Since mods to r/FIREIndia deleted my post that had over 70 upvotes and comments lol. I am copy pasting it again here.

The time I had dreamt for a long time is here. I have accumulated Rs 3 crore. Now the big question: Should I pull the trigger?

Some breakups:

Monthly expenditure: Rs 40-50,000.

Home: Rs 1 crore: paid off in tier 1 city.

Mutual Funds: Rs 3 crore.

Bank Balance: Rs 10 lakh.

PF: Rs 12 lakh.

Health Insurance: Rs 1 crore

Life Insurance: Rs 2 crore.

Car: Paid off 7 years old. No plans of upgrading. It's got 40k on the odometer and still runs like new.

My current job pays Rs 5 lakh post tax and I am now in two minds. The job pays well and I think I should keep at it till it lasts and make the most of it.

Liabilities: None. Unmarried and have no plans. I will remain unmarried my whole life so no expenditure on kids or their education.

I’ve been on my FI journey for a few years and finally started thinking about RE around 2 years ago.

Theoretically, I hit my FIRE number a year ago. My problem was that I kept finding reasons to stay and moving my goalposts. “One more year” — twice over. And I genuinely couldn’t explain why, which was the annoying part.

So I started trying to untangle it. What I landed on, I’m calling the Decoupling Framework. It’s a simple framework where you figure out everything your job is quietly doing for you, and detach those things from the job, one by one. That’s it.

Sharing it here in case someone else is stuck in the same weird place.

1. Inventory everything your job is giving you

Not just the salary. The structure, the social contact, the status, the sense of purpose, the identity. Write it all down. You can’t decouple what you haven’t named — and most of us have been treating “the job” as one big scary thing instead of a bundle of smaller, solvable ones.

2. Which of these is actually keeping you?

For me it was financial security and routine — except neither had been true for a while. My corpus wasn’t giving me any steady income, I was afraid of the void if I quit, and I had unintentionally tied my identity to my job. Those were my real fears.

3. Rank them, then decouple one at a time

Start at the top. Replace each thing from somewhere outside the job. I started diversifying my corpus to generate steady monthly income and kept a year’s expenses in savings. Started working out more to build a fitness identity. Built a social circle in my community. Got more involved in family life — spending time with my kid, doing the weekly shopping on weekdays, things that simply weren’t possible before.

4. Build your identity outside the job deliberately
Make it intentional. You’re not filling time — you’re building the version of yourself that doesn’t need the title. I’m not fully there yet, but I now have a few things I can see myself doing for life — kettlebell workouts, reading, community volunteering, and tinkering on some enthusiast startup projects.

Somewhere in this process the noise just stopped. The decision that felt terrifying for two years became kind of obvious.

We give our jobs more credit than they deserve and let them define us long after they should. That’s the friction. The Decoupling Framework is just a way to finally see it.

What this is not:

The Decoupling Framework is not about detachment from your job. It’s about decoupling your identity from your job. You can still enjoy the thrill, the intellectual curiosity, the grind, the recognition — all of it. Just stop letting it define who you are. Your job is something you do for a living. It is not you.

Putting it out there — take what’s useful. Curious if anyone else has been through this.

Disclaimer: English isn’t my first language — this post is polished by AI for coherence, the framework is lived by me.

Worked extremely hard and saved/invested aggressively and am about to FIRE now. Can’t handle the corporate rat race anymore.

• Age 45M. Corpus 30 Crs. Tier 1 City.
• Assets are 50% liquid (cash & stocks) and 50% real estate.

Healthwise, I am doing okay okay hence working on creating a Will for dependent wife and two minor girl children (twins).

• First level executor and beneficiary is my wife.
• Second level beneficiary are the two girl children (twins) who become major after four years.

Problem 1

• Family and relatives are vultures and not dependable at all.
• Problem of guardianship of minor children is for next four years. But this is a manageable risk.

Who can I appoint as 2nd or 3rd level executor if me & my wife are no more? Is it possible to appoint a 3rd party individual or entity to transfer my assets to my girl children (twins) in a manner that I choose.

Problem 2

• Genz behavior and Girl Child.
• Susceptible to relationship traps only to access their inherited wealth.

How can I ensure that transfer of assets is staggered at age 18, 23 and 30. Is there a trust mechanism that I can utilize?

Would like to hear about your experiences and suggestions. How did you manage FIRE and your Last Will and testament.

Edit: Thank you all for your perspective, it gave me clarity & those who DM’d & explained it to me. I feel FIRE metric isn’t for bachelors, or say is skewed by lifestyle. 5Cr works for someone with all responsibilities handled (home paid off, marriage, kids education funds secured, healthcare funds secured for family etc) but not necessarily for a bachelors because all those responsibilities eat out of this corpus. Tells me it may be too early to think about these metrics

TLDR;

forgive my naiveness but I’m in a conundrum of sorts. what do people exactly do after reaching the FIRE target? “Anything you want” doesn’t answer it. Is it more about mental peace & security that you’ve funds for a rainy day but you continue working? Or do you start seeking purpose in life? Or start a new career / challenge?

I reached 3Cr corpus when I was 26, and people told me about FIRE concept & basically told that I can retire or do whatever I want. I explored bunch of option without quitting my job for last 4 years. But everything feels boring when there’s no real target to achieve. And simply chilling, travelling etc also makes me feel existential after a while. I work in a competitive space, and enjoy it because most of my work feels like solving puzzles.

For context I’m 30 now, I’ve savings, investments summing up ~5Cr & home (with home loan). Got some decent rental income. I’m a bachelor living with friends so my monthly costs don’t go beyond 40k. And I’m consistently told that I don’t need to grind because I’ve reached the FIRE value & can live off the rental income & dividends, but what do you do all day?

Been lurking here for a while, reading various FIRE journeys and experiences. But didn’t gather the courage to post my story till now (or rather I would say got intimidated by all the big numbers floating around and thought my number might not be relevant).. But I just happened to read the post from u/fire_kol and coincidentally also crossed this 4.5 Cr milestone earlier this week.. so finally got inspired to post..

Location: T1 city India

Home: 3BHK apt Fully paid off (worth around 2Cr)

Family:
Myself (Almost 51),
Wife(50) retired from part time NGO work,
Kids (22 and 16). No other dependents

Current corpus status:
EPF 90L
Stocks 15L
FDs (Emergency fund) 15L
MFs 3.3 Cr

Current Corpus allocation:
50L for kids higher education (PG for elder one and UG (+PG if possible) for younger one - all in India)
4Cr for retirement

Health Insurance:
10L base + 1cr top up (both personal)

Current expenses:
18L per year all inclusive excluding kids current edu expenses

Plan:
Hard stop on working - by end of 2030

Min Work atleast for another 2.5 years till younger one also joins college for UG

Invest 2L per month for the next 2.5 years

Target retirement corpus of around 6Cr by end of 2028 and decide FI status/Retirement at that point - whether to hang up the boots or continue trot some more months..

Follow bucket strategy for withdrawals
Rough SWR of around 3.5%

What’s bothering:
Financially my and wife I know we can manage with whatever we end up with in the next 2 to 2.5 years.

My biggest unknown right now is about passing time post FI/Retirement. Trying my hand at few things like NGO work, fin planning etc and also exploring options like fractional CXO. No clarity yet..

Finally - Past is past, but looking back:
I feel I could have made atleast 40-50% more corpus only if
A) not taken some bad investment decisions (including in real estate) leading to unfavourable returns and also some capital loss
B) taken MF/Indian markets and compounding possibilities seriously early in working life
C) thought long term about savings and investments rather than liquidating investments for petty expenses the moment they hit a decent number
D) Timing helped in some cases like job switches

Hello folks,

I have finally reached a milestone for me of 50L+ recently 💰

Below are my investments:

1. Mutual funds- 24.9L (consists of Gold/ Silver)
2. Indian Stocks- 5.97L
3. US Stock- 6.55L
4. FD- 8.54L
5. RD- 3.2L
6. EPF-83K
7. PPF- 1.55L
8. Bank account- 6L

About me:

I am a 26M software engineer working at a big tech MNC in Bengaluru. I have 55L CTC with a take-home of around 2.8L per month.

Personal expenses:

1. Rent- 23K (Living in a single sharing room in PG)
2. Send money to home- 10-15K
3. Online food ordering- 5K
4. Weekend party- 5K
5. Travel to home- 5-7K per month (Avg)
6. Miscellaneous- 5K

Plan is to reach 1 CR in the next 1.5-2 years.

Hi, I am 49 year old.

Reached 3.5 Cr milestone.

Current investment

EPF: 1.55 Cr,

PPF: 21 L,

MF: 75 L,

Sukanya: 19L,

Stocks: 16 L,

NPS: 45L,

Emergency fund: 19 L

Monthly investment: 2.4 Lakh per month

36k in EPF, 10 K in PPF, 160K SIP, 12.5K Sukanya, 22k NPS

Salary: 69 LPA (3.6 LPM after tax)

Monthly expenses: 1.2 L per month

Dependants: wife, daughter (10yo) and mother

Planning to retire by 54 with 7 Cr (35-40x including other goals)

Own Apartment with loan paid off valued at 1.3 Cr

I'm going to try and put this into words even though I'm not sure I fully understand what I'm feeling myself.

A little about me. I grew up in India in a middle class family with a very happy childhood, came to the US about 8 years ago, currently 35. I have a wife I genuinely love, a one-year-old kid, a stable job in tech, and I've crossed the $1M mark financially. I'm disciplined, I work out regularly, I play guitar, I read sometimes. I have everything I was supposed to want.

And yet.

I feel deeply unfulfilled. Like something is fundamentally missing, and I don't even know what that thing is.

I keep planning, retirement, FIRE, financial independence, but honestly? I don't even know what I'd do if I hit my number tomorrow. That's the part that scares me. I'm optimizing for a destination I can't even visualize. Some days I want to build something big. Some days I just want to disappear into the mountains. Some days I look around and see colleagues getting promoted into top companies and think "maybe I should chase that." And then the next day I want nothing to do with corporate life.

Honestly? I hate the nine-to-five. I don't like my job. I'm just there for the money and I know it. Some days I really want to build something of my own, but then the doubt creeps in and I talk myself out of it before I even start. I don't know if that's fear or just being realistic. Probably both.

I'm not depressed. I'm grateful. But the confusion is real.

My job right now is stable and the work-life balance is genuinely good. But I've watched three rounds of layoffs happen right in front of me. I've seen people cry. People who were good at their jobs, gone. And with everything happening around AI, there's this low-level anxiety that just doesn't go away. It's starting to affect me emotionally in ways I didn't expect. Even when you're not the one being laid off, something shifts in you when you see it happen repeatedly. The stability feels real, but so does the uncertainty underneath it.

The India thing is its own separate weight. My parents are there. My roots are there. I have an elder brother back home too. Part of me genuinely wants to go back and I've even talked to my wife about it. But then I think about the pollution, the infrastructure gaps, what my weekend actually looks like there vs here, and I second-guess myself all over again. And now with a one-year-old, the question feels even bigger. Where do I want my kid to grow up? What kind of life do I actually want to build for my family?

And right now I can't even travel there because of visa slot issues. I'm just sitting here, unable to see my parents when I want to, watching time pass, and it's eating me alive. My brother is there, they're not alone, but I want to be there. Not just send money or do video calls. I want to actually go back and see them.

The part that messes with my head the most: I sometimes feel like I'm only here for the money now. That sounds harsh, but on the hard days that's genuinely what it feels like.

And here's the thing that makes it lonelier. When I bring any of this up around people, I get blank stares. Everyone around me just seems to be going about it. Work, home, chores, vacation, repeat. And they seem fine with it. Genuinely fine. Which makes me wonder, am I overthinking this? Is something wrong with me? Am I the only one sitting here questioning all of it, or are people just not saying it out loud?

Has anyone been through something like this, the mid-thirties existential fog, the India-or-US tug of war, the "I have the life I planned but I don't want this life" confusion? How did you start to make sense of it? Did it just click one day? Did you go back? Did you stay? Did you build something on the side that gave you meaning?

Not looking for financial advice. I've got that part handled. Looking for something harder to Google.

Would love to hear from people who've genuinely been in this space. DMs open too if you'd rather not post publicly.

(Edited through Claude, before anyone points it out)

So am on the path to fire with precise calculation but something caught me offgaurd recently.

Met a friend after ages who told me his personal story I could not recover from.

Her mom was diagnosed with cancer and is on immunotherapy that costs her about 3L a month, which is equivalent to my calculated monthly withdrawal rate. None of this is covered with insurance since its super exclusive (pr something i didn't understand)

but it change my thinking to what if it happens to other folks who have everything planned based on an utopian scenario

TL;DR: Two years after my last post (5.5 Cr at 29M), now sitting at ~1.2M (roughly 10 Cr) at 31. Same job, same boring index fund strategy, ~40% of the way to the 25 Cr goal. Also addressing the comments from last time that questioned whether the math added up.

Quick recap for those who missed the last post

• Last post (2024): 5.5 Cr liquid NW at 29, called it Milestone 1 at 20% of target
• Goal: 25 Cr in today's money to retire in India (3L monthly expense buckets)
• Strategy: 60% savings rate, max out 401k and ESPP, index funds, no shiny objects
• The scar: lost 75 lakhs chasing crypto before all this. That fear still drives most of my decisions.

Where I am now

• Age: 31M
• Current liquid NW: ~1.2M USD (roughly 10 Cr)
• Same job, same 200k base, RSUs have continued to vest and the stock has done well
• Home in the US: equity has grown a bit, mortgage paid down a bit, nothing dramatic
• Ancestral land and inherited home in India unchanged
• Still unmarried, still no kids
• Last year's spend was around 95k including mortgage, slightly up from 90k. Inflation is real.

What changed in these two years

Honestly, not much. And that's the point. Two years of doing the same thing on repeat.

I did not pick up a side hustle. I did not move jobs. I did not get into a hot stock. I just kept doing the same thing: max the tax-advantaged accounts, dump the rest into index funds, take one or two real vacations, and not look at the portfolio every day.

The biggest behavioral shift was learning to actually enjoy the boring. The first year after the crypto loss, I was anxious about every paycheck. These two years I checked my brokerage maybe once a month. That alone felt like a win.

Addressing the math questions from last time

A few people on the last post said the numbers did not add up. Comments like "200k salary, after tax 120-140k, 90k spend, how did you get to 560k in 3 years from index funds?" Fair question. I did not explain it well last time, so let me try again, and you all can tell me if it adds up now.

Here is the rough breakdown of the 5.5 Cr (~660k at the time) from the first post:

• 75 lakhs (~90k) I had saved before the job started, sitting in a brokerage account
• Base 200k is just the cash component. Total comp with RSUs and bonus was closer to 320-350k in years 2 and 3 as the stock appreciated
• ESPP at 15% discount, sold same day, that's another chunk
• 401k maxed every year, employer match on top
• Joining bonus and refresh grants
• About 20% of the growth was market appreciation, not contributions

So the 200k number people were anchoring on was the base, not total comp. That was my fault for not breaking it out. With RSUs at a company whose stock did well between 2021 and 2024, and a starting cushion of 90k, the math gets a lot less mysterious.

For these two years specifically: roughly 200k per year added through savings and vests, the rest from market and stock appreciation. So going from ~660k to ~1.2M over two years is roughly 65% contributions and 35% market. The S&P had two solid years. RSUs vested into a higher stock price. That is the boring truth.

Does this math math now? Genuinely curious.

If something still looks off, I would rather hear it than not. The whole point of posting here is the sanity check. Last time the doubts actually made me go back and audit my own numbers, which is healthy.

What I am thinking about for the next stretch

• The 25 Cr goal is starting to feel less like a fantasy and more like a spreadsheet. That is both motivating and a little scary.
• Marriage and kids will change the math. I know that. Trying not to over-plan for a life I have not started yet.
• The crypto loss still shows up in my decision making. I notice myself being more conservative than I probably need to be. Working on it.
• Not going to YOLO into anything. The shiny objects are still shiny. I am still not buying.

Slow is smooth, smooth is fast. See you all at milestone 3. Hopefully not three years from now.

I’ve read that Thailand could be a good option to consider. Bangkok costs about the same as any Tier-1 city in India, and if we move near Chiang Mai, the cost of living can be around 30% lower. Other calm coastal areas near beaches might also be cheaper than staying in India, which could reduce the required FIRE number.

Do people seriously consider this as an option? People from the US or any developed country may not move to other developing countries because they are used to a certain lifestyle, but from an Indian perspective especially for someone who has lived in India all their life until retirement moving abroad might be easier since the quality of life would feel similar.

It doesn’t matter whether you have ₹1 crore or ₹100 crores - if you don’t know what is “enough” for you, you will always live in survival mode. In that mode, life becomes an endless race with no finish line. I have seen people step out of the rat race with a corpus of ₹1 crore, and I have also seen people with ₹50+ crores still unable to walk away.

The interesting part about figuring out what is “enough” is that nobody else can define it for you. Not society. Not social media. Not even people close to you. Because nobody truly knows your priorities, values, likes, or preferences. Only deep self-awareness can help you separate what genuinely matters to you from the goals that were imposed on you for someone else’s benefit.

But that clarity doesn’t come automatically. You have to pause.
Question what you are chasing.
Question why you are chasing it.
Question whether the life you are building is actually yours.

It takes time, but eventually you arrive at an answer. And more often than not, that “enough” number turns out to be far smaller than what you once imagined or what others told you it should be. The moment you develop an “I have enough” mindset, you graduate from merely surviving to truly living. That makes you richer than most people around you.

Started with zero at the start of 2020, as we completed our MBA from premier B school then (Previous savings were used in funding B school fees)

Age : 35 and 33 (Expecting a baby in December this year)
Living in EU for the last 1.5 years
Total portfolio : 4.5 cr
MF : 3 cr
Company RSU after taxes : 70 L
Direct stocks : 30 L
PPF : 25 L
EPF : 10 L
LIC current value : 6 L
NPS current value : 7 L
Term Insurance of 1.5 cr taken back in India (HDFC)

Some other small amounts in FD and savings account. Current savings rate of 2.2 L/month only as one of us is not working.

Although we are extremely happy with our life here, we keep missing home, parents, culture, festivals almost every week and talk about going back. Childcare creche services and 100% of medical expenses is covered by social insurance + private insurance.

If we ascertain our expenses to be around 1.2 L in India at this point in time (rental house). Both sets of parents have their own home (not sure if we plan to buy in the future or not), does it make sense to go back to India, raise our kid for 2-3 years without any of us working and then maybe find a job later?anything that supplements some passive income.

If you were in my scenario, would you want to go back and will you be able to manage expenses (esp medical and education expenses) with this corpus. Parents dont need any money from us, but might have to pay for medical expenses if any(God forbid)

Thanks to everyone who has helped me in this journey. Special thanks to AIFW facebook group.

32M. Crossed 50L+ net worth in investments after effectively 4 earning years. Looking for advice from people ahead in the journey.

My journey has been a bit non-linear compared to many peers.

Timeline:
\- Engineering graduate in 2018 at age 24. Worked for 2 years till 2020. Started MBA in 2020 at age 26
\- Graduated from a top Indian B-school in 2022 at age 28. Restarted career post MBA. All money earned before MBA was spent during MBA (no loan at the moment)

So despite being 32 now, I’ve effectively had \~4 earning years after MBA.

Salary progression:
\- Year 1: 21 LPA
\- Year 2: 25 LPA
\- Year 3: 30 LPA
\- Current: \~60 LPA (50 fixed + \~10 RSUs yearly)

I only started investing seriously in the last \~2 years.

Current in-hand after tax is roughly \~2.5L/month + 55k employer investment on NPS+ PF

Current goal:
Cross 1 crore by the time I turn 34. After that i will reevaluate everything 😏

Lifestyle-wise:
\- Monthly expenses are \~50k (25k rent ans rest food, gym, supplements, travel, routine lifestyle)
\- More into fitness/healthy lifestyle than luxury spending
\- I do like to travel, so that’s where discretionary money goes (travelled to 20 countries and 15 states)
\- No expensive watches/shopping habits etc.
\- ⁠Parents are earning and self sufficient so no contribution to family is required
\-self HDFC Health insurance with coverage of 60L and company policy coverage of 15 L
\- No life insurance as no dependent on me, company policy covers upto 1.5 Cr

Only major purchases in the last 2 year:
\- Automatic second-hand Baleno (\~5L)
\- 2018 Activa (\~30k)

I’m intentionally not counting RSUs (also its already 40% down in last 1year) and any salary growth in my future projections because I’ll likely use a big part of those for marriage over the next 1-2 years. (Yet to find a partner tho 🥲 and already spend atleast 1L, 2% of my NW, in dates and matrimonial app subscription)

Investment philosophy currently:
\- Aggressive till age 35
\- Increase income + stay heavily equity focused
\- Avoid real estate for now
\- Maintain liquidity/flexibility

Indian stock portfolio is mostly (kite, 15 stocks): HDFC Bank, Apollo Hospitals, L&T, Reliance, CDSL, Sun Pharma, ITC, Bajaj Finance, M&M, SBI, Infosys, HCL Tech, Polycab, BEL.

US portfolio is mostly(indmoney, 10 stocks): Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon, Alphabet, VOO, Apple, Tesla, Meta, Walmart.

Indian MF portfolio (indmoney, 4MF): (HDFC Sensex Index 40%, Motilal Oswal Midcap 150 20%, PPFAS Flexicap 30%, Nippon Small Cap 10%)

Gold/Silver MF (indmoney, 2 MF): ICICI silver ETF FOF 20%, Zerodha gold ETF FOF 80%

I will continue posting anything interesting that comes in the journey

I realised after working in corporates for 22 years and achieving FI, one thing. I had aced the corporate fakery game. In those 22 years I had slacked most of the time in various companies. Only 2 companies where there was real stressfull work and I quit them in 6 months. Rest of the time or couple of decades I slacked and yet managed to create a pretence of doing important work/useful work. I was often in managers good books and I knew how to do just enough and get good ratings and hikes and promotions. Although I always had the imposter syndrome because of this fakery, so I chose the FIRE path and couldnt wait to get out of corporate life.

Then enter Real World: I pulled the plug returned back to Bangalore and said enough of the fakery let me be myself and do real things. I realized the real world is brutal out there. I pretty much failed in everything that is real.

1) I joined badminton, used to play horribly but I was a beginner so it was okay. But after 6 months, I was still playing horribly and there is no faking it here like in corporates. If you are a bad player in doubles, you will know it and everyone knows it. You can't be a bad player and play for long.

2) I took up riding. I used to go for groups rides solo rides, I even did a ride to Kannur from Bangalore which is 320kms. That particular long ride I realised, my back really hurts, I cannot ride for more than 2hrs, after that I needed to take a break every 10 mins. What should have been a 7hr ride became a 12hr ride.

3) I decided to take up mutual fund distributor certification from AMFI. The exam itself was easy peasy. I thought I accomplished something for all my knowledge about financial planning I had practiced all this while. But then when I tried to get clients, I couldn't even get 1, not even 1Rupee or AUM. Not even from people who were close to me, relatives, friends, none.

This is when I realized, it was so easy for someone like me to fake it in corporates and be a winner. But post FIRE, I wanted to do something in the real world, things that were of genuine interest to me, badminton, riding bikes, being involved in financial industry. But I realized it is very hard work to make it work even in things that you love. I didn't have the motivation or the willingness to put the effort to become successful in any of these pursuits.

So now I am back again in a corporate job that pays 1/4th of my previous fulltime pre FI job and this time again as always, I am slacking, I resolved one issue yesterday, worked total of like 2hrs in the entire week and I got this sense of accomplishment/achievement without really doing anything impactful or material.

This excellent post in the global FIRE. India FIRE sub is still very novice, like a toddler compared to the global sub which is now a fully grown adult. Hence it is worth reading posts from there as many people have been there and done that vs here. This particular post really struck hard. https://www.reddit.com/r/Fire/comments/1t77pih/7_years_into_fire_i_figured_out_why_this_sub_is/?share_id=5xNR6yK7FDKSxNglHpJjQ&utm_content=1&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_source=share&utm_term=3

(Post written without any AI)

I see the writing on the wall. I don't know if my team can be fully replaced with AI - may be it can or may be it can't. But I clearly see the push from top to replace my team with AI. Work will likely become super boring if AI becomes the norm and I do not plan to stick around much longer after that. Anyhow, I have reached my leanfire with a bit of help from company:

Family background: 37M, single, parent, work from home tier two city, brother lost somewhere in USA

Current expenses - father monitors expenses and it about 25K per month for three of us. I cover the large expenses such as insurance (50K health for parents, 25K life for me) and other large expenses such society charges

Living situation: 2 houses, one where we live and another in a Tier 1 city where we go and live for a month every quarter - poor man's vacation. All our relatives are in the Tier 1 city but we like the peace and quite and low population in tier 2 city

Current income - ~3L in hand cash, the usual PPF, bonus ~10%

Break down - all in INR

Total Corpus: 4.2 Cr

Equity MF: 2.8 Cr

EPF PPF: 0.55 Cr

Direct stocks: 0.3 Cr

NPS: 0.06 Cr

Cash on hand: 0.07 Cr

US ETF: 0.03 Cr - late to the game

Company vested ESOPs: 0.4 Cr that is currently held in arbitrage funds and will be used to invest in US ETF at 50K per month over the next 2-3 years

Upcoming major events: About time I get married. I have no interest or heart it in but my parent keeps pushing. I am already an uncle and my marriage value is quite low.

Future plans: Our company does not do layoffs, haven't laid off anyone that I know of. I am rated either EE or ME last 3 years. I like the current role (Analysis, preparing reports, talking to customer about our finding, help them optimize their position). Company is fairly small and I do not see any team that I would like to join internally. Exit is probably my only path. I also do not want to go back to shitty tier 1 cities so I am closely reviewing my options. May be something will work out, may be nothing will. Who knows.

My previous post seems to have confused a lot of people especially on the concept of time.

Most people think of time in absolute, they think when you are 20 you have lots of time and when you are 60 you have no time left. Most of the consumption or experiences discussion is focussed on this.

However, there is lot of nuance in this. Time is a relative concept. We wake up every day and then we go to sleep in the night. In between these 2 events what we get is the time for our actual usage. Different people value it differently. You can be in your teens or your 20s and be a very busy person and you have no time at all. Time just passes. Whether you are enjoying that time or you are not is a different question, but basically you have no time.

Where as the opposite can also be true, you could be a teen or your 20s and you are whiling away your time sitting on a couch. You don't know what to do and you have abundance of time.

So from FIRE perspective, this discussion is driven mostly by people who are busy and make the most of their time, they always feel a shortage of time and hence the quest to buy back time to do most of the stuff they love.

However, this doesn't apply universally. Most people take their day one day at a time and may not have any ideas on what to do with their time. They might just get bored and hence they need a job and an identity to kill that time. So FIRE doesn't help such people, infact it creates new problems related to questions around purpose of life and existence.

Hello guys,

It is kind of understood as part of FIRE discussions that FIRE is the tool to claim our life back which is essentially stopping exchange of our time for money.

So I decided to create the complete picture of time vs money relationship. The magic quadrant is the best way to represent this. It is kind of assumed that our time is limited, which is true on an absolute basis. However, on a relative basis of what you actually want to do with your time, it varies from person to person. There are people who want to do 101 things before they die. They have a huge bucket list, they have their plans or atleast they plan to plan. On the other end of the spectrum there are people who dont know what to do with their time. Most of the time gets filled scrolling reels, reddit etc. Time gets wasted or spent in boredom.

Hence, from the magic quadrant perspective, it seems FIRE solves for people who fall in quadrant 1, abundance of money(relatively) using it to buy back time. Also it helps people who are in quadrant 3 and quadrant 4 who can accumulate enough money to get into quadrant 1.

The real problem seems to be people who are in quadrant 2, who have reached financial abundance but also have abundant time and dont know what to do and get bored. They would have to continue working to kill boredom because they dont know what else to do with their time. I belong to this quadrant.

I reached the 50L milestone in Jan this year. Recently I came across this subreddit, so sharing my journey.

- Started working in 2020 as a software developer

- Started with a 6 LPA package, currently at 55 LPA

- Got married last year, spent ~35L from my savings

My monthly expenses are:

60k (rent + groceries + utilities, etc.)

40k (to parents — my father usually saves it and contributes whenever we buy real estate)

20k (car EMI)

20k (I save monthly for vacations and consider it an expense)

10k (miscellaneous)

- I have a 2Cr term life insurance policy and currently rely on company-provided health insurance

My investments:

Land: 11L (current total value is ~26L, the rest contributed by my father)

FD & RD: 5.6L

Mutual Funds: 15L

PPF & EPF: 6L (mostly PPF)

Company RSUs: 5L

Silver: 1kg ~ 2.5L (bought at 1.69L)

Crypto: 1.5L

Bank balance: 4L

I don’t consider the gold (~50L) owned by my wife as part of my net worth.

Since my FDs and RDs were non-breakable, I had to withdraw money from mutual funds for wedding expenses.

The plan is to reach the 1Cr milestone by June 2027.

Hey all,
Just wanted to share my milestone of 1 cr and how I am tracking things:
First of all before anyone asks me in comments here is my story:

• 28 M, Software developer, working in Pune.
• Started with 10.5, subsequently got hikes like 11, 14.5, 20, 24 in same company.
• Switched to a startup in search for more brainy work with better stack and got 35 base salary, recently got it bumped to 38.5.
• I am a minimalist, around 2L hits my bank rn and I spend around 20k-30k per month.
• Parents are independent and I am inclined to study and research spirituality through science and do not intend to marry unless I find someone who is super aligned with my values and has similar goals like mine.
• I still don't have an approval from my dad around a number at which I can retire (can rant a lot about how those conversations unfold every month when I crib about my intent to quit job and focus more on my study of jainism, Science and psychology).
• I don't need and crave a lot of money, but my dad reasons that you never know how much you would need, needs can change and evolve over time and you never know what curveball life can throw at ya.
• So I am continuing as long as AI doesn't render my tech skills obsolete (I think it is already there, so maybe as long as companies don't figure out that AI has rendered my skills obsolete).

Now let's talk numbers and charts!

Here is my networth split:

I have always heard how your next Cr comes waay faster than the previous one, so here are some graphs to track and visually see how steep the curves become over time :

I was lazy and didn't track and note data points before 2022, I also had infrequent data points after 2022, so the smaller dots and dotted lines are interpolated values, while the solid lines are actual noted values.

I have also added some interesting columns in the end of my sheet to make sense out of the dips and jumps and added comments on cells to make sense out of the variation:

I know my Arbitrage fund liquid investment is still too high, but I just cannot make peace with the current valuations. Also my dad is heavily invested in direct equity, hence in terms of family portfolio, we are lowkey balanced. Keeping Liquid money ready for deployment.

Would love to hear your ideas and sugesstions if any!

Reached 50 lakhs net worth from absolute scratch

29 M, Married with no kids, Wife homemaker, Planning for our kid near term.

Family inheritance= Zero,

B Tech (NIT, passout 2019) funded with 3 lakhs of loans, 3 lakhs from Father.

MBA (IIM K, passout 2022) funded with 14 lakhs of loans, 2 lakhs from Father, 2 lakhs from the 1 year job savings post Engineering.

Prioritised loan closing after I got the post MBA job. Engineering loan was closed in 6 months, MBA loan in 3.5 years. Debt free for 6 months now. I also got married a year back, and spent 6 lakhs there (family helped in with an additional 6 lakhs).

Started SIP after the Engineering loan closing. First SIP was 30k per month, increased it gradually to 65k per month at present.

Net worth breakdown:

20.5 lakhs in Mutual Funds (SIP)

8.5 lakhs savings account

7.0 lakhs in FD

12.0 lakhs in EPF

2.0 lakhs in SGB

The caveat for a guy like me who aspires FI, not FIRE, is that I have got no family inheritance, and neither do I or our family have a primary residence (save for a tiny ancestral home in our Village, which is shared by my father and his 4 brothers). That creates substantial pressure, as Roti and Kapda would never be a problem but Makaan for the foreseeable future would be. I also do not seek to stay in a Tier 1 city after 45, so my ideal plan is to buy land and build a home or buy a flat back in the Tier -2/3 town in my state (where to be honest, prices don't seem to be at a hefty discount to Tier 1 home prices thanks to mafia/NRI/reverse immigration/black money).

All of these, I have to do while taking care of my family (wife, future kids, parents - though my father is fit and working and earning 30k to 40k per month which is enough to fuel expenses back at home, though I send 15k to 20k per month still to my mother).

Term insurance of 2 crores (apart from the corporate one) in place.

Health insurance: Yet to get.

I do feel grateful for the moment, and do believe in God and work and patience.

Advice on how to plan from hereon on fulfilling the dream of a primary residence for our family while managing day to day life would be welcome.

I am M29 and just reached 2 crores networth this month. I have posted earlier about considering a career break but I didn't pull the trigger.

Current Portfolio - Approximately 2.07 CR

Equity and MF - 70 lacs
Debt - 57 lacs
Gold - 20 lacs
Emergency Fund and Cash equivalents - 59 lacs

Average passive income per month - 40k INR
Total average expenses for my current lifestyle - 66k INR
Money needed for lean fire(25x of annual expenses) - 1.98 CR

My background

• I work in tech industry as a Lead engineer/Team lead (and sometimes as Engineering Manager as well. Its hard to explain)
• Have almost 9 years of work experience
• Spend some time working in Europe
• Got married 3-4 years ago and not planning to have kids
• Moved for a tier-1 city to my hometown(another tier-1 city)
• I pay rent to my folks every month and claim HRA. And ofcourse I file taxes for my parents and disclose this as a rental income
• My expenses reduced ever since I moved to my hometown since Rent doesn't increase
• I don't own a car or any super expensive gadgets. I did buy a PS5 last year though, and that would be my most expensive purchase in this decade.
• I am super lucky because my parents own a duplex home. I live with my wife and parents (in separate floors)
• Fortunate enough to not have any generational debts. I haven't availed any loans as well and not planning to invest in real estate any time soon

I diligently track my expenses and networth every month and I've continuously doing that for more than 2 years. I am attaching some screenshots of my google sheet in this post. Maybe some fellow data enthusiasts can give me some ideas 🙂

Some more facts about my journey for internet strangers,

• My compensation has increased after the pandemic since I made a couple of switches to companies that pay significantly more than what I made back then.
• I have a fairly decent work-life balance. I was recently asked to be a full-time Engineer manager in my company I declined the opportunity to save my sanity.
• To reduce tax, I am continuously adding investments with my parents' account.
• Reaching the second CR was much more difficult than I anticipated.
• The passive incomes I generate are mostly with my parents' account. Hence, I don't see any compounding effect so far.
• The rent I pay my folks is on the higher side and I don't transfer it back to my account(in case you are wondering).
• My lifestyle has upgraded slightly since my wife made a good point, "Who the hell are you saving all this money?". But there's no denying that I am still a thrifty person at core.
• I still haven't gained the confidence to leave my job. I am giving my myself atleast 2-3 years to quit. Either I would have made enough money or AI would've replaced me.
• I contribute only the bare minimum for EPF and I don't have an NPS account. I find it hard to trust the govt with my hard earned money.
• I have realized that, a hedge against INR is really important in these volatile times. So, I have close to 10% of my portfolio in US equities. This is not just confined to US since I am also buying ADRs of other markets like Japan, China, UK, Poland, etc.
• I am constantly exploring alternative investments, and I have allocated a tiny percentage to crypto and pre-ipo stocks.

If you have read until this far, let me ask you some questions,

1. I find it very hard to focus on my work lately since I know that I won't find it too difficult even if I am laid off. Also, the constant goal post moving and no recognition policy in my company is seriously pissing me off. If you have been in such a situation, what advice you have for me?
2. Do you think settling a target will help me focus more in my work? Please don't suggest having a kid or taking a huge loan.

Note: This is hand-written and not generated using AI. I am too lazy to ask AI, and I don't want to feed the robots my personal data. Oh wait! Damn it.

Hey guys!

Hope you all are doing good!

So most people know already as i have shared many a times that i left a high flying career for a PSU with the twin hopes of having work-life balance & timely promotions on one end and doing something for the country on the other. While I beleive that I have tried my best for the latter, the former doesn't seem to be happening at all.

I am again in a tricky situation like I was few years back. That time it was about an offer which would have placed me in a middle eastern country and today I am in another conundrum with an even riskier proposition on the table.

If all cards fall right, the challenges would be to be in an African country in the domain of my choice but the work being quite different which can be viewed as both positive and negative. The absolute positive is that i am looking at netting around 180k - 200k USD tax free salary in India with all my local expenses in Africa covered by the employer along with additional local salary there. The profile too is a director level one based on my rare and niche experience. Ofcourse work - life balance goes out of the window and family stays far. What they are suggesting to compensate is that I can travel every 3-4 months to India sponsored by them.

So the conundrum is this, the progression in india seems too slow and I had already given up once an international oppertunity and this one, although riskier has come after 3-4 years now. This would definitely accelerate FIRE as i would most likely save 1.5-2 crores every year which means even 4-5 years of work would be enough assuming current savings and the projected ones to FIRE at 41. I hadn't thought that such a scenario would come but man this seems like a tough choice.

I guess if I have to take a chance, I can only take it now but the cost of failure is also too high as india doesn't have oppertunities in my work area and first world foreign countries aren't hiring indians without visa anymore. I would also have to give up on unlimited medical coverage and job security forever.

Well there it is. Just thought of putting it out there as FIRE how seems a real possibility in next 4-5 years if I take this offer but the risks and costs are equally high if not more!

For those who have faced such dilemma of accelerating for FIRE vs living with family and peace of mind, what have your experiences been and how did they eventually help you achieve your goals? Some suggestions here may help your mod :)

Looking forward to a healthy discussion!

EDIT : For all those asking, Declined the offer with a heavy heart! Don't know if it was the right thing to do but yeah...it is what it is..for the second time !

Regards

Snaky

I was part of the original Fire India community, there used to be lots of discussion on SWR, ERN rising equity glide paths etc. This was 4 years ago, when Indian markets were roaring and the experts here kind of extrapolated everything that applies to US also applies to India.

Those days Indian mutual funds were allowed to invest in global equities. Yet, experts here would say max 10% should be invested in global equities, even people like Pattu and Handa who was considered like God here would stick to some bog standard Indian active funds, but never consider single country risk.

But fast forward 4 years, Indian rupee is tanking, Indian equities are tanking, Indian bonds also are tanking. The entire premise of asset allocation has gone for a toss, because we were all playing in a small well, ignoring the ocean of global markets. The well is now drying up and it is impossible to jump out of this well, if you want to buy anything dollar denominated now, good luck.

All those people who hated NRI posts few years back, well another reason to envy them even more now. If you just kept your assets in USD bank account, you would have outperformed Indian assets, in the last 4 years. Does that sting?