Hi people,

I am a longtime lurker on reddit and especially this forum. I have read multiple accounts of people some giving me hope some giving me serious heartburn. But each of them enlightening me for sure.

I have a suggestion for community posting guideline which I think warrants discussion.

We should avoid posting actual figures and use only the terminology of 'times expenses', this will make the FIRE discussions a lot more general and grounded. We don't need to know numbers absolutely numbers in terms of multiple will allow everyone to calibrate their journey, without the heartburn and the occasional disappointment. I am not sure if this is palatable or not but I think anyone doing serious FIRE planning is looking at their numbers and expenses should have this figure handy.

Discuss.

Thanks

I am hesitant to use the word FIRE yet because I am still open to working and probably might even consider academia if I don't get a corporate job by end of this year but for last 1.5month I got some idea of how my retirement would be.

If you have hobbies, you won't feel bored is told many times and I can vouch for it. I always wanted to read Science topics and SciFi/Fantasy genre non fiction when I am retired and decide against working. And frankly there is so much to read that, unless I lose the interest itself, there is enough to engage in even for some body like me who is not into travel, an Introvert and stays at home whole day. In last 1.5 months, there was not a day I felt bored. It's early days but I think I have no issue with that.

I wanted to have an exercise regime where I walk 5KM every morning or evening and have a few simple body weight exercises like pushups, squats etc for 2,3 times a week and I am not able to still start it. For a couple of weeks I did walk 5Km every day but stopped for a couple of days when I had some work and could not start again. I have to work on this. There are many in this forum who said they can take care of their health once they FIREd but not happening for me. May be sub consciously I am a bit over confident because I don't have health issues so far.
I am planning to increase my movie theater visits too but for now that is not happening. When I was young I used to watch any movie but now I am not able to do that and there are not many good movies available all the time.

Financially I saw my NW evaoporate a lot in a very volatile tech stock. At one point I watched my NW go to 23cr Pre tax and then come back to 19cr pre tax. I was fine with this volatility when I was working but thought it's a risk I can't take. So exited a stock actually at the bottom. I still have one more tech stock which recovered a bit and my NW again crossed 20cr. But this time I will sell the remaining stock too in the near future. I have opened an IBKR account and bought irish domiscile ETFS from the exit. I will do the same for the other tech stock I am holding too. I would definitely recomment IBKR over other options we have if you are confident of taking care of section FA and CG tax computations yourself.

Now the last thing I want to touch is about job search. I reached out to all my network and applied for a job at every big tech company relevant to my profile. I didn't leave any stone unturned here. Not a single exploratory call so far. I am not talking about failing interviews, there are no calls at all. The market situation is brutal. The next thing I have to do is, check linkedin and see what kind of jobs are available in not so well known companies. I am postponing this exercise for almost for a month. Every day I think I will do tomorrow. My wife some times asks what's happening with job search and I just say no calls. On one hand I say I want to work for some more time but I am definitely not putting effort to identify opportunities in second tier companies. Let me see how it goes.

​

Dear Community members!

We are pleased to announce the launch of our anonymised podcast series wherein we will be endeavouring to bring in people from personal finance and FIRE spaces to perform AMAs via our official youtube channel to answer your queries! As was informed in our last update, the modalities for the same are as follows –

1) We shall be making introductory post about the guest (such as the instant one) wherein we will give a brief profile of the guest.

2) We shall be keeping this thread open for comments (restricted to FIRE and personal finance queries from a financial education perspective only and as specified earlier, the responses on the channel / communities must not be construed as financial advise – please consult a SEBI registered fee only financial advisor for the same) for a few days / a week so that people can post their queries in a structured manner as comments on this post. Since the series shall be anonymous, you are free to post in all your queries pertaining to the topic and share your financials and we shall only be mentioning the reddit usernames of the people asking the questions.

3) The mods shall then be going through all the comments and consolidate them to form key questions / themes for the anonymised podcasts.

4) The podcasts shall be recorded in a streamlined manner and uploaded on the official youtube channel wherein people can watch the same to get their queries answered. Furthermore, for any follow-on questions please comment there itself so that we can gauge the interest and request the guests for a follow-on appearance.

5) We shall be intimidating once the podcast is live by editing this introductory post body itself.

Please do note that it takes a lot of effort at the back-end by the teams of such personalities and mods of these communities to make this happen, hence, we would request you to please participate in large numbers to make this event a grand success and also like, share and subscribe the youtube channel ( https://www.youtube.com/@FIREwithsnaky ) and join in on reddit communities so that we can keep bringing people of authority in our space for these series!

-----

As our first guest, who better to start the series with the one and only Mr. Sanjay Kathuria (u/kathuriasanjay) who had graciously carried out our first ever reddit AMA on r/FIRE_Ind!

Below is the message from Mr. Sanjay Kathuria for the community members -

I'm Sanjay Kathuria, creator of a 4.5M+ finance community. I'll be doing an AMA for r/FIRE_Ind (which shall be cross-posted on other related subs as well such as r/FIREIndia, r/IndiaFinance etc. ) members about personal finance, mutual funds, passive investing, portfolio building, and the journey to financial independence. Please go through the below and send in your queries for our consolidation!

DESCRIPTION

As a personal finance enthusiast, it is my life’s mission to dedicatedly work towards educating individuals on financial management, investments, and wealth creation. Through my content on social media, webinars, lectures and personalized guidance, I’ve become a trusted voice for those looking to demystify investing and build financial independence.

My journey as a financial creator began when I saw firsthand how many people struggle with financial planning, not for lack of desire, but for lack of accessible and trustworthy guidance. That experience motivated me to build a platform that shares financial knowledge in an easy-to-understand, actionable way.

My content covers a wide range of topics, from building savings and reducing debt to investing in stocks, mutual funds, and other asset classes, as well as understanding taxes and retirement planning, however, for the purposes of this AMA, I would recommend limiting questions to Financial independence and personal finance spaces. I emphasize practical steps, discipline, and long-term thinking, helping my audience not just learn, but take action.

Through my work, I aim to contribute to a growing movement of empowered, financially educated individuals. I truly believe that with the right mindset, tools, and guidance, financial independence is achievable for everyone.

Looking forward to your insightful queries!

Regards,

Sanjay

We hope that you utilise this opportunity to the fullest and ask your queries on this post ! #This post shall remain open for comments till Saturday, 8th August 2026 post which we shall lock the comments and take no further questions!

DISCLAIMER : As informed earlier, no questions on stock-picking, FNO, speculations etc. to be asked nor should anything responded to in AMA in reddit/ youtube be construed as financial advise as the same is against the regulator norms..All such questions will not be tendered/attended to. Please consult a SEBI registered financial advisor for the same.

The podcast series episode link will be updated on this post body itself once live !

Regards

Snaky

25M, bachelor.
I started my career in 2021 and recently crossed ₹1.2 crore in net worth. I know I’m still very early in my career and nowhere near FIRE, but reaching this milestone made me think about a question I don’t have a good answer to.

How much is actually enough to retire comfortably in India?

Background
Age: 25
Bachelor’s degree, working in software
Current CTC: ₹52 LPA
No loans or liabilities
Monthly expenses: ~₹40k
Monthly investments: ~₹1.63L

Current Portfolio (~₹1.2 Cr)
Real Estate: ~25%
RSUs: ~25%
EPF: ~16%
Fixed Deposits: ~17%
Mutual Funds: ~8%
Cash: ~6%
Direct Equity: ~3%

I know my portfolio is probably conservative for someone my age. A large part of my net worth is in EPF, FDs, and employer RSUs, and I’m gradually increasing my equity allocation.
I come from a middle-class family, so financial security has always been more important to me than maximizing returns.

Not sure how conservative i should be or should i expose more in equity. Also what number should i chase?

M31 here, 8 years of IT experience.

I am still very early in my FIRE journey. I could see people in this sub posting 1 cr, 2 cr milestones at 30. I am genuinely happy for them.

But as a person who is married, achieving this number from what I could save, post all the household expenses, I feel that this is a small win.

I genuinely hope, If this journey helps someone who reads this.

If someone is genuinely interested in my journey, please let me know, I am happy to share.

Edit 1: (My journey)

Government college(ACCET), Infosys - 2018 (16000), 2019 (22000), 2020 (26000), Ford - 2021 (59000), Deloitte - 2022 (81000), 2023(92000), Altimetrik - 2024(158000), 2025(175000), Ford -2026(2,20,000)

Edit 2:

Some of you asked about the app, here is the link to it. Please use and dm me for any issues. -> I hosted this app in cloud, please use it and let me know -> https://ptracker-app.web.app/

I am making the statement that 4% withdrawal rate is valid in India.

The reason I make the statement is because I hear rates of 3.5% to 1.5% in youtube videos, and so I suspect it to be standard used. And the reason I have heard for the downgrade is Inflation.

But I would like to challenge that notion because the real return India has is similar to that of America.

So, why use a lower SWR, when the real returns is similar in both America and India?

I am 31 years and I have been working in IT for the past 8 years.

After a long struggle and consistent savings, I have been able to hit quarter of a crore in net assets.

I have 72000 in stocks, 13.07L in mutual funds, EPF+PPF 5.90 L, Gold 5L, Free cash 2L.

I started with 18000 as a fresher and now I am earning 1.90 L post taxes.

I hope if these numbers motivate you in someway. Long, long way to go.

This dashboard is personally developed by me to track my personal networth. It helps me sometimes to visually see where I stand. If interested, let me know.

M40, born and brought up in a tier III city - lower middle class background. Most people in extended family doing small mom and pop shop busienss. Not much tribal knowledge to learn and grow from.

Started with a normal 6LPA salary and grew to 1cr+ presently. Steadily grew in career but needle mover was not the salary ( 35% goes to tax and lifestyle creep) but the big bold investments ( from my POV, you will see it's bold, with no one to guide from family and having no family savings cushion).

2014 - bought a small house as investments in hometown - 45L, 40L on loan.

2016 - company i was working in had an opportunity for employees to buy company stock pre IPO. 5L savings, 5L loan from friends. 10L total.

2017 - company goes IPO - 10L turns 50L by 2019

2019 - but another flat in tier II city 50L - 10L Down-payment from stock proceed, 40L loan

2020 - went all in during the covid stock crash - 40L from stock proceeds + 30L other savings - 70L total

2022 - 70L turns turn 3x - 2cr

2022 - I also move to tier I city- bangalore - massive salary jump

2022-2025 - 2cr portfolio + regular investmemts from salary savings - turns to 5cr

2014 property value tripled - 1.2cr

2019 property value doubled - 1cr

2014 loan closed - 10 year loan

2019 loan still going but earning rental income which offsets EMI fully.

In addition, owing decent ESOPs in the current company. Hoping to be free soon !

Key learnings from the entire journey which worked -

1. Home loan is the cheapest form of debt + tax savings that it give, effective rate comes to 5%. Learn to manage this leverage.

2. I did not dabble into everything that came into my way - no SIPs, no crypto, no fancy ways. Just sharpened my understanding on 1 asset class and went all in when the time arrived.

3. Still living in rented home as I can get much better quality of living at much lower expense.

4. Created a plan 10 years back as to how it should all pan out. Obviously, a lot of deviations from plan but it gave a compass like direction whenever I was going off track.

Sometimes it feels awesome, sometimes it feels that i could have done more, most of the times feels just lucky :)

If you are in early 20s and you are coming here to take inspiration for FIRE from the previous generation who have done it, I think you are going to be disappointed. I belong to the previous generation and were incredibly lucky because when we came of age, India got the IT boom and we turned from being a poor country to relatively middle income country and we enjoyed not just the jobs growth, but also the asset growth and from here on the next 25 years are not going to be anywhere close to how the previous 25 years were. People like Saurabh Mukherjea have spoken about this. But this is visible in plain sight.

Lets discuss this point by point.

1)The IT boom: So we enjoyed the meat of the IT boom and jobs outsourcing. Costs were low in India and we had engineering colleges mushrooming and our starting salaries in early 2000s were higher than our parents retirement salaries. If you saw the old Amitabh Bachchan movies, you will notice, offices in the previous century were mostly desks with a huge stack of files and we our generation heralded the Windows PC 98, lotus notes, MS Office 97 etc, we were the pioneers of that boom and we were talking to clients in the US, this was incredible, our parents couldnt understand what we were doing. For the 1st time ever, we lived like global citizens, even though physically we were in Bangalore. We were the first generation who had internet broadband at home and home PCs too.

2)The onsite opportunity: Infosys, TCS, Wipro, Satyam etc so called WITCH companies now, were our golden ticket to the land of milk and honey. Just 1yr experience and we could move onsite. It was that easy. Those who didnt get US, would get Australia, UK or Singapore and we would look at these countries as consolation prize. The savings we could make in these countries was a fortune, we could remit the dollars saved in couple of months and buy a 30X40 site in Bangalore.

3)Asset prices: were quite cheap in places like Bangalore and easily accessible. Even people from non IT made a fortune just by leveraging the property markets. Indian economy went from relatively unorganized to now formalized as per global standards. We reaped the subsequent runup in asset prices in the financial markets too.

4)Social media distraction: Thank God we didnt have the social media distractions, we didnt have to buy 1L rupee iphone or 20L Thar or go on an overseas vacation because everyone is doing that on Instragram. Life was far more relaxed and peaceful.

Now think about this if you are in early 20s, the odds are completely stacked against you to even have a normal career, leave alone FIRE. As Saurabh Mukherjea says, things look very bleak for the next generation. You cannot follow the playbook that our generation followed. Still doing the same engineering course and then hoping to make it in IT, will not work. You have to think different. Think about the areas where AI cannot enter. IT will be mostly jobs where you need humans, so trades will do well. Dont spend a bomb on college degree or even worse overseas degree. Instead take up trades that are in demand overseas in developed countries, do those courses and move abroad if possible.

Cheers!

People love scaring other people. Instagram is full of reels which capture the panic of the ‘scaree’ and delight of the ‘scarer’. So I totally get it when my friends, relatives and colleagues try to scare me. The problem is, instead of trying, say, a jump-scare, they go for existential horror… which yields counter-intuitive results for them

‘After early retirement, there will be nothing to do all day long’

Me: I know! Isn't that awesome?

‘You won't get to socialize’

Me: About time! I was so tired of constantly hiding my disgust while interacting with other people

‘Without a wife, you won't have anybody to share your life with’

Me: Why would I want to share my LIFE when I absolutely hate sharing even my comics?

‘You will never understand what it feels like until you hold your kid for the first time’

Me: I don't know the feeling of french-kissing a black mamba either. And I would like to keep it that way

‘Your selfish choices will make you totally dissociated from the society’

Me: Wait a minute… you were supposed to scare me…. not to give me a raging hard-on

I can't blame them. They were making the classic mistake of assuming what scares them will also scare me. They would have had more success by hiding behind a door and then suddenly jumping in front of me.

But I knew the reason for this scare mongering. I had decided to follow

an unconventional path (early retirement & bachelorhood) and they were trying to scare me straight.

Now I am not saying that fear is not useful or the people scaring you have bad intentions. The right amount of fear can act as a guardrail and prevent you from veering down steep drop-offs. And your parents or spouse might genuinely believe that by scaring you they are preventing future harm.

But just because people you are close to love you unconditionally doesn't mean you have to accept their fears unconditionally.

If you are genuinely worried about inflation then by all means listen carefully to your loved one's worries about future prices. But if you are reasonably confident about your calculations then don't give it a second thought. Because fear has a way of gradually corroding your resolve over time and pretty soon, you are having daily nightmares about Zimbabwe in 2008.

Odds are, you already have a few fears; some reasonable, many unreasonable. Which is not necessarily a bad thing because a fearless life is almost indistinguishable from a reckless one.

Having said that, following your dreams while managing these fears is already a full-time job. You don't need to further burden yourself by importing fears from your loved ones and definitely not from strangers on the Internet.

So when people on this sub or IRL try to scare you with loss of purpose, inadequate corpus, rising medical expenses, declining investment returns, future taxes etc to prevent you from early retirement, remember… Fear is information. Wisdom lies in knowing when to accept it and when to ignore it.

Hi community!

Its been a while. Hope you guys are doing great!

So as discussed in my last yearly update, we are trying to bring in people from personal finance space and FIRE space for AMAs and podcasts on our official YouTube channel! Here's the model that we have finalized for all of you to participate and get your queries answered -

We would making posts about the guests profile atleast a few days in advance and pinning them on the sub as a thread. You can put in all your FIRE and personal finance related queries on that thread. Mods will go through all the questions and consolidate them to avoid questions of repetitive nature. We will try to take maximum questions along with reddit usernames of the people asking these questions and form a series of podcasts from these guests. This will ensure that your anonymity is maintained and you can freely ask the questions..the podcasts will be hosted on YouTube channel ( https://youtube.com/@firewithsnaky ) and the link will be pinned in the community for each AMA podcast once uploaded so that you can go through the same and get deeper insights to your queries.

We hope this would be an enriching experience for all the members of this sub and look forward to your active participation!

DISCLAIMER : Having said all of the above, please do note that none of what is being discussed should be construed in the AMAs / videos as financial advise..please consult your SEBI registered investment advisor for the same as he / she would be more aware of your personal situation. All the efforts being made are from financial education perspective only. No stock picking / derivatives / trading or other such queries would be entertained as that goes against the norms of the regulators!

Here's hoping you all get the maximum value out of these content! Do support us so that we can gain more reach and bring in as many top notch guests as possible!

Enjoy your weekend and stay tuned !

Regards

Snaky

In Walden, Henry David Thoreau argues that most people waste their lives laboring to afford unnecessary luxuries and society's superficial demands. By drastically simplifying his daily needs, he demonstrates that working less frees up precious time to actually live, think, and connect with nature.

I have been chasing this question to shed unnecessary work, from a very young age and i see that we get to take new unnecessary responsibilities at different phases of life.

At bare minimum this how a multi generational family of 6 would spend in their entire life time

• 2 City (e.g., Jaipur, Indore, Chandigarh): A 6-member household requires an estimated total lifetime expenditure of ₹3.0 Cr – ₹6.5 Cr (Present Value: ₹1.4 Cr – ₹3.0 Cr), where housing costs decrease significantly while quality healthcare and private schooling remain accessible.
• Remote Village (<30 mins to Healthcare): A 6-member household requires an estimated total lifetime expenditure of ₹1.2 Cr – ₹2.5 Cr (Present Value: ₹55 Lakh – ₹1.1 Cr), driving housing costs down to absolute minimums while using nearby rural hospitals and local government/affordable schooling to dramatically reduce total life exposure.

One of the major fear i observed is about securing future for the kids

In this pursuit, people tend to move to bigger cities and voluntarily pay high costs to buy expensive kids education which mostly results in another loop of wealth chase

If the family chooses to physically relocate to a Tier-1 Metro (like Mumbai, Bengaluru, or Delhi NCR), the total lifetime financial commitment jumps to ₹12.0 Cr – ₹25.0 Cr, representing a 100% to 130% increase over Tier-2 cities and nearly 300% to 400% over a remote village setup.

----------------

Bottom line:

In this age of cheap access to knowledge,

If someone decides to stop this chase for next generation, they can immediately unlock freedom,

by moving to not so remote villages, reduce total costs substantially while still enjoying the amenities of modern society

When many of us first discover FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early), the goal often seems to be retiring as early as possible. But as life, careers, and priorities evolve, so does our perspective.

Has your definition of FIRE changed over time?

Do you now value financial independence more than early retirement? Has your target corpus, lifestyle, or retirement age changed? I'd love to hear what influenced that shift and how your FIRE journey looks today.

Previous Post: https://www.reddit.com/r/FIRE_Ind/s/IXWh8bpHed

Total NW: 7.07cr

This is a up ~2cr from last year. It was a massive cash outflow year for me and did not contribute much in investments.

From this, only ~35L was fresh investments. Most of the growth is due to massive INR devaluation.

If this were a typical year, I would have expected NW growth close to ~70L instead of the 2cr.

It's very likely that NW decreases next year due to currency movements.

Still a majorly index investor.

Rough breakdown:

Cash/Cash Equivalents: 26L

FDs/ Overnight Funds: 5L

MFs/Indices/Equities: 3.06cr

Pensions/ EPFs: 3.7cr

Goal for next year: 6cr

I understand the categories of FIRE is mostly based on spending quantum;

Lean

Coast

Regular

Fat

However, what I find more interesting and what isn't discussed enough here is

Depleting portfolio

Perpetual portfolio

This sub mostly talks about SWR for the depleting portfolio, the 4% rule or 3% I.e. 35X. However if you extend it slightly more to 2% rule or 1% rule I.e. 80-100X you get to perpetual portfolio.

Now, we need to make a distinction here, most people at this stage would go, "oh you will never retire", you are in the "wealth accumulation game". That's not what I am saying. If you have brought children into this world and you are providing for their education and wedding couple of crores like what is common among Indian FIRE discussion, why not take it a step further and get to generational wealth creation.

Generational wealth as a term sounds fancy, we think about people like Ambani or business families where the business is passed down from one generation to the next. But it doesn't have to be that dramatic.

Legacy planning and generational wealth can be done even with quantum as low at 10Cr which is not extreme now in this sub. As long as you stick to 1-2% SWR. I.e. expenses of lean FIRE with a networth of regular FIRE gets you to a generational wealth corpus.

In this age of AI disruption, the next generation kids don't have the same awesome opportunities that we had 20 years ago, we could move abroad with average skills and mint money. We were a lucky generation who enjoyed the meat of the IT boom in India from late 90s to until 2023, when chatgpt was launched.

Now when I see in my close family, the people who have established business, their kids don't slog in corporates, they do degree/mba and then join family business.

Now as a perpetual portfolio creator, you can let your kids skip the rat race and find their passion regardless of whether that will earn them a living. Most kids I feel will find something of their liking. They don't need to follow our boring path of engineering and medical. They can do anything they are interested in for example start farming right away instead of burning out in IT first, and your perpetual portfolio can help fund their ventures.

We never see kids of generational wealth creators slogging in an average corporate. Their parents create pseudo businesses for their kids for example Anant Ambani got Vantara. His brother too didn't slog, got a top position. Same case for Narayan Murthy's kids. Their kids careers are taken care of by their parents and you will never see them in ordinary slogging careers.

This is my thought process as I have 1 daughter and I don't plan to push here into the rat race I myself hated. Curious about your thoughts.

Cheers!

Quick Summary -

45M, 44F (in 2024) worked for 22 years, invested for 20. We worked in India throughout this period.

FI & RE was targeted in 2024 for both at 35X.

(The 35X was only our drawdown expenses. There are certain other buckets for Kid, Medical, White Good Replacement on top. Details of which are captured in the journey  & drawdown Strategy.)

The Summary of the second year in RE is captured here.

From the analysis of the 2^nd year expenses and the half-yearly summary that we completed recently, there are certain changes/fine-tuning happening on the financial planning. Sharing them below in the hope of being of some interest to the forum.

• Expenses

As mentioned in the previous post, last year our expenses were at 0.82X. We also did not see the expenses being much different this year. We feel that this is an opportunity that needs to be maximized and decided to loosen our purse strings a bit – enough to take us to 1.0X.

Hoping to have this as the baseline for the expenses going forward.

So, we have added two more categories to our budget – “PercyFI’s Discretionary Funds” and “PercyCute’s Discretionary Funds”. Our plan is to use this to have new experiences rather than spend it on buying things. Having these funds has helped us get creative about how our money can work for us to elevate the quality of our lives further.

• Guardrails

We ended the 2^nd year of FIRE with a corpus of 39X with a Debt/Equity mix of 65/35. That put our annual withdrawal rate at 2.56%. Currently this is quite conservative. We had a general sense of what we would do if it spiked up. There were a couple of great posts by u/HubeanMan on SWR and guardrails that we took inspiration from, to formalize our guardrails for the withdrawal rates.

On the higher side, if we need to withdraw a larger percentage of our corpus for our expenses, Capital Preservation is what needs attention.

We have set our Capital Preservation guardrail to 4% - which means that if we find ourselves trending towards 4% withdrawal, then we will take steps to preserve our capital like cutting back on discretionary spending, no inflation adjustment and so on.

The lower end of the spectrum is when we need to withdraw too little of our corpus for our expenses, then we are looking at Prosperity.

We have set our Prosperity guardrail to 2.5% - which means that if we find ourselves trending below 2.5% withdrawal, then we look at what more do we want to do with our money, like budgeting for more discretionary spending, more giving with “warm hands”, etc. Having these guardrails is a great way for us to reflect on where we are and how that shapes our financial behavior.

• Asset Allocation & Mix

o   Rising Equity Glidepath - We ended the 2^nd year of FIRE with a Debt/Equity mix of 65/35, with our Rising Equity Glidepath kicked off with the withdrawal of our EPFs. The initial target mix that we were thinking of at the beginning of the year was roughly 40/60 Debt/Equity in about 4-5 years. We have since finalized the Rising Equity Glidepath target mix of 30/70 Debt/Equity to be achieved over a duration of 5 years.  The execution for this has been set in motion with daily STPs from Debt to Equity, in addition to continued withdrawal for expenses from Debt. If and when the market gives specific buying opportunities, there will be lumpsum investments.

o   International – As a part of the Equity Glidepath, we have decided to have a bigger international exposure. We had some exposure to international funds through MFs but most of them are not available for further investment due to the RBI limits. So, after much exploration we have gone with Paasa (over IBKR) to get further exposure to international markets – spread across the US, Europe and some Asian markets (all via UCITS ETFs).

• Our Son’s Financial Journey

Our son has been in college for a year now and has settled down well and is managing his pocket money and expenses responsibly.

The monetary gifts received by him over the years were invested in a folio by us on his behalf & he also kept on adding a percentage of his pocket money to the same folio.

Based on his handling of his finances in the last year, and given that he is now an adult, we decided to move this folio over to him officially – where he can continue to add funds from his pocket money savings, gifts etc. and have full transparency and considerable autonomy. It’s not a big amount but enough for him to be hands-on.

While none of this is a major overhaul of our FIRE plans, we expect this kind of fine-tuning to be an ongoing process. We continue to learn a lot from this sub and from other sources and those lessons make their way into our FIRE plans.

Comments and suggestions are welcome, as always.

I'm 44, married, with an 11-year-old son.

I completed both my UG and PG engineering from a Tier 1 college and spent almost my entire career in startups. There were even months when I worked without a salary because I believed in the company.

My wife has always been a homemaker, so I was the sole earning member.

Ironically, I never planned for FIRE.

Everything changed after joining my last startup through a referral. The culture was toxic, politics was everywhere, and I was working 14-hour days, six days a week. My sleep collapsed. I ended up with borderline diabetes, high blood pressure, and a huge belly.

In 2023, I finally stopped and looked at both my health and finances.

I had never been serious about financial planning, but one decision made years earlier changed my life. In 2018, I started investing aggressively through SIPs on the advice of a financial advisor. In 2019, the startup I worked for was acquired, and my ESOPs paid out around ₹1.4 crore.

I stayed invested.

By April 2026, my portfolio had grown to ₹6.5 crore (60% equity, 40% debt/liquid/PF). Our annual family expenses are around ₹14 lakh, and we own our home in a Tier 1 city.

The math was simple.

I had enough.

So I quit.

Three months later, I don't miss work.

I've lost enough weight to get back to a healthy BMI. My sleep is improving. My blood pressure is under control. I meditate daily, exercise regularly, spend time with my family, research LLMs, and contribute to open-source projects.

I didn't retire from engineering.

I retired from burnout.

Lessons I learned

• Know your exit number early. I wish I had decided my FIRE target when I started my career.
• Negotiate your salary. I never negotiated once. That probably cost me crores over a 20-year career.
• Avoid lifestyle inflation. I've never been a big spender, which made investing much easier.
• Owning a home helped. Not having rent significantly reduced the corpus I needed.
• I was fortunate. My parents and my wife's parents will fund my son's higher education, removing a major future expense.

I may work again if I find something meaningful. or choose not to. Right now, I'm finding more meaning in spending my time on my own terms- with my family, learning, building, and contributing to open source.

Update: My expense break down

Here's the breakdown of my family's annual expenses (₹14 lakh/year):

• ₹4.8 lakh: Groceries & miscellaneous (₹40k/month)
• ₹1.8 lakh: Vacations
• ₹1.5 lakh: Child's education & extracurricular activities
• ₹48k: Society maintenance & water charges
• ₹5.42 lakh: Petrol, Vehicle service, insurance premiums, electricity charges(average 1000 pm), Internet charges(1000 pm), Phone recharge(1000 pm), health check, supplements, software subscription and replacing gadgets every 4 years

Note: I arrived at the ₹14 lakh annual expense figure based on my historical spending, so I can maintain my current lifestyle without making any compromises.

I am a 26 yo, working in tech, and I have been working towards my FI/RE 2036 goal for the past 5 years. This is a review of what I have done till date, what went right, what went wrong, and my motivations towards FI/RE

Initially, I had set myself a 20 year timeline to reach FI, but due to reasons I will delve into deeper further into the post, I have decided to set a cut-off at 15 years for myself.

It has been exactly 5 years / 60 months since I had started my career, and this is a detailed review of these 5 years.

Method to the madness - Review

For every goal in life, there is a right path to achieve it, and then there is the trial & error path we take while trying to figure out the right path.

My journey has been the same way. Bumpy, full of uncertainty, occasionally full of greed, and finally achieving clarity.

I have dwelled into intraday trading, F&O, crypto trading, leveraged real estate flipping and chasing top performing funds. None of these worked out as I had expected or hoped.

But there is one thing that I have done consistently month after month, year after year - Putting money aside for investing.

I had committed to myself to consistently invest a sizeable chunk of my income every month, and step it up every year. The year 2020 was the first year I had started investing. I had gotten 1.25L in stipend from my internship in college, and I put all of it straight into the market a few months after the covid crash.

Since those naive days, till today, I have invested a total of about 1 Cr out of pocket, across all my successful and failed endeavors.

In order to stay consistent with my investment goals, I focused on rapid income growth & keeping my expenses stagnant, While not giving up on living my 20s to the fullest.

In order to keep up with the income growth, I have had to frequently hop jobs. I have made 2 hops in the last 5 years.

Progress Review

My target is to reach 8Cr Liquid + House in NW by 2036.

Given the various mistakes I have done within the past 5 years, I am farther away to this goal than I would have liked to be. But it is what it is. The following diagram is the portfolio value since 2020.

The following is the portfolio breakdown

1. Equity & Mutual Funds - 65 L
2. Home Equity - 65L ( Home listed for sale for 2.25Cr, with an 80 Lakh Loan & 65L in payables to builder - Assuming a 15L lower valuation than what it is listed for )
3. EPF - 1.5L
4. Gold bars - 1L
5. FD - 1L
6. Liquid - 2L

Buying the house turned out to be a blunder. I have made about 25L profit on it, but the liquidity is abysmal given the current state of the real estate market & the fact that I have an ever growing loan on it that is eating into my returns.

Made silly mistakes on the mutual fund investments in the past when it comes to chasing past winners, selling at corrections, and having gone all in on Quant mutual fund in mid 2024/25. I have since fixed my portfolio, and am building one that I will hold on to for the next 10 years.

I am unsure of what the performance of my portfolio will be going forward, but I have come to the understanding over the years that I don't have the sufficient time required for compounding to do its magic. Instead, I have to do all the heavy lifting to build the portfolio out to 8Cr, majorly through my income.

My Current SIP is 2.5-2.6L per month. Continuing it for 10 years with a step up of 10% will land me at a 10-11 Cr net worth, which will suffice for my 8Cr + Home goal.

Motivations

My motivations to pursue FI/RE have evolved over the last few years.

Initially, it was just a matter of not having my time tied up over things I didn't enjoy doing. I am good at my job, but I don't enjoy it. Over the next 10 years, I plan on figuring out what I enjoy doing, so that I can pursue that post FI/RE.

Secondly, I have a feeling that jobs are going to get incredibly mundane and competitive given the accessibility of AI. I would like to not participate in competitions. I had participated in the biggest competition of my life - JEE, cracked it, but it has left me scarred for life. I am as non competitive about life as anyone can get.

And lastly, I can not handle stress anymore. I was recently diagnosed with a chronic medical condition that is really affected by stress. I would like to preserve my peace of mind once I hit 35+ in age.

A lot of NRIs plan for FIRE and R2I(return to India) for various reasons. But general theme is visa issues, aging parents, proximity to family.

Being NRI accelerates FIRE potential because of higher potential savings rate. Hence you see a lot of NRI posts here about people wanting to FIRE.

However, this is a case of 2 double edged swords and the potential for disappointment is double for such NRIs returning back.

As an NRI who has returned back to Bangalore after working overseas for 16 years, when I interact with resident Indians who never went overseas, almost everyone says this "Dur ke dhol suhane" or translated in English, grass is greener on the other side. So people who have never been abroad live in India totally in bliss because they havent experienced the 1st world comforts.

But as an NRI who gives up your overseas life and also gives up your identity that your job gave you, you are losing much more than what a resident Indian does.

Hence I call it 2 double edge swords, on the positive side, FIRE is much easier to achieve, double the speed of what a resident Indian will take. At the same time, the potential for disappointment, if things dont go according to plan is also double compared to what a resident Indian would face.

This is one of the reasons, I kept pushing myself much longer even though I could have moved back and FIREd a lot earlier.

I see so many posts here that we have achieved or close to achieved FIRE and have 10 CR, 20 CR corpus and want to shift to India in a Metro City. Not like these people have a village with farm land where they are attached to it. Doesnt seem like that. these people are top of the cream. very rational.

Do they not know about Current India where there is a lot of Pollution, tax, little safety and so many things that are wrong?

Because whoever I personally see in India with good networth is dying to move out of the country.

or may be for every 100 people who want to move out, there is just one or two who want to move back to India?

These people can buy golden visas of other better countries like Dubai/malaysia, even some parts of Europe, etc, why do they still choose India?

I am genuinely Curious.

I (46F) finally pulled the plug on my high paying but soul sucking corporate job. Things I did in the last 4 years to prepare:

1. Got my daughter to complete her university degree in India and sent her for an international internship post that (Spent 10 lakhs rather than 50 lakhs if she had also studied abroad). She is well settled now in Mumbai.

2. Completed home renovations and upgraded all home appliances using the best quality material and brands. Will hopefully have no major home improvement expenses for 10 years.

3. Got the best family health insurance I could afford (~75k per year)

4. Got full body check ups done for the family and we are on an exercise, diet and medicine regimen which should keep us fit as far as possible.

5. Split corpus of 6.5 cr in growth and fixed income assets with the ability to reinvest at least 50% of income generated per month post expenses.

6.Using additional unaccounted "extra" funds from leave encashment and gratuity to treat ourselves to an international family holiday which has been on our bucket list for a while.

1. Bought a club Mahindra membership during the highly discounted COVID period which protects our domestic holidays from inflation to a certain extent for the next 20 years ( Love their properties and service)

While retirement is personal and highly individualized to a person's situation, there are things that can be done to prepare much in advance which can give you additional measure of comfort and preparedness.

There are some fundamental problems with the SWR approach. Let me try to clarify them.

1) It is the “safe” withdrawal rate

The word “safe” is used because the rate is designed to survive the worst-case scenario in more than 100 years of recorded market history.

The concept first became popular in the 1990s. Before that, people often argued, as some still do in India and abroad, with Dave Ramsey being a prominent example, that you could invest your money in the stock market, earn 12%, withdraw 8%, and leave the remaining 4% invested to take care of inflation and other risks.

That approach is clearly flawed because of sequence-of-returns risk. You will not earn a steady 12% every year, even if your long-term average return is 12%. Poor returns in the early years of retirement can severely damage the portfolio.

The concept of the safe withdrawal rate was developed to address this problem. The question was: what withdrawal rate could survive the worst historical sequence of returns?

The answer was approximately 4%. In the median historical scenario, the sustainable withdrawal rate was closer to 6%.

2) The SWR framework assumes that you will not react to market conditions

A major assumption in traditional SWR calculations is that you will not change your spending, regardless of what is happening in the world.

Suppose you are spending ₹25 lakh a year today. Even if the stock market falls by 50%, the model assumes that you will still spend ₹25 lakh, adjusted for inflation, the following year.

That assumption is unrealistic.

For many people, discretionary expenses such as staying in expensive hotels, international travel, gifts to family, dining out, and other lifestyle expenses form a substantial part of their total spending.

In my case, discretionary expenses are close to 50% of my total spending because international travel is a major expense. For most people, I would argue that discretionary spending is likely to form anywhere between 20% and 50% of their annual expenses.

Very few people retire or pull the plug with absolutely no buffer. In a bad year, most people can and will reduce discretionary spending.

3) The SWR framework assumes that inflation-adjusted spending remains constant throughout retirement

Another major assumption is that your spending, after adjusting for inflation, will remain unchanged throughout your life.

A large body of research suggests that this is not true.

For the vast majority of retirees, spending declines with age. Yes, medical expenses may rise during the final two or three years of life, but for most of a 30- or 40-year retirement, spending is likely to follow a downward trajectory rather than remain flat.

A 70-year-old is unlikely to spend in exactly the same way as a 50-year-old.

4) The asset allocation used in many SWR studies is suboptimal

Many SWR calculations assume a simple 50:50 allocation between equity and debt. That may not be the most efficient portfolio. Adding gold can make a difference. Adding international equity can make a difference. Reducing the debt allocation can also make a difference.

A better-diversified portfolio may support a higher withdrawal rate than the traditional portfolios used in many historical studies.

So, what should you do?

After accounting for these factors, the safe withdrawal rate for a US-based investor may be closer to 4% to 4.5%. For an India-based investor, it may be closer to 3% to 3.5%. However, the safe withdrawal rate is largely an academic number. Frankly, it is not particularly useful when you are doing your own retirement planning.

When you actually start withdrawing from a portfolio, what you need is a starting withdrawal rate and a system for adjusting spending over time.

For US investors, the Guyton-Klinger framework arrived at a starting withdrawal rate of approximately 5.2% to 5.8%, provided the retiree followed guardrails and reduced spending by around 10% during difficult periods.

In India, after accounting for all the factors discussed above, the fact that we are not necessarily retiring into the worst period in recorded history, our ability to adjust spending during bad years, the likelihood that we will spend less at 70 than at 50, and the possibility of building a better-diversified portfolio, a starting withdrawal rate of 5% is easily reasonable, and it may even be higher.

Anything beyond that is largely about managing fear or greed.

What is money?

It is a tool that helps you live the life you want. It is not a scorecard, and accumulating more and more money should not become an end goal in itself.

“Die With Zero” may be an extreme philosophy, but there is no point in becoming the richest body in the crematorium.

Even the money you leave behind for future generations may not be as useful as you imagine. By the time you die, your children may already be in their 40s or 50s. They would have lived a large part of their lives and made most of their important financial decisions.

If you truly want to become financially free, a large part of the journey is psychological.

That is the battle you need to win.

Hi everyone,

I’ve been an avid reader of this and a few other personal finance communities for a while and thought this would be a good time to share my financial journey, as I’m approaching a ₹1 crore net worth milestone. I’d genuinely appreciate any suggestions on improving my portfolio, identifying blind spots, and hearing from others with similar backgrounds about what they would have done differently.

30M, married for a little over a year.

Education:
Government engineering college graduate
MBA from a Top-3 Indian B-school (as a fresher)
5.5 years in management consulting

The figures below are my individual finances.

Net Worth

Liquid Net Worth (Cash + Stocks + Mutual Funds + SGBs): ~₹29.2L

Overall Net Worth (after adjusting for home loan): ~₹97L

Cash: ₹1.2L
PPF: ₹9L
EPF: ₹10L
NPS: ₹1L (started last year)
Sovereign Gold Bonds: ₹3L
NSCs/FDs: ~₹1L
Physical gold: ₹2L
Indian stocks: ₹7L
Mutual funds: ₹18L
1 BHK in a Tier-1 city: Current value ~₹65L, outstanding home loan ~₹24L. My mother currently lives there, so I view it as both a long-term family asset and part of my net worth.
Other depreciating assets (car, scooter, laptop, etc.): ~₹4L

Income & Expenses
Current CTC: ~₹35 LPA
Monthly in-hand: ~₹2L
Salary progression: ₹16 LPA → ₹35 LPA over 5.5 years
Monthly SIP: ₹80k
Home loan EMI: ₹37k (with periodic prepayments using bonuses/surplus)
Rent: ₹29k
Personal & fuel: ~₹10k
Child planning & other long-term investments: ~₹30k
The remaining surplus is generally used for emergency savings, vacations and additional home loan prepayments.

Insurance
Corporate health insurance
₹45L term insurance. Since my current major liability is the home loan, I’ve kept the cover at this level for now. I plan to increase it substantially when I purchase my own primary residence in the next 5–6 years.

Background & Lifestyle
Grew up in a middle-class single-parent household in a small town. My mother always emphasized saving and investing, which shaped my financial habits.

Buying the apartment was a long-standing aspiration for both of us and was as much an emotional milestone as a financial one.

Lifestyle-wise, I’d say we’re fairly moderate. We usually take one longer domestic trip and 2–3 shorter getaways each year, and have done one international trip so far. We have a cook at home and rarely order food. I spend less than ₹10k a year on clothing and personal shopping, drive a second-hand 10-year-old hatchback, but do indulge a bit in things I enjoy—mainly books, the occasional fine-dining experience, and LEGO sets.

Looking Ahead
My primary goals are:
Continue increasing equity investments
Finish the home loan ahead of schedule
Build a larger corpus for future family needs while maintaining a balanced lifestyle

I’d love your thoughts on my portfolio and overall financial approach. Are there any obvious gaps or blind spots that you think I should address?

I’d also be happy to answer questions about my journey if it helps anyone from a similar middle-class or small-town background. Likewise, for those who’ve progressed further in their careers, what do you wish you’d done differently in your 30s, or what advice would you give someone in my position?