy and mostly large cap. Almost no bonds. It's become even more US heavy since US markets have been on a tear.
• Pursue buying a home. I know this one can be more of a lifestyle choice but in our case we'd treat it as a financial optimization. We're in a small studio apt in the city right now. We'd aim for similar monthly costs in the suburbs so that our investment pace can remain the same.
• Just focus on work and get a big raise. This has been the play for several years now and it's paid off. But I feel I can probably do this on top of other money related tasks.

Or perhaps the year is long enough to look into all of the above. Again, I appreciate any tips or anecdotes on how you have approached making use of your time with respect to these sorts of priorities.

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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Hey Folks, I realized that biggest hurdle towards my FIRE plans is my annual spend, currently at 170K+. As a first step I purchased Monarch Money to start digging into where/how I'm spending my money. Now thats done, I was hoping to get input on where folks think I might be overspending.

I have personally identified areas that I know I can optimize this year, but still want to gut check from other folks in similar situations and where they see similarities or deviations. For context - 3 person household (2 adults, one 7YO), living in MCOL (own condo), public school for kid

Note - below was summarized by Chatgpt using excel data, and also some amounts were rounded off.

Housing & Utilities

• Mortgage Payments: $25k
• Home Renovations: $20k
• Property Tax & Homeowner Insurance: $12k
• HOA Fees: $2k
• Internet & Cable: $2k
• Gas & Electric: $800
• House Cleaning: $1,400

Total Housing & Utilities: $63k

Food & Dining

• Groceries (including Meal Kit): $11k
• Restaurants & Bars: $14k
• Coffee Shops: $2k

Total Food & Dining: $28k

Child & Pet Expenses

• Child Care (summer camp, after school care): $8,600
• Child Activities: $3k
• Pet Care (medical, daycare, food): $3k

Total Child & Pet Expenses: $14k

Travel & Leisure

• Travel & Vacation: $19k
• Entertainment & Recreation: $6,800
• Fitness (personal trainer): $4,100
• Streaming Services: $1,200

Total Travel & Leisure: $31k

Shopping & Personal Expenses

• Electronics (77in OLED w/ 5 year warranty, 10+ sonos home speakers..) : $10k
• Shopping: $5k
• Clothing (including Rent Runway): $3k
• Personal Care: $2k

Total Shopping & Personal Expenses: $20k

Miscellaneous Expenses

• Amazon: $4,800
• Gifts (Christmas, Birthdays, Anniversary): $1,900
• Taxi & Ride Shares: $1,900
• Couple Therapy: $1,800
• VUL Life Insurance Payments: $3,400

Total Miscellaneous Expenses: $14K

Transportation

• Auto Insurance: $100
• Gas (Transportation): $800

Total Transportation: $1,800

My partner and I are probably the strongest fence-sitters you will ever meet. However, my biological clock is ticking and am now forced to confront the decision of being childfree or not. To us, living in a 40-hour work week system, that is ultimately not supportive of neurodivergence or women's biology, is soul crushing. We have decided that we would consider kids only if can raise them with flexibility in our lives (aka having reached financial independence and would no longer be working full-time), but it still made me think about life when we have reached that stage.

Let me preface this by saying I am a healthy and active female, but am relatively low-energy and get overstimulated easily. I have struggled with highly structured lifestyles - the 9-5, 40-hour work week feels highly regimented to me, even with remote work. I like to do things on my own time - for example, it feels very effortful to complete dishes/laundry/chores within a certain timeframe. Thanks to the female monthly cycle and living in a world that does not support this phenomenon, I feel like I'm dying 30%-50% of the time every month. Outside of society's time structures, I've felt like I was thriving, inspired, and well. I've always felt like I was not built for this world!

Even though it was fun to think about creating traditions and sharing memories with a family, I do not really get excited thinking about raising a human being, at least not at this stage in my life (30's). My heart sank when I started thinking about the day-to-day realities of being a parent. For example, even if we were no longer working full-time, our lives would still largely operate within a certain structure (e.g. sleeping and waking up, extracurricular drop off and pick up, chores, helping kids at certain hours, even having to repeat things to them!). I'm sure there will be more flexible days, but if the proportion of structured days is 70% or more, I don't know that this is the life for me.

I do not doubt the joys and meaning that can come from children, but I personally think there is a tipping point where the pros of being childfree start to outweigh those from having kids. I've felt like life has been largely a grind and series of responsibilities, I do not want to continue feeling like I'm living that way. So, my question to those of you who have reached FIRE and are no longer working FT jobs, what has the day-to-day been like for you with kids at various ages?

I’ve spent my entire life with a save save save mentality. This was long before I even discovered what FIRE was.

Technically I’m FI, but not retired.

I’m pushing myself to spend on myself and friends for an upcoming birthday trip next month, and have about 20 friends coming. While this is a trip for me and to celebrate me, that doesn’t come very naturally and my focus is really to ensure others have a good time.

Everyone is paying to come, between lodging, food, activities there could be a $5k-$8k difference between the actual cost and what I was able to collect. (There’s a few who could still join, and others who might drop, which mainly impacts the lodging split).

What mental gymnastics do you do to feel ok with this? I spend more than that without though when it’s buying stocks for the future or a necessary repair on a rental property, so trying to tell myself it’s ok to spend on fun.

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Hey all - has anyone ever successfully negotiated a severance ahead of time?

Essentially, tell your company you will exit if they give you a year’s severance for example after 10 years of service.

Not sure if that’s a viable strategy vs. waiting around hoping to get laid off. It’s an odd thing to think about for a variety of reasons and in order to pull it off I think you would need to have a very good relationship with your employer/boss.

I might pull the trigger sooner than I was expecting but can continue working while I sort out these details. 5-8 years ago I was heavy on this site, reading and listening to everything, making spreadsheets, using FIcalc here and there etc.. Life happens and i've been just grinding not thinking about what I need to have in place before I pull the trigger. So sorry in advance if some of this seems hastily written (it is) or missing key details needed. its been a while.

Details:

Target SWR 3%, Yearly Spend $60-$80k. Married filing jointly. Wife will continue to work for time being ~$120k Gross/~$90k AGI. Health insurance through her employer and a great plan. 2 elementary age kids.

• $700k Brokerage account
• $135k Roth IRA
• $1,300,000 IRA
• $45k HSA
• $50k Kids Brokerage/529

Plan: convert $60k/year from my IRA to Roth and fund the first 5 years via the brokerage.

Questions:

1. Tax implications on Roth conversions since my wife will continue to work - looks like we'd fill up the lower tax brackets with my wife's income and then I could convert ~$100k per year up to the 22% bracket? which would effectively be a 10% 'penalty' on the money I convert beyond the ~$93k 12% bracket? ie a $6k penalty on the $60k i would convert?
2. Roth conversions over a 5 year period to 'season' then be able to withdraw tax free still valid/good? Im early 40s now so would have a number of years to go before i can access my Roth normally.
3. Reallocation of funds for FIRE- is the whitecoat investor equity glide path writeup still the best source on this? What's the going recommendation these days? 90/10 100/0 VTSAX/VBTLX?
4. Health insurance - lots of talk about changes to current ACA plans due to new administration. What's the plan as of late on health insurance in the US post RE?
5. Kids account is in a brokerage split evenly. I looked at the 529 fund discussion when we had our first and it didnt seem that beneficial compared to just using a brokerage acct for them. Any thoughts? Also if i want to switch their holdings to all VTSAX or similar, the gains on their accounts ultimately add to our tax filings since we claim them, correct?

Sins/Note: I have not put any additional money into my roth for about the last 5 years because I screwed up the first year's Backdoor contribution and had to pay additional taxes which has been a sore spot between my wife and I, so I just stopped contributing to the roth via a backdoor because I didn't want to talk to my wife about what happened. What occurred was that the same year i made the backdoor contribution, by funding a traditional IRA from my brokerage acct and then converting to a Roth allocation, I also rolled over my employers 401k to my t IRA (it was about $60k). Because of that, I paid something like an additonal $6k in taxes that year becuase of the prorata rule or something like that on the total? traditional IRA account roll over. I dont have all the details but i was kind of hoping that was correct and behind me and I can still use the Roth Ladder strategy without having this legacy conversion screw me up. That conversion was about 6 years ago at this point in time.

Thanks in advance for the inputs, suggestions and feedback.

Hi all:

Asking for some guidance on how I should think / calculate future expected taxes. I have a roughly $4 million portfolio that is currently sitting at the following:

- ~25% in 401ks, Roth 401ks, IRAs, and Roth IRAs (approximately 400k in Roths)

- 75% in taxable brokerage accounts mostly in VTI, High Dividend Yield ETFs, and some modest bonds.

......

In general, the funds are:

~12% Vanguard Money Market,

- ~13% bonds, and

-~50% VTI

- ~25% High Dividend Yield

- Cost basis are roughly $1.8 million on $4 million across the portfolio + $400k in Roth IRAs

Overall, I generate about $5.5-6k per month in dividends/interest across my accounts.

My question is this: Targeting a 5% annual withdrawal rate, I'd be targeting to pull out $200k a year in income - about 16.6k/month. Let's assume that's $10k a month drawn out of accounts after dividends and interest are factored in. Do I plan to have that evenly balanced from taxable and cost-basis? Do I seek to bias it in some way? (I'm married FYI)

If it's balanced, then I'd be drawing out $5k in taxable funds per month - $60k pre-tax per year. Do I look at this as paying taxes on AGI of $60k per year + ~$70k in dividends/interests in federal, state, and local taxes ?

Appreciate any guidance on how I should think about this. I'm trying to estimate my tax burden to generate a 5% total annual withdrawal on $4 million. It doesn't have to be super precise, just directionally accurate.

So I want to take 3 years off.

I'm 40 and the original plan was to retire in about 7-10 years, but I'm willing to extend that timeline a bit to scratch a few things off the bucket list now instead of later.

I have a little under $3M in post-tax investments I'd like to use to fund this plus $100k in cash/emergency fund. Total NW is about $3.75M. Would like to plan for $100-150k spend per year. I don't expect to spend that much but ideally would like to target 0 lifestyle change and minimal risk of exceeding budget on a bad year (home/car maintenance, helping family with money, etc.). Main goal is to set myself back as little as possible during this period. I will have health insurance through a spouse's plan but we won't be willing to reduce spend to the point of living on her income.

Existing investments get more complicated the further back you go, so I think sharing line items here would have limited value. I bought into the index fund thing pretty early, but was too dumb to just buy the big ones so imagine a lot of relatively small positions in things like VOO, SPDR, etc. More recent investments are just VTSAX, VTIAX, VBTLX with bonds under 10% of the portfolio. Overall portfolio is about 70/20/10 domestic/intl/bonds.

Couple options I see and would love to know if I'm thinking about it right. I'm planning on doing just-in-time withdrawals, selling on a monthly basis as needed.

1. Pull from the cash, then the bonds for as long as possible, and harvest any losses after that
2. Use the opportunity to simplify the older investments regardless of tax implications. These older positions would have gains of anywhere form 50-200%. In this scenario, I'd sell the smallest positions least aligned with my current investment strategy
3. Sell / harvest losses and then sell the smallest gains first as needed.

Any resources would be helpful! Would really love to hear from someone who did this and what the end result was. For those curious,

What other FIRE subsidies do you get other than ACA?