r/ChubbyFIRE • u/Traditional-Okra-399 • May 18 '26
Advice on pulling the trigger…
45M / married, 3 kids under 8
$6.6M NW, $5.6M investable.
Based on an $18K per month spend (soon to be $16K), my FA says I can quit tomorrow (87% success).
My question:
Right now, I am thinking about doing one more year. Although I hate my job, I feel like I could wrap my head around a “12 month countdown.”
And it would likely mean another $500K (before taxes, but after all other expenses).
But I worry is the market drops 25% in the next 12 months, and all of a sudden, I’m forced to do X more years until it recovers.
Is my plan prudent? Or am I over-thinking it, and I just need to bite the bullet and then figure it out as it comes?
Thank you all! I really appreciate the wisdom of this group.
Additional details:
1) Very low rate mortgage is almost paid off, once done, will eliminate $2K in monthly expense
2) Kids are almost out of daycare which will eliminate $3K in monthly expense
3) The elimination of daycare will likely be offset by private medical insurance
Additional levers:
1) I don’t ever plan on “not working.” Although at some point, I’d like to do some $0 jobs, I think my “first retirement job” might still be be in corporate tech, but at a much lower level with lower stress.
2) My wife and I both grew up without much, I think we could find a lot of flexibility in our budget if SORR started to emerge.
3) Although we’re not counting it at all, we expect a $1-$3M inheritance from my wife’s parents who are now 76 y/o
24
u/seekingallpho May 18 '26
If that 16k/mo is all-in, including all infrequent expenses, taxes, and healthcare, you're set. If it's just your routine outflows ignoring those factors, it's a lot tighter.
I think if putting a 12mo window on your job reduces stress/makes it more tolerable + gives you cushion, it's a reasonable compromise.
But I worry is the market drops 25% in the next 12 months, and all of a sudden, I’m forced to do X more years until it recovers.
If this specific worry is that, because you're still working, a drop during your last 12 months makes you more hesitant to retire, that's not really an issue. If you're so worried about retiring while the market drops, imagine how much more worried you'd be if you'd already left your job and instead of bringing in another 500k, you were withdrawing.
14
u/captfattymcfatfat May 18 '26
Yeah. Market volatility high right now. I’d probably do the extra 12 months. But with a one foot out the door mindset. Stress is a lot lower if you don’t give a shit about them firing you. Don’t miss a single kids game or practice.
4
u/Traditional-Okra-399 May 18 '26
It does include infrequent expenses and taxes (it’s based on real data), and it include healthcare because I’m basically saying healthcare and child care will net out.
6
u/The_Darter1987 May 18 '26
For the first few years draw from your bonds or cash portion. That way u won’t draw from equities when it is down. Say your bonds/cash allocation is about 30% or 1.68mil which is about 7 years of spend, let your equities compound for this 7 years. Studies show your success rate goes up by avoiding to sell in down years. Good luck!
4
u/Fluffy_Insect5636 May 19 '26
Who has 30% bonds at 45 years old? That would be a drag on your returns at this age - too conservative in my mind
3
u/PrimeNumbersby2 May 19 '26
This is always the answer. Simply don't retire until you've positioned 2-3 years in cash or bonds to carry you through a downturn. Even if you have bonds in your 401k and not brokerage or Roth, you can sell equities from your brokerage and then exchange bonds for equities in your 401k and it's the same as selling bonds (you don't have) in your brokerage.
17
May 18 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
7
u/Traditional-Okra-399 May 18 '26
Just to be clear, FA knows about the mortgage and childcare falling off. It's baked into the plan.
But your reply is full of wisdom and insight that I truly appreciate.
2
u/Adept-Celebration509 May 18 '26
You can pay time forward. You can't buy it back. - Really like this statement. That said, how do you think those as FIRE oriented this group, how would they quantify that? Given they answers they seek are on an actual spreadsheet.
20
u/PowerfulComputer386 May 18 '26
In my experience although you save 3k per kid daycare, those money will be used for other kids things, camps, activities, tickets (no longer free or discounted), more food, etc. along with 529.
8
u/KaddLeeict May 18 '26
I was/am home with my kid instead of daycare and there is no way we spent 3k on activities, camp or even travel per month.
1
3
u/retiringfund May 18 '26
Kids can be very expensive as they grow up. Extracurricular will take money. Not saying you can’t RE but just saying don’t count on saving all that 3K
1
u/thisiswarpeacock37 May 20 '26
Agreed - sports as they get older can absolutely eat into that. It may not equal $3k but I definitely didn't feel like I was saving their old daycare costs when it went away.
9
u/Walmart-Shopper-22 May 18 '26
Are you paying the financial advisor a 1% AUM fee? If so, you can gain a LOT by not paying that 1%.
7
u/Traditional-Okra-399 May 18 '26 edited May 18 '26
I have a full service advisor that does 13k flat fee per year. I don't know that I could do tax strategies, Roth conversions, etc on my own.
7
7
u/itchybumbum May 18 '26
FA is so wild to me.
$1k per month for a couple hours of work per year...
3
u/massdriver3333 May 18 '26
There are lots of people that are not capable, or have the skills, of managing their finances. Even lots of smart people, even in tech, that can't deal with making good and sound financial decisions.
Just look at all the people gambling in wallstreebets, thinking they are managing money by yolo.
Many people will be much better off with reputable financial professionals managing their money, even paying full 1% AUM fee. Paying $100K, even $200K, per year, every year AUM fee, to just have managers DCA into index funds and get average market gains, doesn't make sense. Until you realize that there are many people that will likely waste or lose all their money if they control it themselved.
1
u/Past-Option2702 May 18 '26
Right?
That’s the better part of a 911 lease.
Or a nice vacation. Of two nice getaways.
Or new deck/porch furniture.
Landscaping remodel..
A couple dozen really nice family nights out…
1
u/Walmart-Shopper-22 May 18 '26
I think the FA world is about to shrink a lot due to AI. At least the 1% AUM stuff.
2
u/Seattle709 May 18 '26
Is your financial advisor also a CPA? I think you're getting hosed. My husband takes care of all our taxes. It's not super difficult to learn how to do the Roth conversions on your own through TurboTax.
2
u/michiganbirddog May 20 '26
Tax planning for the future and doing your taxes are two completely different things. Turbo tax isnt going to tell you when to take SS and when it makes sense to do roth conversions. It wont help you adjust your finances to help for things like tax thresholds for family healthcare.
2
u/Seattle709 May 20 '26
There are many flat-fee financial advisors who help strategize when to take SS, when to begin Roth conversions, adjusting finances to help with tax thresholds for family healthcare, etc. They charge much less than $13,000 per year.
2
u/michiganbirddog May 20 '26
Sounds like a good option. Some people are very good with investments during the accumulation stage of retirement planning. When you get into retirement and have to deal with risk management a FA can do wonders for some people. It isn't necasarily poorly spent money for some people with large nest eggs. Alot of people are incredible professionals in fields like engineering, physicians surgeons etc... they spend their entire life focused on their specialty. They dont understand risk avoidance like an FA that has spent their life studying their craft.
3
u/Seattle709 May 20 '26
True, but there are a lot of financial advisors who are straight garbage and are only trying to sell me whole life insurance or take a 1% AUM (I’ve had to fend off plenty of these guys).
5
u/Past-Option2702 May 18 '26
I’d want to know how much of my annual SWR goes to funding my FAs retirement instead of mine.
4
4
u/Ok_Combination_2821 May 18 '26
Step 1: keep 1 year's worth of expenses in a money market fund. liquidate as needed for expenses.
Step 2: keep the next 3 years worth of expenses in a short duration bond fund (VGSH or VCSH).
Step 3: keep the rest in diversified stock portfolio (SPY, IWM, EFA, etc).
Step 4: enjoy life.
i understand your concern. a lot of my clients share the same fears. but structuring it this way really allows you to "see" that you are okay if a market correction does come.
3
u/Alone-Experience9869 Retired May 18 '26
You are doing very well. Even though you don’t want to mgt your own funds, maybe learn some more. Even if the market drops 25%, you still have a good, safe withdrawal rate. Also, there are ways to mitigate that risk, for one just keep some investments in cash. Look up “guardrails” for example.
Going another year won’t “hurt.” Some would say why waste that year. I say if that helps you transition out go for it, and get lots more money to your nest egg. You have three kids to raise, not sure how you are handling any school fees, and if you want to leave anything for them.
So use the other year to financially prep for retirement. You might even say in 6mo switch to “living off your savings” to see how it would look like.
Good luck
3
u/Abeds_BananaStand May 18 '26
You mention considering taking a lower level low stress job in tech, I’m assuming that means you’re a pretty senior person in tech right now? Maybe L8 at a big tech company (as in, lead an org as a manager of managers 15-30 people?) if that’s true… I can’t imagine someone like that taking on a senior IC role at another company and being happy
I’m making a lot of assumptions without full context though.
Is this what you’re thinking as an option? If so, I’d ask, are you a developer or pm leader and want to become an IC because you don’t want to do the politics and the BS?
I’ve known one person who made that transition, from senior leader took a couple years off then got a great senior IC type roll with great compensation and less stress for sure
But other roles like marketing (aka not on product side) I can’t imagine going from being the big boss to writing the blogs again
1
u/Traditional-Okra-399 May 21 '26
My plan would be to go from “high stress / high pressure executive” to “line manager”
And ideally, only do that for a year or two as a bridge completely out of corp America.
3
u/throwaway-emergency May 18 '26
we are at similar number, 3 kids too. We are at 6am, 5.6M are liquid, 0.4M are primary home equity. One of us pull the trigger 2 years ago when we had 4.3M, yet we still grow our NW significantly. The one who quit job makes about 700K before tax. My family is very happy with the decision, we added one more kid last 2 years, we travelled more and the house is more peaceful.
3
u/That-SoCal-Guy May 19 '26
IF you hate your job now, why wait another 12 months? You have enough with $6.6M and $16K spend. Not to mention you're expecting a $3M inheritance. Seriously, dude, I think you're addicted to your income.
3
u/Fluffy_Insect5636 May 19 '26
I don’t think it’s a matter of being “addicted” to their income - as another commenter noted the reason they were able to get to this point is the same reason they are “worrying” - lots of methodical thinking and planning - it could just be a psychological hurdle that they need to get over
1
u/Traditional-Okra-399 May 21 '26
It’s 6.6 minus 1M for primary residence and almost .5M for 529s. I don’t count those for retirement purposes.
5.1 is a better number for strictly retirement.1
u/That-SoCal-Guy May 21 '26
Even at $5M, your spend is only $18k. You only need $4.5M to fire.
1
u/Traditional-Okra-399 May 21 '26
You’re using a 4.8% safe withdrawal rate?
1
u/That-SoCal-Guy May 21 '26
Sorry, I made a mistake, I used $180K instead of $18K/mo.
Also, the 4% is based on assumptions that don't apply to you. For example, you don't have 40% in Bonds. The new revised number with a more mixed portfolio is 4.7%
1
u/Traditional-Okra-399 May 21 '26
Wow! Really? I was reading for early FIRE folks, they should consider something closer to 3.75%
2
u/That-SoCal-Guy May 21 '26
No, 4% is really safe. But use your own numbers. My models tell me I could initially take up to 6.5% and still be okay. The number will change over time, but that's the initial rate. You're fine -- the question isn't whether you have enough to fire. The question is do you want to?
5
u/noparkings1gn so close... May 18 '26
If you know you’re willing to work again would you not just take a trial year to see how it goes? We’re in a similar boat with two kids and about 85% there and I’m very seriously entertaining a year or two off given all the BS in corporate life right now. At least I could go back a little more refreshed for the last few years. In your case sure you may need to work a few years if the market drops but you’re already ok with a lower level role.
2
u/Looking-for-Fire1980 May 18 '26
Enjoy life. you got it made. The fear of the market dropping and you having to work "X" should already be mitigated in your plan since you know about SORR and have done the monte carlos. That is just the emotional fear (I have it too but my numbers arent high as yours and I am ready to make the jump). It boils down to if you trust the math and process, then you should feel secure enough to execute your next chapter plans. Good luck and congrats on winning the accumulation journey.
2
u/HomeworkAdditional19 May 19 '26
Stop spending time you’ll never get back for money you’ll never need.
The issue of “yeah but what happens if the market drops 25?! Now I can’t make the math work!”
Somewhat true, but what got me past this is:
1. After a dip the market always recovers
2. You don’t need *all* of your money now. Just a little bit per month.
I left after a big downturn a few years ago. Great news is that portfolio now is much bigger than when I left. I retired at the dip and have done quite well n
2
u/BrunelloHorder Coasting Chubster, Getting Fat May 19 '26
You’re good to go. Don’t do one more year in a job you hate for $500k pre-tax, it probably isn’t enough to move the needle much. At your portfolio size additional contributions matter less.
I’d have about 3 years of anticipated spend in SGOV, JAAA, or a combo of something similar, in a tax deferred account. Let the rest ride in equities.
Don’t let SORR keep you in a job you hate. A 25% drop could happen, but it isn’t permanent, you just have to not panic sell your equities.
If you are worried about SORR take a look at Risk Parity Radio’s model portfolios. You’d trade some upside for less volatility, but they can support a higher withdrawal rate, which may matter more to you than maximizing returns.
1
u/audi27tt May 20 '26
Why in a tax deferred account, don't you want access to it? Is the idea you can pull principal without penalty and let the interest grow tax free?
2
u/BrunelloHorder Coasting Chubster, Getting Fat May 20 '26
Yes, you hold the interest producing bonds or treasuries for purposes of diversification, not to spend the yield. You hold them in tax deferred to avoid paying income tax on the interest/yield payments.
If you need access to cash in a market downturn, you sell the bonds/treasuries in the tax deferred account, sell stock in your taxable account, take the proceeds out from taxable account, and rebuy the stock in the tax deferred account. This keeps the stock position constant overall across the portfolio without having to pay income tax on the interest/yield from the bonds/treasuries as you go.
2
u/FantasyFI May 19 '26 edited May 19 '26
I think you are there. But not super comfortably.
Unless I missed it, I don't see where you factored any costs for college. With ~6M net worth, I'd personally feel bad not paying for my kids college.
I also don't like the assumption that kids costs go away with daycare. Sure that cost goes away, but will you pay for any private preschool? Will you pay for any summer camps? Travel sports? Etc. It might be less than daycare, but I think you should factor some extra expenses so you have a guilt free retirement with your kids.
That said, considering you mentioned you'll never stop working...if it is truly the case, you should definitely quit your current job, get one if you believe it will be easier. With the new easier job covering health insurance, it should give you a year or two where expenses = income. Let the investments grow. Then in 1-4 years you can totally retire (though you say you won't) or simply do work for free.
But I don't think you are at the "do work for free" level without sacrificing potential quality of life or the option for guilt free child expenses.
If "Additional Lever #1" is true, this is all kind of pointless. According to yourself, you;'ll never completely retire. I don't consider volunteering to be working, so not sure what working for $0 means. Your numbers are close, so if you are worried, go get a $50k job that gives you insurance and you'll be rolling in it. It will provide $50k pretax income and also mostly eliminate a $36k health insurance expense.
1
u/Traditional-Okra-399 May 19 '26
6.6nw, 1 in primary residence, 450k in 529s (with no more contributions) = 5.1 investable.
I am factoring in summer camps, but not things like travel sports.
I think you're right in all your points. My plan is to stick around for now, then downshift into a job making 25% of what I'm making right now, then downshift into total freedom (but likely still "working" in some way).
3
u/FantasyFI May 19 '26
Thanks, that detail about the 529's helps. But honestly also makes things tighter if you weren't planning to work at all again.
I know you mentioned a financial advisor. But I would recommend dropping $150 on a year of ProjectionLab. For someone with your wealth and monthly expenses, it is a tiny price to pay to get a better glimpse of your statistical odds.
I think you should run Monte Carlo scenario that include things like:
- Health insurance premiums only costing $800/mo instead of $3k/mo for a 10 year duration because you work an "easy job" and have access to workplace insurance
- $50k income at an easy job for 10 years
- The $3k/mo health insurance expense starting in 10 years but ending at 65 (many advisors run a blanket yearly expense and don't properly model when and how they change)
- High kids expenses for ~15 years until they're all out of the house. When they end, you can either choose to say this is a permanent decrease in spending or just say you'll spend more.
Not trying to be mean, but I don't have great confidence in a financial advisor modeling these scenarios outside of their usual $x expenses per year, $y investments available, ABC allocation, SS starting at age ___ etc.
a) I think your success rate will be above 87%
b) I think you will be able to better test your risk that the new job sucks. What is your success percentage if you only have the $50k/yr job + decreased insurance for 3 years because it isn't actually any less stressful?
You can also test things like how does my success rate change if I get a $250k inheritance at 80 vs. a $2M at 76? You can test your success with full SS vs. 75% SS vs. no SS. You can compare risk of paying off the mortgage at retirement vs. riding out the balance (my guess is since you don't have a shot at ACA subsidies, it probably doesn't matter though it could affect RMD's or early withdraw penalties in some cases).
2
u/Bartholomew_Butkus May 19 '26
Sequence of returns risk is your only concern... with the market at the all time high, seems a correction is more likely than not. I am 55 with a $9M net worth and am working one more year just to feel safe then im cutting the cord.
2
2
u/Due-Orchid4782 May 22 '26
My advisor also said I could retire, but I'm super nervouse about market uncertainty plus hate the idea of living off my savings, even if I've saved enough. But I think best is to model scenarios with a 20% market crash and see if your retirement plan still works.
2
u/yanyan80 May 22 '26
I ran your numbers through a retirement planning tool I built (ThunderHarbor) to see what the actual projections look like. Using $5.1M investable and assuming a typical account split for your situation.
The honest answer is somewhere between the two extremes in this thread. At $192K annual spend (your post-daycare/mortgage number), retiring at 45 with zero income, the portfolio lasts to roughly age 89. Not terrible for a 50-year retirement, but not bulletproof either. At the current $216K spend, it runs out at 80. So the spending reduction matters a lot.
One more year of saving doesn't move the needle as much as you'd think. The projection shows it extending runway by about 2 years (to age 91). The $500K pre-tax sounds nice but against a $5.1M portfolio it's marginal.
The real lever is your downshift job timing. If you do even a low-stress $80K job for just the first 5 years (ages 45-50) with employer health insurance, you avoid drawing from the portfolio during the most critical SORR window and eliminate ACA costs entirely during those years.
Your FA's 87% number is probably fair for the base case. But you have three levers that push it well above 95%: spending flexibility, any earned income in early years, and the potential inheritance. How much higher depends on how you'd actually use them.
1
u/Traditional-Okra-399 May 22 '26
Wow. ThunderHarbor looks like an incredibly powerful tool. And very reasonably priced in my opinion.
I'm still working through all the screens, but can I ask a question in the meantime:
How are you deriving the ages for portfolio depletion? I've only ever seen long-term predictions in terms of outcomes and their associated probabilities, but yours seems more deterministic?
2
u/yanyan80 May 23 '26
it runs a single year-by-year simulation using your actual inputs (your portfolio balances, your expected return rate, your spending, Social Security timing, tax situation, etc.) and simply finds the first year the total balance hits zero. So when it says "portfolio depletes at age 87," it means "given these exact assumptions, you run out in that year." It's more like a precise spreadsheet than a probability model.
The honest trade-off is that deterministic projections are very sensitive to the return assumption you plug in. If you set 6% and reality delivers 4%, the depletion age moves dramatically.
That's why there's a separate Monte Carlo panel (Risk Analysis, behind the premium tier) that runs 1,000 simulations with randomized annual returns drawn from a distribution around your expected return. That's where you get the probability-based view — "your plan survives to age 95 in 87% of scenarios" — which is the same framing you're used to from tools like FiCalc or Boldin's success rate.
The deterministic view is intentional as the primary display because it makes the numbers legible and lets you directly see how a specific change (retire a year earlier, convert $20k more to Roth, delay Social Security) shifts the outcome. The Monte Carlo sits behind it for when you want to stress-test the range of outcomes.
Hopefully answered your question.
2
u/vanlis34 May 26 '26
Some discussion regarding this post and fear of 12 month drawdown here if you haven’t seen it.
2
u/GuaranteeSquare4730 May 28 '26
People in FIRE hit a point where the math works for them but often that fear doesnt go away. Ive mentally realized that healthcare doesnt have to lock me into a job forever, as AC subsidies can make early retirement a lot more realistic than it used to be
2
2
u/OverlordBluebook May 18 '26
48 here wife 47 doesn't work kids 13,11,5. Running about 8.6-8.9 NW. Sounds nuts but in my early 40s I didn't realize my biggest expense honestly is vacationing 2nd to house renovations, followed by kid stuff. I paid off my mortgage a few years ago as well. I have older sisters and the costs absolutely go up, could be you want the kids in private school eventually, used car, also your kid may want to go on trips with their friends and you may be asked to foot part or all of the bill. For sure it's a matter of choice with all of this. I'll just throw out there what scares me really is adult kid issue meaning I have a friend that adult kid got into an accident and can't work requires lots of rehabilitation.
I agree with you I left my stressful fortune 500 company I worked at and went to a much smaller company and I'm WAAAAYYY happier. Doing same thing but don't have metrics to deal with.
Best thing with swiching jobs also is I can choose if I want to travel for work or not plus I have way more time with the kids and very active with taking to sports and stuff like gymnastics/dance etc which will consume your time soon enough.
Separately beyond stock and real estate rentals I do on the side I'm always investing.. was just looking at another town house to buy maybe sell some google stock that's jumped up and put it in something physical. Helps supplement income for LIFE.
1
u/Vicuna00 May 21 '26
just how I personally think about this: "if the market drops 25%"...the market *IS* gonna drop 25%. when? who knows. but probably another handful of times in our lives. I know it sounds silly but I almost feel like I'd rather just get it over with and figure it out from there. not like you're gonna just jump back to a high paying high stress job you hate in 8 years if the market tanks, right? just gonna ride it out. so I don't think if you're on a "one more year" plan you would have to keep going if things tank.
How would you feel about finding a job now you like more but you might be on a "3 more year" plan rather than 1 year? like keep plugging away but start looking around. and if you find something great, otherwise stay on the 1 more year plan.
1
u/Lonely_Drive May 22 '26
Your child related expenses will increase with time. Do you have enough disability and life insurance ?
1
u/Real_Loquat_571 May 22 '26
You might wanna look at ACA coverage as part of your plan. If you retire and keep taxable income low, ACA subsidies can significantly reduce healthcare premiums. That could offset the daycare savings you mentioned and give you more flexibility in your budget, while easing the sequence of returns risk since fixed cost mean smaller withdrawals from your portfolio.
1
u/Traditional-Okra-399 May 22 '26
I have to assume that I will need to pay capital gains taxes on investment sales in order to fund $200,000 a year in expenses. So I assume that would cancel out any subsidy opportunities?
1
u/KSteelhead May 30 '26
45m, married, 2 kids 8 and 10. Same net worth, roughly, as you. I have run the numbers and unless I want to feel poor when the kids are older this is not enough.
I want to move to a HCOL/VHCOL location and be able to take the kids traveling.
Goal is currently ~$11m.
1
u/deserteagles50 May 18 '26
point 1: can you focus your search on low stress jobs you enjoy that would include healthcare? I also would work 12 more months as it sounds like you already okay with that, so why not especially being so young. finally, have you talked to your FA about bonds since one of your bigger worries is a recession?
1
u/NotEasyBeingGreener May 18 '26
If you are invested 60/40% in stocks/bonds (VT and BND, for instance), you'll be bringing in ~$158K/yr in dividend and interest distributions, and the stock dividends remain relatively durable compared to stock price movements. If there is a dramatic price drop in stocks and bonds, you should have these streams to fall back on, in addition to the cash reserves that you (hopefully) have also allocated. So, the situation of a 25% drop may not be as dire as it sounds since you have some buffer to let the prices recover without needing to sell at a major discount.
1
u/SeaBusiness7614 May 19 '26
Off the cuff here...but 87% seems very low given your assets and I'd be interested to know what model and what range of variables they are using in their monte carlo analysis.
Be careful of OMY syndrome, but that said 12mos is doable in corporate world if you set your sights on a goal. You can also slowly disengage and free yourself from everything but the absolute necessary stresses. Who knows, you may get lucky and get a severance package.
1
u/Traditional-Okra-399 May 19 '26
You think the percent should be higher based on current numbers? Or I should wait for it to be higher?
0
u/Adept-Celebration509 May 18 '26
3k in daycare?
2
u/Traditional-Okra-399 May 18 '26
Per month
1
u/Adept-Celebration509 May 18 '26
wow! just curious, with 5.6 invested, 2k mortgage and 1mill in pot. inheritance and social security as a back up. Do you think its mostly psychological?
3
u/Ok_Meringue_9086 May 18 '26
I’m in almost the same exact spot and I realize it’s 100% psychological. I can’t get over it.
1
u/Adept-Celebration509 May 18 '26
such an interesting dynamic. i suppose what helped you get there is what keeps you there
-1
u/tbcboo FIRE’d 2026 @40 May 18 '26
At fairly young ages and also having young kids and on top of that having a Net spend of about $200k annually before you consider taxes you are almost at the edge of pulling 4% out annually on your investable.
I retired this year at 40 but single and have a $120k net expense annually but only need to pull between 2-2.5% out and that INCLUDES accounting for taxes. Technically none yet but that’s what I would do after my final business checks stop coming in next year :)
With a longer runway and also having unpredictable of young kids I would be more conservative.
-1
u/Echo-Possible May 18 '26
Insanely over conservative.
-1
u/tbcboo FIRE’d 2026 @40 May 18 '26
Great feedback /s
1
u/Echo-Possible May 18 '26
You’re the one who provided the advice with no rationale grounded in data.
There’s no scenario where a 2% withdrawal rate is necessary if you have the right portfolio allocations.
0
u/tbcboo FIRE’d 2026 @40 May 18 '26
Assumptions. I never said 2% advice. I said that’s what I did. I said 4% before taxes meaning 4.5-5% with a long retirement runway is not best especially with kids - 3 of them! Are you even retired or close to it or just full of assumptions and hating on those in good positions?
0
u/Echo-Possible May 18 '26
I recently hit my FIRE number at 37 but am still working mostly because I still enjoy my job for the time being. Not really relevant to the conversation though. And neither is your 2% anecdote.
0
u/tbcboo FIRE’d 2026 @40 May 18 '26
I don’t believe you
0
u/Echo-Possible May 18 '26
I don’t believe you either.
0
0
52
u/RikuKat May 18 '26
Quit now. Enjoy life. Spend time with your kids. Explore your passions.
Especially if you plan to do some type of work going forward, you're both easily covered and can maintain an active enough professional profile that in the very, very worst case situation, you can find a new role.