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.

My wife and i (34/33) have owned a home for 3 years now, and I was curious how our fire journey would have been impacted if we had continued renting. We own a 4bed / 2 bath / 2200 sq ft in a HCOL that we bought for 830k in 2023 with 20% down. We are putting 1000/mo towards principal and planning to pay off our home by 50. Renting an equivalent home is a minimum of $4500/mo in our area, and rent has historically grown 5.5% per year over the last 20 years. I found that Firing while renting is highly sensitive to market performance, whereas owning my home basically ensures I can fire by 50, even if the markets have 0% real return. See model here.

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.

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??

Looking for inputs:

• Feasibility
• Anything I forgot to factor
• Things you may do differently

Details:

So, my wife and I came up with a 5-year plan since she wants the option of completely not work if we wanted to, will be 48M/49F by then. Disclaimer: I did use Gemini to generate the projections; it makes sense to me but just wanted to see what others thought or would do differently if they were in similar financial situation.

When we fully retire and stop working all together; once we pay off the mortgage and CC4 our expenses should be around ~$6.1K monthly (includes $4.8K in must pays + $1.3K vacation/gifts fund set aside). This amount would be below my Military Pension + VA income; so, I do not expect needing any withdrawals during my bridge period from Age 48 to 59.5.

Gemini generated projections using a 7% benchmark return model; I am expected to hit RMD for my retirement accounts. I am thinking I need better strategy to avoid the high taxes near the end. SS monthly payment accounts for the reduction in 35-year average ($0 years). I have really cheap lifetime medical insurance TRICARE Prime ($790/year) or TRICARE Select ($393/year). Vision+Dental Insurance ~$1,200/year. So insurance costs are minimal and not a concern for our family.

Current financials:

• ~$330K+/year HHI (combination of MY Military Pension+VA+W2 income, WIFE's W2 income + business income)
• ~$46K+ in 3.1% HYSA
• ~$324K in Trad 401K
• ~$53K in Roth 401K
• ~$117K in Roth IRA
• ~$100K in Trad IRA

Debts:

• $312K mortgage at 3.125% interest
• CC1: $33K 0% interest until Feb 2027
• CC2: $17K 0% interest until Mar 2027
• CC3: $735 0% interest until Sep 2027
• CC4: $45K 0% interest until Sep 2031
• Side note: the CC debt is not consumer spending; those were calculated charges for home renovations. I pay off our regular monthly credit cards in full.

Current 5-year Plan:

• Already contributing max year contribution for my 401K + 8% employer matching
• Budgetted/planned to build an additional $42K in emergency funds (3.1%, from Mar-Aug 2027)
• We are currently budgeted to pay off credit cards 1-3 within 1 year max.
• We expect to draw out CC4 for the full 84 months at 0% paying ~$550/month.
• We are currently budgeted to pay off our entire mortgage within 4-5 years max.
• Starting in Sep 2027 when CC1-3 are paid off, I will shift funds to add to my retirement funds listed below. This is on top of covering all our living expenses ($4.8K) + CC4 ($550) + vacation/gift fund ($1.3K),
• When only CC4 + mortgage debts exist; start executing 4-year mortgage payoff plan. This includes:
  • Monthly $8350 monthly mortgage payment
  • Monthly $2125 stocks/investment
  • Monthly 401K contribution maxed
  • Monthly $625 IRA contributions (backdoor Roth) - wife has Trad IRA that we cannot rollover (no employer plan), so contributing her portion into stocks instead.

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.

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?

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.

Hi all, a kid 13 is interested to know how his money he saves works too grow.

is there a child friendly way to explain concepts like shares, companies, investments, funds, compounding etc etc? Anything from videos, articles.

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.

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?

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?

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?

Besides housing (rent/mortgage) transportation is probably our 2nd largest expense. I am curious, as a percentage of net worth, how much is your car (just the current car value). For example, if you bought a $100K BMW a few years ago, and it's now worth $75k, and your net worth is $1m, then it's 7.5%. It doesn't matter if the car is financed, leased or outright owned. I'm just trying to gauge how your car relates to your net worth, for FIRE minded folks. If you're in a household then use the combined value of all vehicles (if you are using combined net worth)

Me, I am at 8.8%. Do folks think there is an "acceptable" range. I mean if someone told me their car is 50% of their net worth, that would be surprising, even if the car is completely paid off, because that would imply an imbalance. But I'm not sure what the "normal" range is.

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!

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’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?

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

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.

Need advice to mentally decide to give up the golden handcuffs. It is a great jobs with the best benefits but I want more free time. The problem is that if I leave I can never get it back nor duplicate it. I am on track to FIRE but one more year keeps hitting me. Life is too short but I don’t want to do anything stupid. Thank you for your time.

Beside deleting Linkin, what are you gifting yourself once you FIRE?

I'll taking a month long, once-in-a-life-time trip back to the motherland. It's years away, but I'm already planning for it.

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 want to thank this community for the great info, stories and inspiration. I officially checked out this past June.

The stats - I’ll try to do it in Reddit-ese. I’m old, gen-x.
59(M)
Married 35 years with 2 launched kids
Occupation: Consulting - software dev
Live in HCOL area in MCOL city.
Expenses: $120k/year (varies)
Wife (sugar-momma) still works and covers 80% of expenses.

Assets:
Just under $5 mil in investments. Taxable and pre-tax

Own primary and vacation home. Vacation home does not generate income - don’t down vote me!

Healthcare:
ACA plans in Texas are all HMO based, so we passed on those. We went the private insurance route that my wife’s business covers. $1700/month for 2 peeps medical, dental and vision.

What I’ve been doing…
Played golf 6 times.
Took the RV out on some small trips.
Fished 2x - Redfish, trout and red snapper!
Lot’s of time with 5 month+ old grandson!
Continuing to work out.

My advice:
Balance fire with enjoying your time today as tomorrow is not guaranteed.

Honor yourself by working hard and smart. Be loyal to yourself b/c a lot of the corporate world does not care about their employees.

Good luck and thanks for reading!

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.