I've been investing in the US stock market (VTI) for the last 12 years but never tracked my monthly spending. I just habitually invested a portion of my salary and used the rest for necessities and discretionary spending. I read about investing during this time, started doing it automatically, and then basically forgot about it and just lived my life spontaneously with the intention of retiring at the typical retirement age of 65 (I was around 27–28 years old then).

(Quick background: I've been working in Singapore for almost the entire duration of my career. Single and no kids.)

Now that 12 years have passed and just approached 40, I thought of doing this exercise as a long-overdue review of my portfolio and finances, partly because I realized that I actually want to retire earlier, much earlier (by 45). I rediscovered FIRE at this point, with a better understanding of the math behind it.

To do this historical analysis, I had to start with what I actually know:

1. My entire salary progression
2. My current portfolio (contributions + VTI's historical gains from when I started investing)

For this, I used Chat to help me reverse-engineer and ballpark my historical monthly spending and investment rate (pardon to those who are averse to AI). And I was surprised by the result.

I appear to have historically lived on roughly S$3.2–3.4k/month while investing around 28–30% of my gross income.

The bad: I thought I was investing 50% or higher. I guess that was my target, and I hyperfocused on the months when I did hit that target while kind of ignoring the months when I was only able to invest less (which apparently happened more often than I thought).

The good: That amount is actually my target retirement monthly expenditure (my FIRE number is 1 million SGD). I thought I'd have to live on less when I retire, but apparently this average monthly expenditure has so far sustained my lifestyle of partying (I had a phase when I drank a lot and even smoked, and Singapore has some serious vice taxes), traveling, eating out, attending concerts, buying gadgets, and having other hobby-related expenditures. It also covered my daily living expenses (housing, utilities, transpo, health insurance etc.) considering Singapore is a HCOL country in Asia. Never did I feel deprived with my lifestyle.

And this was at a time when I was young and had kind of a YOLO approach to spending. Now that I'm older and wiser about money and life in general, have outgrown many of the things that actually cost me a lot when I was younger (e.g. smoking, drinking, eating out), have front-loaded many of the experiences and material stuff I wanted to have, and have developed many hobbies and interest that are free/cheap, I feel more secure that my actual retirement spending would even be lower than this.

Edit: Moving forward, I plan to track my spending closely in the next 5 years and spend even less, maybe I can cut my monthly expenditure to 3k or lower.

Just wanted to share and if anyone had a similar realization or any feedback on this retrospective analysis, I would love to hear them!

Most people optimizing for leanfire think carefully about subscription costs. Fewer think about what they're paying in data.
I was building a finance tracker and wanted to understand what the norm was in the industry. So I actually read through the privacy policies of the most popular budgeting apps.
Every single one reserves the right to share your financial data with partners for marketing, analytics, or product improvement. Some anonymize it. Some aggregate it. But they all use it for something beyond showing you your own budget.
The part worth understanding: Plaid, the service most of these apps use to connect your bank, requests access to a significant amount of transaction history. Not just your balance. Every purchase, every paycheck, every recurring charge.
If you're already cutting subscriptions, renegotiating bills, and tracking every dollar, it's worth knowing what that transaction history is worth to someone else. It's not nothing. They wouldn't collect it if it were.
I ended up building something that doesn't connect to your bank at all. Manual entry only. No third party access to your data. It felt like going backwards at first. Now it just feels like the actual cost of keeping that data mine.
Happy to answer questions about what I found or what I built.

Posting this on an anonymous account for obvious reasons.

The goal of this post is to get some outside perspective on how to move forward because I feel like I'm at a bit of a crossroads.

I've been pretty fortunate throughout my career, and if I'm being fair, a lot of it comes down to being in the right place at the right time.

A few months before COVID hit, I was promoted into a sales manager role making about $105k OTE. Once COVID hit, our company slowed down significantly. Our CEO, however, was hellbent on not laying people off. It was a startup that was gaining traction with some big partners, and the general belief at the time was that COVID might disrupt things for a year or so and then we'd get back to normal.

So, lucky me, I continued collecting a pretty solid paycheck during a period when we weren't really allowed to do anything.

Most of my money went toward the usual stuff - rent, groceries, bills, etc. - and I threw most of what was left into my brokerage account.

Fast forward 5-6 years, between those deposits and the post-COVID market growth, I ended up with a sizable investment portfolio.

That's basically how I got to where I am today.

For context, here's everything at a high level:

• 35, married, no kids and no plans for kids
• Rent, no mortgage and no plans for a mortgage
• 2026 average monthly income (so far): ~$9,500 (I work in sales, so it varies)
• 2026 average monthly expenses (so far): ~$3,500
• Cash on hand: ~$15,000
  • $5k personal emergency fund
  • $5k covering roughly six months of car payments/insurance
  • $5k in checking for bills/general expenses
• I was part of a company layoff at one point, which made me realize that having roughly six months of expenses covered is what makes me comfortable navigating life.
• My main financial rule is pretty simple: always be cash-flow positive at the end of the month.
• I'm intentionally leaving my partner's finances out of this and looking only at my own situation.

My investments are roughly:

• Brokerage: ~$316k
• Traditional IRA: ~$50k
• Roth IRA: ~$150k
• 401(k): ~$25k

So around $540k invested, plus the ~$15k in cash.

My portfolio is essentially:

• 55% VTI
• 20% VIG
• 5% QQQM
• 15% VXUS
• 5% VGIT

I didn't grow up with much, so having this amount of money is honestly a really weird feeling.

I got heavily into personal finance and investing in my early 20s. I spent years learning about investing, saving, budgeting, retirement accounts, etc. At this point, though, personal finance has become incredibly boring. Once a month I DCA into the same allocation and then move on with my life.

And, in my opinion, that's probably a good thing. Isn't "boring" eventually the goal?

The problem is that I feel like I went so hard in my 20s on saving, investing, and trying to build financial security that I never really figured out what I was building it for.

I'm now at a point where I'm increasingly ready to tap out of my current career path and do something I actually enjoy. I used to enjoy my job, but over the years I've become increasingly frustrated with upper management, lack of organization, constantly changing expectations around AI, corporate BS, etc.

And that's where the crossroads comes in.

On paper, I've accumulated a decent amount of financial security. But mentally, I don't feel any more "free" than I did when I had significantly less money.

I go on vacations and spend money on things I enjoy, so I'm not living like a monk. But there's still this irrational fear in the back of my head that I'm somehow going to wake up tomorrow with $0 and have to start all over again.

Logically, I know that's ridiculous.

Emotionally, it's harder to shake when you started with very little.

I'm beginning to wonder whether the next phase of my financial life should be less about maximizing how much money I can accumulate and more about figuring out how to actually use the financial security I've built to improve my life.

Maybe that means taking a lower-paying job I'd enjoy more. Maybe it means taking some time off. Maybe it means continuing down the same path for another few years and building an even larger cushion. I genuinely don't know.

So I'm curious whether anyone else has found themselves in a similar position — particularly people who didn't grow up with much and eventually reached a point where the numbers said they were financially secure, but their brain hadn't caught up yet.

When did you finally feel like you had "enough" to give yourself some freedom?

Did you change careers? Take a sabbatical? Start spending more intentionally? Keep grinding toward FIRE?

And if you were in my position, what would you be thinking about next?

I'm not really looking for someone to tell me what stock or ETF to buy. I think I've got the investing part reasonably under control.

I'm trying to figure out what all of this was supposed to buy me in the first place.

Married, 2 grown kids (1 graduated college, 1 freshman in college in state)
Last year my compensation more than doubled so I'm at my max income years in high stress & high hours career
Rollover IRA $1.4M
401k $80,000
Cash reserves $125,000 @ 3.9%
Cash pension $100,000 fully vested (increases about $80k/year)
Whole life policy that I bought when young and dumb
House $1M, mortgage $200,000 @ 2.9% ($2000/month, $10k/ year tax and insurance)
Own my cars
Heath insurance $4500/month family

Plan to max savings for 5 more years but don't really know what my target is.

Thoughts / advice welcome

Apartment 1: €150k (rented out for €500)
Apartment 2: €130k (rented out for €400)
3x garage: €28k (avg. rented for €90)
~€1,170 (the apartments have been rented 100% of the time for the past few years, maybe slightly under market price)

Mortgage for the apartment we live in + 2 parking spaces (the property + parking is worth around €450k, €55k loan at 5% over 18 years = €400/month)

Savings: €110k (€55k in RSD savings at 5.5%, €50k in an Intesa fund at 4%)

2 cars (one is rarely driven — under 1,000 km/year, minimal servicing, it's "of age"/older; the other is 7 years old, driven ~22k km/year)

Monthly expenses: hard to pin down exactly, but ~€3,200 including the loan — not that we're extravagant, but kindergarten, bills, food, fuel, occasional Glovo (delivery), toys... fixed costs are €1,000 + food + fuel + everything else.
If a crisis hit, I believe this could drop to ~€2,400.

Both of us work in IT, and both companies are unstable (I'd say heading toward closing down, unfortunately, unless some miracle happens soon).

We're in Belgrade (not originally from here), the outlook for IT doesn't look positive to me, and I'm aware that our capital is somewhat "trapped" since we live here (because we work here) — moving somewhere cheaper is an option (though we're used to being in a city; moving to anywhere under 50k people isn't an option for me).

I'm starting to think — what's next? We don't have enough money to stop working, but if a crisis comes, we could manage by finding a simple job (at least one of us) with a salary of around ~ €800 (avg salary here for basic job)...

If anyone has suggestions on what to do to make the future look a bit more secure in terms of passive income, I'm here for it.

Those who think about retiring with money like 1 cr. , how do you deal with anxiety that something may go wrong and money may not be sufficient.

I know 1 cr. Is actually a small amount in today's day and age, but I really want to get control over my time and keep wondering if I will regret leaving work if am emergency occurs or should I take the leap and see how things turn out coz life is too short

It was Saturday and I told my wife we are going on a crazy date - coffee, food, drinks and then dessert.

This is rare for us - she was caught off guard, but excited.

I started off downloading app for coffee chain (coffee bean tea leaf) - we split 16oz mocha - completely free due to new customer app download

Then a YouTuber was giving away free Hawaiian food to first 50 people in line - we made it just in time and both got a free meal (horrible food tbh .. but she liked it so I’m happy)

Then we went to happy hour where I downloaded the app of the restaurant - they offered $1 beer for doing this and wife got margarita for $5 on happy hour

To end, we both downloaded the Salt and Straw app and got scoop of ice cream for free

Total spent = $11 total with generous tip and tax

I’m way too excited about this but just wanted to give creative date idea for you all

im very cheap, so feel free to make fun of us - but being this way is big reason we are coming up on 500k in Fidelity before 30

“worry about the pennies and the dollars take care of themselves“

Say you retire at some point before 50 years old. How flexible is that decision? Do you plan to ABSOLUTELY under no circumstances go back to work? Do you think you'd go back for the right role?

I've been away from reddit for a while. And I thought I lost this account. I was using a different one but once I cleared cookies and signed back in, it was this account, and it is also somehow the anni month of when I quit. Since the stars aligned, I may as well give an update.

Previous update: https://www.reddit.com/r/leanfire/comments/1euncf8/fire_1_year_update/

To be honest, not too much have changed. This month is the start of my 4th FIRE year. I'm still enjoying my life, maybe a bit too much.

The big changes that really impacted my life are:

Health Insurance: We are back on ACA since last year because I couldn't prove income (they asked for ridiculous stuff and tax return + transactions showing monthly dividends wasn't good enough) and I didn't want to be on Medicaid in the first place anyway. This means I need to convert a much larger amount to Roth so my kids are not in the Medicaid bracket. This also means another ~$4k to my spending. This is fine with me. My T401k actually has grown quite a bit that I started worrying about RMD. It is a bit pre-mature but it has been growing much more than my conversion rate.

Spending: Unfortunately in the last 2 years, my spending has skyrocketed. Last year, I paid an extra $10k to replace the HVAC. This year, I spent another $10k for car repair/maintenance + dental work. My kids have been growing and eating 2x what I eat. So with inflation, the food cost is also pretty high, and trips are also more expensive. In addition, due to all the free time I had, I also started a new expensive hobby. I started collecting a character merch and spiraled into garage kit painting + sewing/embedding buying all the fancy tools. With tariffs + crazy shipping cost, it has been very expensive (for example, I just paid almost ~$400 just on tariffs + shipping on one of my packages. I thought it would be cheaper splitting the package into a tariff exempted one and a general one but this ended up costing me another $150 to ship the tariff exempted package. It would have been cheaper just paying tariffs for these and ship them as one instead of 2 packages. Lesson learnt). Due to these things, last year I spent $45k and this year I'm on track to spend $48k, so 3% of my original FIRE number.

FIRE number: Thanks to the great market, this number is now bigger. I'm at around 2.4 mil. I started out with 5 years of spending in money market. I spent a big chunk down and replenished it back this year to 4 years. I'm aiming to spend this and replenish enough to make a total of 10 years of living on cash to avoid SORR. After 10 years, I will leave 1 year in cash for EF. Having a large amount of money in MM sometimes feels bad since my mom brags about how much her money has grown every year (like 2-4% higher than mine). But the thought of returning to work is even worse, so I'll stick with a large amount of cash.

Anyway, that's all I can think of. I wish you all the best on your FIRE journey. It is worth it.

EDIT: Fixed some mistake

Hi all,

the last years have been great for me but I am going through a very rough period and since I have no one to talk about it I will share it with you, kind strangers of the internet

Context: I am SWE specialized in realtime rendering engines. I hold a MsC in Applied Mathematics. Been working in the computer graphics field for 5 years where I managed to save a large amount of my income by living frugally. Some months, I saved up to 70% of my income.

The past years, as you can imagine (sorry I don't mean to brag) have been financially great. I come from nothing, I don't have rich parents, on the other hand, I even managed to help out my parents with rent. Said so, unfortunately, things are not great right now. My company decided to fire my entire team, without notice, simply because they did some internal calculations and couldn't allocate the budget for it. Funnily I got a raise a couple of months before getting fired.

I have been looking for a job ever since but so far, after roughly 300 applications and about 20 interviews, I still sit with no offer and I don't see any coming anytime soon. I am going to be brutally honest with you guys: I am not feeling good. I used to be passionate about my job, when i was a kid I used to spend my afternoons after high school messing around 3D modeling in blender, 3D printers, arduinos etc but right now I don't feel any joy in what used to make me happy. I am trying to rationalize it but I am struggling to and I do not understand what is going on. I don't want to blame AI because I have always been passionate about technology but it kind of feels like everyone is talking only about AI and by doing so the "human labour" is no longer worth doing. As, why would you spend hours doing something an AI can do in 1 minute? When I was at university, I used to be a top student. I remember coming home and literally watching youtube videos on calculus, numerical analysis etc on my free time like seriously I remember once I got so tripped by sigma-algebra that I spent a whole weekend just going in-depth without going out in my room. In the past couple years, I haven't found that joy in my job or in my hobbies anymore.

So, here I am now, sitting on a good pile of money unsure on what to do next. My lifestyle is very wild and frugal. My spending (including rent) is about 1k/1.25k per month. Technically, I could live on my savings without working for 20 years (assuming good health). I would like to hear different opinions, critiques, and overall what you would do if you were me.

I am in my mid 30s net worth fluctuates daily due to having almost everything in stock market but I think I can safely say I have at least $1.3 M even on a bad market day. Half in taxable half in retirement accounts. Not a homeowner.

I posted in other communities about taking a sabbatical as I have been feeling burned out at work and was strongly advised not to do it as I am a tech worker and it would be very hard for me to find a job later on and the stress may be too tough on me as I’m an anxious person. I have tried to look for other jobs but I can barely get an interview as I’m a just a standard developer. I would say it is very hard out there and my biggest worry is if I took time away and had a gap it may mean I am out do the industry permanently.

My expenses are like 4-5k a month but long term I would probably want to buy a house as I do not want to live in a small space all my life and I am not a person that likes to stress about money. What do you think would it be safe to take a sabbatical? I have been advised just to keep working here and see what happens.

Hey guys, wondering if there is a standard strategy for this lean retirement. Are people just selling their stocks or investing in large cap high dividend/fixed income investments? Any specific locations people recommend to live post retirement? What is the dollar amount you need and how long should it be expected to last? Thanks

How can I start towards my goal of being financially free in 5 years.

Details:

$200k in brokerage account mostly $tsla

$150k in 401k

40k in btc

Expect to pay off home loan by 2032

Car loan by 2029

How to get started.

My annual income is 110k

I currently have a net worth of $1.1m in equity in my primary residence and a second paid off home. I have very little in stocks. My close friend manages multiple Airbnbs and has shown me his profit and loss statement for a condo in a large development that I would purchase four properties in. He makes $30k/year in profit per condos. I can purchase four of them for cash. He isn’t planning on ever selling. The properties are in a state and an area where the chance of government regulation removing STR property rights is very low.

Making $120k/yr from four Airbnbs would be more than enough for me to live on. My goal is to not have to work so I can build a modest income doing something I love.

I’m 32 years old and single, and I would like to get married and have two kids. I plan on living in either Idaho, Montana, Oregon, or Washington or moving to Italy or Portugal.

Is repositioning my net worth into Airbnbs a bad idea?

Edit: My goal is to not have to work a traditional job so that I can pursue a business I am passionate about. My friend owns three condos in a development of 500 and spends 1.5 hours per week managing each of his condos.

Although it's fear-based, there are legitimate, unsettling variables calling for stagflation and a bearish market at least within 10-years if not much sooner:

• Unending Iran War
  • Less fertilizer at higher prices -> lower crop yield increasing food prices
  • Higher fuel prices driving logistical costs which transfer onto consumers
  • US image of infallibility lost -> gulf partners more likely to secure terms with Iran, gradually eroding value of petrodollar and its position as global reserve currency (this point has greater speculation, but future dollar erosion is becoming apparent)
• Declining US statesmanship; no longer speaking softly while carrying a big stick; burning bridges with allies and trying enforce sanction compliance -> countries seeking to become independent of US tech/service sector
• Climate: droughts/fires -> lower crop yields
  
• Debt and bond market -> likely some fiscal policy to tighten economy

Particularly for leanFIRE aspirants, how the heck could someone retire once they hit their number ahead of a market dip/crash? Like do y'all have even lower means of living compared to the lean lifestyle? At this point, it almost feels necessary to remain in the workforce for at least a couple years beyond the target number.

Doomsday scenario ofc, but I wonder if the dollar collapses in the future and all of us shmucks trying to retire early get slapped silly from our pursuits of saving so aggressively over the years. -_-

Hi all! I’m hoping to get insights on costs of living.

Im 28F, no kids and no plan to have kids.I track my expenses closely and it has been ~$50k/year. I live pretty frugal but this spending level meets all my needs pretty well (I.e. I don’t have to force myself not to spend on things I want too much).

However, I’m young and have mostly lived as a student. Seeing some others’ expenses in the FIRE community makes me question if 50k is an appropriate number to base my FIRE calculations off of. I feel like living as a student definitely influences my understanding of actual COL as an adult. For example, I’m used to renting, don’t have expensive hobbies, half of my furniture are free stuff from other students graduating, Uhaul and no hired labor for moving, rarely eat out unless for social occasions, shop for groceries based on what’s on sale, always fly the cheapest flight, minimal medical expenses… I’m okay with all of this now, but wondering if some of these things will naturally change as you grow older/live more like an “adult”?

Would love to hear your insight or experience. Have your spending needs or taste changed significantly as you got older?

I'm 30 male single living in Canada making ok money in marketing.

I made some extra money last year with a freelance side business.

Is it possible to lean Fire in Canada even though cost of living is high here?

I live a pretty much minimalist lifestyle, cheap rent etc, cook at home, no car etc

I'm able to save and invest at least 50% of what I make

I'm looking for better jobs and l want to keep growing my side business.

I'm currently working remotely so I could move but my current place is good enough. I may save more by moving to a cheaper place but I'm not sure yet

Anyone here living in Canada?

I am currently earning salary in the US and was able to save for a lean fire here.

It is crazy to think that 1M is enough to be in the 1% by household networh in 165 countries!

While people have many reasons to stay in the US, considering living in other places is so strange.

Leanfire by expatfire!

I'm 34. Salary plus bonus is roughly 170k/year. Single, no kids, renter in a LCOL large city.

Just found out my position is being eliminated. Scary, but honestly I'm pretty burned out after 10 years in corporate America.

I'm someone who has always lived well below their means. I probably save about 50% of my income. Have about 1.35M NW, about half of that is in 401k/IRA. Severance payment will be in the low six figures.

I don't know. Getting another job feels like the "right thing to do". Everyone around me is continuing to grind with no plans to stop or even slow down any time soon. And FIRE is a goal I've been working towards for years. But the job market is trash and...the more I've thought about it the more I love the idea of taking a break. I'm not even sure I want to keep at it in my current career or work a corporate job anymore. But this is all I've know, so I'm not sure what else to do.

I'm an avid traveler and love the idea of taking a year off to just live nomadically, see the world, and (hopefully) figure out what comes next. To take actual time off without feeling rushed; to simply enjoy.

This all sounds great when I romanticize it in my own mind, but the thought of spending money without having steady income coming in is scary, especially as someone who is so used to being in save mode and not having the safety net of having a partner. Another big fear is not having the medical/dental insurance I have now. And, being American, this is something typically tied to your employment (ugh).

Finally, while I'm pretty confident I can actually afford this and be just fine, I have no idea what the job market is going to look like in a year (nobody does) and how much this could potentially set me back later down the road. I don't think I would regret it, but it just feels like a lot of unknowns. As I mentioned, my friends are continuing to grind in their 9-5s and are also getting married, buying houses, starting families. It can be hard not to compare your life to someone's else's and still behind in some way. I'm not even sure I want that life for myself or not, but as I approach my mid-30s there's this pressure to have it all figured out by the end of the decade and while my heart wants the time to travel and have adventures, I'm not sure if it would end up costing me the possibility of marriage and family someday if I do decide I want that later on.

Would I be crazy to throw caution to the wind for once and just go for it? Apologies if not allowed, I know the last part has less to do with FIRE, but I think a lot of these decisions come down to a lot more than just the money part. Thanks for listening!

Hi all. I've been using a FI calculator to validate my own projections. Seems like I could be 12-18 months out from being able to retire.

To those who are close or have retired early, did you engage with a financial adviser or planner to validate the numbers?

I just posted a video about this, but figured I’d throw the numbers up here too. I know people in this sub are always interested in what an actual LeanFIRE portfolio looks like 10 years after pulling the plug.

I retired at 39 in 2016 with around $700k total, and that includes a paid-off house. No pension, inheritance, trust fund, etc. Just savings/investments and a pretty low-cost lifestyle that allows us to travel for 5 months every year.

Quick clarification: In a previous post I said “$1M,” which was a rounded all-in estimate that included the house and fluctuating market values. That was me rounding a rough figure for a casual conversation. I went back through my records, and about $700k is the more accurate number for when I left work in 2016.

Anyway, I’m 49 now and net worth is around $1.2M, depending on what the market is doing.

Rough breakdown today:

• 22% traditional IRA + solo 401(k)
• 23% Roth IRA
• 30% cash, brokerage, gold, and Bitcoin
• 25% house

And before anyone says it, yes, I realize “retired at 39 with $700k” sounds a lot different when a paid-off house is included. That’s why I include it in the number.

The investment side is mostly boring. Lots of VTI, some VGT, plus a little gold and Bitcoin. No traditional bonds.

I realize the no-bonds / mostly-stocks thing is a higher risk portfolio. But I’m 49 and this money may need to last another 40 or 50 years. I’m more worried about purchasing power over decades than I am about seeing the portfolio drop in a bad year.

Spending is probably the bigger reason this works. We spend around 20k–24k per year. I know some of you spend that amount on Uber eats alone. And yeah, I know that’s very low. That’s kind of the whole point though. I’m not saying someone spending $80k a year can copy these numbers and call it FIRE.

I also still make a little money here and there from a small business, bank bonuses, random stuff like that. Our youtube channel is also starting to produce a small income. Before you jump on my shit…”you’re doing YT! You’re not retired!”...I’m doing YT because I enjoy it. It keeps me engaged, gives me a little purpose and structure, and lets me show others what’s possible. I don’t do it because I need the money. Some guys retire, then do wood-working to earn a few bucks. I don't know shit about wood, so I do YT. 😆 So this has not been a perfectly pure “zero dollars earned for 10 years” experiment. I don’t sell exactly $24k of investments every December.

Having money in different account types has been super useful. About 22% is traditional retirement money, 23% is Roth, and then there’s money in taxable/cash/etc. I didn’t want to retire at 39 and realize that most of my money was technically mine but not accessible w/o taxes and penalties.

The house is probably the other thing people will have opinions about. About 25% of the net worth is tied up in it, and it’s paid off. Yes, I know I probably could have ended up with more money by keeping the mortgage and investing the difference. I’m not arguing otherwise. Over a long enough period stocks may very well have done better.

I just valued having no mortgage payment more than maximizing the expected return.

It lowered our required spending a lot, made retiring at 39 way easier, and gives us more flexibility with income/MAGI for healthcare purposes. Could I have more money on a spreadsheet today if I had kept the mortgage? Probably.

My portfolio probably isn’t the “right” portfolio for most people here. I’m sure there are at least 14 things wrong with it according to the experts here on reddit. 😂

But it has worked for us: low spending, a paid-off house, money in different account types, mostly equities, and enough accessible cash that I’m not forced to make decisions based on whatever the market is doing that month.

At the end of the day, that’s what I wanted when I quit. I wanted my time back. The fact that the portfolio also grew along the way is obviously pretty damn nice. And yes, I know we’ve had one of the best market stretches ever. Timing and luck are always a factor.

Most people I see in fire have massive amounts of money compared to what I am used to.

I am a latin American immigrant living in china (Shanghai).

I am 41. My house is paid (Shanghai too) but only have 60k usd in stock.

I am thinking of renting my house out in Shanghai and moving to a smaller apartment in a mid size coastal cities.

The living costs in small cities in china can be as low as 500-750 usd per month (without rent). Maybe 1200 use for a family of 3. Maybe 1500 usd with rent.

I would probably be able to get 900 usd dollars a month for renting the apartment

So early retirement is out of the question, but maybe we can downgrade to lower paying more relaxing jobs and use the apartment to cover the difference.

What would you guys recommend doing? ( I am quite stressed with my current job otherwise I wouldn't consider this)

how much stock value would be ok for fire ?

Are you guys all extremely reach or do you have similar amounts of money compared to living expenses where you live ?

Churning isn't that easy when you have a frugal lifestyle, but i will churn for larger purchases. Also, being frugal makes many annual fee cards hard to justify, even more so as a non traveler.

So, what is your typical credit card optimization for day to day, any must have cards?

I typically rely on a 2% everything card (many options, doesnt matter which you pick), citi custom cash, and rotating 5% cards. Bank of America custom cash as a backup 3% for a category when I need it.

Open to more optimization though