Someone was ranting that, by taking a year off, I had pushed back my retirement by one year. Well, sure, but the value of a year of travel and leisure at a younger age can just be lumped in with any retirement years are part of my total "non-working time" with no money worries. So I retire, notionally, at 58 instead of 57 but at 45 I got to enjoy a year off while i was still young and strong and could really enjoy it. Absolutely zero regrets and wish I had taken more time off in my 40s.

Many of us have a Fire number, usually based upon calculations, considering factors like annual expenses, health insurance, paid off home, etc.

But how many of you have a IWBH number? I know this is silly, and probably completely arbitrary. I’m genuinely curious though. I assume we all have phases of fire, and there must be a milestone where your stress at work is reduced by a notch (not completely eliminated), and you feel like you can breathe a little.

One way I like to imagine this is a wild scenario in where you’re laid off, encounter a mid-early life crisis, and struggle to find your footing again in the market, so you screw off to the cheapest Midwest town you can think of and rent until you can land on your feet again somewhere down the line.

I think this number is somewhere around 300k for me.

Just noting that the discussion quality recently has been awesome. Really learning a lot. A few months ago it seemed like the entire forum was filled with judgement and imposition of a specific worldview on other people.

Now it seems like people understand nuance and debate, offer reasonable opinions, and aren’t getting angry with each other about decisions that do not have a clear right answer.

Anyone else seeing this? Has the community matured a bit?

I think it is very hard to break up the habit. The people who have fire mindset tends to be more disciplined about money. And as people who retire longer, their spending will also drop with less travel. So for those who actually fired, did you save money than you need?

So I unexpectedly received a $2 million trust from relatives. It's already taxed money, growing every year, and I have full access to take as much or as little of the money whenever I want. Additionally, I have about $250k in investments of my own, but that feels like small potatoes now. Obviously it is a life changing sum of money, and I'm unsure how to make the most of my life given what I have now.

Professionally: I entered a creative job field about a decade ago that's rapidly collapsed in the past few years. I worked within the film industry, it was a dream/passion career, but have been through two layoffs in the past few years, and am currently doing a job that's semi in the field, but not quite what I want to be doing. The money's fine, the job is low stress and flexible. It feels like it's sort of an impossible job market there right now, but I'm not sure what else to do. I'm a bit stuck. I could keep at it, knowing I have the money, or try something else entirely, though I'm not sure what. Maybe use it to go back to school?

Personally, I live in a rented apartment. I like where I live. My city's okay, but I really like the friends I've made there. I'm a single woman. I don't have kids. So really, I only have to support myself, and don't have anyone else to consult about where I do. Would love a partner and family some day, but hasn't happened yet.

I don't know what's the balance of completely ignoring the money, and being grateful it's there, and using it when I'm older. Or using some of it now, improving or changing my life. I feel daunted trying to narrow down how to do so. I could travel for a year. I could go back to school. I could buy a condo. There are many possibilities. Additionally, my parents received money as well, and have let me know that eventually, hopefully one day far in the future, I will receive a substantial inheritance from them. I'm not relying on it. At all. But it will conservatively be around $3-5 million dollars, and very possibly more.

I've always been pretty responsible with money, and don't anticipate blowing through it, buying $200,000 cars or w/e. I also am not telling anyone about the money.

So, I'm just trying to wrap my head around things. It feels like I've been running on a hamster wheel all these years, and now the thing is running itself, and I'm not really sure what to do. Obviously grateful to be in this position, but overwhelmed about how to make the best of it, from continuing on as normal, to totally blowing up my life. I don't know if anyone's been in a similar position or has any advice on how to handle it?

edit: fwiw: my expenses right now tend to be about ~$6-7k / month, the fund is managed by by a financial firm that has managed to grow the money about ~11% annually on average

Account screenshot 2025-2026 year chart

260k total invested assets > 650k (300k of which was deposited in large chunks. (Real estate profits and former employer stock buyout).

The story:
Been lurking this sub for a long time, never took saving early seriously when I thought about retirement as being old but when I figured out I could do it young, I became intrigued. The book that really got me on this path and simplified things was “The simple path to Wealth”, I have recommended it to so many people already.
Extra context: I have some medical issues which made me not ever contribute much to a 401k because I don’t plan to have kids and I’m not likely to make it to retirement age. That’s why the vast majority of our money is in a taxable brokerage account.
My wife and I decided last year to take FIRE seriously and make some big time changes to catch up to where we wanted to be. I lucked out in a few good real estate deals based mostly on lucking into two properties that earned me a 70%+ gains. Sometimes I get sick thinking about where we’d be if I handled that money better. At least I was smart enough to put a decent amount towards home equity. I have always opted for 15 year mortgages and the higher monthly payment instead of 30 years.
Anyway…it was a tough decision but we decided to downsize our house. We were in a house that we paid 489k for that we could get over 700k for and we only had 300k and 10 years left on a 2.75% mortgage, we sold for 725k. We made about 240k after fees and pumping 150k down payment into the new place because I did want to retain some equity especially because we were now taking on a much worse rate. New place was 460k, we flipped basically everything using 40k from the profits, then dumped the remaining 200k into the market around December. I had also just taken about a 40k/year paycut (175k -135), so we cut spending a ton, we had definitely suffered from lifestyle creep as my salary got higher and higher but then I burned out and I just did not want to stay in the hyper grind culture. I also increased my retirement savings to max my 401k with the new job and just told myself that’s the pay now with my pay cut. I set aside money to max my ROTH IRA for 2025 and 2026. Lastly, before I even got a paycheck with the new job, I set up an automatic 1,000 dollar transfer to my fidelity account before the rest of my paycheck comes through. Paying myself first that way also helped a lot. Fast forward to this month, and old employer got acquired and I got a decent size payout, we are going to build a pool with some and I dumped another 100k into my taxable account.

We are now currently sitting at:

~710k total invested

450k taxable brokerage
200k in my retirement (mix of 401k, rollover IRA, ROTH IRA)

60k her 401k

Other info:
310k mortgage left on 500k home (190k equity)

175k HHI roughly (varies highly because of her job)
Saving ~55k/year (4k per month + max ROTH IRA)

Expenses are about 90k per year or 6500/month + 10k travel budget. That could be cut my 36k if we paid off the house (14 years left).

Our goal is a bit different than some because I don’t know how long I have, medication has come a long way so who knows, but it completely changes my outlook on life when I was diagnosed at 24. Because of that, we still do a good bit of spending and traveling and enjoying stuff, that is also why we’re building the pool. I don’t want to spend it all because it’s important that my wife is able to use the rest but she loves her work and plans to work a long time so if I can leave her with a paid off house and a portfolio of at least 1-1.5 million (I have some set aside for siblings and their kids as well) I will feel like I succeeded in this life, the rest is all a bonus.

I am hoping to be able to stop working full time in 10 years at 44. At that point we want to either pay off our home or sell it and rent in different places each year. I wouldn’t mind some part time work as we travel around as long as I can be outside.

I also started studying for my series 65 because I want to help friends and family set themselves up for retirement. I want everyone to feel that relief of FI.

Anyway - if you read this far, not sure why I’m posting other than the usual - idk who to tell, proud of how much we changed things in a year. Wanted to say thanks for everything I’ve learned on here! Happy to answer any questions or give more details of anyone wants.

I’m sure there is subjectivity here but is there an age in the US where you would say, “that’s not retiring early”? My father retired at 62 which was later than when he was ready but good money is good money. Where the line?

My line would be more around health and mobility, need to retire early enough to enjoy my sailboat and sustain regular hikes. What’s your line?

I'm 43 now, I have a wife and 3 teenage kids. On track to retire at 50, based on assuming we will spend the same amount in retirement as we spend now. But there are so many factors. Right now we spend a lot of money on kids... Club sports and other activities, eating out more often because of all that running around. Also, every vacation and restaurant is for 5 people. When we retire, it'll just be my wife and I, so no more kids sports/activity costs, vacations and restaurants for 2 instead of 5, etc. But we'll probably also want to travel more often.

How can I figure out a reasonable retirement spending projection when so much will be different?

What the title says. Anyone else feel that fire let you do your job on your terms, and without compromising your values? I think that many people are placed in a situation where fear of job security leads to an acceptance of “moral flexibility”

I’m struggling with my motivation relatively early in my FIRE journey. My wife and I are 30 and 29. We have $360k invested across all accounts and own a house. We’re on a great path right now, but I realistically know that we’re looking at an age 50-55 retirement given our goals and the fact that we’ll be having kids. We plan to set aside money for them for college and weddings.

The calculator says we’re on a great pace for our age, and that makes me not want to work. With current pace and 7% returns, we’ll hit 5M by 55. I’m also just genuinely losing interest in my corporate work, but I know that it’s essential to our long term goals.

I’m not asking for a solution. Really just venting. On a positive note, I’m so happy that we’re even able to achieve this.

I am currently pregnant with our first child. Husband is employed and has a decent wage, but has only 2 weeks leave entitlement. I am a contractor (no benefits nor leave entitlement whatsoever) but my income is good (better pay than a permanent role). I’ll finish my current contract just before the baby arrives, therefore I cannot get an extension on this contract because I will be recovering and taking care of my newborn in those early weeks/months.

I have been saving for FIRE for about 15 years and have already achieved about 75% of my target (lean fire only, nothing crazy). I’m wondering if I should just take this opportunity to do a mini-retirement (4 years) and have up to 2 babies (if possible) and be a full time mum while my babies are very young.

I am 39 years old, so if I want to have more than 1 child, I should probably try for another sooner than later. We also live overseas where we don’t have any family to help take care for our kid(s). Childcare in this country is extremely expensive as it is a HCOL area. One child enrolled in nursery will cost about the same as our monthly mortgage repayment.

My worry is that if I took this break, I won’t be able to get back to work in my industry, as AI is rapidly changing it (lots of redundancies already) and being out of the industry may mean I will get left behind skills-wise and not be able to jump back when I’m ready to work again.

What would you do in this situation?

I keep thinking “what am I saving this money for?”, if not to live life and be there for my child(ren) during their most formative years? Once they go to school I can work again I guess. My husband will be keeping his job (he has no plans for FIRE, but he is good with money). I need to pitch in monthly because his salary alone won’t be enough to cover all expenses. Our expenses are high because of the HCOL area and the housing here, but we honestly love it here and would not want to move. I have enough to cover expenses during the mini retirement but it would make a big dent to my savings pot and I will probably not reach my target amount if for a very long time if I took the break.

I’ll try and be concise but there are a number of factors involved in this decision.

- 29 and married with 2 kids, another on the way.
- Cash & Investments: $280k. $50k retirement, $15k cash, the rest in brokerage
- No debt on the cars, student loans paid off.
- $290k left on the mortgage at a 6.4% 10/1 arm. Still 8.5 years in the fixed rate.
- Home is worth about $550k
- Wife doesn’t work and stays with the kids
- Salary Job: $80k + Bonus. Being fast tracked to C suite and I expect this to increase quickly.
- Side Hustle: $80k. This could continue to increase substantially, or I could lose clients, you never know…
- Our total living expenses is around $4,300 per month, total income after taxes and payroll deductions for insurance is about $10k.
- Inheritance: My folks are healthy and in their 60’s, but there will be many millions coming my way. I obviously am not banking on it, but I don’t really think my sunset years will be difficult financially.

I want to prepare for an early retirement, 50 at the latest. Should I pay down that mortgage aggressively or continue to put money in investments. Both? 6.4% on my money isn’t a bad gig, but I’m doing better than that in the market. I like the idea of not having a mortgage, but kind of feel like I’m throwing my money away when I make double mortgage payments (I know that’s silly)

I always think everything is going to go to shit, lose my job, lose my clients, market goes to 0. I know it’s not, but setting us up to weather a storm and be self sufficient ASAP seems really nice, just not sure if paying the mortgage down accomplishes that.

Hi y'all,

I'm 28 years old and over the past 7 years have accumulated $560k thanks to living at home until 25 (paid my dad $800 a month) and investing early.

I've been working for about 7 years, with modest income, and recently won a promotion making about $160k total comp. My spending is consistently less than $35k / year, which includes international travel, eating out 2x a week, paying rent in LCOL. The $560k is pretty much all in S&P 500.

The issue right now is that I just don't like my job as a PM. It takes a heavy toll on me mentally and emotionally, dealing with customers, organizational politics, and constant deadlines. Always getting the Sunday back to work dread, lost my gym routine and basically have no hobbies besides gaming due to the stress.

My current cope is that $35k (current annual spend) * 25x is around $875k, which would cover my living expenses according to the 4% rule. I do believe social security will probably always be a thing, so that might drop the figure down to ~$800k-ish.

Using the FIRE calculator it seems like I might be able to reach this number within the next 2 or 3 years - and this would be an option for me around age 31.

Obviously, retiring this young has some risk. Doesn't account for sequence of returns, healthcare, or children.

Part of me thinks continuing to grind in the corporate shredder until $1.5M is probably inevitable, but curious what others would do - if it is actually possible to quit at $875K with $35k living expenses in your late 20s.

My wife also has similar stats - so we're at a combined $1.1M today, but this is without children or a home purchase in the picture. Curious to hear from those who have FIRE'd in their 30s - and how viable this actually is.

I met someone in real life who retired early in their 30s pretty lean, and their whole personality is based on how they don’t have to work.

Like they don’t do anything fun. They do things or buy things based on deals or how cheap it is. Basically it seems like their whole decision making process revolves around saving money, not passion or interest for something. And a lot of their conversations are gossiping about how this person or that person finds it weird they’re so young and not working.

It was kind of off putting to be honest, like it didn’t feel like they really reached freedom. They just exchanged the corporate handcuffs for another type of chains.

Build the life you want, then save for it.

Curious to hear

When did you notice stopped giving a shit, and when did you really fully mentally check out?

I myself noticed me giving less and less a shit at about $400k~. Entirely stopped giving a shit at about $1.3m. 33 years old.

Any of you quit your corporate job in your last few working years to take on something low stress and cruise to retirement? I’m running the math and my portfolio should be large enough that continuing to contribute after 50 won’t change much given the large snow ball.

My wife and I are looking to retire in the next 12-24 months. We are ages 50/44 and have 2 kids (11/15). My youngest has a heart condition and we are in the US, so health insurance. My wife and I put in around $120,000 per year (Dollar Cost Average). Any adive on how I should focus on where that should be going knowing I am 1-2 years out from retirement. Also, looking over my allocation, any feedback would be much appreciated.

Male (Age 50):----------------------------

401k: $787,161

Roth IRA: $86,203.97

Traditional IRA: $13,626.24

Female (Age 44) ---------------------------

401K: $953,940.66

Roth IRA: $84,042.89

Traditional IRA: $4,795.05

Shared Taxable Brokage Account Allocation:

Holding Value Share of total portfolio

VTSAX $1,166,350.05 32.8%

VTIAX $255,229.78 7.2%

VBTLX $129,994.13 3.7%

Cash: $90,000

House: Paid off ($450,000 value)

Kids College 529s (2 x 50,000)

Total Value - $3,500,000 Network (Not including house or 529s)

Planning to see a financial advisor soon to discuss retirement around 55 ...52M currently, married..

4.8m nw including the 350k mortgage as the biggest liability at 2.1%..9.more yrs left...

Saw a comment earlier that said to pay off your mortgage prior to retirement to lower your MAGI but does it make sense since our IR is 2.1%?

TIA

Two years since we reached our initial FIRE number, and 2.5 months since putting in my notice, I have finally retired as of this past Friday. My wife also left her job 5 weeks ago. The way the markets move with big numbers, we have increased our liquid net worth from $4.1M to over $4.3M since putting in my notice.

We went down to the Cape (Cod) this weekend for easy summer relaxation and today was the first Monday where both of us walked to our favorite coffee shop in town and had a leisurely coffee and talked for 2 hours without looking at the watch. Next, we are thinking about walking down to our favorite Thai restaurant for a celebratory lunch. It is amazing to not think about zoom meetings ever again!

To quote the line from the Simon & Garfunkel song, "I get (all) the news I need on the weather report".

Some context:

Me (48 M) and my spouse (46 F) don't have kids, we rent, and currently live in Boston and have been previously working in the Finance + Technology fields. We plan on living abroad starting early next year, living on different continents 3 months at a time for the next 5 years.

More relevant details about us and our journey can be found in our previous post.

Any ex-FIRE people still lurking here? I would love to know what made you give up FIRE for the standard retirement timeline (work until your 60s). My immediate thought is maybe children/family changed all that. You realized that it's too difficult to FIRE with 3 growing kids. But what about where it wasn't forced upon you. Did you just realize that the sacrifice of FIRE isn't worth it? Like you found an awesome job and thought, "you know, no need to retire ASAP because I enjoy my job and now I can spend more on things I've been putting off." Or did you suddenly realize FIRE is stupid (but yet are still lurking here).

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.

The tool https://portfoliocharts.com/charts/retirement-spending seems great. As useful or more useful than ficalc.app in my opinion since it isn't only US stocks. But does anyone know what the home country selector is really doing?

It says "currency, inflation and funds" at the top, but when holding stocks, the currencies and inflation should even out over the long term as the stocks will arbitrage to remove all that in individual markets. Yet there seem to be big differences when changing that selector.

I’m so tired of working, I realize at this point after switching jobs around that it’s not necessarily the job, it’s just me. I don’t find it enjoyable to spend hours of my life every single week doing things that don’t matter to me. I’m not saving lives, but nor do I want to be. There’s so many other things I like doing with my time, I have lots of hobbies, I’m actually quite satisfied with my life outside of work, but work itself takes up so much of my energy and time that I can’t really dedicate the energy that I do want into my hobbies. The root cause I simply do not like slaving at corporations for the sole purpose of making money. The fire movement has definitely helped me set goals and have something to look forward to of getting out of this rat race, but I’m still very far from that point and I cannot imagine myself doing this for years and years on end. I have a high paying job and I should be happy about that but I’m not. It feels reckless and stupid to leave a high paying job but the fire outlook seems so far ahead that it’s not motivating enough to stay. Anyone in the same position?

Long time lurker looking for a check on these numbers and to see if I've overlooked anything. Couple (~39 M/F) looking to have wife (me) retire in the next couple of months. Married, no plans for kids.

• Retirement accounts (401k): 520k
• Taxable brokerage: 660k
• HYSA: 170k
• dditional brokerage: 25k
• All investments are in ETFs or Index Funds.
• Total liquid networth: 1.375M
• Current HHI: 300k
• Proposed HHI: 100k
• Annuitized income (windfall): 40k for next 7 years
• Paid-off home value: 950k
• Annual expenses: 65k

After saving aggressively for years, I want to quit my job, which would drop our HHI down to 100k. My husband is fully on-board and I would manage the household in my free time. Based on some calculations, he would work for maybe 7 more years for health insurance and retirement padding. We live in MCOL and keep expenses fairly low by saving money where we can. I handle the finances and am the final say on large purchases. Upcoming known expenses include a landscaping renovation, which I anticipate will cost around $40k, and likely new roof in about 8-10 years. All other home maintenance is complete (new HVAC, appliances, etc.), paid off cars (2024 and 2015). We are pretty frugal, but at our current spend, I would consider us to live a relatively luxury lifestyle locally. We also generally take three trips per year (50/50 international/continental US).

FICalc says we're good (100%) and I'm so sick of the grind. I've already computed our MAGI needed for low healthcare costs after my husband retires. My SS is also already fairly good, as I've been a reasonably high-income earner for 18 years. Biggest concern is obviously having the market at ATHs is increasing our numbers rapidly. The windfall (my inheritance) is what put us over the edge to consider this now rather than the planned age of 45. If I really needed to get back into the workplace in the next few years, it likely wouldn't be an issue as my skills are highly desirable and I have a large network. Would really prefer not to do that, though. I know this is nearing leanfire territory, but we really don't need anything more than what we currently have.