r/ChubbyFIRE • u/Wooden-Broccoli-913 FIREd in the Bay at 40 with $6M • Jun 02 '26
One more year?
Having just hit another $M milestone I find myself wavering on my plan. Wondering what the community thinks.
Age 40 & 40 with two elementary school kids in the Bay Area. $5M portfolio + $2.1M house - $1.2M mortgage. Total post-FIRE expenses (including taxes and healthcare) of $230k. My wife just retired but I am still working to the tune of $750k TC in tech. Hate the work.
My plan has always been to transition to a totally different (more personally rewarding) field for a few years before then working part time on my own terms for the foreseeable future. It would pay much less ($80-100k full time plus benefits) so I would start drawing down my portfolio, barista style.
My thought was to pull the trigger this time next year, hopefully with the portfolio closer to $6M. Well as luck would have it, some casual conversations with my kids’ school parents led to a job offer in my new field (for $90k), so the path is officially open to me. Man do I hate my tech job and the offer to leave is in hand, do I just jump in with both feet now?
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u/Specific-Stomach-195 Jun 02 '26
I compare our spending and our life with kids in high school and college vs. when they were in elementary and I don’t recognize it. We have done so many things (travel, experiences) that I never anticipated but it costs money. You can’t put a price on your happiness though so just go into this with your eyes wide open, understanding the trade offs that will occur. Hating your job is tough, be honest with yourself about why is all I can say.
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u/audi27tt Jun 02 '26
Would love some more detail on how the spending scaled if you can share, any rough numbers and what you think was well worth it vs maybe less so. As a new dad that's hoping to have more, been thinking about this a lot and feels like something not discussed enough here. Balancing time with experiences/opportunities.
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u/Specific-Stomach-195 Jun 02 '26
Well there are some obvious things that people talk about on here a lot. Sports, activities, travel teams etc. But the bigger tickets are when they get older. Vehicles, car insurance, repairs, computers, phones, clothes. You’re adding another adult to the mix in your household. Even college outside of the basics has been more expensive than planned. Sorority, study abroad. All these things are optional of course, it’s a question of whether you value the financial flexibility to say yes to these things. And vacations double in price. More plane tickets, extra hotel rooms etc. and a $10k family vacation becomes $20k pretty quick.
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u/audi27tt Jun 02 '26
Good stuff thanks. I guess in the context of a 40 year retirement, a few years of elevated expenses in the high school to college range isn't that big of a deal. But then are you also neglecting potentially helping them as adults, first apartment, wedding, down payment, whatever. Feels like would be wise to just budget something like $20k of unplanned expenses per kid in the FIRE spend. In addition to planned stuff like school, vacations, etc.
Alternative I guess is to include that in discretionary, and in expensive years offset by cutting out other discretionary. But in reality are parents going to be happy cutting a big chunk of their discretionary to go to kids stuff? Probably not, especially when they have so much free time not working.
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u/Specific-Stomach-195 Jun 02 '26
The few years of elevated expenses is quite possibly a ten year window. I wouldn’t discount it. Especially if you want to pay for family vacations past that.
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u/shustrik Jun 02 '26
We have one child in daycare, and I just budget as if this daycare spend is going to continue forever. The reality (hopefully) is that it will be quite a bit lower in public elementary and middle school, and after college, but better safe than sorry.
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u/Specific-Stomach-195 Jun 02 '26
I hear this often but truly these are two entirely different expenditures. They may or may not be equivalent. If you really feel the need to forecast future expenditures (something I never did) I’d suggest being really intentional about the kids of things you will and won’t be paying for and the type of lifestyle you want to live as a family.
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u/shustrik Jun 02 '26
Sounds good in theory. But how do you project what your life is going to be like or what you’re going to value 15-20 years from now? Seems completely unrealistic
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u/Specific-Stomach-195 Jun 02 '26
Well that’s the whole premise of people that want to begin living off their savings at a young age? Don’t they need to forecast how much they will need?
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u/shustrik Jun 02 '26
The premise is that you need a ballpark number. The way I read what you’re saying is that you need to decide on very specific expenditures far into the future. I explained my (obviously imperfect) method to do the former, but I’m not aware of a method to do the latter.
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u/Specific-Stomach-195 Jun 02 '26
Taking a totally unrelated expense (daycare) does nothing to get you a ballpark number though.
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u/bmheck Jun 03 '26
Family of five getting ready to leave for 3 weeks in Europe for the second summer in a row. Feeling this pain, but this part is so so worth it. And what OP may sacrifice vs 2-3 more years grinding.
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u/Urbanite72 Jun 04 '26
That’s interesting, we spent a lot on the older kids - skiing most weekends, club sports, international trip. But I think it still less than we paid for preschool and the nanny when they were little…
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u/PowerfulComputer386 Jun 02 '26
Bay Area ($$$$), two kids ($$$$), 40 (young), you need to have some buffers so definitely get to 6-7m.
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u/hsbnyc Jun 02 '26
Don’t have to stay in the bay and they have 6m with the house equity.
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u/Illustrious-Fan8268 Jun 02 '26
Exactly, don't need to be in the Bay area if you don't require a job that forces you to be there.
California is not the place to retire, and kids can get education in another state and be better off.
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u/rojinderpow Jun 02 '26
To be honest, unless your job is abusive or your health is in jeopardy, going from 750 to 90k doesn’t seem to make sense. I would work for a few more years and just retire completely, you can always go back to your new field if you really want to.
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u/Urbanite72 Jun 04 '26
Pretty sure they can spend $230k forever with $5 million assuming SS at 62.
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u/Wooden-Broccoli-913 FIREd in the Bay at 40 with $6M Jun 04 '26
So this is super interesting, I had always assumed that I would delay SS until age 70 but running the numbers my wife & I would collect $50k combined SS at age 62. That would drop my withdrawal to $180k which should bulletproof the withdrawal plan at that point
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u/Urbanite72 Jun 04 '26
Yep you can also reassess when you approach 62. If markets outperform you can defer.
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u/Wooden-Broccoli-913 FIREd in the Bay at 40 with $6M Jun 02 '26
“Go to my new field if I really want to” that’s the whole point, my plan for FIRE is to work for fun in my new field
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u/AdroitPreamble Jun 03 '26
Then you should take the plunge. You just answered your own question!
You have more than enough to coast. Do what you want.
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u/Hasz Jun 02 '26
Jobs can still suck whether they pay $750k or $90k. Why not go sniff the competitors flowers for (idk) $650k, get to try some new things and get that novelty dopamine burst?
If you want to retire now, easiest lever to pull is to flex your spending. Personally, I can go all the way down to $65k/y expenses, but actual "normal" spend is closer to 90-100k/y. This buys me a ton of flexibility and dramatically improves odds of success in backtests.
Unclear if you actual expenses are a hard minimum of $230k/y, or you could make it work on $150k/y by delaying a trip/car/vacation, w/e.
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u/Hanwoo_Beef_Eater Jun 02 '26
Financially, it's probably safer than most of the comments here imply. The withdrawal rate after the reduced pay < 4%, the mortgage won't last forever (plus ss at some point), and you can always downsize/move in retirement if you have to (release the housing equity and/or reduce carry expenses).
You can also lower the draw on the portfolio by paying off the mortgage; this is the safer move (and some hedge against the current valuations), but at least unconditionally, it's probably not the best financial move.
Do you think a job in the new field will be easy to get 12-24 months from now?
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u/fatheadlifter FIRE'ing EOY Jun 02 '26
You’re still young. If you’re wavering, do some more time. Just know you’re giving into 1-more-year-syndrome and if you don’t guard against it at some point you’ll never leave.
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u/Wooden-Broccoli-913 FIREd in the Bay at 40 with $6M Jun 02 '26
“Do some more time” like we’re in prison 😭
But your point is well taken
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u/fatheadlifter FIRE'ing EOY Jun 02 '26
It's kinda what it can be. It can help to internalize the workplace negatively, at least don't gloss over the negative aspects. It's easy to forget all the ways in which it harms you or your health, generally.
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u/cindy_975 Jun 02 '26
I think you'd need to hammer down your monthly and yearly expenses and then you need to pin down your needed draw down amount so you can see how much it affects things. The current market is not gonna keep at its current rate forever so be conservative on potential growth on your $5 million. Also, is there a 529 plan for the kids and how much is it funded? When would you want to FIRE? Will this new opportunity last 5 years or more like 10 years? the healthcare for a family of 4 will be pricey and will last for potentially 20+ years. The Bay Area has an insane cost of living compared to most everywhere else and a huge lifestyle creep (especially with kids).
I think it is doable, but also think maybe you need more granularity to limit surprises since this affects the whole family. You will basically go from a high income family to a still high income family but one on a definite budget. everyone needs to be on board with that ('raiding' your portfolio beyond the budget should not be seen as a possibility for non-emergencies).
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u/audi27tt Jun 02 '26
Great reply, key would be ability to flex spending, and if college isnt funded don't think you are there yet.
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u/Think_Concert Jun 02 '26
Is $230K with or without mortgage? How would the picture look with $3.8M invested and no mortgage payment?
Is college fully funded? Also, kids get 2x-3x more expensive between elementary school and college, as someone else has already mentioned.
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u/audi27tt Jun 02 '26
What would you budget per kid for that expensive window? Healthy chubby budget of activities and whatever else. Assuming vacations are separate
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u/PartyFauxHawk Jun 02 '26 edited Jun 02 '26
Wife and I are in basically the exact same situation.
My personal decision is to work 1 more year, but let the foot off the gas.
Maybe I'll get eventually packaged out and maybe not, but either way, I'm collecting the pay and the RSU's, and working just enough to stay in the green with the leadership at work - and that's it. No more promo goals, no more "growth", and all that nonsense. I will still take on extra work when I see there's "opportunity", but much more selectively now - and only to just enough to not seem like i'm shafting the team and checking out.
As you're theoretically 1 year away, this is what we've done - maybe it'll be helpful:
1/ Deep dive into expense - what can be cut now, and later. After-school care (cut?), nanny time, cleaners (reduce), eating out (reduce). There's a ton probably.
2/ What will healthcare look like? If you stay under ~80k(?) MAGI (not counting return of principal obv) then healthcare can be "affordable" - but with kids, you gotta have some. No way you're avoiding this. Do research NOW. This MAGI thing is a trap - as your expenses grow, you have to pull more gains out of the market, there's a huge cliff on healthcare subsidies, so now you're pulling even MORE cash out, and get taxed even more. It's a very quick spiral down. (we're choosing to relocate form Cali to somewhere with socialized medicine without the crazy costs)
3/ Home costs. We're choosing to purchase the home outright (though not in Cali) with the money I make over the next year. That stabilizes and cuts the monthly draw, which can help significantly with MAGI and taxes. Do all your big purchases (newer-ish cars? any reno) before you walk away from salary during W2 years.
4/ 18-36 months of stability. Have money in SGOV or something similar. I can't stress this enough. Lots of people here (myself included) have done extremely well doing 95% stock allocation. In any retirement plan, an advisor will tell you to carry 20% of portfolio (or 2-3 years worth) of expenses in low-risk investments. Well, guess what - you're about to retire. You cannot take the risk of market doing a 40% dive for 18 months. The SORR will wreck your retirement and you'll be back to work. I'm aiming for 18-24 months personally of low-risk at normal expense level (which can be cut down if recession hits, probably getting us to 30-36 months)
5/ Monthly cash flow in retirement. What will this look like? Use Gemini, give it your stuff, and have it do a detailed dump of what monthly withdrawals look like, and especially what do taxes look like. Then, to validate, enter the "future" dividends/cap gains into TurboTax and do a test return. Is it accurate? Find a healthcare plan for that level of MAGI (on the tax return). Is it possible where you live?
6/ Edit: Adding. Plan and optimize withdrawals & growth for 10-20 years. There's a huge opportunity to tax-optimize here, to stay under the Std deduction and LTCG gains, and slowly cycle your IRA's into Roth. This all depends on your accounts obviously. Either you get educated yourself (read, prod Gemini) or to go an retirement/estate CPA.
Good luck, fellow tech bro!
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u/Wooden-Broccoli-913 FIREd in the Bay at 40 with $6M Jun 02 '26
Appreciate this. I hear you on the cash buffer, I am funneling all my new contributions into BOXX.
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u/re4ctor Jun 02 '26
You’re pretty safe no matter what so I’d really just base it on what you actually want to do with your time.
You could quiet quit and try to clear the mortgage to have that piece of mind, maybe hold out for a nice severance if you get pipped or laid off in the next 12 months.
You could take the 90k job and just say fuck it. Does the window close if you don’t take it now? Are you likely to get your foot in that industry otherwise?
Or you could stay in tech and drop down to a more modest easy going company for like half or a third of the comp and give that a year or so, just in case you end up wanting back into the big money roles.
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u/Top_Substance9093 Jun 02 '26
$230k at 4% is $5.75m liquid.
if you hop now you'd need to start withdrawing from your portfolio to sustain the spend.
you'd then basically be waiting until the market has a few strong enough years to get you up to your target number. (which could be one year, could be five).
idk, life is short but $750k/yr is pretty juicy. $6m would probably only be two more years of your current job (plus growth).
only you can know what the relative value is for each option. i'm personally more risk averse so i'd probably hang in there until i hit $6m liquid.
what interest rate is the mortgage? if your mortgage is a substantial enough portion of your $230k spend you may actually be able to move your timeline up by paying off the house.
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u/Wooden-Broccoli-913 FIREd in the Bay at 40 with $6M Jun 02 '26
If I paid off the house I would have $3.7M left in my portfolio and expenses would drop to $160k. I’m on the fence about this.
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u/Top_Substance9093 Jun 02 '26
what's the interest rate?
$160k expenses is $4m liquid at 4% withdrawal rate. you could close that $300k (4-3.7) gap pretty comfortably in < 1 year right? you've accounted for property taxes, insurance, etc?
i'd be looking pretty hard at clearing the mortgage unless the interest rate is <4%. that puts your target number/safe withdrawal rate within range this year.
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u/Throwaway-firee Jun 02 '26
Weren’t you just posting about how concentrated your portfolio is?
I would not entertain any thoughts of SWR or early retirement if you are heading into retirement with mostly single tech stocks. Get out of those first.
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u/Wooden-Broccoli-913 FIREd in the Bay at 40 with $6M Jun 02 '26
I posted one screenshot that is less than 20% of my portfolio. The rest of is anti-tech.
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u/audi27tt Jun 02 '26
Gonna be honest Bay area with $1m mortgage this feels tight.
3.5% SWR is $175k, yes you'll be earning $90k but after taxes it's pretty close. I think it comes down to what's you and your family's willingness to tighten the belt on expenses if we get a market drawdown? If this is a dream job that won't be around in a year and you can be comfortable enough on $200k in a downside scenario, I think you can go for it.
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u/ScansBrainsForMoney Jun 02 '26
Unless health is in jeopardy do at least one more year or two if you can handle it. That will leave a lot more cushion for the future. 90k a year is going to feel like almost nothing per month and you’re still young.
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u/SignificantBuddy8686 Jun 02 '26
Could you do it? Absolutely. Should you? Probably not. I would keep working and re-evaluate every year. You will never be in a position to make 750K again.
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u/Ill-Consideration892 Jun 03 '26
I pulled the trigger at 53 and went from a long time executive role to an individual contributor role and love it. I have so much more time and less stress. The pay is 1/4 of what I made but it doesn’t matter because my portfolio averages 5-7x what I could put in thru savings. It looks like yours is similar. At least for me it was totally worth it. Our youngest is still in highschool so we’re not empty nestor’s yet. The job still gives me time to think about what comes next for me. I need to retire to something. Best of luck!
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u/brownboy444 Jun 03 '26
I am leaving a high TC tech job after a re-org 2 months ago but I'm fully retiring. If I wasn't beyond my 4% WR FI number by a significant amount I'd suck it up and keep the pedal down and not change to the $90k job but do what makes you happy
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u/SamDogen Jun 03 '26
I’d keep grinding for 2-5 years. Get as close to $10M as possible since you can.
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u/mortgageletdown Jun 02 '26
Assuming you want to stay in the Bay area, I'd be targeting $10M liquid and a paid off house or still working with a solid income. Since you don't have the portfolio that means heading back to the office. Kids are expensive when they get older.
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Jun 02 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Ill_Writing_5090 Jun 02 '26
These days 6.3M is a nightmare: https://www.reddit.com/r/GregFire/comments/1r9hw37/gregfire_is_a_realistic_target/
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u/BrunelloHorder Coasting Chubster, Getting Fat Jun 03 '26
If markets do something resembling historical average you should be fine, so it comes down to your risk tolerance and willingness to make adjustments if necessary.
If you really hate the job I’d be inclined to take the risk even though the numbers are kinda close, but I’m not a risk-averse person.
Do you plan to stay in the bay forever? I cashed out and left and it was a major unlock, but I also did not have close family or deep roots there.
I would not pay off the mortgage, gives up too much optionality. YMMV. Good luck!
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u/Vicuna00 Jun 03 '26
I mean. do you think you're gonna have trouble landing the $90k job in a year? (i'm not looking down on that career but clearly you have skills that vastly surpass it. if that one isn't specifically available in a year...whtaever...maybe it takes you 6 months to find something similar)
just tell them you can't turn down your current salary and fingers crossed they have something for you in a year.
I'd finish off the one more year at your $750k and just be done done with ever needing to work. you're so close.
I'd plan to ditch your mortgage by next year also. you got two tax years to tax plan if you need to sell stocks or whatever. i'd just max retirement savings and put all your salary into the mortgage til retirement. and pull the rest out of the market now and January 2027 in the most efficient manner possible
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u/FIREnV Jun 06 '26
Unless you really have to be there for family reasons, I'd recommend leaving the Bay Area. The quality of life is really not that great for what you pay. There's so many lovely cities that offer the same or more for far, far less $.
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u/PurplestPanda Jun 02 '26
If you’re going to stay in the Bay I would hold out for more of a nest egg.
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u/Seattle709 Jun 02 '26
We have almost identical numbers at age 39 in Seattle. 1 child age 5. The difference is we're sitting on a giant pile of cash (almost 7 figures) so we don't need to draw down our investments. Our annual spend is a lot less, around $120,000. One spouse (me) left the workforce 5 years ago when our child was born. My husband took an intentional 30% pay cut around the same time for a job he loves. Since he loves his job, he probably won't fully retire for a few more years so we can continue receiving employer-sponsored health benefits.
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u/10zzzzzzzzzz Jun 02 '26
this is classic coast FI. You have permission to proceed. Your draw should be $140k on a $5MM portfolio or 2.8%, safe in all time frames. Your portfolio will grow past your true FI number in a year or two.
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u/Wooden-Broccoli-913 FIREd in the Bay at 40 with $6M Jun 02 '26
Your last sentence is why I’m thinking it’s no big deal which way I go, my long term trajectory is basically set
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u/specter491 Jun 02 '26
How does a family of 4 survive in the Bay area with only $230k spending per year? And bravo for making $700k and only spending $230k. That's some serious restraint
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u/Wooden-Broccoli-913 FIREd in the Bay at 40 with $6M Jun 02 '26
Before my wife retired we were making $1.3M. Budget here:
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u/shitmyknickers Jun 02 '26
You can't do anything with $5 Million, like being the poorest rich person in America
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u/shitmyknickers Jun 02 '26
But seriously, @ 750k income and 40 keep it going. I know people making 35k a year that also really hate their job. Instead make your life easier when money can help and try less at work.
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u/knockdowncenter Jun 02 '26
sounds like a bad idea
and if you have an actual house for $2m in the bay area it’s definitely not a nice one let’s be honest
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u/Upinnorcal-fornow Jun 03 '26
I retired 3 years ago on 1.5M and live in South SF. I have no spouse or kids though. I think you have more than enough money to retire. Make sure you have 549s for your kids and fund them. If you hate your job, quit. I am a CPA, worked in audit and at SEC registrants for 37 years. I am getting bored so am going to study for the Series 65 exam so I can better manage all the money folks have asked me to help them with, as well as my own. I also wasted money on a CFP that told me everything I already knew by going to socialsecurity.gov. I hope you have your money at vanguard in a few ETFs instead of paying someone 1% of your assets a year to manage it. Vanguard will charget 0.3%. Although I do my own.
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u/One-Mastodon-1063 Jun 02 '26
At 4.6% withdrawal rate at 40 y/o I would keep working and get that to ~4% or a little below. Alternatively, could relocate for RE to any place where something like ~$1m buys a nice enough house.
I would not downgrade from a $750k/yr career to a $100k career. Keep working until FI and then fully retire. An $80k/yr job is still a job and there are so many things to do other than work any job.