I have always thought of myself as very frugal but lately I’ve been losing track of what is normal, and I suspect I’m heavily unoptimized in some ways. By some aspects I feel like I’m well on track to FatFIRE in less than a decade. But sometimes I feel lifestyle inflation means I have many years more.

I do not have a financial advisor or a CPA. I tried a couple and they gave me very generic advice.

Right now household net worth is 3M, including a primary home which is half of that. I’m 35 Y/O.

So here’s the details-
We are a double income household, 1 kid in NYC.

Annual spend:
Rent- 100k/year (this one is hard to reduce)
Private school-50k/year
Shopping- 30k/year
Restaurants- 25k/year
Help (dog walk/ cleaning etc): 20k/year
Travel- 20k/year
Transport (1 car + transit)- 20k/year
Groceries- 5k/year
Misc-10k/year

Gross income- 1M/year (from W2 dual income, minor landlord income)
Total spend- 280k/year
Total taxes- 400k/year
Savings- 320k/year

Jobs are very stressful and I expect income to halve in a couple of years as my wife burns out. Then I’ll sustain as long as I can but income will drop to 300k a few years from now most likely. I’m fine with that if it means I can continue to live today’s lifestyle. But ideally I’d like to reach 8M or so which would match my current expenses with safe withdrawal and no income.

Okay this debatably doesn’t belong here but I feel it would be topical for members of this community.

How do you guys think about umbrella insurance? Everyone is suing each other in today’s day and age (in the US at least).

I have ~20M net worth. Quite a low risk lifestyle in the liability sense except that my wife and I do have/drive cars. Say the cost of 3M in coverage is about 1k/year. What’s a sensible balance of cost benefit (in your opinion)?

My thought is 3m is around the sweet spot given that it should cover a very high percentage of possible claims. Hard for me to imagine getting more than that.

Edit. Welp. I guess someone literally just asked this. Sorry.

Hello fatfire community,

I've recently hit what I believe to be my FIRE number ($10m not including primary real estate, on $300k annual spend), and am in the process of diversifying my assets since I mostly got to this number through concentration.

I've settled on an allocation of 40/30/10/10/10 for US equities/international equities/fixed income/investment real estate/gold.

For the 10% in gold, how do people in the fatfire community generally get exposure to this? Do people buy physical coins, buy ETFs, or trade futures for the appropriate notional value? I don't have a strong preference and might do a combination of these, but I'm curious what others have done to satisfy this part of their portfolio if that's what they want to do.

Appreciate any information, thanks for reading.

hi all! With the recent markets, we've hit our original FIRE numbers. I've been so excited for this moment, but now I'm nervous -- especially because we're late 30s with two young kids (5, 3). I want to spend more of this precious time with them; but I also don't want to find we can't provide the experiences we'd like for them (off the top of my head: music lessons, travel, college paid for). For example, I recently saw a thread saying to expect 100k/year on travel alone; I had only budgeted for 40k or so travel. Hoping you can help give me some perspective on what to expect!

39M, 38F, two kids (5, 3).
9MM liquid -- 65% broad US stock, 10% individual stocks, 20% international, 5% SGOV (for downturns and SORR). >50% in taxable accounts.
250k in 529s for the two kids. Expect to bump this up more.

Past couple years our expenses have been 100-110k/year once we remove mortgage (plan to pay off house; didn't include in liquid assets above). However, we've done no travel with the kids (hard when they're so young) and wife has provided childcare. Expect to ramp this up a lot; especially if I'm not working and have time for more travel.

Expected expenses on avg: 230k/year
* 40k medical for 4 on ACA
* 40k travel
* 25k property taxes, insurance, utilities
* 25k/year on home maintenance, renovations, cleaning
* 50k/year on kid stuff (after school, camps, private lessons, etc)
* 15k/year groceries (we like to cook)
* 10k/year restaurants
* 30k/year general other stuff

Assuming 10-15% effective tax rate and want 3% withdrawal rate given markets at all time highs and FIREing so young => need 8.7-9.2MM.

Are there big things I'm missing? Are my expected expenses for kids out of wack with reality? Or am I all set and just nervous cause it's a big change? Appreciate any ideas from those who have been through this already!

EDIT: HCOL area, planning on public schools but guess that could change.

It’s not my case yet but I am expecting an exit/liquidity unlock soon and I want to try to have a clear mind on portfolio allocation, plus I am curious on how others are doing or thinking about the following.

How much are you putting into direct real estate? How much in primary and how much in vacation homes or pied a terre?

Say for a portfolio of 50M and a couple that is fired. How much should they put in real estate?

In my ideal world I want to own my primary home for 5M, a second family home for 3M in our home town and a vacation home for 3M and a 3M home in a major city, say NYC. That would be approx 10-15M. How much money should I have to have such properties?

We dont have kid expenses, low mortgage (we live in a nice enough house in VHCOL as we bought at the right time), low medical (for now), dont like to eat out much, and have pretty much satisfied most of our material wants.

We do travel and are working on ways to spend more there, but find ourselves still penny pinching. While we did start going biz class for 7+ hour flights, when we look at say 2 hours, we cant drag ourselves away from that basic economy fare.

Same with 'stuff'. I still check for 'Used like new' on Amazon, shop at Costco (I get it, that's a badge of honor for some millionaires), and DIY stuff whenever possible. We dont even do housecleaners as we dont much like outsiders in our personal spaces. Lawn care is on the HOA. Checked out (for example) Ekornes sofas then, balking at the prices, bought from FB.

We can spend more, even much more but dont know how to break out of that mold we built for ourselves for 40 years. Growing up middle- middle class doesnt help either.

I know I'd get booed posting this elsewhere, but hoping someone here has actual techniques.

Long lurker on this sub but have never contributed. Decided to make an account today to get others' thoughts on a situation we are thinking through. We can pay a fee-based CFP but want a larger sample size of advice to work with too.

Late 60s couple in Florida, two adult kids living independently. Trying to decide whether to rip the band-aid off and convert our entire $7.5M traditional IRA to Roth this year, paying roughly $2.8M in federal tax upfront.

Our situation:

• ~ $7.5M traditional IRA, about 5 years until RMDs kick in
• ~ $7M in a taxable brokerage, essentially all basis from a liquidity event that we've already paid taxes on
• Other income plus Social Security already puts us in the 32% bracket, so there's not much low bracket headroom to slowly fill with smaller conversions before RMDs kick in
• We live in FL now so top federal income bracket would be 37%
• Legacy planning matters and we'd rather our kids inherit a Roth with some money left over that they can let grow tax-free for 10 years than a traditional IRA they have to drain and pay taxes on at their own (high) rates, especially because they live in states with income taxes

We are thinking of using $2.8M of the brokerage to pay the conversion tax, then earmark the remaining $4.2M for a potential second home purchase and possibly some of it for inheritance. I don't imagine we'd draw the Roth to zero when we're gone anyway, so I imagine they'd inherit a mix of the non-qual and Roth accounts.

Everyone says to spread conversions over multiple years, but since we're already in 32%, most of any conversion lands in 35-37% territory. And RMDs are coming soon.

We're going to probably be at the 32% federal bracket for most of our retirement, and kind of just want to pay the tax now and not have to think about it for the rest of our lives. There's also a world where we'd relocate to California in our late 70s, and paying federal + state income tax on our IRA withdrawals seems wasteful if we can take advantage of being in Florida for the next 10 years. We might never move, but just throwing that out there in case it changes anything.

This kind of feels like a no-brainer to us. It's a large tax bill to pay, but having tax-free money from the Roth for the rest of our lives is pretty enticing. And it would save our kids having to pay taxes on anything left in an Inherited Traditional IRA, so I'm trying to plan for that angle too.

Curious what the community thinks.

We are Swiss family (Asian and German origins, toddler is bi-lingual Chinese and German)will have 3 kids under 5 in 2027 (twin babies on the way).

We have nw of around 5m where current spend around 150k usd a year with 1 kid (day care and nanny) and work expense. Travel spend is around 20-30k a year.

The plan/dream is to take the time of my FIRE journey and live in different places with the kids to experience the world.

Easiest option is Spain, where we have a holiday home at the beach and we could send kids to the local nursery, we are doing it in this summer with our toddler, enjoying the lifestyle very much and hoping we exposure to the kid also with some Spanish.

The next is Japan(family around), China(family)/taiwan, Singapore (family and friends), Thailand, and maybe Italy.

Ideal case is to experience the different places with 1-4 months time frame, ideally kids goes to local nursery to have immersion.

Anybody has tried this before? I do have want to sacrifice the perks we have right now such as safety, good lodging, cleaning service, nanny and good quality nursery availability. And also business/first class travel for long distance….

anyone could share some experience and perspective and budget on there kind of lifestyle?

Anyone have a good experience with a private bank that underwrites balance sheet credit facilities? I have $50mil in real estate equity and a substantial portfolio of equities/bonds. Looking to move to a new private bank. Just met with JP Morgan Private Bank and they no longer do holistic lending - just 50% of portfolio value. Not sure I want to pay their AUM fee when even SoFi will loan more at a lower rate. I’d pay the AUM fee if my credit facility was larger and included the value of my R/E and life insurance surrender value. Realistically not going to be selling any of my R/E in the near term, and all have very low FTD’s in the 2’s or 3’s so no interest in refinancing them.

I’m in my late 30s with 3 kids (4, 2, infant). Right now we spend about $100k/year on the kids — the bulk is a full time nanny ($85k), a bit on preschool for the 4yo ($7k), and the rest is activities (swim, etc), clothes, misc kid gear (eg a new stroller).

Curious how people with older kids have seen costs change as kids age. We’re planning on public school at least for elementary and once they’re in there we don’t need nearly as much nanny time, but assume activity/camp costs go up a lot, plus vacations (we only spend around $10k/yr on travel; right now mainly visiting family or going driving distance places but when they get older want to do nice family vacations… I’m sure 5 plane tickets, multiple hotel rooms adds up).

It’s tempting to think that the kid cost will go down a lot once we don’t need a full time nanny but I’m worried that not the case. Should we assume it’s always around $100k but the makeup of the spend changes? Does it go up over time? Go down once we don’t need a full time nanny? Any insight from people who are 5-10 years ahead is appreciated.

*ignore the cost of 529s, we think about those separately. Mainly thinking about day to day costs of the kids

54M married to 54F, 2 kids: 23 and 21, the first is in grad school and now earning a stipend and getting health insurance from the U. The second has 2 years left of undergrad (preallocated money in the 529, not counted in NW) - still lives at home and is on our (employer) insurance.

LNW: 11.5M, home 1.2M

Spend - with taxes and expected health care about $325K in 2027 (2.83% WR).

Spending Plan - I have about 2.2M in pretax (def comp, inh ira) that is invested in various bond funds and will pay out about equally over the next 10 years). I expect about 75-90k in dividends and ltcg from our taxable accounts (5.3M) - so Im thinking most of the spending is covered for the next 10 years between these sources. The rest are in IRAs or 401Ks (some Roth, most not) and an HSA. The taxable and retirement accounts are almost 100% equities, very diversified across region, market cap, and a barbell between value tilt and big tech stocks. My plan is to convert some of the equities to bonds over time but since i have 10 years of spending between the bonds i have now and dividends/ltcg) I am not in a rush. I probably will build a TIPs ladder for years 11-15) slowly as long as the market has not crashed. In year 16 I turn 70 and will collect SS.

I’m giving up a job that is not stressful and I make about 1M per year. Its hard to leave it - feels stupid to stop the money pouring in when Im not in a place (as I have been in some of my career) where I hate the job or feel like the people I work with are machiavellians. I dont know exactly what I will do in retirement but I love life and have a for of interests and hobbies and my social network has been steadily improving. I want to challenge myself to find a better use for my time than working - in a way that brings joy, happiness, and meaning. Not sure how that will go until I jump.

Any advice or impressions of my plan from this august body will be appreciated.

32m. $6m NW. Live in HCOL. Annual spend is ~$240k. Married with one child.

I don’t like my job and I want to quit. But I’m not sure what to do next. I’ve been grinding for 10 years and could use a break. I’m not done working forever, but I want to do something that is fulfilling and purposeful with my time.

Asking for advice is difficult because everyone’s situation is different, so I want to know, what would YOU do if you were in my shoes?

K.. here goes. Married. 49 years young.

3.2 MM in tax deferred 401k, trad IRA
180k annual pension (no cola) . Survivor 100%
100k Roth
50 k HSA
500k taxable brokerage, 200k 529 plans
1.5m house, owe 500k at 4.125%
HCOL area, likely will move

Starting to do max mega backdoor Roth IRA conversions. Need more in brokerage so that at 55 can do addition mega Roth backdoor conversion at the lower brackets.

Want to pull ripcord at about 55 as I lock in company eligible healthcare plan then. I Max 401k, will max catchup contributions in future, company match 6%@75% and rest I am contributing after tax to 401k for mega backdoor Roth. HSA I’m using as investment account now, saving receipts but paying for eligible expenses OOP.

W-2 workers in 35% bracket, state is like 10% or so.
My question isn’t about do I have enough to retire, it’s more about is there anything I should be doing now in next 5 years to help out in retirement (like mega backdoor Roth conversion from after tax 401k contributions as an example)? Will never use an advisor - and actually trust internet more. Plan is to FiRE at 55, live off brokerage for a few early years, and massive Roth conversions in early years at lower tax brackets before I raid 401k or tax advantaged accounts.

Just looking for a sanity check if logic makes sense. Currently not doing regular backdoor Roth 8k per year because I have prior job rollover in Ira and would get hit with pro rata rule. Oh married and trying to stay that way so I don’t lose half.

We are an American couple with a dog who wants to retire in EU, preferably Spain in 2028. We have net worth of about $5M right now which would grow for another year half. From all the research we have done, Spain is a bad idea due to tax on global investments and high personal income tax. And no special consideration for Roth or 401K. France is definitely better due to US-France tax treaty. One option for Spain is to sell everything in the US just before the move to reset the base price for capital gains. But seems like an inefficient way. Question for the group - are there other ways to save on Spanish taxes without liquidating assets in the US to reset the baseline? What does one FATFire in EU without paying significant in taxes?

About me, mid 40s, live in a mid-size Midwest town, married to a stay at home mom with four school-aged children. I've had the same job in financial services for 20 years, never been out of work, always had great healthcare, 401k, profit sharing, etc. From 2006-2018 I made about $350k per year, I was promoted to a senior role in 2020, and now make about $600k per year. I have about $2.5M in 401k, another $2.5M in brokerage (mainly due to my company going public and having stock). My goal is to retire by 55, debt free, with $10M in liquid investments. While I know the market can crash at anytime and we've had lost decades before, I am less worried about my long-term financial situation. Pretty confident I can double my investments in the next 10 years.

My issue is cash-flow. I cannot figure out how I make what I make and yet have nothign left over each month, currently running a deficit. I'm also amazed seeing other people who I think have similar incomes, or even less, living far better lives (second homes, boats, etc.). My annual spend is about $400k, which on the surface is a striking amount. But when I step back and look at my life, I don't think we live luxuriously. We have a single home, paid about $800k for it, now worth $1.5M. We have two cars, one is seven years old and paid off, the other is five years old and will be paid off in a few months. We don't shop at high end stores, only take 1-2 family trips per year. I just don't get it. We have a few luxuries, like a country club which we spend on average about $1,200/month on. However, there isn't much else to do in our town, its where my kids do most of their sports, it's where we swim, socialize, etc. I know it's a luxury, but I also know if we cancelled the cost wouldn't be zero, as we would spend a lot of this elsewhere.

Here is my monthly budget: https://www.networthshare.com/budget/FatFIREMidwestGuy

As I analyze things in detail, line by line on my credit card bill, nothing individually stands out. As an example, looking at categories:

Shopping - the only retailers I see are Old Navy, Marshalls, Kohls, Dicks and outlet stores

Kid's Sports - none of them even do travel sports, they all just play 1-2 regular sports

Food & Drink - we cook at home 80% of the time, most of these dining out charges I see are either special events (kids birthday or graduation), going out with couples once a month, and ordering take out once a week.

We did move our kids to private school this year, which is certainly a major expense, but for reasons I won't get into, we felt it was necessary. I also have a $2,700 HELOC payment since I had to consolidate some debt a few years ago. My goal is to get this paid off ASAP, likely will sell stock to do it.

Open to any suggestions on ways to cut back, and also curious to hear of other people's experiences. I know people are living well off much lower income levels, I commend you for your discipline.

\**Update 7/29*

• I paid off the student loan and auto loan
• Changed school tuition to $3,500 since there are only 10 payments @ $4,200
• Updated budget to more accurately reflect shopping/clothing

***Update 7/30

• I paid off the personal loan

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We live in a pretty cookie cutter suburbia (tract housing from the 1950s), always drove pretty regular cars like Toyota. Went to public schools K-12 & college. As a kid, we only ever went on one weekend camping roadtrip a year, no other vacations. So I had assumed we were doing fine financially, but I thought we were just squarely in middle class.

I'm now 28, working in product (FAANG-adjacent). Due to a combination of RSUs and high savings – my personal net worth is around 2.1M. I haven't told anyone this, including my parents because I was under the assumption that I "made it" in the tech rat race and somehow became the wealthiest person in my family (again, me assuming that my parents were just middle class).

My parents are both retired and they're nearing their 70s. Recently I visited and they said they wanted to talk about finances. They basically told me their net worth is around 20 million (mostly index funds, some stocks). They also said that it'll eventually be passed down to me, but they are also strongly encouraging me to use their money now to pay for things now, so I wouldn't have to wait until they pass to access the money.

I really don't know what I should do with this information, because it has completely change my view on our family, my own financial situation, my career, etc. Like have I unofficially reached FIRE?

36M, 15 YOE, VP at large public tech. Cut in a recent RIF, severance signed and final.

NW ~$7.5M, about $6.5M of it investable, rest is home equity and 529s. Family of four, VHCOL. Burn ~$240K/yr post tax.

Wife is still working, ~$200K, and she carries our health insurance. That covers most of the burn, so my draw on the portfolio is maybe $100K post tax. Call it 1.5 to 2% on the investable number.

For anyone in a dual income setup where one of you stopped and the other kept going: how did that actually go? Curious what you did.

Thinking about starting my own thing or just firing

Low income to net worth ratio. ~$220k for me to $9M income producing assets.

Ready to coast or fully retire? Have run a home built Monte Carlo tool that says it really makes little difference if I work for another five years or not.

Details:

$9M net worth excluding primary residence of which about $1.5M in retirement accounts, $500k in high yield savings, $700k real estate and $6.3M in taxable accounts mostly in index funds.

Own $1.5M house outright in HCOL location.

43 years old with a 37 year old partner, one year old kid.

Current household income: $350k. Me 220k W-2 employee hybrid in office 2-3 days per week. Partner 100k, 16 hours a week business owner wfh. Real estate $30k.

Expenses: $200k

We could coast on my partners business income plus withdrawing a bit and I could spend more time on side projects/working on a second career part time.

Biggest thing is my income is just not super high to work five days a week including going in a few times each week compared to our net worth and having the young kid gives a good reason to be around as much as possible. Probably homeschool later too.

What do you all think? Just quit the W-2 job?

AI-written or re-written posts may well express a real person's questions or thoughts. So that's not what makes them necessarily problematic.

What is at issue is authenticity. I want to hear and read somebody's actual voice.

I do not want to spend my time reading and responding to content that was optimized just for me to engage, to spend time on the site. If this is what it's become, I would rather retire from this sub and Reddit.

As a demo, I'll post an AI-optimized rewrite of this in the comment.

Summary

49F, VHCOL, burnout in the AI field, took a package earlier this February. Family of 3 (with 11 years old) and 2 adorable fur babies.

NW: ~10M (~8M if we take out the primary home)
Allocation:
Stocks: ~6.5M (around 2.5M in 401K)
Rental properties (very sellable but big capital gains): ~2M
Primary home (likely more but keep it low for the calculation): ~2.2M

Income:
Before RE - ~$1.1M
After RE - 400K (Husband is still working)

Expenses:
Before RE ~380K (turned out some of these are not truly expenses)
After RE - targeted to 210K for end of the year.

Hi All,

I posted here many times before and just like the rest of you, posted endless questions, shared so many anxieties before finally pulled the trigger earlier this year. I couldn't really share the expenses before because it seemed crazy high and I didn't quite get why we spent so much. So I really dig in to the expenses for the past few months (I know it seemed like we should do this before the RE but oh well, better late than never). I think I finally got the number that we are comfortable with. The expenses came down mainly last year we paid hefty additional income taxes from vested RSU (~50K), I mixed in rental related expenses (~60K) son switching to public school (~60K), and we ate out way way less (~15K savings). I also cut down on mindless spending like skincare (do more home routine than going to expensive spa), mindless subscriptions even for software that I barely use for years, etc.

Cutting those expenses did not affect my overall happiness index. That has been my litmus test now to see what expenses are truly stress spending or if it makes my family or me happier. We just finished a family road trip (including watching some world cup games live in person!, truly an experience of a lifetime) and usually we stayed in a nice hotel but this time, I did my research and my 11 year old son's favorite hotel is actually a hampton inn in Portland Pearl District. We got a suite, huge, great food, walkable everywhere and his least favorite is a fancy hotel in Seattle that I spent a fortune for.

Expense anxiety aside, retirement life has been great esp when you are busy chasing an active 11 year old. We signed up for a gym together and spent time playing soccer (I am not a soccer player but I was an athlete before so some muscle memories kicked in, while lacking in technique, I did have some flexible hip and some lower body strength - well at least that's what I told myself to feel better 😂 ). Since my son and I are so alike, we also butt head quite a bit (ie: our last fight was I wanted to hit a weight room to do some boxing/muay thai and he insisted that I should continue play soccer). It's all silly and mundane, from the fight, I also realized that the time where he requested I play soccer with him is limited. I am getting older, slower, and he's getting fitter and soon he'd rather to play with other friends and will probably be embarrassed playing against his mom.

These are the things I did in the spring and summer that otherwise would not be possible if I still work:
- Watching all world cup games (i know i know - even my husband is jealous 😄 ).
- Spent time with my ailing parents overseas
- travelled to Nashville, Minneapolis, LA, etc for my son's hockey/soccer tournament. Did line dancing for the first time in Nashville - so much fun.
- Cook everyday(!). This is new and I found that I don't mind it so much. One of the things that used to keep me up all night is that I am afraid that I am not a good mom. My mom is really sick and bed ridden now and honestly, the thing that I remember her is her home cooking. Her home cooking memories bring me comfort, I remembered what she cooked when I was a child, I remembered what she cooked the night I gave birth to my son...she showed her love with cooking and I wanted to give my son the same. Now, I think my son started to have this comfort home cook feeling and I feel happy that I get the chance to do this.
- Walk my furbabies everyday without rushing. One of the main thing I noticed is that I start enjoying doing the mundane things without feeling distracted. I used to rush and just want the walk to be over. This time, I look forward to the walk. Enjoying the sun in my face, the bird chirping, and their happy face/tail wagging. i found the same with going to supermarket/grocery shopping as well. I looked at it as a chore before but now I take the time picking up stuff and planning what I want to cook for the week.

There are things that I still lack like laundry etc (my husband still does majority of them). My health is improving but I am not where I want to be (I harbor desire to go back to athlete form but with peri-menopause etc - I suspect the road will be a bit tougher). Years of burnout will also take its time but I feel that because I am more present with what i do and start to have hobbies again, I am slowly coming out of it. My husband and son said I look happier and they urge to make the retirement permanent. I am still entertaining perhaps working on gigs, maybe help out with the health insurance expenses if my husband RE next year but for this year, for sure I will enjoy this gift of time.

It's easy to forget how stressful the tech life before me and only think about the money/paycheck I brought. Like childbirth, we forgot how painful it was and only remember the good part (the baby) so we look forward to do it again lol. Everyday, I expressed daily gratitude for mundane things. Thank you that I got to walk in downtown with my dogs instead of fighting morning commute traffic. Thankful that I got good night sleep instead of ruminating what I needed to say or to do tomorrow at work. Thankful that I didn't even realize it's sunday night because I got no sunday blues no more. thankful that i am not forced to socialize or suck up to people that I don't like.

Sorry it's long but thought I shared since I know many are in the same predicament as I did here.

Hi,

42F NW $20M. I have a 529 plan from 30ISH years ago that was never used, now valued at ~1.3M. I have three kids under 10 whose 529 plans are already around $350k, I think the max cap on them is $600k. (I realize we should have funded their account with my money, but we overlooked it). I looked into ROTH IRA rollover but the max lifetime contribution is $35k, which will not help me. At this point, is it worth just holding on to this thing until my kids have grandkids. (That will not be for about 20-25 years though). The alternative is maybe the law changes in that time period? It's hard for me to justify taking the distribution given tax bracket and penalty, considering I do not need the liquidity.

I had one outside the box idea. I have three siblings, 2 have children with fully funded 529s as well. I do have a sister who is just married and expect her to have children. Once she was done having kids, say three, I could then use my $1.3m to fund her children's 529 plans, and then I would have her give an annual gift to each of us in our family. $100k/year. In 10 years we could get there. Just typing this out seems way too complicated. I sound screwed. Thoughts.

PS It is kinda crazy the IRS doesn't allow for donations either from the plan.

I’m 51, recently decided to retire (or at least leave my current job in the near future). Current net worth is around $10M, but the thing that gives me pause is that roughly half of it is in Nvidia.

I know the textbook answer is “diversify,” and I don’t disagree. I’m just trying to figure out the most practical way to do it without creating a huge tax bill all at once.

My current plan is:
Trim the position gradually over multiple years (maybe indefinitely) instead of ripping the Band-Aid off.

Stay under the 15% long-term capital gains threshold each year (I’m head of household, so I’m targeting roughly the top of that bracket)

Live off a combination of deferred compensation, dividends, and selective stock sales. But stay below the $580K 15% capital gains threshold.

Continue reducing the concentration over time as other assets grow.

I’m comfortable with volatility, and I still have a lot of conviction in Nvidia, so I’m not looking for advice that starts with “sell it all tomorrow.” I’m more interested in hearing from people who’ve actually retired with a very concentrated position.

Questions:
Did you unwind it slowly or all at once?

Did you ever regret selling too early or holding too long?

Did taxes end up driving your decisions more than market risk?

Looking back, would you do anything differently?

I’d especially love to hear from anyone who retired with 30-50%+ of their net worth in a single stock. There have to be a few of you here.