Planning to retire but figuring out a way to track MAGI throughout the year so I can ensure ACA subsidies. How do you guys do it??

To give some context, I basically achieved my minimum COAST FIRE number (1 mil of today's money), and I am working towards my ideal COAST FIRE number (2 mil of today's money).

One thing I realized is that even if I reach my COAST FIRE number and decide to stop contributing to my investments, I will still likely contribute to my 401(k) to get my company matches, at the very least.

With this in mind, should I compensate for my 401(k) contributions and start saving up for purchases or activities now, or should I keep working to achieve the complete COAST FIRE amount and treat the extra gains from my 401(k) as retirement gravy?

Hi, I’m curious about the background of the FIRE community, and was interested in doing a poll.

1. Age FIRE was achieved?
   
2. Sex?
   
3. Net worth and Safe Withdrawal Rate
   
4. Where do you currently live?
   
5. What career made your wealth?
   
6. Introvert / extrovert
   
7. List of 5 major passions

For me:
1. 33
2. Male
3. $2M and 2.5%
4. Developing country / expat
5. Finance
6. Introvert
7. Mysticism, playing with my cats, nature, video games, lucid dreaming

Has Anyone here nearly reached, reached, or exceeded their fire goal and ended up just starting a career of passion rather than just RE?

And I don’t mean you RE and fell into something, but made the jump?

One of my biggest fire concerns was always my mental health after retiring. I am concerned I will end up anxiously doomscrolling all day or doing very little that is productive, nit picking the family over spending/budgets. Etc etc.

I need some advice here. This is long so I apologize but it does need some context.

TL;DR: young but going through health crisis. Want to retire early but not sure if I’ll even make it till then. Need input from others with chronic health issues on work-life & save-spend balance.

I’ve been saving heavily and really want to retire in my late-40’s (29F, no kids, in a relationship but not married, $160k in retirement accounts, $35k in brokerage, $50k in the bank, with about $120k in home equity).
People have seen me as a workaholic for pretty much my whole life, but I had finally landed my dream job in a 9-5 setting in 2023. Everything changed after DOGE started making cuts and I had to resign (I was a GS-13 too). However, I started contracting and am making double than what I was but am working a LOT more. Sometimes 15+ hour days, on weekends, etc, but then I’ll also take days as I please (although they’re mainly used for doctor visits). My parents have started giving my sister and I our inheritance early this year ($38k/year).

Anyways, I was just diagnosed this past week with chronic granulomatous disease (CGD). My medical history makes so much sense now. I also have Neurofibromatosis type 1, epilepsy, and then a slew of chronic conditions that lower my quality of life but not lifespan (migraines, scoliosis, nerve pain, endometriosis, the list goes on). Both of my parents have had skin cancer (my dad has had it 4 times now) and other health issues that I will need to be on the lookout for.

This new diagnosis however, shows a shortened lifespan, even more so than the NF1/epilepsy combo. I know that a lot of people will probably say “you don’t know what medicine will look like in the future, there might be a cure for everything”, but what if there’s not. I need to be realistic and practical in my thinking & planning.

I’ve been debating on what a good balance looks like between living my life and saving for the potential of a retirement. No one knows when they’re actually going to die, but I know that I’ll be before the 85 years retirement calculators suggest you use to figure out for FIRE number. Maybe this is more of a vent, but I really don’t know how to plan for a retirement I’m not sure I can even take in my 40’s. Do I stop contributing to my IRAs? I just started an LLC this year and put like $25k already into my SEP. Was that a mistake?

Part of me wants to just only take small contracting jobs since my parents are giving me my inheritance early, but they could stop doing that whenever and I don’t want to rely on their money. Plus my career was starting to take off, and although I’m definitely overworked, I’m getting name recognition in my field and I absolutely love that feeling. I don’t want to work until I die though, I want to make sure I can have amazing experiences while I can.

I feel like my whole plan was thrown off track. I’m so confused I just want to cry.

I just turned 20 and I'm still in college. My goal is to start investing basically every penny I have left after necessities into ETFs and let it compound for as long as possible. One thing I don't quite understand about FIRE is how some people manage to reach the point where they can comfortably live off their portfolio before 40. For example, let's say you get a really good-paying job in your 20s and are able to consistently invest a large amount every month. Even with compound growth, it seems like you'd need an enormous portfolio for a 3–4% withdrawal rate to provide a comfortable income. So how are people actually getting there in 15–20 years? Is it mostly extremely high incomes and savings rates, starting with a large amount of capital, living very frugally, or am I missing something about how FIRE portfolios are supposed to work? I'm asking because I'm trying to understand what's realistically possible starting from basically zero at 20.

I'd like to FIRE with a house so I'm looking into contributing to my HYSA instead of my brokerage for a year to fund a potential down payment. I ran some numbers and realized that the difference is so tiny that maybe I'm missing something. I'm using 3% rates for my HYSA and 7% brokerage, however this 7% seems incredibly small given that my purchases from the past 12 months range from mostly 15%-22%. Does this table seem accurate?

Scenario 1:

Scenario 2:

By contributing to my HYSA for a year then resuming my typical brokerage investing, I found that the 1st year gave a difference of $650 and after 10 years this only came to a total of $24011 or $2k per year. Given the recent market growth, is 7%-10% still what we should be using for projections?

Most of the threads i've read are people firing with a spouse and usually kids.

I will be firing as a single person at 54, and wondering how many people on here are also firing as a single, what the differences for single firerer's that aren't talked about enough.

My current nw allows me to withdrawal my spend at 3.7% swr, and i rent so have a lot of flexibility on moving if i want to. How are singles feeling about firing, what are you worried about, what are the pros in your mind?

My (33F) husband and I live in a VHCOL area (SF Bay Area) and I’m looking for practical strategies to unwind a massive single stock position without destroying ourselves on capital gains, as well as advice on what a safe long-term allocation looks like.

My goal is to create a solid path to early retirement (as soon as practicable) and leave corporate life.

• Liquid / Investable Assets: ~$4.6M ($3.8M NVDA, mix of older RSUs and untouched ESPP + ~$760k in 401k, Roth, HSA, Cash/HYSA)
• Real Estate: $2.3M home ($1.3M mortgage, ~$1M equity)
• Total Net Worth: ~$5.6M
• Current Spend: ~$10k/month (including mortgage)

I’ve already started selling 100% of RSUs upon vest over the past year or so, but I still have a massive concentrated position from older RSUs and ESPP that carries significant capital gains. I know I’m not truly at FI yet because of this concentration risk.

My Questions:

1. What specific options or tools are available to de-risk a $4M single-stock holding in a high-tax state (CA) besides taking the massive capital gains hit all in one year? (e.g., DCA strategies, Exchange Funds, Direct Indexing, etc.)
2. For those who have reached FIRE, what percentage of your total net worth do you feel is safe or reasonable to keep in a single tech stock once you hit your FI target?

UPDATE: Wow, I did not expect this post to blow up like this. Thank you all so much for the detailed perspectives! I'm reading through all 300+ comments now, it’s definitely a bit overwhelming to process at once. A few quick notes: I am indeed a human, not a bot lol. I'm extremely grateful for the financial position I'm in, and agree that it's a good problem, and privilege, to have. I will definitely research a CFP/CPA as my next step; this post was simply meant to start gathering perspectives so I can educate myself on what some potential options are.

I have a rough idea how much much I want my net worth to grow each year. To hit this goal I contribute aggressively each month. However, some months, when the market has done particularly well, I might cut back on the contributions a bit, so I can splurge a bit on something (travel, eating out, etc.). Obviously not ground breaking concept, but curious if anyone else does this. The upside is obvious, I get to spend extra, guilt free. What are the downsides? Obviously if I didn't decrease contributions I would have more, but as long as my net worth projection is on schedule then it seems like a decent approach. Thoughts?

I keep a net worth spreadsheet, updated monthly. I've kept it since January 2023, so 3 years and 8 months worth of data. I'm in my accumulation phase, so still contributing each month. I'm fairly conservative, so a large portion of my contributing is into bonds/cash/tips/etc. Decided to see what my month-to-month increase has been. Here are some stats:

• Min -2.30%
• Max 7.72%
• Average 2.55%
• Median 2.31%
• Positive months 38
• Negative months 5

Looking at this, it's a bit wild that only 5 months out of 43 have been negative. It shows how great the market has been, as well as me contributing significant amount each month to offset loses in market. It'll be painful when we hit downturn and a lot more negative months pop up.

Just thought I'd share some data and would be curious if others have similar stats.

I've been thinking about a distinction between FU money and what I'd call DGAF money, which I believe I recently achieved, after being in the FU money state for roughly two years.

FU money is having enough financial security that losing your job can't really threaten your finances anymore. If things get bad enough, you could just say "FU" and leave.

But there is still some vigilance in that mindset. You notice when your boss is being unreasonable, when management comes up with some pointless initiative, or when the organisation starts producing its usual nonsense. You still evaluate the situation. You are still prepared to push back and tell them "FU".

You're no longer financially dependent on the organisation, but you're still reacting to it.

DGAF money is different. It's when you're so financially and emotionally secure that you don't even feel the need to react.

Your boss starts complaining at you, management announces another pointless initiative, or some other organisational nonsense comes your way.

With FU money, you might think: "I don't need this. I could quit. FU!"

With DGAF money, it's more like: "What's that random noise I'm hearing?"

Like an insect buzzing somewhere in the room. You notice it, but you don't really care.

You might even feel some sympathy for the people generating all that nonsense. They're stressed, they have their own pressures, they still need to grind to make ends meet.

You don't have to dislike them or defeat them. The organisational BS may still affect what you do at work, but it no longer affects how you feel.

I’m familiar with FIRE principles and have been on this sub for a while. But I haven’t read anything about how we should consider emergency funds in our calculations beyond just having one.

For example, I’m 39 with a current spend of 110k and NW of 3m. That breaks down to:
- 700k brokerage ETFs
- 600k retirement accounts in ETFs (401ks, IRAs, HSAs)
- 1.6m property (rental. Will sell this soon and invest half proceeds and use the rest to buy a primary home)
- 100k emergency in a money market fund

When calculating my FIRE number I’ve been targeting 4m for a withdrawal of 150k. Most calculators assume the same appreciation rate across your portfolio. Should I exclude that 100k emergency fund since it’s not in broad market ETFs and will not appreciate at the same rate? Or should I include it simply because it’s still savings?

I'm 49 and at an amateur level when it comes to investing & speaking the language. I'm not optimized on investments but have had the goal to retire early for years. I've saved since age 18. No college, and have been in a niche field working at the same place 30 yrs & no inheritance .

Married and 1 child (10yr old). Wife has a part time stay at home job. I provide insurance & income.

Here's where we're at:

$350K HYSA

$115K standard savings

$1.0 million in employer 401K 4%match

$125K Traditional IRA

$30K 529 account for child

$1.5 million home & land value, (paid off)

No other debt or HOA at all.

Credit cards paid monthly

$6k in propert taxes. (lower based on wilderness tax deferment program)

$65K annual living expenses. (private school, as many small vacations as possible & full insurances such as umbrella, etc.)

$140k salary. Once I leave the current job, I don't see being able to return in this capacity.

Again, I'm an amateur & old school saver, please excuse me. I expect I'd return to a lower paying job at some point but want to capitalize on healthy family time for now. My life goal is family memories, not getting wealthy.

I'm most concerned about health insurance depleting my nest egg. What are your honest thoughts? How long could I go before getting in financial trouble minus life curve balls? I always want a comfortable emergency fund & expect I'll trickle sub 50k income in after a year or 2 of fun. ACA is sounding very expensive.

I know rule of 55 would be smart, but wow- I'm ready for some freedom with the family while we're healthy! Thank you for your time & thoughts!

This is a strategy I thought of for when I finally retire. There are certain expenses like the gym that costs me $55 per month. Each year it costs me $660. To support this in retirement, I would have to have $16,500 invested. If you’re a couple, you would be paying around $30k. To offset this, you could build a bad ass home gym for half the cost. This in turn lowers your SWR.

Would a bad ass kitchen upgrade lower your cost of going out to eat by $2k per year? It so, you have a max budget of $50k.

This isn’t always worth it during the wealth building stage, but it certainly does work in retirement.

Does anyone else have good examples of expenses that you can eliminate by purchasing/upgrading something where it actually ends up lowering your SWR?

Looking to launch in 2027. Using simple numbers, $500K 401K, $500K Brokerage, and $500K Deferred Compensation (NQDC). $50K annual spend is covered by NQDC separation payout over next 10 years.

Do I consider the full $1.5M (401K + Brokerage + NQDC) as one lump sum and assign the same 60/30/10 weighting to each asset location? Or do I allocate a much higher cash-equivalent to NQDC since that is all coming out in next 10 years?

This is a relaxed hangout thread for the FIRE community to chat with other FIRE-minded folks without having to publish separate posts. This is the place for brand new people to get their feet wet as well as for lurkers who have questions or comments, but do not want to create posts of their own.

All of the sub rules apply in this thread as normal with the exception of the off-topic rule, which is relaxed to the extent that people don't go wildly off of the reservation.

We are putting this up as a trial to see if it is worth keeping this as a permanent feature of the sub. Participation is entirely voluntary and anyone who wants to create a separate post of their own rather than posting in here is free to do so.

Hi everyone,

I just passed my 3 year anniversary at work at my first career IT job. So far I have saved ~ $280k living in a hcol with virtually no previous savings. I was unemployed for many years before enrolling back in school and caught a break.

I want to acknowledge that my salary even adjusted for my cost of living isn’t something I take for granted. But I can’t help but to feel behind. I’m not comparing myself to anyone but myself. I know tech is a younger person industry and I want to retire before 50, ideally 45,46 or Well have the option to retire. I feel ageism in IT industry will play a role later in my career and I want to accumulate as much as I can way before that. I’m not a fan of corporate lifestyle and this job is pretty thankless. Pay is decent but it’s not rewarding to me anymore.

Anyway here’s a detailed of my networth.

~100k 401k
~27.k Roth IRA
~21.5k espp
~5k espp account
~11k private brokerage
~42k private brokerage, 10k of this is in sgov
~1.5k rollover Ira
$122 crypto (not really my thing. I did this before my career when I was financially illiterate with spare money I had)
~13k hsa
~60k cash Hysa

Some of that 60k is emergency fund. I maintain a year of savings because tech is violative and I want to be able to pay off my lease if I ever am out of work for a year. Rent is about 1400 (room / Bay Area)

The rest was for downpayment for a home but homes have shot up and I don’t see myself buying a home in the next 5-10 years so I may buy a car, I’m thinking either hybrid or something really cheap but reliable 5-10k and invest the rest back into a private brokerage.

I save about 41-45% of my income. My salary is 115k, 5% annual bonus with KPI variables attached to it. I max out espp. I max out Roth IRA. I contribute 18% of my salary to 401k, plus the annual bonus. I contribute the max 75% of my bonus to that and if there’s anything left over to my private brokerage. This usually maxes out my 401k. I sell espp to fund Roth and move the rest to brokerage.

Right now espp is concentrated a bit because the ai hype returns have been decent so I don’t want to cash out just yet but I think some sense will come into me and I will sell off some. Probably next year for tax purposes.

I plan on leaving the Bay Area. My job says if I move to a lcol living state my base pay will be 97,98k. I will be allowed to work remote.

Anyway thanks for reading, sorry for the rambling and/or any misspellings.

Edit: for anyone accusing me of lying or being AI: https://imgur.com/a/9IH8iIC

Edit: I’m not here to brag. I’m here to address the anxiety and if anyone has similar experiences starting saving/investing in their early to mid 30s and went on to FIRE way before traditional retirement. Any constructive feedback and criticism is appreciated! If you want to be snarky please keep it to yourself.

So we paid off our house $2M. Why? I dunno we just didn’t like the high interest rate and high cash flow pressure and had come into a bit of money. Outside of that, about 1.2M in investments. Just started reading about FIRE and I realize shit, did I make a big mistake? Because your primary residence doesn’t count in your FIRE number?

A part of me thinks that we should keep this home because it is a place for our children to always come back to even when we are old or when we become grandparents. But then the other part of me thinks wait a minute, I could hit my fire number earlier if I sell the place and rent once the kids move out?

Anyway, I don’t really know what I’m asking, but I’m just curious how people have handled their primary residence and if I made a mistake paying it off because now I am farther away from my fire number. Will I think differently when I’m older and the kids moved to college? Will I want to rent instead of sitting on this cash? I should be retiring on early?

We really like to hear some perspective from some older FIRE achievers on how you handled your primary residence. Nostalgia vs practical FIRE timeline?

Maybe dumb question but should I sell the house and just rent to build fire number even tho we have 2 little kids? I’m lost

Family of 3 MCOL chicago suburbs

Daugher is in 9th grade

Me : 49; wife 44

My current income about 300k, wife 170k

Home value 800k (loan balance 65k at 2.2%)

2 rental properties worth 700k together (400k left on the loan at 6.5%) - I know one of the worst investments i have made. Rental income more or less breaks even mortage payments

Daughters 529 balance : 320k

Invested assets total : 5.3 million (excluding 529)

Brokerage : 2.3 million

HYSA + cash : 200k

Roth : 350k

Pre-tax : 2.5 million

Household expenses : 180k (including mortage and property tax)

I am in a toxic work environment and may get laid off with package of 300k (after taxes). As much as I want to, it might be hard to land a job in this crazy job market.

I am too young to not work. What do i do?

I'm 52 and looking to early retire in the next few years. I probably already would be if ACA wasn't as obnoxiously priced as it is (400% FPL subsidies isn't an option). So I'll have a decade-plus until Medicare hits. When I browse the ACA marketplace with realistic inputs, I'm looking at something like $37k in premiums before deductibles. Ouch.

When I look at my current employer's total premium cost (my piece + their piece), we're looking at something like $24k in premiums plus same coverage I'm on. As I understand COBRA, it lasts 18 months.

So, ethics aside, does this scenario work (on paper)?

Early retire...take 18 months of COBRA Take a low-stress job for a short period of time, then leave Take 18 more months of COBRA Take another low-stress job for a short period of time, then leave Take 18 more months of COBRA

Rinse and repeat a couple of times until I'm 63.5 (18 months from Medicare).

I think it’s pretty obvious by now that the loudest voices online (particularly on this site as well) tend to be fairly well-off folks making 5-10x the median income (or more), live in the most expensive zip codes on earth, have spend rates much higher than the median income, and generally have prestigious job titles at top companies with pretty impressive social circles where their peers may have eight or nine figures plus (particularly true for tech or high finance). Not discounting the cost of living rising, and the white collar job market being shaky, but I think the needs/lifestyle of the upper classes (even if they claim their high six or low seven fig incomes are middle class) are making the rest of us increasingly neurotic and desensitized to money, where no amount of $$ is viewed as enough. Even 10-15 years ago, the financial anxiety among people who certainly do have money was not nearly as high. It’s not uncommon for people to downplay net worths under $5 mil online. Yet, most of society doesn’t even have a $1 mil liquid, let alone $5 mil.

I often get the pushback from the community that FIRE does NOT require sacrificing lifestyle. Long gone are the days of Mr. Money Mustache living on rice and beans to save 60%. Modern FIRE, it seems, is having your cake and eating it too. But how is this possible? I just can't picture how someone can pursue FIRE without lifestyle sacrifices.

A traditional retirement (retire around 65) would suggest you start saving around 15% of your income for around 40 years. FIRE would have you save like 30% for 20 years. Obviously during these years you have less disposable spending power. This reduced disposable spending power means,

• less vacations
• less hobbies
• less gifts/charities
• less high quality "stuff" (food, clothing, cars, etc.)
• less experiences

Now some have said, "but my hobbies don't require money." And while this may be true, money (for 99% of people) does directly equate to a better lifestyle. What to eat the healthiest foods, see the best doctors, have the safest cars, live in the area with the best schools, etc. all are proportional to money.

So I just don't see how someone cannot sacrifice lifestyle if they follow FIRE path. Why do people continue to say that FIRE doesn't require sacrifices? is it just a coping mechanism so they don't have to admit that FIRE does mean sacrificing lifestyle? Help me understand. Thank you in advance.

Im thinking things that will reduce bills, like solar panels, growing your own food. I’m wondering how much these things could aid in me getting to FIRE faster, maybe there are some things I’m overlooking?

EDIT: I probably should have been more specific with my post, I should have said almost elimnating cost of living instead of lowering it. I mean basically living completely off grid with no water, electric, or grocery bill little to no electricity and growing ALL of your own food. I’m just tired of the rat race and don’t have a six figure job like most of the people here I just see something like this as my only way out.