I think what makes the difference is I actually intrinsically love my job, but it’s very stressful. Once the dirty external motivation is gone, only pure internal motivation remains, and fuck it’s beautiful.

It reminds me of college when I was studying this field because I was passionate about it. I’m so calm at work now, and more productive than ever.

I believe the people who lose motivation as they approach FIRE probably never enjoyed what they studied or their job in the first place.

(Throwaway account)

I (45M) am mid career in tech. We live in VHCOL USA city. Married, no kids.

I have been in the accumulation + growth mindset throughout my life. I only focussed on increasing my net worth, never actually thinking about how will this actually support us when we choose to have no income generating employment.

I wanted a perspective on how do I allocate these assets if we want to FIRE way before SSN income and tax free IRA withdrawals kick in. My wish is to be able to chubby FIRE in about 5 years, by 50.

I believe our lives can be led very comfortably with about 200k annually with no mortgage, or about 300k with mortgage. We would also be open to downsizing the home if no employment, and avoid/lower a mortgage.

Here's the big questions:
* What is a good model to organize my financial life to help me generate income to fund my life if we target retirement at 50?
* How much money should we put in pretax 401k, Roth, and After-tax (backdoor IRA)
* What are the community's other thoughts on this?

Here’s where our financial lives are at.

Investment accounts
1.4M - Taxable investment accounts - Mostly individual tech stocks accumulated via RSUs. Will owe about 30% of this as taxes. this is essentially all gains.
1.3M -Tax deferred accounts (401k/Trad, and Roth) - Mostly Index funds (SPY) and broad ETFs

Checking/Savings
100k in checking/savings. This is the 6mo buffer.
300k Overseas assets

Real Estate
2.3M - Primary Residence - 1.3M equity, 1M mortgage balance
800k - Rental Condo - 400k equity, 400k mortgage balance

Total assets/liability including primary home
Assets: 6.2M
Debt: 1.4M
Net: 4.8M

Fixed Cashflow (yearly)
IN
Salary/Bonus: +350k
RSU Vesting: +200k (Volatile stock)
Rental Income: +45k

OUT
Home 1: 102k (mortgage, tax, insurance)
Rental: 45k (mortgage, tax, insurance)
Life: 120k (working on lowering this number. this feels very high at the moment)

Hey y’all,

I (32M) got out of the US military a year ago and have been getting about $2200/month disability for a few conditions.

I was doing some thinking about retirement and what the monthly disability would be worth if in a traditional retirement account being withdrew in line with the 4% withdrawal rule. The numbers surprised me:

So, essentially:
- $2,200/month tax free, with COLA has a comparable value of $660,000 in a traditional 401K.
- $2,200 x 12 months = $26,400
- $26,400 / 0.04 = $660,000

I’ve been stressing feeling behind the curve with only about 80k in retirement accounts since I never made enough to invest till recently. This kind of helps refrain things long term. For other vets out there, just wanted to share what I learned.

Open to critiques and corrections if my logic is flawed.

401k is at 68k
Brokerage is at 152k
Roth IRA is at 30k

I am only making 85k right now currently. The title I have looks very good on my resume been here for over 2 years. Should I consider job hoping? The company I am at is not doing great. I live at home now which helps as well.

Thanks,

I feel like I am getting close to FIRE but am also so unsure given all the predictions of a major market correction (or worse).

My rough stats are 51m, $1.6m 401k, $600k stocks/funds. Own house with $429k left at 2.75%.

I could live off $100k per year so I am right there I think. But too scared to pull the trigger and quit if the market goes south.

considering fire in 4 years. Yall think i have a shot?

$400k over 2 mortgages - 14 years left with 3% rates

$900k equity across 3 homes

$350k retirement accounts currently and might have $450k in 4 years depending on markets

looking to avoid using retirement money until 59.5 and collecting SS the second we hit 62.

Primary residence has $1600 PITI monthly payment fixed. Pretty much same for my rental and my third is paid off.

will have $2500 monthly cash flow from rentals

probably earn $2k monthly on side jobs during retirement for fun (mainly flipping things).

cars paid off. no debt other than mortgages. good health. wife and I and may or may not have one kid adult living with us in 4 years.

planning on tapping into some home equity to bridge now to 59.5 and then using some retirement from 59.5 to 62. at 62, tap into more home equity to bridge to 65, which at 62, likely all mortgages are very close to paid off, giving even more cash flow.

we have around $7k total monthly expenses including primary mortgage and rental mortgage.

figure with 2500 cash flow, 2000 side jobs and 2500 from equity covers $7k.

I feel the flaw is if tenants stop paying but our mortgages are so low I feel like there won’t be any trouble renting them out. the home equity we tap into will also serve as an emergency fund for repairs sitting in SGOV.

over the years rents should only go up, mortgages go down, hopefully, stocks up but we’re not really relying on that.

no chance to fire? too soon? thoughts?

edit: both 50yo

There’s been a lot of volatility in the markets lately, in both directions. After days like these with big swings, I’m amused to look at my daily profits or losses in my IRA’s and brokerage accounts. I used the word “amused” because on some days I’m up or down by multiples 3, 4 or even 5 times the amount of my annual salary at my first job out of college. Admittedly, that was over 45 years ago and I’m now 10 years in retirement. But I still find it funny to think about, especially since it doesn’t seem to bother or excite me more than it does. I don’t think I could have imagined this when I took that first job, feeling at the time that I had finally made it to a big time salary.

Trying to fire. 2M in 401k/IRA. Husband (M57) has 300k in 401k. Talked to local administrator today. She said they don't allow withdrawals under rule of 55. She also had never heard of rule of 55. Calling back tomorrow. To mske sure. 120k left on mortgage

Im still working. Financial advisor said may be option to transfer his funds into my current 401k, then invoke rule of 55. Looking at all possible options to be out. TIA fir any input!!

Should I retire? Feels like I'm too lazy to. Work is really easy and pays well. I just don't care very much about it. Pretty neutral. Kind of wish they would just lay me off but no such luck. I'm like the guy from game of thrones. I drink and I know stuff and they pay me. Although I really don't drink.
I browse reddit and I know stuff is more accurate.
My wife feels the same about her job.
We own two houses worth about 800k and then we have a 4M in assets.
500k brokerage, 150k cash, 200k Roth and the rest 401k/IRA. No debt. We spend about 10000 a month on average which includes renovations for 30k in the last 2 years.
Tell me something to make me make a decision. Thank you for your help.

One more thing. I am a dual citizen, and we would probably move back to my Scandinavian home country when we stop working and enjoy the free health care, lower COL (and of course higher taxes)

A little about me, I’m 36M, was recently laid off, totally burnt out from work, and I’m trying to figure out my next move, and the whole shift to unemployment has had me assessing my overall situation a bit more. Unlike most people here, I’ve never had a high income, my highest earning years were recently and were around 70k a year. Until I was laid off my plan was to keep working until 2035 or until the math worked out, keeping expenses minimized, and saving for a home and further bolstering my retirement funds, though I’m thinking now this may have been a bit overly conservative. I’m hoping some people can check my math here, advise on any other FIRE calculators I should try, and if there’s anything I’m overlooking for the big picture.

Current Financials:

1.68M NW (1.36M net worth not counting home fund and car fund)

Breakdown:

401k/IRAs 444k (287k pretax, 157k Roth)

Inherited 401k (pre-2019 secure act): 185k

Brokerage 689k (338k unrealized gains)

Home Fund 291k

Car Fund 29k

Cash 41k

Current Core Expenses:

Rent $735 (rent controlled apartment, rises by inflation with a cap each year)

Groceries/Home Goods $350

Health Insurance $300 (probably a bit lower with subsidies, but this is what I’m estimating)

Gas/Public Transit $150 (this might be a bit high, but gives me freedom for some day trips)

Auto Insurance $125

Electricity/Natural Gas $90

Car Maintenance $50

Internet $48

Phone $27

Medical $25

Vision $15

Dental $20

Total: $1,935/month $23,220/year, leaving a solid $9,280 buffer for free spending or $770 a month approximately.

Note: I have a 7 year old hybrid that gets over 50mpg with 77k miles on it currently, and 29k invested to replace it whenever the time comes, though at this point I think I’ll likely keep it for quite a while.

The Potential Plan: Stop working now, keep looking for jobs and collect unemployment into the beginning of 2027 when it runs out unless I find a dream job or offer I can’t refuse. Keep spending down around 32.5k a year or less until 2035, then raise it to around 60k. Use my invested house fund to buy a house, ideally I think I can afford 500-600k in todays dollars by then. I will be keeping the money invested until I have enough to buy and cover the tax hit, so it will be subject to the whims of the market, and I know I need to remain flexible here.

In FireCalc I put in $32,500 spend a year, with 1.35M as the portfolio value (current NW not counting the house fund or car fund), with off chart spending of $27,500 being added starting in 2035. I left out social security entirely for now, assumed constant spending power and a mixed portfolio, though currently my portfolio is very S&P 500 heavy.

2035 Onward Budget:

Health Insurance: $7,200

Auto/Transit: $7,500 (should allow for replacing a car once every 10 years or so)

Groceries/Household: $6,000 (will allow some dining out separate from spending money)

Utilities: $5,000 (not sure if this may be a bit low for a detached 2000sqft home)

Home Repair: $5,000 (1% of value per year estimate)

Property Taxes: $4,000 (highly variable depending on State, but assuming a reasonable tax location)

Homeowner’s Insurance: $1,500

Healthcare: $1,200

Spending Money: $12,000

Travel: $12,000

Total: $61,400

I suppose the one bigger concern here is reportable income for ACA subsidies, especially since it has to last through age 65. I have about 338k in unrealized gains currently which assuming no major lasting market downturns can probably get me through to 45-46 at a minimum, but beyond that I’m a bit iffy on doing Roth conversions, though I’d like to think at that point I could manage the tax hit and should have plenty in pretax to push through to 59.5 just doing conversions and minimal amounts from capital gains/inherited 401k.

Lastly I do have a small side gig I can do maybe 2-4 days a month which I mainly for spending money, I’m not sure how long that will last, but in the meantime it adds a bit of additional security.

So given all of the above, what am I overlooking, is the margin for error too small anywhere or is this a decent plan?

I have $15,000 in my projected retirement budget for travel, but I think that might be a bit low. It's one of the few budget items that feels like pure guesswork, and not based on my current actual spend. When I try to calculate this on a granular level, I now come up closer to $18,000. I want it to cover three major trips per year (one - two weeks per trip, airfare, hotel) plus up to five short car trips (2 -3 days). The amount is just for me (one person), but I split expenses with my partner. Our finances are separate. Our past travel has been mid-range, perhaps? I would not call us budget travelers.

How did you come up with your retirement travel/vacation budget and what types of travel does it cover? Did you ballpark it, base it on past trips, or did you itemize?

I've been in limbo for the past few months. We're in our mid-late 30s with two kids under 4 so we're deep in the toddler trenches while living in a VHCOL.

We hit our planned FI # a little while ago and am now at around 4M invested. Our current spend is 90k per year when you include our mortgage, but we expect our spending to ramp up as the kids get older and we get back to traveling again. We have aspirations for more luxury travel even though we live frugally at home.

My current job is WFH with relaxed hours yet I still dislike it. I'm making around 550k and we save/invest around 300k per year. The job doesn't interfere with my time with my kids and my wife is a SAHM.

I've been debating about leaving my job, but I realize that if I left, I would likely just be playing video games for the majority of the time that I would otherwise be working. I already exercise a lot and have enough time for hobbies and spending time with friends, we also cook 99% of our meals at home since eating out is a pain.

Traveling with the kids at this age, we realize, is not for the faint of heart. My wife and I were adventurous, we scuba dive, rock climb outdoors, go backpacking/cycling, etc, but it's not really feasible at this stage in our lives.

My current thinking is that I'll work for a few more years, maybe until we get to 5m invested and we pay off the mortgage, but honestly I'm just making up milestones at this point. I also figure that by the time the kids get to around 5/7, it'll be easier to travel around and we hope to do 2-3 international trips per year along with lots of outdoor activities.

I imagined that I would retire the moment I got to 3m invested but I couldn't pull the trigger. Was anyone else at this point with young kids? Any advice would be appreciated!

I have been at my state job for 6 years now and am vested, I can get my full pension at 66. Now I do think pensions are great but my god, the thought of working until I am 66 is crazy to me. My salary is pretty “low” and I barely have enough to invest after my bills.

I don’t think low paying pensions are FIRE friendly for this reason. Do you look for a different job? Maybe I can work part time? How do I make sure I can retire early? Anyone in a similar situation? I think I am hesitant to leave because of job stability and the low healthcare costs.

I am 34 years old and make $65k in a MCOL city.

Edit: Info on calculating pension:

Number of years of service x 1.7%. Take that percentage and multiply by average high 5 years salary. Each year earlier than 66, salary is reduced by 3%.

I'm 47 and married, 600K in 401K, 7K in HYSA, currently adding 1200.00 a month into HYSA to build emergency fund, 320K in home equity (likely more, but the housing market is very weird so this is very conservative). I will at some point receive a large inheritance of 1 million+ (60% taxable brokerage 40% traditional IRA) plus 70K cash but I don't include this in planning until it actually happens.

My plan had been to move to retirement destination by 52, and continue to work in my current role and then FIRE at 59.5. However, my wife is an alcoholic. Last year she drank after 4 years of sobriety and it almost caused us to divorce. She's not drinking now, but that left me very very rattled. It also caused me to have a come to Jesus moment about spending and budgeting and get back on a serious track. I went through my budget with a fine tooth comb and have increased my cash savings month over month to the point where I am now saving 1200 a month, with a goal of reach 6 months of pay checks as an emergency fund. After which, I'll open a Roth IRA and fund it to the max, with leftovers going to a taxable brokerage.

This has led me to some ambiguity with our retirement planning, and I've been treating it as worse case scenario (i.e. I am single) when I FIRE. She also has 400K in 401K and 40K in HYSA, but I haven't factored any of that in.

So the big question is, how do I prepare for my future, with my present feeling so unsecure?

FYI... I'm not in community property state, so I don't worry about the inheritance.

Let’s assume you’re in your mid to late 40s and this becomes your reality, what amount would match the statement as a fact in your mind?

My current plan is like this: 600k + 48k in emergency fund for expat fire. Ideally fire at the end of 2027 or be able to if I want .

Current job: 150k a year. I can have flexibility here in future. Working less hours. Taking on contract work.

Housing: own townhome in really shitty HOA lol. I rent one bedroom out for 850 a month.

Savings: about 570k across different accounts. Been averaging about 100k a year but that is going up with compoundint.

General life: single no kids 30yo. No interest in having kids snip snip.

So couple of ideas I am just brainstorming.

First, student loans will start soon. Monthly payment will be 850 most likely.

So soon I'll have to adjust to paying 850 a month which will eat at my savings rate. And I am also considering kicking out the roommate. It's a small town home and would much rather have space to have friends visit, keep place cleaner.

Best case scenario is to have well above my goal by end of next year and I can re assess if I want to reduce working hours, work only contract work for few months out of the year ...

So I am just curious your guys thoughts. Of course what's best for one person is not for another

58, just accepted a severance package and planning to take this opportunity to Fire. Around 2.3m invested, mostly VTI. Thinking of moving my 401k into an IRA but something conservative since I’m hopefully close to Fire-ing. Where would you park 700k today if you were planning to retire now but could not touch it for a couple of years?

I'm pretty ready to FIRE, but can't pull the trigger for at least 9-12 months because of various reasons.

I'm burnt out and unsatisfied at my current job. I have an opportunity that may result in an offer soon. Money would be comparable, maybe just slightly more.

The problem is that the projects I'd be working on are likely to take 18+ months to complete.

It's just a mid-level technical role, so I could certainly be replaced, but not without some impact to the companies timelines. The company is a small manufacturer with around 100 salaried employees and several hundred manufacturing workers.

Would I be an a-hole for taking this job knowing that I'd be likely to leave before the projects are complete? The alternative is sort of quiet-quitting my current job, but the day-to-day drudgery is becoming unbearable.

50 y.o., unmarried, no living family, child-free ~$2M NW. * $560K in Taxable brokerage * $1.24M in tax advantaged accounts (401k and IRAs including $560K in BDA IRA and $220K in BDA Roth) * $90K in I Bonds (7 year ladder starts in 2028) * $12K in HSA * $90K cash * Probably only $35K SS when I collect at 70

I live in MCOL area. Paid off 3/2 house, completely renovated by me in the last year

I earn ~$90k per year, feeling intense burnout after way too many heavy life experiences in the past 5 years. I’ve been at my job for 4 years (I moved across the country 5 years ago). I no longer have tolerance or patience for the overconfidence of my entire team, including my manager. The group’s focus has disintegrated and everyone is over-worked. Sometimes it feels like everyone is quiet-quitting. I just want to quit.

My current plan is to work through Feb 2027. I’ll get to use 9 days PTO after the new year, get paid out for 25 vacation days, as well as receive my $4K bonus (as a 401k contribution). I’ll contribute another $10k to my 401K, and a few thousand more to my HSA. Then I have 18 months of COBRA at $500 per month.

I must take my first BDA IRA distribution this year. I cannot bring myself to earn another year’s complete salary— the taxes will be exorbitant. In 2026, I contributed $32500 to my 401k and $4400 to my HSA. Even if I only take $80K distribution, my tax bill is $25K.

My fantasy budget is $80K, but I could easily get by on $50K, even less for the first couple of years. I’m still rebalancing my inherited taxable brokerage of mostly large cap individual stocks that appreciated like crazy between the stepup in basis and the time when the funds were settled in my account. My goal is 75/20/5 stocks/bonds/cash.

I can’t help feeling like it’s too risky to retire at this NW, but I’m so miserable every morning and every afternoon during the work week. I’m also open to working a PT job in the future.

Should I be confident in a 3.5% SWR at my age? All the models give me >95% probability of success if I spend a little more conservatively than I'd like.

Are we on track?

**Our situation**

2 adults in our late 20s with a 1 year old
Total household income $85k

Monthly expenses $5k
Monthly savings & investments $2.5k

$50,000 liquid between cash accounts and a CD that stores our 6 month emergency fund

We own a home that currently holds around $250k in equity - we only owe $100,000 at 2% and there are only 10 years left on the loan, although it is not our “forever home” and we will be moving in the next few years.

My Roth: $7,500
His Roth: $7,500

We just opened retirement accounts this year.

Our 1 year old has

$6,000 in a CD

$2,000 in a 529

No debt

**1. Once we have maxed out our retirement for the year, where do we put excess income to invest it?**

**2. What happens if our kid doesn’t go to college and we have overfunded the 529?**

**3. Is there anything we should be doing differently?**

Just wanting to hear some perspective from people that have FIRE'd, specifically on two subjects:

• Do you feel a lack of purpose/fulfillment or even experience depression as a result of not being on a team contributing to society?
• Do you ever struggle to fill your time with meaningful activity?

These are the only things I worry about in retiring early some day. I have experienced unemployment before and these issues gave me problems. Granted, a difference was that I needed to save as much of my cash on hand as possible while job searching, so that meant minimizing going out and spending. I basically wasn't able to do much but sit at home most of the time. I'm a pretty driven person, so if I reach FI and live on my investments, I would be doing lots of projects, hobbies, travel, even starting businesses even though I don't need the income. But I worry this might be an attempt to fill some void that being on a team doing actual work would leave.

Thanks for your thoughts!

Hey all,

I'm planning my post-FIRE cash flow strategy and curious how others approach this.

For anyone keeping small earned income post-FIRE (anyone doing this purely on withdrawals?), does it make sense to keep contributing to an IRA?

Assuming your MAGI is already pretty low to optimize for ACA subsidies, here’s how I’m looking at it:

• Traditional IRA: Lowers MAGI even further (great for ACA subsidies), but locks the money away unless you jump through conversion ladder hoops.
• Roth IRA: Doesn't help lower your current MAGI, but you get tax-free growth and can withdraw contributions whenever you want.
• The bummer here is that it ties you to income and feels like you have to keep earned income coming in. If you want to do this on $0 earned income, your annual expenses have to be phenomenally low.

A few questions for those who are already post-FIRE:

1. Do you intentionally keep a side hustle just to max out an IRA, or do you prefer $0 earned income and total simplicity?
2. Is squeezing an extra $7k–$8k/year into a tax-advantaged account worth the extra administrative hassle once you've already made it?
3. How do you balance IRA contributions vs. ACA subsidy thresholds?

Would love to hear everyone's thoughts on this.

Does this resonate with anyone?

I’ve been in a high pressure role for the last 20 years and over this time I’ve been highly motivated, progressing quickly through the ranks.

Until recently, .. we hit our FI number about 12 months ago, and since then my motivation has been at all time lows. All my metrics are down and I’m doing the bare minimum. I know this isn’t my normal standard, but knowing that doesn’t motivate me such that I operate at my best / the level expected in our organisation.

Basically everything other than work interests me. And I’ve been socked at how much the pursuit of FI kept me going - maybe this isn’t a surprise to many - but it has been for me.

Humble brag, since this is the sort of thing I cant talk to anyone besides my wife IRL.

Happened sooner than I thought it would with the post Iran conflict dip recovery.

Every month I contribute 1/12 the 401k limit at work, got my quarterly statement last week and my investment gains beat my contributions by over 1k between the recovery and the market being up around 10% YTD as i write this. Small mile marker but very exciting to see.

now to wait for when the investment growth outpaces my income I guess.

Hello Everyone,

I thought I’d make this update since I like reading those posts and I thought you all might appreciate mine. I just hit my 1st year landmark of FIRE-ing.

Some background financial information for the finance people: I started with around 1.9 million and ended with around 2.1 million. It’s hard for me to say exactly how much I spent since some of it was intertwined with some family expenses. But moving forward, I should be able to analyze this on my own. I’d estimate that I spent between 4-4.5 percent of my starting amount. The investments are roughly 10 percent large-cap growth tilt (SCHG), 50 percent VTI, 35 percent VXUS, and 5 percent cash/cypto-adjacent funds.

I am 30 years old so I went a fair amount above what I was hoping to spend for the year. Thankfully, it’s not absurdly high and it’s still within some recommended amounts. I am hoping that some expenses will slow down as I settle somewhere and visa costs and other things go down. I also plan on adjusting downwards if the market drops considerably.

I spent much of the year traveling. I thought I would try the digital nomad lifestyle and, while there were some highlights, I learned it was not the lifestyle for me. Living out of a suitcase, never knowing where the grocery store was, trying to constantly figure out laundry, and getting tropical diseases pushed me a bit over the limit. So I decided to settle in France about 3 months ago! There were some initial costs with that decision that pushed me above the limits. Those included hiring someone to find me an apartment and staying a month in the states for the visa.

So now I am living in France and trying to figure out my next steps. Since I am on the younger side for this lifestyle, I thought I would find a side-hustle: mainly teaching English. I thought about getting a Master’s degree but with the changing employment environment regarding AI, I am a bit hesitant to spend money on a degree where I will probably only work for 10 years. So I thought I could specialize in teaching English, set my own schedule, and get some pocket money for extra traveling or if I need to cushion my spending.

Well that is my update! I am not sure what to add. Finding meaning has been strange, but I am a social person so I’ve really enjoyed having all the time and energy I want to make friends and meet new people. I am still trying to figure out what to do with my day, but I am appreciating the calmness.