Link to year 0 (pregnancy) here: https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/s/tvzSJPsVlt

Background: I'm currently staying at home with baby while my partner works (so no dollar cost here, but an opportunity cost). Baby breastfeeds (no bottles because that's way too much work for me and I got lucky that breastfeeding worked well for us; huge respect for pumping/formula parents). We live very far from family and don't really have anyone else to watch our kid around here, so babysitting costs aren't a part of our budget at this time. We often try to purchase used items for baby, but sometimes the cost/benefit of getting all the way to a secondhand store or to a Facebook marketplace exchange 20-40 minutes from our house just isn't worth it and we buy new. We cloth diaper unless we're traveling, so cleaning and hygiene costs are relatively low. However, something small to consider with cloth diapers is increased utility bills (see notes).

Total annual cost: $4443.95

Annual cost by category:

Grocery - $143.01 The specific dollar amount refers only to the protein powder habit that I developed while trying to keep myself fed and hydrated while constantly breastfeeding. In addition to the $11.92/month cost of protein powder, our monthly grocery costs increased by $19.73. Some of that is probably inflation, some of that is the additional food that baby ate/threw on the floor, some of that is because having a baby makes it a lot harder to drive an hour round-trip to the cheaper grocery store.

Cleaning and hygiene - $157.94 3 packs of disposable diapers, extra cloth wipes, some disposable wipes, two tubs of diaper cream, hand sanitizer, Aquaphor lotion, nail clippers, and baby shampoo

Household misc. - $256.57 This includes things like breast milk storage bags, a manual pump, baby gate, baby silverware, some pacifiers, a learning tower for the kitchen, a water bottle and a couple of drinking cups, baby potties for my parents' house and the car.

Health (personal) - $219.93 Pain medicine after c-section, vitamins, baby meds like Tylenol and children's Benadryl, and for some reason I have sunscreen in this category

Health (medical) - $1434.39 Hospital bills (some of which is for prenatal appointments, some of which is for birth and the associated hospital stay) and baby's doctors appointments. Note about health insurance: There was no increase in premiums for the first 8 months, because I had really great insurance through my university that charged the same for spouse as for spouse + dependents. But then I finished school and we lost that insurance, so we all moved as a family to my spouse's plan through work. Since we all moved together, I don't have the breakdown for what each family member would cost. It's just a sudden, giant cost (something like $300 a pay period, iirc?) for everybody.

Clothing - $421.01 This includes baby clothes, as well as some postpartum jeans and a couple of nursing tops.

Family fun - $178.92 This includes supplies to make baby's Halloween costume, and food, drinks, and decorations for the first birthday party. This doesn't count fun family activities like corn mazes or apple picking, because they're things that we might have done before baby, even though we definitely made it more of a priority post-baby.

Toys and books - $183.96 This includes a Pikler triangle set (the bulk of the cost), a push walker, a couple of toys, and a ton of books.

Transportation - $41.11 A mirror to see baby in the backseat of the car, and sun shades for the windows

Taxes and fees - $183.96 This category is sort of a catch-all for random, administrative costs. It includes some sales taxes here and there that I didn't count in the cost of the item, but the overwhelming majority of the cost is related to copies of birth certificates, passports, and other documents necessary for getting the passports.

Travel - $389 These costs include a new suitcase for baby's stuff, a travel car seat and protective cover, and baby's portion of our plane ticket (for international travel, babies pay a fee that amounts to 10% of an adult ticket).

Utilities - $834.89 Our landlord pays for water, so this exclusively refers to electricity costs. On average, we used an additional 224 kwh per month compared to the previous year. This increased usage comes primarily from two areas: cloth diaper laundry and keeping the house at a more comfortable temperature for baby. Despite the increased electricity bills due to constant diaper laundry, cloth diapers probably saved us money on utilities; our town charges $2 per small trash bag, so disposable diapers would have increased our annual trash fees by at least $100. Diaper laundry worked out to cost about an additional $6 a month, based on our electric usage increase during months when we didn't have any additional heating or cooling costs. The overwhelming majority of our electricity increase came from heating and cooling. Pre-baby, the house hovered around 62-63 degrees in the winter and 80-85 in the summer (no AC). Post-baby, we keep the house at 66-67 in the winter, and we bought an air conditioner as soon as we realized that we couldn't get the living room below 83 this summer.

TLDR: Well, I hit and exceeded my leanFI, FI, fatFI numbers, met a girl, got married, having a kid soon, and the goalposts shifted.

Charts, because everyone loves charts.

Cool, so this will be my last post on /r/financialindependence.

This journey started Jan 1, 2017. Up until then, my finances had been a disaster. I had a good job. My career had been growing steadily for the past 5 years, but my net worth basically hovered around 0. My job had moved me around the world, from HCOL to VHCOL areas, and it felt like I was pretty much moving to whichever city topped the cost of living chart every year. I had a spending problem.

Electroshock therapy and three years of misery came next. I cut my expenses and lifestyle drastically, my savings rate went as high as 97% and averaged in the 70-80% for years. I impatiently watched my net worth slowly gain traction and inch upward, month by month. By the end of 2019, I hit my first milestone, what I called "survivalFI". I'd be able to live off my savings and survive, even if extremely unglamorously.

COVID hit and the world went crazy. I was working 18 hour days in a 120 sqft studio. Risk markets started going crazy. A combination of significantly increased income and a red-hot market led to me hitting my "LeanFI", "FI" and "FatFI" numbers in quick succession - crossing my initial "FatFI" milestone in May 2023.

So now that I have "fuck you" money, what happened next?

Well, nothing. The goalposts shifted.

I'm not in love with my work, but it does come with some benefits - I'm generally fairly well-renumerated, and my work takes me around the world on the company dime. There's a social aspect of being able to converse with sharp people and talk about markets. I'm not that concerned about losing my job, so I'm enjoying it while it lasts. It probably won't last forever, but I'm not that stressed about it.

My expenses have skyrocketed - getting married, getting a place large enough to raise a family, and new hobbies of "/r/finedining" and "/r/fattravel" have dropped my average savings rate to my target 66%. I plan to hold my savings rate here for the foreseeable future.

I have a child coming next year. How much do I need to raise a family? I don't know, but it'll probably be alright.

Lifestyle inflation? Yeah, absolutely, but you don't win by dying with the high score.

Few parting words:

• It's possible. It'll happen faster than you think.
• There's more to life than the spreadsheet. Don't forget to live along the way.
• Give generously - monetarily and otherwise. If you have more than you need, build a larger table, not a higher fence.
• The older I get, the more I realize relationships matter. If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.
• Was it worth it? Totally. I went a bit crazy in the early years, but built incredible discipline and I saw what I could do if pushed to the limit.

Long time reader of this sub under my regular username. Using a throwaway for this post for privacy reasons. I'd appreciate the group's thoughts on progress thus far. Any observations, insights, criticisms, suggestions, or other constructive feedback are welcome and appreciated.

Also, please post any questions if anything isn't clear. Thank you in advance!

47m, wife is 47 as well. We have 3 children, 15, 11, 11. Own home in MCOL area, worth about $600K and we owe $200K.

Goals and Objectives:

- No set retirement goal. My "goal" is to hang on at work as long as possible. I was at a very stable, privately held company for almost 25 years, a year ago my business unit was sold to a public company. Work environment is much different and not nearly as paternalistic. I have a fear that I will get walked out at some point. So I'm really focused on being in as strong a financial position as I can be, in the event I am let go. While I could likely find a similar role, it might take some time and I'm not sure if I can get the same comp structure I have now.

- I should mention that my wife is not really into the FIRE concept, so this is mainly about my own personal paranoia and just looking for ways to incrementally improve my situation. She won't be on board with saving 60 or 70% of income or anything like that.

- Ideally would like to cover costs of public flagship university in our state for each of our three kids (currently have a total of $160K in 529s).

Income - I make $250K in a typical year. I am likely near career peak, I might get one more promotion, but in today's dollars, my ceiling is likely $300K. Wife works p/t and makes at most $10K annually. We have no desire for her to work full time unless it became absolutely necessary and we understand the tradeoffs associated with that.

Net worth - Current net worth is $2.6m, excluding real estate is approx. $2.2m. Of that, $1.9M is in 401K, IRAs, Roth IRAs, and HSAs.

Net worth over time:

2003 - $0

2008 -$200K

2013 - $500K

2018 - $1.1m

2023 - $2.2m

Current - $2.6m

Savings rates:

Currently save approximately $70K annually in total in retirement accounts. This includes employer contributions, my 401K contributions, HSA, wife's IRA. Additionally, we are saving $15K-$20K annually in our children's 529 accounts. I am generally able to set aside $1K-$2K per month to cash/short-term savings.

Major Expense Categories (annually):

Income Taxes $44K

Housing (Mortgage, Ins., HOA, Taxes, Sewer) $27K

Groceries $10K

Travel $10K

Dining Out $5K

Insurance (all except Homeowners) $15K

Utilities $5K

Healthcare out of pocket $6K

Cell Phones / TV / Internet $5K

Gym / Kids' activities $5K

Car maintenance / Gas $3K

Hi all! I’ve been a long time lurker of this subreddit so wanted to share this exciting milestone since there are not many people I can share this with in real life. Yesterday, after 2 years of contributions and investing, I finally hit 102K invested across all my accounts.

A little bit of context on me. I got a full ride merit scholarship to college, which I decided to take over a few Ivy League schools a few years ago. Looking back, that was the best decision since I would have had to go 6 figures in debt! In college, I did some internships and research and from that I picked around $35K in savings. Plus I’ve maxed out my ROTH IRA for the last 3 years, with the 529 to Roth backdoor since I didn’t have any expenses for college (sometimes, I got paid to go to college).

I just recently started a new Software / AI Job and I get paid around $200Kish per year. With some good investments (around 70% capital gains in ROTH) and around 30% short term and long term capital gains in Individual, I finally hit the milestone. I also automatically contribute to around 10% to 401K ROTH and 10% to 401K Normal.

Right now I have 30% to rent, 10% to food, 10% to fun stuff and extravagance. But I don’t know what to do with the other parts - I just put the other 50% to investments, because I don’t really have too many expenses tbh. I feel like I am living below my means yet that is already extravagant. Would love to get advice plus also share more of my story, since I recognize that not many people are in my position.

Throwaway for anonymity. We are thinking about RE next year and I've been doing a lot of calculations. In the process, I've put together a summary of our financial journey over the years.

Me (39F) and DH (41M), married 17 years, 2 kids.

Total NW>$8M, with ~$500k in primary residence. Withdrawal rate<3%.

Parental support:

• No student loans, no credit card debt.
• In-laws contributed to first home down payment (~$50k).
• My parents gave me $20k at marriage.
• We each had a car purchased by parents (DH VW New Beetle, me Toyota Corolla).

2007:

• Got married.
• Bought first house in suburbs of Seattle for $420,000, paid 20% down (same for all subsequent real estate purchases).
• We both began working in software after graduation. This was before huge tech salaries for new grads, we both made less than 6 figures in our first jobs.
• We didn't know anything about investing, did not max out 401k beyond employer match, paid aggressively into house. We did live below our means.

2010:

• First child born. Daycare and my parents.
• Sold my Corolla. Bought a Subaru Outback (cash).

2012:

• Moved to Bay Area.
• Kept our Seattle suburb house. Hired a PM and rented it out. Positive cash flow.
• Second child born. Hired full-time nanny.
• For the next few years DH switched jobs frequently, rapidly climbing the corporate ladder and increasing his salary. I switched jobs once and salary went up a little.

2013:

• Lived in 3 rentals before buying an old townhouse in Bay Area for $650,000.

2015:

• I discovered FIRE, J L Collins stock series, various influencers, etc.
• Tried to educate DH, turns out money matters largely go in one ear and out the other. But he trusts me with our finances completely.
• Took stock of our assets. NW a bit under $1M, ~$500k liquid. Started tracking expenses, consolidating investments, maxing out 401k, etc.
• MIL passed away from cancer. Left us $90k.
• Rough estimates I had for FIRE was 5-10 years and $2M-$4M.

2016:

• I quit my full-time software job to be a SAHM. Let the nanny go.
• I started working remotely part-time as a translator and educational consultant.
• Paid off the remaining mortgage on our Seattle suburb house.

2017:

• Moved back to Seattle.
• DH left the startup life for the megacorp life.
• Sold our Bay Area townhouse for ~$500k profit.
• Bought very old house near Seattle downtown for $840,000. Did some renovating.
• NW hit $2M

2018:

• Bought investment property near Olympia for $320,000. Positive cash flow.
• Younger child started kindergarten. Both kids in public school.

2019:

• NW hit $3M

2020:

• COVID-19 happened.
• Bought investment property near Raleigh, NC for $220,000. Positive cash flow.
• Losing our minds cooped up in our house. Started house hunting again.
• Bought our (hopefully) forever home an hour south of Seattle for a little over $1M. Did some minor renovations.
• Sold our Seattle house for $1M. With our renovation costs and agent fees we about broke even.

2021:

• Bought a Yamaha boat (cash). We keep it at our house or our own dock so no costs beyond insurance, gas, and yearly maintenance.

2023:

• Bought a Rivian R1T (cash). Installed car charger.
• Installed central AC in house and some minor renovations.
• NW hit $6M

2024:

• Enrolled children in private school.
• NW hit $8M

Hopefully the next step will be RE!

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Hello everyone! 42M married and 2 kids.

I’ve been recently laid off, but I’m really enjoying not working. So then I started toying around with the idea that what if I just don’t go back to work and we just use my wife’s income to sustain our lifestyle, it’s not enough but covers daily needs.

Yes, I was foolish with the cash I had. I left it an account making 5% instead of investing it in the market.

House : 900k CAD paid off 2 newer cars paid off

Canada: RRSP: $615k Cash: $150k Rental:$100k (200k mortgage)

US: Rentals paid off total $700k 401k/Roth: $750k Cash: $175k

Wife makes around $50K. And rentals make around $4k per month if the stuff doesn’t go sideways - it always does!

We also have whole life insurance at $150k cash value each.

We live pretty modestly, besides the one big $20,000 trip every year. We just got back from Patagonia!

I tried running some simulations and it looks like I will fall well short of the needed $75000 after taxes if the wife stops working. I assumed the kids would have 100 K in University fees each.

I want to go back to work just to make up the kids universities cost. Am I crazy or can I make do with what I got? Am I even close to FIRE? The calculations say I am 9’years off.

Age 50. Single. No dependents. I am getting laid off in January. I am not up to getting another tech job. Market is tough. I also get crippling back pain sitting in front of a desk.

Assets: $3m liquid. Does not include Home Equity.

Expenses: About $5k/month before the new and more expensive medical insurance plans and deductibles.

Tools I use(do you recommend any others)

Karstens safe withdrawal toolbox (says 3.3% is safe for me).

Empower: To pull in all my accounts and my credit cards.

Boldin: Going to buy this. seen good reviews for it on youtube as a retirement tool. Its $120/year. This also has a model for Roth Conversions.

Things I did: Reached out to an accountant that got good reviews. its a holiday week so have not heard back yet.

Concerns: I have never sold a security. I always just did buy and hold. General cut off of pay and benefits. Its scary.

Big Concerns: how to manage withdrawals? I have 2 buckets. Stock index funds, and fixed securities, like bonds, bank account, HYSA, and a tax free bond fund.

Do you withdraw the same amount each month?

Edit: Thank you for all the helpful advice. I have just done buy and hold for 20 years. I have literally never sold a stock. I got lucky. I average 12%/year for the last 10 years.

After watching Bill Bengen's latest appearance on the Afford Anything podcast, I was a bit confused about his (and others) take on the Equity Glide path into retirement. Essentially the change I'm starting to see is where people are being advised to work up to a high percentage of equities mid-late retirement.

This confuses me for a few reasons. I'm assuming the majority of retirees prioritize not running out of money over dying with a large nest egg, so I would think most retirees would prefer the more conservative approach of less equities over more. Given that there is a non-zero chance of another Great Depression (90%+ drop) in their retired life, isn't this something not worth risking? I would think that factor alone should discourage any retiree from risking their hard-earned life savings on an equity-heavy portfolio when they have enough to retire with their current savings on HYSA + Bonds.

I also wonder, as there is another factor at play. Two of the biggest risks to the stock market in the future are:

1. Boomers retiring at a large rate currently, with large equity portfolios, and pulling all that money out of the market for their retirement - thus driving equities down.

2. Low birth rates, ensuring not enough buyers into the market as we look towards the future.

Advising retirees to go back into the market in large numbers helps solve issue #1 - do we think that is a potential factor at play here (greater good theory over best option for the individual)? I understand the concerns about inflation for a bond/cash portfolio, but that is far more gradual than major stock losses, leaving time for the retiree to adjust.

Overall, just looking into hearing some more of the logic to Equity Glide paths.

Thanks in advance!

My spouse has worked for the same tech startup (ish, they have about 100-200 employees) for 2.5 years without a single raise. The two years of signing bonus are now paid out, so we are looking at an income drop beyond just inflation in 2025.

However, they like the job ok and the salary, plus mine, means we still put 40%+ of gross income into investments for early retirement (on track for 9-12 more years).

Do they rock they boat by pushing for a raise? If fired, finding a similar job is nearly impossible. However, no raise means even the decent salary isn't the same purchasing power as it was when hired.

On the flip side, our path to FI is still on track and would take much longer if their job was lost. So, rock the boat or not?

(mods, if this is too far off topic, please remove with my apologies)

My husband's 20yo car finally gave up the ghost, and now that we have two kids, we need to buy a reasonable/safe family car (used, of course). So hooray, we have emergency funds ready to go! But which sources make the most sense to draw down for this purchase?

Used car that we're looking at - $30,000ish

Option 1 - working cash in our checking account ($15,000)

Option 2 - Money market account where we keep an extra 4 months of expenses ($20,000)

Option 3 - Vested stock from my employer that I was planning to dump anyway ($16,000)

Option 4 - HSA accounts($17,000 in unreimbursed expenses I could turn in)

Option 5 - Sell some stock in our taxable brokerage account ($30,000 where long term cap gains would apply)

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

I am a 29m. My net worth is about $500k usd, only including financial assets and cash equivalents.

I mainly buy what some call asset allocation / life cycle funds, 80% equity and 20% fixed income.

I am scared of a company like microstrategy being included in the index and am considering a few options:

• switch to the most conservative lifecycles fund (80% fixed income, 20% equity)

• switch to value and international equity index funds only (e.g. FLCOX,SCHV, FTIHX)

• switch to actively managed funds

I really dont want to do any of this, but if my 80% equity is going to be highly concentrated in 7 stocks and be exposed to crypto, I think I'm out. I only need a 4% rate of return to reach my financial goals given my current savings and expected contributions. Why not just go most conservative if they will add a company like microstrategy into the index.

Seeing some posts on this topic, I thought I'd share ours too, as our background and income are a bit different from those who have already posted.

My wife and I recently crossed €500k in our brokerage account. We are SI1K, I am the sole breadwinner, and in addition to my salary, we also have some rental income. The rental income is sufficient to cover the mortgage on our home, with some leftover. My income is about €95k gross per year (incl. the bonuses), and our combined net worth, based on my calculations and property value estimations, is around €800k (brokerage, rental propery, home - remaning mortgage, paid off cars, cash)

We both come from modest backgrounds, we didn't inherit anything and didn't receive any notable financial support from our families. What I did receive was some equity from the company I worked for previously and the company I’m currently with. When exit events occurred, I sold the equity and transferred the windfall (~€200k in total for two events) to our brokerage account, using part of it as a down payment for our home. I still have some equity that will be sold as soon as they vest.

Our savings rate used to be over 70%, but then COVID happened, we had a baby, bought a single-family home, inflation skyrocketed, and I took up an expensive hobby: collecting tools (and doing some woodworking with them). Now, our savings rate is around 40%, which I think is still quite good.

Our investments are in all world index ETFs mainly WVCE. WVCE and chill, baby! :)

We live in the Balkans, where the pension system is slowly collapsing. While I’m required to contribute, I consider it money thrown out the window.

I’m 41 now, and my goal is to leave the grind and corporate life behind in about 10 years. After that, I plan to focus on something more enjoyable and less stressful.

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!

Have a look at the FAQ for this subreddit before posting to see if your question is frequently asked.

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It's done. Still seems hard to believe and surreal and I'm sure it's going to take a while to really sink in. At age 53, after roughly 25 years of spending less than we earn and investing the difference, I've decided this is it. I was able to arrange a layoff so that I'll get severance until next June and health benefits until next April before we switch over to my wife's healthcare plan. She wants to keep working for now but we'll see how long that lasts.

It really works. We started doing most of the things that people talk about here many years ago before people were using the "FIRE" terminology. We almost always maxed our 401k accounts (not quite at the beginning with lower incomes and not near the end as compounding started doing most of the work), we spent less than we earned, we bought things on sale and always tried to moderate our spending. We didn't deprive ourselves of everything along the way but we also didn't live extravagantly. By most people's measures, they'd say we were living pretty good. I guess it's all relative.

Final net worth number at retirement: $3.7M. It has really shot up over the last few years. I've posted previously about our net worth progression if you want to check my post history. Basically it took us about 17 years to hit the first million, (1998-2015), 4 years to hit $2M, 3 years to hit $3M and now we are at about $3.7M. Salaries started at about $32K for me and less for my wife. She also took a few years off when our child was born. At the end my salary had climbed to $155K and my wife is at $75K. It certainly got easier as our salaries increased but we made sure not to let our lifestyle inflate too much along with the salaries. We also never carried a credit card balance and started paying cash for pretty much everything, cars included, many years ago. (We focused on reliable Honda's and Toyota's) It's amazing how cheaply you can live once your house is paid off and you have no other debt. I recognize it's more difficult to do that now. We were lucky to be in GenX where you could still buy a house for a reasonable price. That certainly helped our net worth progression but it wasn't the only reason we were successful.

Thanks to everyone's contributions here. I've learned a ton from the community and I think having everyone reinforcing the right strategies and methods and sharing knowledge helps us all. Cheers! I'll be around and hope to document the peaks and valleys and share how our investments are either supporting our lifestyle or are falling short.

My wife and I (both 32 DINK) just hit $500k total invested. Target retirement is 55 for me, sooner for wife. Our AGI is roughly $160k. Approaching a net worth of $1M but not quite there yet.

Both my wife and I have had good upbringings (middle class families, two parents, born in US, MCOL). We have not received any large financial gifts or inheritance or anything, but we also didn't have anything holding us back. Planned to have kids, but that isn't in the picture due to medical reasons, so making the most out of life now. I am an engineer, wife decided to take a lower stress job taking care of plants.

401k 1: 296k

401k 2: 6k

Roth IRA 1: 108k

Roth IRA 2: $17k

HSA: 26k

Brokerage: $49k

All investments are in FSKAX (63.6%) and FTIHX (36.4%) or equivalent 401k funds to mirror the index funds.

I have thus far been committed to the low-fee index fund investment style, and it is working well.

But extrapolating out across the decades, and assuming everything continues to go well, should my strategy change at some point? I vaguely intend to shift some of my portfolio to lower-risk investments at some point, but that also requires little in the way of active management.

Is there a point where getting a financial advisor/manager makes sense? Do other investment vehicles become more useful when you reach a certain threshold?

Ever since I was a child, I have always been aware that there were financial problems in the family. It wasn't like there was no food on the table, it was like my dad made a lot of money but spent frivolously and had a lot of debt. And my mom would skimp and skimp and while on the outside it looked like we were a rich family, in reality I rarely got any toys or dolls I asked for.

By the time I was 18 the family money had run out, I was more aware than ever that when it came time for my parents to retire they would look to me and my sibling for money. I worked very hard in school and had a part-time job throughout undergrad and grad, there were times when I would leave an exam early to go to a job, or even spend exam time catching up on sleep. Those were very difficult years where I barely socialized or did anything that needed money, every single cent I earned I socked away into a savings account. Luckily I had a lot of scholarships and had a positive net worth gain when I was done with university. But I was already planning to FIRE, all I wanted was to stop worrying about money. I hated the idea that I needed to work to deserve basic necessities, I felt strongly that housing and food should be a human right and I was going to secure that for myself.

I'm now 32, I'm on track to make 300k in 2025 (it's my current salary), and my net worth just hit 600k with the recent bull run. I've only been working full time for 6 years and I started with a 55k salary so that's why my net worth doesn't reflect my income. I live comfortably in a VHCOL city, spending 30% of my take home pay. However, due to some bad luck with landlords, I'm being harassed to the point of having to move out for my mental health. My friends (I have many now, yay) encouraged me to go for something that makes me happy instead of the cheapest thing on the market. After a lot of math, I realized that the difference between picking the cheapest thing and the one I love only results in a few months's difference in FI timeline - assuming similar spend in "retirement". However, now it seems I will be spending 50% of my take home on expenses (not counting equities and bonuses, only guaranteed base pay).

So I decided that this would be a good time for me to learn how to enjoy money, maybe save less money, but actually focus on the present, because who knows how long this life will last. Also, after living with myself for 32 years, I'm sure I will find something to do even in retirement that will end up being another career. It's just in my nature. I understand now that this is the lesson I need to learn the the path I need to take. However - how do I actually get there? How do I actually be happy and enjoy myself? It's so odd that I know this is logically that this is the right decision but emotionally it feels _wrong_.

I'm not looking for financial advice, however, has anyone gone through this before? How do you learn to enjoy the fruits of your labour?

I apologize if anyone is offended by this post - I acknowledge that I have a lot of privilege, I know this is a first world problem. I know that when I was struggling in my 20s, this is the type of problem I wish I could have instead.

TLDR: parents bad with money, grew up with financial anxiety, spent 20s struggling with bare necessities, 32 now and making good money but feel bad about spending more than what I'm used to. How to actually enjoy myself and align my emotional experience with the reality?

40 M - have 2 M in savings including taxable brokerage (0.7 M), 401K, HSA, Roth IRA and 529. Expenses are high with 2 young kids in private daycare (transitioning to public school next year). This year we had almost 160k expenses including mortgage, child care, car loans and one-time home renovation and family celebration long international travel (totaling 50k). Income (my and my spouse) is combined 320k ( my income 170K). I am really struggling in my job and not able to keep my mental health in check. Honestly, I have lost all motivation. I tried switching companies, but faced hard luck in final stages of interviews and market is tough. I have been working on a side business plan in a field where we can grow it slowly and can give me good satisfaction. I have a strong desire to take a year off and fully develop and launch this- 6-12 months is realistic to do this. I am not able to convince myself fully to take the plunge for fear of uncertainty and it is further stressing me out. My spouse still plans to work and we can get our expenses down to 100-120k by cutting down on discretionary. Do we have enough cushion to support my break for 1-2 years where income would be tight? On the emotional side, has anyone done something like this and have win stories?

What is your favorite Retire Early calculator that allows you to break your retirement into blocks to figure out what you really need?

I want to retire at 55.

I will need to pay for private medical insurance until medicare eligibility at 65. I would like to assume medical will be 10% of my expenses during this period.

At 67 my retirement income will increase with social security.

At 74 my mortgage will be paid off, cutting expenses by 3k a month.

At 85-90 I will sell my property freeing up that money for rent/care. I want to assume death at 100. I don't desire to leave money (though obviously it's best to have a buffer).

Any direction to a calculator that will let me play with those factors?

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FIRE + fed employee with a family?

46M fed employee and just reached ~500K in investments and $705K NW. Spouse is 45 and we have a 7 year old.

I realize this isn’t the “reached 500K or 1M investments in my 20s or 30s” post, but I wanted to put this out there as an alternative, perhaps more realistic example. I only started working and contributing to a work retirement account in 2008, so I’ve been working for about 16 years. I spent my 20s pursuing a professional, advanced degree which ironically has nothing to do with my current career (although I do maintain and renew that license annually) and my early 30s digging myself out of student loan and CC debt.

Annual income is 154,226 (gross as of 2023) and I’m the sole earner, working two jobs for ~60 hours/week ever since our son was born. My wife also has contributed so much, sacrificing her career to raise our son until he was able to enter public school at 5 years old; he’s an academically advanced kid for his age, and we supplement his public school experience with various enrichment programs to keep him challenged. Crossing fingers he’ll be eligible for ample scholarships when the time comes for higher education. That being said, I realize I do need to start funneling funds towards a 529.

As a federal employee, I’ve often wondered how FIRE would work in our situation, but roughly I’d love to be able to leave federal employment as early as 57 with postponed retirement and apply to retire at 62 to lock in the medical benefits (assuming my wife is employed by then) The FERS pension also keeps me wanting to stay on until at least 57. I've also considered working until 60 when I'm eligible for full retirement or at the typical age of 62, although I’m not really sure I want to work until that age. (Pension boost at 62 versus 60 is tempting)

I’m really looking forward to cutting back hours as my wife eventually wants to re-enter the workforce, but until then, I’ll keep the same work schedule.

Assets:

· HYSA: ~15000

· Home equity (~192K)

· Two vehicles (approximate total value $13K), and yes I drive a Toyota Corolla.

Liabilities:

· Mortgage (~$256K [2.63 interest rate, 30 yr fixed])

Investments

. • primarily in low fee index funds

    • TSP - Roth TSP with blend of C, S, and I (heavily weighted C)

    • 403(b) traditional (aggressive 2040 target date fund) 
     
     • Vanguard Roth IRA (100% VFIAX)
    

https://imgur.com/a/e6NykUB

Hey y'all!

My partner and I are busy full-time workers in tech with a kiddo at home. This has made us incredibly busy, and made it really hard to find the time to do as much management of our finances as we used to. Pre-kid, I would monitor every transaction on Mint ensuring it was properly categorized, and would review monthly or so to evaluate spending trends and etc. Post-kid, expense tracking (and frankly, expenses) have gone out the window, because I can't sit down at the computer/phone for more than 2 minutes before the kid needs something or wants to play. We also don't have a great sleeper, so there's not that much time after he goes to bed, and it's mostly spent unwinding.

I'm sure any advice would apply to extremely busy non-parents too.

What should we prioritize and make time for when it comes to keeping tabs on our finances? If you had (or have) extremely limited time, what would you make sure you do, and what techniques would you use to do it?

Frankly, I think we're getting pretty close to our FIRE number, probably within 2-3 years of possible FIRE, but I don't have time to sit down and plan for it properly, and even if I made time I'm not sure what the essential things to do would be with that time!

We currently:

• Use Quicken Simplifi, make sure to maintain it such that all accounts we own are linked, and make sure we check it once or twice a month. This makes sure we don't miss when a credit card annual fee has posted, or fraudulent transactions haven't been missed.
• Do a very short financial pow-wow twice a month (after each paycheck cycle) to move money around and decide how much to put in our long-term savings/brokerage account, and rebalance via new contributions
• Have the majority of our savings or regular expenses (Retirement, setting aside daycare payments/property tax/home insurance/etc, HSA, IRA) on automatic transfers or paycheck deductions
• Yearly, we:
  • Invest in things that need annual contributions like IRA
  • Do some high-level evaluations of how much we spent (basically, W2 income minus taxes & retirement contributions minus known savings contributions from account statements... whatever's left is what we spent)
  • Do essential tax estimation and planning (e.g., are we going to owe the IRS a lot of money in April? Do we need to set aside some money to pay them?)
  • Generally check up on account balances and take a look at our net worth

What essential steps do others do? For the steps you take, how do you do them as time-efficiently as possible? (We're happy to spend money on tools if they helped us do essential planning more quickly). We're totally lacking in any forecasting, future-looking planning steps... we are very mathematically/financially savvy but just lack the time to do stuff...

Anyone have any good case studies or lessons learned for reaching FI by way of rental real estate? This is the path I’m on, and while I’ve made some decent progress, I’m looking for something to help me take that next “step up”.

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 hoping for some advice from the FI community. I strongly dislike my current role and am wondering if I can use some FI leverage I've built to change the situation.

I received a PhD in Physics in 2022. I was hired for my first job soon after and worked at that company for 1.5 years. It was a really great experience. The work was interesting, I had hybrid work, autonomy, and a path to greater responsibility. I could have seen myself spending over 5 years there.

However, my partner and I did not want to live in the location. So I applied to new positions and eventually received an offer for my current role. I started earlier this year.

It's been a definite downgrade. Our engineering team is understaffed. There are restrictive policies I can't go into here that make work life and home life more difficult than they need to be. Work is fully on-site, which isn't the worst thing, but it is a downgrade. It's also a younger, smaller team, which adds to the expectation and social pressure to take on too much, even to one's own detriment. It's a pressure cooker, and people sometimes snap angrily at each other.

Our net worth is about $500k. We have no kids. It makes me think I just don't need to put up with this. We've been pursuing FI, and even though we're not there yet, it might be time to pull some of that leverage. I know most people would say to just put up with stuff like this, but the whole point of FI is to challenge common advice like that. And I know for a fact that better situations exist.

Does this sound like a situation where I suck it up? Or move on? Does our net worth change the calculus on this question?

Summary of stats for partner and I are below. Don't want to give exact numbers, but it's close enough for folks to offer advice.

Ages: Both about 30 years old

Marital status: Engaged

Kids: None. Maybe in 5 years. Not in a rush. Open to adoption.

Assets: $520k ($470k invested)

Debt: $500-1000 on credit cards, paid off in full each month. No mortgage.

Expenses: About $65k per year (rent is about $2k/mo)

Gross Income: $130k (me) and $75k (partner)

Hi everyone

I posted four years ago about my first £1 million. Since then, I've continued to invest religiously my post-tax income into SP500 and FTSE All World index funds. I also bought a flat two years ago, and include the money I put in the flat (not interest, stamp duty or fees) into my net worth. And today, lo and behold, I am now 44 and my net worth crossed £2 million for the first time ever.

All that to say Warren Buffet is right. Being boring and saving regularly into index funds works. And, indeed, time in the market beats timing the market.

If you’re interested, I tracked the rate at which I made my investments on a U.K. tax year basis (the year ends on 5 April - so 2021 means investments made between 6 April 2020 and 5 April 2021).

2007 £7,000.00

2008 £21,000.00

2009 £8,700.00

2010 £14,200.00

2011 £10,200.00

2012 £21,179.15

2013 £60,053.32

2014 £21,000.00

2015 £34,883.34

2016 £66,490.03

2017 £99,640.00

2018 £70,000.00

2019 £60,000.00

2020 £134,357.07

2021 £151,153.34

2022 £136,125.00

2023 £77,060.45

2024 £69,446.63

2025 £79,183.23

Happy to answer questions, but I don't have much wisdom to share, apart from trusting the process and being consistent.

I don't have anyone to share this with, and felt like doing it with likeminded people...

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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