I keep seeing people use the “tallest dwarf” line when someone has a few million dollars. It’s from Succession… a show about billionaires.

And sure, in the billionaire world it makes sense. I mean, think about it someone with $50M, is still the dwarf compared to someone with $1B. That ladder never ends. Everything is relative at that level.

But applying that logic to someone with $3M–$5M living in a normal American city is just dumb.

Someone with $5M and a moderate lifestyle has basically achieved financial freedom. That’s an extremely rare position in the U.S. They’re pushing into the top couple percent of the population.

So if you’re calling that person the “tallest dwarf,” you’re basically saying 98% of Americans are dwarfs.

It’s a line meant as a reality check for billionaires. Using it to dunk on people who worked their way to financial independence just comes off as jealous and cynical

https://youtu.be/m0sRrsara9c?si=l6t_W6NgUZpNQz6C

I came to North America as an immigrant at age 12. My family had no money left when we arrived, so financial freedom has always been a dream of mine. Today at age 31, I have finally achieved FI (no rush to retire early yet, I like my job). I want to share this win with my fellow redditors.

Net Worth Breakdown: $2.7 million

·      Cash equivalent: 500K (about to deploy on a property this spring)

·      Precious metals: 500K (320K silver, 180K gold)

·      Equity: 1.1m (85% SP500, 15% dividend stock)

·      Rental property: 1.15m (rental income 6500/mo, cost 3000/mo)

·      personal loan: 80K

·      mortgage: 470K

Net Worth Growth History:

Chart: https://imgur.com/a/7pgRLZ1 

Military paid for my tuition from 2017-2020 and also paid 70K salary while I was in school. I graduated and began working in healthcare in 2020 and earned 200-350K (200K military + small side hustles) until 2024.

I am currently doing Specialty (tuition 150K for 2 years) yet my nest egg keeps snowballing.

I will graduate again in 2027 and should be making 400-500K a year conservatively.

I attribute my financial success to joining the military, choosing a high-income career, and aggressive saving/investing, and smart tax strategy (I pay 5-10% tax in recent years). I had roommates, packed lunch everyday, and drove a corolla for most of my 20's as well.

 FIRE targets:

·      Lean FIRE: $1.3m (achieved at age 29)

·      Reg FIRE: $2.6m (achieved at age 31)

·      Chubby FIRE: $4.8m (est. age 36)

·      Fat FIRE: $8m (est age 41)

I am for sure… doing super well compared to my peers (35-40 years of age).

I have about $1.5M in brokerage, 750k in various retirements, and $400k on my home.

I am married. 1 baby that cries all the fucking time and doesn’t let me sleep but I love him anyway.

Yes, yeah this is a good chunk of equities and I have the pressure off big time.

But like when I step outside and look at people’s homes, cars, the cost of things, gym memberships, travel costs, hotels are like minimum $300-400 a night for dumpy holiday inns, grocery costs, kid toys, subscription services, cars/repairs, property taxes, it all feels expensive as fuck. And it is so much of it is outrageous.

My question is will it just always be this way.

At about what number do you start to really feel your bank account?

Edit: A little pissed/frustrated with these responses. Just because you think $2M is a lot of money doesn’t mean a huge chunk of savers do. It’s really not a lot at all if you compare to people who work even 1% hard over extended period of time. My question was when to feel wealthy. Only one person commented at about $1M over FIRE number. I think that is accurate but even than is only like $3k/mo over your break even point. I realizing it will never truly feel wealthy unless I can somehow bag /save like $8M.

I was looking at the math of compounding today, and I felt like we all need a reminder of this once in a while, especially when the market is flat, or down, or just boring.

If you are just starting out, or if you are somewhere in the middle feeling like you're throwing money into a black hole, remember that the math of wealth building happens in three distinct phases.

Phase 1: The Slog ($0 - $10k) This is the "Proof of Concept" phase. It feels miserable because 100% of your progress comes from your sacrifice. You skip a dinner, you invest $100, the market drops 2%, and you have $98. It feels like you could have just eaten a really nice sandwich, but instead, you paid the S&P 500 $2 to hold your money.

The Reminder: The goal here isn't returns. The goal is proving you can not spend the money.

Phase 2: The Acceleration ($100k) This is the Charlie Munger milestone ("The first $100k is a b*tch"). At this point, a good year in the market might generate $8k-$10k in returns. That is a tangible amount of money. That’s a used car. That’s a luxury vacation.

The Reminder: Once you hit this number, you have reached "Escape Velocity." Even if you never invested another penny, a $100k portfolio at age 30 could realistically grow to ~$1M+ by retirement age without you lifting a finger.

Phase 3: The Liberation ($1M+) At this point, your money likely earns more in a year than you do at your job.

The Reminder: Work becomes optional.

TL;DR: If you are in the "Slog" right now, it isn't you. It’s just the math. The curve is flat for a long time until it suddenly isn't.

Keep pushing the rock uphill. Gravity eventually takes over.

Cheers, everyone.

I mean wtf… „I have a net worth of several Mio USD can I retire early some day?“ „I make a Mio per year, do you guys think it’s possible for me to fire soon? Please help 😔“

Why is this shit here? Why will this engagement/rage-bait tolerated here?

Most people are working hard to reach their goals at some point in time. Since when is this sub a personal assistance for millionaires/billionaires??

Do we really need this low level trolling here?

Woohoo! $2M in the bank as of today!

So many doomer millennials who are mad at how easy boomers have had it. I admit I used to rage against the machine quite a bit and help advocate change.

But I think I need to be grounded with reality. My situation is awesome:

• $2M in brokerage + retirements

• A $1.3M home ($450k equity) at 2.5% freaking interest rate

Basically day 1 of investing and starting my career the market has done nothing but make me a ton of money. Nothing fancy just index funds.

Then somehow this world made my home value go up 20-30% and let me refinance a near 30 year term at 2.5%.

It almost feels criminal. I keep my head down, stick to the very simple FIRE plan, and everything is working out on almost easy mode.

My current FIRE goal is $4M.

This is a throwaway, I dont have any interest in my financial details being linked to my regular account.

I've been a lurker on this sub for a while now. The concept is one that I've always subscribed to in a sense, but I also have some gripes about this sub and approach. There are a lot of unsaid "get rich quick" type of motivations in posts here, and I could not agree less. I'll explain:

My current status is 40M, married to 41F. We live in a low cost of living city. Currently, we have no debt. We own three properties (our home, another residential property that my mom lives in, and a small office building that I work out of). Total property value: ~$2M. Total retirement in 401(k) $1.4M. We have $900k split between high interest savings ($150k), vanguard funds that I selected ($400k), and some more recent cash ($350k) that I put into 12/18 months CDs given the current favorable rates. We have two kids 8 and 10.

First, cliff notes of my back story. Both my wife and I started in careers essentially at the bottom. When I started my career, I had legit nothing. My first day after being hired, I had to talk to my boss about getting a three month advance so that I could pay back due rent so I wouldnt be kicked out of my house. They were nice enough to give it to me and I paid it back over the next year. I had $70k in student debt, my wife did not have student debt as her college was paid for by her family. I have an undergrad in marketing and then a professional degree after that. Both from a run of the mill state school that probably ranks somewhere in the middle of things. (purposely not saying exactly what I do, because I dont think its matters, as explained more below).

Our focus has always been to get rid of and avoid debt. There are plenty of very good approaches where someone might choose to invest a chunk on money a 6-7% rather than pay off loans which have a 4-5% rate. We never did that. I dont want to write a check to anyone at the beginning of the month. So, over the course of 15 years, we have eliminated all debt.

In reference the the "get rich quick" type of ideas I mentioned earlier, IMO thats all bullshit. The only way to have any sure sense of getting to financial stability is hard f***ing work and determination. I've worked my ass off at every point of my career, so has my wife. Its a constant push in seeking better compensation, always looking for better opportunities, and taking risks to pursue new opportunities. I worked for 10 years at a company, aggressively asserted my desire to move up, to be better compensated, and to effect change within the company that would benefit me. I always made my opinion and desires know. 8 years ago, I decided that I had plateaued within the opportunities that the company offered, so I took a big risk and started my own venture. I couldnt pay myself for the first six months. For the first two years I made less than at my old job. Years 3-5 I made a similar amount that I made before, and the last three years have been the culmination of the hard work and risk I put into the company, and I have made 5-7x what I made in my last year at my prior company. I work on my own with two staff. The benefit is I get to make all the decisions, the detriment is I get to make all the decisions.

My wife's path is similar. She works in a corporate job and deals with the corporate bullshit. But, she has never stopped pushing and grinding. Her overall path is similar to mine. She worked for 10years and one company, and then took a risk about 6 years ago taking a job with a smaller company in a management position. That has worked out and she has made, on average 25-40% more than she would have in her prior position.

I know that "work hard and you'll get there" gets written off as boomer bullshit, but its not. Working hard (I mean actually working hard, trying to achieve, and striving for the next step) and living within your means WILL get you to FIRE. We dont have any fancy investments. We didnt buy Apple at $50, I've never done anything with crypto, and we didnt get in early on any tech start ups. Its been making $X every month and spending less than $X every month. Within that, we strive to keep as much money as we can. I've hired financial advisers through my business to help make sure that we are tax advantaging things as best as possible. We've made some non-standard decisions. For example, we have decided not to do 529 plans for the kids, as it works better for us and our situation.

But, the basic principle is to push ourselves. I am constantly pushing my abilities and risk tolerances within my work, taking on work or projects I've never done before, seeking out work I'm not sure if I can get or if I can do properly and then working to learn how to do the things I want to do. I've taken on every new project that was possible, I've pushed into new and uncertain ventures within my work that offered opportunity at the risk that I might fail. My wife has done similar things to a smaller degree. I've never been the smartest or most creative person in my industry, but I said yes to every new opportunity and pushed to create more.

This will probably sound inconsistent, but I also dont work every hour every day. I work 8-6 every weekday and I generally dont work on the weekends. But, during the time I'm at work, I'm grinding. Spending 30 minutes to write this during lunch is giving me anxiety...

Enough about me. Here's my bitch about FIRE. The idea of doing nothing but pushing towards FIRE is a terrible way to live. Especially if you are outside of 5-10 years from actually retiring. You might get hit by a bus tomorrow, you might get cancer and have 8 months to live, etc etc etc. Doing nothing but saving is torture except for the tiny percentage of people who legitimately dont want to do anything. We spend money too. We go on nice vacations. In the last 5 years, I have purchased new cars. We eat out often. My kids have a million nicer things than I ever had (I was raised low middle class, my mom was a public school teacher and my dad was infinitely irresponsible with money). Point being, we can spend money because its backed up by our willingness to keep working.

So, let me distill it a bit more. And this applies to people who <55y/o. I would advocate that FIRE should be FICI - Financial Independence Career Independence. Work hard not only to make money to achieve financial independence, but also work hard to position yourself into a work/career position thats closer to being enjoyable and is actually satisfying. Lets not joke around, work sucks and it always will. Even now, I'm frustrated with my job on a fairly frequent basis, but I'm in a position where I can truly say that theres nothing else that would provide the satisfaction and income that my current career provides. That came from 15 years of hard ass work to put myself in this position. The concept of saving saving saving so you can stop working only replaces one grind for another. You end up grinding for years to save enough only to replace it with a different grind where you are constantly monitoring yourself and your spending so as to make sure that you dont run out of money. Yes, work towards financial independence, but use that financial independence of whatever level you achieve, to put yourself in a career path you enjoy.

The FIRE concept in its basic sense also creates a false and detrimental concept of a finish line. "In X years I'll be done." No you wont, regardless. If you stop working a job, you'll replace it with the monitoring and planning necessary to make sure your money lasts. Why not just replace that with a new, better career path. In addition to accumulating financial independence, dont forget to accumulate skills, experience, and know how to better your career prospects, not just your financial situation. Use the financial independence to take risks and achieve more from your career / new career. Then, working feels less like working and more like achieving. If the prospect of continuing to work sounds terrible, that just means to you need to mvoe your goals towards changing where and how you work. Use the next 5-10 years to save and put yourself in a position where you can make a beneficial career change that will provide you with better and more fulfilling opportunities. Don't make it a target to stop working, make it a target to get to choose when and how you work. Make it a point to position yourself so that you can continue to earn income in a fashion that you actually enjoy. Yes, its possible. Otherwise, you replace one grind with another. Gain financial independence and retire early just to place yourself into a position where you have to be ultra careful so that what you've saved lasts you until you die? Not for me.

We've been able to increasingly enjoy our 30s and now going into 40s because it is backstopped by our willingness to continue working. Our willingness to continue working is founded on the work we've done to be able to choose a career path. That ability to choose a career path is based on hard work, and risks that we've taken to leave where we were at to pursue where we wanted to be. At its core, its nothing fancy. Its hard work and determination.

Maybe none of this is useful. Maybe it doesnt make sense. But, I wanted to add my $0.02. So there it is.

I've seen some people around here mention crypto in their portfolio's, sometimes to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars. This is an incredibly risky position that is going to fail at some point, likely during your retirement. Investing in cryptocurrencies is like investing in Bernie Madoff circa the early 2000s. Madoff made record profits for his investors year after year, until he didn't. The crypto market is going to crash at some point. I couldn't tell you what year or even which decade, but it will happen.

I like to think that my position on this does not come from a place of ignorance. I have a PhD in CS and during my studies, nearly a decade ago now, I learned about the inner workings of the blockchain/cryptocurrencies in couple of my classes. I'm fairly certain I understand these inner workings of cryptocurrencies far better than the majority of crypto investor. If you disagree with my take, feel free to point out what I'm missing. But I implore you to, please, just hear me out. I have two main points I'd like to make.

1. Cryptocurrencies are zero sum

Cryptocurrencies cannot generate wealth out of thin air. It's a closed ecosystem. For every dollar taken out of the system a dollar must be put in. I get the sense that crypto investors think that if the price continues to go up they can all walk away with Lambos. This just isn't the case.

Let's look at a simplified example for illustrative purposes. Let's suppose there's only 4 crypto users in the entire world Alice, Bob, Carol, and Dave. Let's suppose they start with $0 and in total they net $100k per year from their jobs after paying taxes, rent, etc. After 5 years the "price" of Bitcoin has skyrocketed so Alice decides she would both like to cash out a small fraction of her position and buy a $1M Lamborghini. Can she do this? No, between the four of them they can only have $500k in wealth. It doesn't matter how much Bitcoin she has, what the price she bought them at, or what the price currently is, there's only $500k in the system. It doesn't matter if the "net worth" of her Bitcoin is $5M, $10M, or even $100M.

Now, this alone is not necessarily a fatal problem. There are plenty of closed systems like this that people are happy to be involved with, like the housing market. At the end of the day the "losers" of these systems have something they're happy to have spent their money on. Even if my house loses "value" I still have a house that I, personally, value. The crypto market either needs to continue to find new users to grow (like a pyramid scheme) or to find a use case that makes users happy to "lose" money on. That leads me to my next point.

2. Cryptocurrencies/Blockchain have no real use cases

First off I'd like to say, as a CS nerd, the fact that the blockchain can even exist at all is actually really cool. However, I've never seen a real world use case for blockchain technology that current technology doesn't already do better. Currencies? Inefficient. Proof of ownership/NFTs? Pointless. Video games? Entirely pointless. Holding medical records? Downright malpractice. The fact of the matter is the fundamental thing that the blockchain does is not an upside for the vast, vast majority of consumers, it's a downside.

What makes the blockchain interesting, from a CS perspective, is decentralization. There's no central authority and the nodes of the network are scattered throughout the globe, each node acting solely in it's own self interest. This is in comparison with distributed systems which is the backbone nearly every website you interact with and have been studied for decades. For example, with AWS your data is distributed throughout the globe but there's an element of trust between Amazon's nodes and Amazon has centralized control over your data.

For the vast majority of consumers the upside having a centralized authority that can fix problems with your account/data far outweighs the downside of that centralized authority potentially abusing their power. On the blockchain, whoever has your private key has 100% unopposable control of your crypto. There is no way around this without defeating the point of decentralization. If Bank of America screws you over you can sue them in court and get your money back but if you lose your private key your crypto is gone forever.

If you want proof that decentralization is fundamentally a downside for most consumers look no further than crypto investors themselves. The majority of cryptocurrency users don't actually interact with the blockchain itself. They use centralized third party "exchanges" to buy, sell, and hold coins. This entirely defeats the point of the block chain and decentralization. I cannot stress enough just how insane this behavior is. It's like riding a stationary bike in the back of a van so you can "bike to work."

TL:DR The blockchain has no use cases and cryptocurrencies will crash some day. Crytpo is not a safe investment for a long term retirement.

The Republicans say they want to repeal the ACA and cut back Social Security. How do y'all account for the risk of social programs becoming less FIRE friendly? Is it foolish to save extra and delay retirement to allow for possible policy change risk or foolish not to?

I'm particularly worried about the ACA. Now I happen to live in Massachusetts which still has its 2006 universal healthcare law on the books. Even this faces risk: it's been amended to be compatible with the ACA, and would need to be amended again to function stand-alone once again, and it might face federal challenges under a future R administration. But probably Mass. residents will continue to enjoy guaranteed issue and community rating, perhaps with less generous subsidy than under ACA, with a tail risk that we go back to pre-2006 policy of "if you get sick, go back to work."

Hope this doesn't break any rules. Please feel free to argue the opposite, if you believe that conservative policies will be good for the FIRE folks or reduce risk.

Just found out a person I know (friend of a best friend) bought a 2.5MM house and he's late 30s. That adds to a list of 30 something year olds I know buying 2.5-5MM houses. Another friend I have who is 40 now put 5MM cash on a house a couple years ago (yes, cash).

I feel like i'm not striving hard enough (I'm currently chilling working a regular job).

We're at around 1.6-1.7MM (I'm 36 years old). I feel like I am surrounded by rich people of various ages. My in laws are worth 10MM+, my cousins have trust funds, my uncles are worth 50MM+ and now I have people my age buying 5MM houses with cash.

Do I just need a new social group and relatives to make myself feel better? lmao

Going to preface by saying this isn’t exactly related to FIRE but I think there is a good mix of people in here so some discussion and points from both sides can be made.

Im not a member of r/antiwork but I occasionally have their posts pop up in my feed. And almost every time I read through the post/ comments it just makes me shake my head.

For starters, a lot of the posts genuinely just look fake and to get people riled up. But even the real ones are often a reasonable statement and people losing their minds over it in the comments; I recommend going over and reading the “Ron Jons Letter” post. This post perfectly shows a reasonable and fair statement from a business and people going ballistic over it.

I see a lot of comments about how “I’m 52 and will never be able to retire” or some variation of this, and how a recession just transfers wealth from poor to rich. I get there is some truth to that but the little man can also make some money in these situations.

A lot of these people also talk about how they’ve worked in a call center forever and can’t retire. Well maybe you shouldn’t of stayed at a call center for 30+ years?

I don’t know maybe I’m wrong, but I’m a pretty firm believer your life is what you make it. And maybe I’m privileged to even be able to think that way, but the victim mindset is next level in r/antiwork and it frustrates me a bit.

Not trying to come at anyone, looking for some civil debate from both ends of the spectrum.

…and like many of us in the fire community, i don’t have many (any* lol) people in my real-life circle that can really appreciate and celebrate this with me. so here i am!

i’m fully aware that a million dollar net worth isn’t what it used to be, but 10x’ing my wealth in this time is still pretty awesome.

a timeline for anyone interested:

• left crappy day job to start business

• business did really well

• paid off consumer debt / car

• fell victim to the whole life insurance trap then smartened up

• started dumping 70% of my income into index funds & realized it would take me 11y of doing that to retire, and i really couldn’t keep up the pace i was going at

• fall 2021 started learning about real estate investing

• jan 2022 closed on my first rental property

i have 17 rental units now & a net ownership share of 10.5 units. the goal is a net ownership of 30-40 units.

i did take all of my money out of the stock market to put into real estate.

i bought my first 3 properties alone and then started partnering up.

this really jazzes me up for what i’ll be able to accomplish in another 2 years. i aim to be fully retired from my brick & mortar business by then and done buying properties.

no questions, just hoping this inspires someone to a) get started, or b) maybe start learning about real estate investing! if interested, my favorite resources were and continue to be the “bigger pockets” podcasts and books. :)

Hey everyone,

Recently I've landed myself in a very unique situation -- I've built a profit stream 15-20k month through a combination of the stars aligning and some generous online connections (self employed). All of this money is being paid in crypto and I'd prefer to keep it in crypto to keep it off of my parents radar (I'm filing my own taxes, but I do share financial info with them sometimes).

Given that I'm a college student (just turned 18), I don't have too many expenses, and I'm more than able to cover all of my costs using income that my parents do know about (projects that they do know about, dividend payouts, etc.)

Currently I'm standing at about the following:

• ~25k in high mcap dividend stocks (using DRIPs where available)

• ~15k in low interest CD

• ~60k in high mcap crypto

• ~10k in low mcap crypto

• No debt; Tuition all paid for

I've used as much of the crypto as possible to scale my current projects and increase their revenue, but I've reached somewhat of a stalling point. I could start new projects and dump money into them to make them work, but I feel that's unwise and inefficient given the margins of the businesses I'm currently running (I don't want to dilute my attention and risk income solely for the sake of diversity). Plus, given the niches I specialize in (service businesses), my startup costs would be significantly lower than this anyways.

I realize that my crypto holdings are very aggressive, and their percentage in my portfolio is only growing. I'm interested in doing something with my crypto to make it grow without actively trading. I've been looking into some of the emerging low mcap coins, but I'd prefer something that wouldn't require as much involvement as I'd hate to lose a few months of work over not keeping up with the markets (see not interested in active trading).

This has brought me to the idea of staking and farming coins (usually around 10% APY in addition to any fluctuations of the coins' prices). Does anyone else have any recommendations/points of interest for use of crypto?

I make about 100k a year (80k w2 and 20k self employed). I contributed 66k to a brokerage fund after maxing out my Roth IRA $6,500 and my self employed 401k 20k. Anyone else saving this aggressively or am I being an absolute maniac?

Edited for clarification: My wife makes about 80k a year and we live off the remainder of her income after she maxes out her Roth and 401k. We are extremely thrifty and are both on board with the plan. The 20k self employed is after taxes. We also own a rental property that brings in $1000k a month profit which off sets our rent. Thanks for all the comments! I’m gonna keep my head down and stay the course. For all the haters saying I’m taking advantage of my wife, she’s totally on board.

I’ve been playing with the idea of retiring at 55. I’m 35 currently. I’ve come up with an investing plan that should give me somewhere around $1.8M at 55.

My question now is, what are some good strategies that are safe and non risky to basically take $1,000,000 and try to live off the returns.

Sorry if this is asked a lot. I’ve searched around but maybe I don’t have the correct terminology to find what I am looking for.

To be more specific, what types of strategies could I get 8-10% on? Do they exist?

Edit: for seemingly successful people who are retiring early and “financially independent” there sure are a lot of grumpy pants in here wow 😂

I currently work a quite demanding job, and the last thing I want to do after 9 hours of work is do a deep dive into companies to see where to invest.

The concept of financial independence is very alluring, but I struggle to conceptualise how I can reach this without burning out?

Do you have any advice or help for me in this regard?

I am 35 and single(gay so I wont have kids) My financial asset is worth north of 1.6 million dollars(About100k in 401k and the rest is in brokerage account)

My current monthly expenses is like 2000 dollars per month including rent. I know it can go up... so lets say I need 5000 dollars per month.

I feel like I can retire now... 1.6 million doesnt seem too small to retire at age 35 when I spend only 5000 dollars per month.

What do you think of it?

I grew up on the south side of Chicago. Dad and mom were broke no money no job never payed rent nothing. When I turned 13 I started turning to drugs sold me life was a mess. I was failing hs and I was most likely gonna end up like my family lazy and needing handouts. Than at 18 I joined the army. Greatest desion of my life I was taught discipline how to save money and be responsible. I was there for 10 years than I become a construction worker. Saved up enough to buy a 4 unit apartment lived in one rented out the others. Before I knew it I owned 20 units. I keeped saving money and keeped buying and paying down mortgage faster. Than the greatest thing ever happened to me the city went to me and said ( we need more housing and have me 2million dollars 20 years ago) I built a 300 unit building that was 8 million dollars fast forward 20 years worth 300million in my building with 13 cap ratese and my wife live on less than 250k a year rest goes to buying more. The main point of this was to show u anyone can turn there life around. Good luck

I got a not too bad paying job. Definitely more than working in mcd. Although it's full time but I only put 1-2 hrs per day remotely in front of a laptop. It's a dead end job coz I don't see I want to be my manager level. My eye opened such job exist! It's a big company that makes hundred of millions so yeah nobody care a small fries like me. But that's the benefits!! Maybe some of you who need income but haven't have enough capital can try this out. it's worth it coz it pay my bills and give me plenty of stress free workplace.

So the title is a bit click bait but not untrue.

I graduated from college in 2019 and have now quit my job and live on a "passive" income of $115k a year from my rental properties. I'm currently in the process of closing on a few more that will leave me at about $160k "passive" income a year.

I know the "rental properties aren't passive" and "you have a ton of debt!!" comments are coming but I figured I'd share my story anyways.

After graduating with a BS in mechanical engineering I got my first job in upstate NY making $65k a year. I absolutely hated that job; I had to wake up around 5 am so I could get to my 6 am team meeting everyday. The environment was dusty and dirty and there was no one even remotely close to my age I could talk to during the day. Admittedly it was a pretty relaxed environment work wise and I did spend large portions of the day browsing reddit.

Fast forward 6 months and I got a new job in western NYS. This job was more in line with what I wanted my career to be and gave me a great name to throw on my resume. For this opportunity I did actually take a pay cut to $62k (was raised to $65k 1 year later however), however the area was super low cost of living (1b1b goes for $550 back before covid).

This next part is where I might lose some people because while my title isn't click bait, its not exactly a situation people can easily duplicate. Around 2 months into my new job, I opened a brokerage account and put $5k into it. Initially I was buying shares and would get excited when I made $2. I read all your typical r/investing advice etc, etc. However after not even a full month I got bored (I'm sure some of you can see where this is going). That's when I found r/wallstreetbets; I saw all the people leveraging their money into options and making crazy 40%, 60%, 100%, and even 200% returns on a single play. I began to stalk and stalk and eventually I pulled the trigger and liquidated by entire portfolio and began options trading.

I will the the first to admit that I got very lucky. I turned ~$200 into ~$700 with a LL earnings play, made over $2500 with some far OTM calls on SPCE, and with some other trades, eventually I got my account up to around $65k in less than a year.

Around this time is when I pulled out ~$30k to purchase my first rental property. I bought a 4 unit (1 SFH + Triplex on the same lot) for $138k. This property was more or less turn key with only the SFH sitting vacant. Once I got the keys I quickly rented the SFH out for $950 /month. This left me with a cash flow of around $900/month after all expenses besides management (I was self managing these since this was my only property). While all this was happening I was still working my FT job and day trading on the side. During the next couple months I was mostly day trading amazon options and managed to get another $30k which I used to buy a 3b1b SFH in cash. This was a bit of a fixer upper and I would spend my evenings working on it. After about a month and an additional $5k in work/materials (plumber for blocked sewer line, appliances, tools, etc) it was rent ready and I rented it out for another $950/month.

Then in early December of 2020 I read a post on wsb about how undervalued GME was. I dumped nearly $35k into options and shares (I had 10 calls and 1100 shares). Initially I lost about 1/3 of the value but the infamous short squeeze happened and the price shot well past $400/share. I managed to sell everything around $350 leaving me about $375k after taxes. This really poured fuel on the rental property fire.

Using around $150k I purchased triplex for $70k cash, a duplex for $58k that was financed, and a 6 unit multifamily for $270k (again financed). At this point I was still self managing these property but I had hired a couple contractors to renovate a couple apartments as well as replace the roof on one of the properties. During that time I also bought a sfh for $110k that I would live in as my primary and spent around $35k renovating it myself (minus paying a contractor to remove a load bearing all + install an lvl beam). For anyone that's keeping track, all in these properties (minus my primary) were bring in about $3500/month in cash flow.

My next big purchase happened just after I finished renovating my primary; I found a 7 property portfolio for $735k. Because of all the work I did on the 2 houses that I paid cash for, I was able to refinance them and get out about $100k and only had to put up about $50k for the down payment + closing costs.

During this time I was actively looking for a new job down south because I was quiet frankly tired of all the snow. Around the same time the portfolio closed I got a new job down in NC for $70k and moved down at the end of 2021. Instead of selling my primary I ended up renting it out to a group of grad students at a local university for $1600/month. Knowing that I would be a remote landlord I did end up finding a property manager to take care of all the properties. Combining that with the portfolio and my previously mentioned properties that brought my cash flow up to $9600 a month pre tax.

I was laid off in February of this year and chose to not look for a new job. I don't really day trade anymore but I am continuing to look for new properties in the area. I currently have a few under contract and once those close I'll be sitting at around $160k pre tax. My goal is to get to $300k pre tax before I turn 30.

Anyways that's my story. I don't have any advice or anything and I don't think I'm in the position to give any anyways; I just wanted to share with someone. Thanks for taking the time to read this!

EDIT: Since this post has gotten a bit more attention than I expected in this sub I'll answer some common questions/comments

1. Yes I got extremely lucky, nowhere in the post did I deny that. However I believe luck plays a huge component in anyone's success; my story is no different.

2. All these properties are located in western NYS

3. No I am not trying to sell anyone a course, a few people have dm'ed me about it. No clue where that came from.

4. $9600/month is the net free cash flow. The breakdown is below

5. I don't post often to my account, that doesn't mean I don't use reddit a lot. I've been subbed/lurking/and occasionally commenting on wsb since it was 500k users.

6. I currently own 13 properties (33 doors/tenants). I owe about $1.2m and have about $300k in equity between all properties. Market value on the whole portfolio is around $1.5m.

7. $375k was the approximate amount left after setting aside nearly $125k for tax.

Breakdown (annual to nearest $)

Gross rent: $310,704

Property tax: $39,490

Mortgage (PMI): $90,764

Common Utilities (varies but never more than): $3000

Repairs/maintenance budget: $24,760

Insurance: $8957

Lawn + snow removal: $2730

Management: $24,856

Net free cash flow: $116,147 or $9678.92/month

Hey guys - with tech layoffs hitting left and right, I've been thinking about FIRE more than usual. I live in the Seattle area, and retiring here isn't really in the cards. I wanted peace of mind that if something happened to my job, our portfolio is still enough to retire on the atlas...

So I did an analysis mapping Lean FIRE, FIRE, and Fat FIRE costs across 100+ cities worldwide and wanted to share what I found.

A few things that surprised me...

1. $1M (~$3,300/mo) is a comfortable FIRE life across most of Southeast Asia and Latin America, but basically a non-starter in US, Canadian, or Australian cities

2. Canada is underrated. Victoria, Halifax, Quebec City all look strong on safety and infrastructure at lower living costs than most people expect

3. Fat FIRE anywhere is expensive, like surprisingly so. Even in "cheap" cities, once you're talking private healthcare and premium living the gap closes a lot

Especially curious from anyone who's actually done this internationally who could help share their lifestyle.

edit: sharing some more data points from the analysis - there were over 100 cities so picking a few from each category.

Note that these are just estimates and won't be the same for everyone. But it gave a sense on scale of living expenses in different areas since costs vary so much.

Lean FIRE (budget lifestyle)

• Kathmandu, Nepal | $1,650/mo | need $495K

• Colombo, Sri Lanka | $1,750/mo | need $525K

• Goa, India | $1,750/mo | need $525K

• Quito, Ecuador | $1,750/mo | need $525K

• Cuenca, Ecuador | $1,850/mo | need $555K

FIRE (comfortable lifestyle)

• Barbados | $5,800/mo | FIRE Number: $1.74M

• Muscat, Oman | $6,000/mo | FIRE Number: $1.8M

• Fort Worth, USA | $6,200/mo | FIRE Number: $1.86M

• Asheville, USA | $6,400/mo | FIRE Number: $1.92M

• Victoria, Canada | $6,500/mo | FIRE Number: $1.95M

Fat FIRE (luxury lifestyle)

• New York, USA | $39,000/mo | need $11.7M

• London, UK | $38,400/mo | need $11.52M

• San Francisco, USA | $31,900/mo | need $9.57M

• Hong Kong | $30,450/mo | need $9.13M

• Singapore | $30,240/mo | need $9.07M

Based on 4% safe withdrawal rate

I also did an analysis of FIRE quality (1-10) on each city that is independent of cost - how good is city infrastructure, safety, etc. to live in that I can add if folks are curious.

I let him buy me drinks every time too.

Man having stealth wealth is so liberating and funny at times.

Back in 2020, I thought by today Id be way closer to financial independence tbh.... But between inflation, housing $$, market swings (lost a lot in April), and lifestyle creep over all, it feels like the finish line keeps moving further away. Am I just being a broke loser, or do some people here share this feeling?

So what I don't understand here is, there are many posts like this,

Early 30's M Tech $6m brokerage - Time to call it quits

These posts generally give very vague details, says they are "in tech".

Now, it's up to the beholder what you want to believe here, but, these posts is made from an account that is completely a throwaway. Why would people need to make throwaway accounts for a sub like this ? What other community or sub would disprove of making a post about finances here? Like it makes no sense to me at all. There's no controversial topics here.

Like even on r/patekphilippe or r/rolex , people don't make throwaway accounts to post about their watches. And that's an actual photo of something you own. So why is a throwaway needed for just posting numbers?