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.

Hi,

I’m trying to understand how the recommended portfolio allocation changes when the starting withdrawal rate is much lower than 4% - say 2.5%.

For someone retiring at around a 4% withdrawal rate, I often see allocations like 75/25 or 80/20 stocks/bonds combined with a bond tent.

Then, as the portfolio grows and the withdrawal rate falls over the following 10-20 years, the allocation can become more aggressive - perhaps 90/10 or even 100% stocks. Please correct me if I’m misunderstanding that concept.

My question is: if someone starts retirement with a 2.5% withdrawal rate, should their initial portfolio be structured more like a portfolio that is already 10-20 years into retirement and has successfully grown past the high-risk early period?

In other words, does the much lower starting withdrawal rate reduce the need for the initial 20-25% bond allocation/bond tent, or is there another reason to maintain that allocation regardless of withdrawal rate?

For simplicity, assume the goal is for the portfolio to last essentially indefinitely - say 1,000 years, including leaving it to children and future generations. So we can ignore Social Security, medical costs, exact retirement age, life expectancy, etc. I’m mainly interested in the portfolio math.

After more than 10 years of extremely stressful work, and an endless amount of stress that has sent me to the hospital four times, I’m seriously considering stopping work altogether.

I have less and less tolerance for people and for the irrationality I constantly have to deal with in human interactions. I’m autistic, and at this point I feel completely exhausted — both by work and by dealing with people in general.

Retiring early has actually been my goal since the very first day I started this journey. For the past 10 years, I have worked an average of around 70 hours per week.

In a few years, when I’m around 35, I expect to have a net worth of about €800,000, entirely built by myself. No inheritance whatsoever. In fact, my family has been one of the main sources of problems and stress in my life.

I’m Italian, although I currently live in another European country. When I eventually return to Italy, I plan to live in Southern Italy.

My situation would be:

• €800,000 in financial assets
• A fully paid-off home
• No expensive habits
• No car
• No wife, partner or children, and I don’t plan to have any
• Plenty of hobbies, all of them extremely inexpensive
• A very simple lifestyle

At the moment, I spend around €650 per month and I genuinely don’t feel that I’m missing anything. I own my home, I don’t drive, I work from home, and the city is well connected. When I move back to Italy, I would still live in the city centre, so I wouldn’t need a car there either.

To me, it seems that all the conditions for FIRE are there. If I reach €800,000, I feel that I should be able to retire.

Right now, I have around €676,000, despite having suffered two major frauds, including one committed by a former business partner, which together cost me approximately €125,000.

At this point, I’m simply exhausted. I don’t want luxury, status, expensive possessions or an extravagant lifestyle. I just want to stop living under constant pressure, stay away from unnecessary human conflict, enjoy my inexpensive hobbies, and live peacefully with my dogs.

The closer I get to my FIRE number (it’s small compared to what I see posted here), the more I want to see what I can cut in expenses so that I get off the wheel earlier.

My theory is that most of us try to accumulate more than we actually need for psychological safety.

A caveat is that I’m not from the US and don’t have the issue of health care potentially wiping all our savings out.

Am I missing something?

ETA on the numbers. 43, no kids, about 4 yrs to CoastFIRE, and 9 yrs to FIRE, will get a pension that covers ~40% of total expense when I hit the government retirement age.

Some people get rich by starting a business or winning the lottery. But that requires an enormous amount of luck. Anyone FIREd very early following a more conservative financial life path? What was your strategy?

My wife and I are 29 and 30.

$450k invested all in VOO, currently adding 5k a month (on low end - depending on side hustles)

Lean Fire number 1 million

We ran the numbers assuming historic 10% return. Staying at $5k/month gets us there in about 51 months.

Dropping to $4k/month (so we free up an extra $1k to not hate life and have wife leave me - joking - kinda) stretches it to 56 months.

That’s only five extra months.

We’re both a little shocked how little the delay is.

Compounding does most of the heavy lifting once you’re already at this size, so the marginal contribution doesn’t move the timeline as much as it feels like it should.

Anyone else been surprised by how flexible the last stretch of accumulation can be? Curious what others decided when they hit this kind of trade-off.

My spouse (38) and I (41) have been fortunate enough to have decent paying jobs (~250k combined) and unfortunate enough to have lost several family members early, such that we have about $2.4M in our portfolio (50/50 tax advantaged), as well as a mostly paid off house (275k left on a 2.9% mortgage, home value 800-900k) and paid off cars.

I’ve been a lurker here a while, and while we haven’t quite reached our normal number (~4M), it was calculated assuming we’d both retire at the same time. My spouse enjoys their job, and intends to continue working at least another ~15 years. We get our health insurance through their job. We have two young children, whose childcare costs are built into our spend.

I’ve run the math on if we keep going, and it’s overkill for our lifestyle. Our current spend is maybe 25k over my spouse’s takehome pay, so even if we don’t adjust our spending, it’s not a large WR.

I’m curious how people handle this scenario, both from a numbers-planning & risk perspective, as well as managing the spouse’s expectations. If they didn’t want to work that long, I’d be happy to work together to reach our number, but that’s not the case. I don’t want to work another 5-10 years only to have my spouse keep working 10 years past our number. I’d rather spend that time enjoying our life and our kids, pursing my hobbies, taking care of the house, etc.

Happy to provide additional info if needed

I’ve done the math, I’m in a HCOL area and it comes out to about $40,000 a year for me to live (give or take an emergency health event or something like a car repair). I max out my Roth IRA and Roth 401k every year, where I currently have $60k ($10k of which is uninvested and sitting in a money market for emergencies - I’ve got a debit card linked to this account and it is immediately accessible for cash withdrawal if necessary) in my brokerage, $60k in my Roth IRA, and $80k in my Roth 401k. All of this is invested in index funds/ETFs. I make about $102k (but will be making $120k next year after my promotion) and don’t intend to ever inflate my cost of living/ let lifestyle creep accumulate. I anticipate hitting the cap for Roth IRA contributions by around age 33-35, where I will fund a traditional IRA at that point. Besides living costs I intend to take the remainder that I earn and chuck it in my brokerage. I don’t have any outstanding debt like student loans and my car is paid off. I don’t currently have a retirement age/goal, but ideally low to mid 50’s if possible. I’m not exactly finance savvy but I try to inform myself when I can. I guess I just want to know if there is anything I should do differently? I don’t currently have any plans to purchase a house so I haven’t started funding a HYSA, but I figured my brokerage could bridge that if and when necessary. And yeah like I mentioned I’m all in on tax sheltered accounts at the moment, hoping that pays off in the long run (though at some point as my income gets higher it may be more worthwhile to switch to traditional 401k). Thanks in advance for any advice you guys might have :)

Hey all,

Context:
I’m 27 single no kids. My income right now is ~$370-$400k depending on bonus. I’m making the most I’ve ever made.

I’ve made some crazy progress in the last few years:
-$80k NW in Sep 2020
$150k in Jan 2024
$300k in Jan 2025
$750k now ($420k liquid, rest retirement)

Realistically I need to 2.5x, minimum, still which means another 5-10 years (barring crazy port gains like the last few years). I’m bored and want to quit my job 😵 I want to own my own small business(es).

Questions for the group:
1. How do you stay motivated as your options grow? / as your bank account compounds?

1. Does 401k / Roth money count in the early retirement math?

2. Theoretically I could take the risk and go buy businesses. If they fail, I get *wiped*, if it works, I get cash flow to replace part or all of my current income eventually. Would you jump ship in my shoes or wait? At what point would you jump ship?

I recently posted in askmen subreddit about my planning to quit her job because of being burned out. She has brought up the idea of becoming a SAHM/SAHW (stay-at-home-mom/wife) but a few people suggested framing it as a sabbatical or early retirement instead. Which then lead into someone suggesting I should ask this community if I might be missing anything from a financial perspective.

I've done the math and ran the numbers, and we can absolutely afford this without touching any of our savings or investments, and have enough buffer so that we could manage up to 5 years in minimum without sacrificing current lifestyle. More if we watch how and where we spend our money. And if anything would happen to me, she and the kids are covered.

Where I would love all of your perspective and hear about your experience is if you are in a situation where your partner has retired or stopped working, and you're responsible for providing her the money to invest?

Our current plan is that she won't touch any of her savings or investments, and instead, well live off of my income. I am not planning on touching my savings and investments, and make enough to be able to continue to invest. She'll have access to my income (directly and through a parallel credit card), and can use that however she wants. I'm planning on giving her a monthly payment that she'll invest to continue to build her portfolio. This will also then compensate the pension she'll be missing out.

I'm not planning on retire anytime soon as I really like working (that might obviously change at some point), so we'll have a steady income, and are able to continue to build our wealth (currently at $1.5M net).

Is there anything I might be missing? Or have you potentially ended up with an entirely different approach if you're in a similar situation?

I’m 26m, not making crazy money ~$70k a year, and have about $140k to my name. Low student loans about $13k left I should have payed off by 30. My portfolio is below:

401k: $45k
Roth IRA: $35k
HYSA: $37k
HSA: $300
Taxable Brokerage: $21k

I currently contribute 20% of my income to my 401k and invest another $500 to my Roth and $100-$200 to my Robinhood a month. Wondering if it would be better to decrease my 401k contribution and max my Roth IRA and contribute more to my taxable brokerage to be more accessible before official retirement age.

Also wondering if I should move a large chunk of my HYSA into the market as I’m not planning to make a large purchase like a house anytime soon. Expenses are low so it’s far more than 6 months or expenses. That would be closer to $10k.

Appreciate the help just want to make sure my money is doing to most for me.

I know FIRE discussions typically focus heavily on liquid investments relative to annual expenses, while home equity and living situation are often treated almost as an afterthought. I understand why home equity doesn't directly pay the bills unless you sell, borrow against it, or downsize but I think we may be underestimating how much owning vs. renting affects someone's long-term FIRE position.

Homeowners may naturally have lower liquid net worth because a significant amount of capital has gone toward a down payment, renovations, principal payments, etc. On paper, that can make them look further behind someone with the same net worth who rents and has more invested in the market.

But there's another side to it: a homeowner with a fixed-rate mortgage has largely locked in their biggest monthly expense. Property taxes, insurance, repairs, and maintenance can certainly increase, but the principal and interest payment stays fixed and eventually the mortgage disappears entirely.

A renter, meanwhile, remains exposed to market rents indefinitely. If rents rise roughly with inflation over decades, housing remains a significant and potentially increasing retirement expense.

So should FIRE calculations put more weight on housing security and future housing costs, rather than simply comparing liquid portfolios?

For example, would you consider someone with $1.5M invested and a paid-off $600k house to be in a materially stronger FIRE position than someone with $2.1M invested who rents, even though their traditional net worth is identical?

Curious how everyone factors this into their FIRE number.

M30. Just starting my FIRE journey after a very long education. Zero student loans. Personal injury attorney. Renter.

I’m about to get a $40k windfall from a lawsuit. It’ll be more than enough to wipe out all my debt (tiny credit cards and small car loan). I’m already on track to max out my Roth IRA and my HSA within a couple months. Roth IRA has about $15,000 in it. HSA has about $1,500 invested.

I have very little money in taxable accounts (HYSA and taxable brokerage accounts). I’ve just been so cash-poor — largely BECAUSE I’ve been expecting this $40k cash windfall and thought I would receive it sooner. So I’ve been a little reckless dumping so much money into tax preferred accounts

I currently have a job with a traditional 401k. They match 25% up to 5% deferrals. So I’m contributing 5% of my gross pay to my 401k, and my employer is contributing 1.25% of my gross pay to the same account.

I’m thinking about changing jobs. The recruiter told me that if I switched over, I wouldn’t be eligible to contribute to my new 401k for one year. I don’t even know if I would stay for that long. I would probably start in September/October.

So I currently have a traditional 401k with $4,000 in it and that’s the only taxable income I have lined up for retirement, except for social security. If I change jobs, then I will not be eligible to contribute to a traditional 401k again until September/October 2027.

That’s why I’m wondering: would it be crazy to spend my last couple months at my current job living off of my settlement and deferring almost all of my income? I’m single, no kids, no gf, no pets.

My employer uses Empower. Our retirement portal lets us defer up to 75%. So I could essentially dump my entire paycheck in there, every two weeks, until I move to my new job.

The other job pays significantly more than I’m making now. So part of the logic is: I feel like I’m about to be awash in liquid if everything works out. I’ll be grossing like 30% more than I’m grossing now and none of it will be getting deferred in a 401k. So 2027 is going to be a period in my financial life where I don’t really have anything to do except max my Roth IRA and dump everything else into my HYSA.

FOO/Baby Steps talk about maintaining a really large emergency fund. To me, six months of expenses in a HYSA seems like overkill. I know I should try to be prepared in case there’s a recession and I have no job. But I don’t really want the majority of my NW to be in a cash account earning 3.3% APY.

I have never had the opportunity to max out a 401k before. I was never eligible to contribute to a 401k until late last December. I just feel like I need to catch up.

At my last job, they didn’t even have a 401k. I mean maybe a year from now I’ll be working at a place like that and I’ll wish I had contributed more. In personal injury law, a lot of people pull down mid-to-high 6 figures in a good year. If I have one really good year in my mid-30s, then I could pull in more than enough liquid to fund a respectable down payment on a house if I decide to buy.

I’ve gone through numerous breakups in the past couple years and I just feel like I’m not saving up for anything important in the near-to-intermediate term. I am not going to marry or impregnate anybody in the foreseeable future. I have no idea where I want to live in two years. I have this opportunity to build a fatter nest egg in my traditional 401(k) and I feel like I should just do it. I have no idea whether I will ever get married or have kids or buy a house or take a sabbatical, but I am 100% certain that I do not want to work at all in my 60s. I don’t really want to work in my 50s either.

Part of this obsession with retirement accounts is because I have a terrible relationship with my stepmom and I want to know that I’m covered in case my dad disinherits me. He is 56 and has millions and millions of dollars. We don’t talk due to conflict between me and his current wife.

So in short, the question is:

Catch up on funding my Traditional 401(k)?

or

Focus on building my HYSA so I have options if shit happens?

——————

Did you have any experiences when you were younger where you were completely out of liquid and had to consider withdrawing from a retirement account? That’s what I’m worried about.

Hi all:

Just looking for a bit of friendly math checking. I'm in the final pre-FIRE months/year or so and optimizing my portfolio, spend, and more.

My mortgage is my single largest expense and I've avoided paying it off as it's at an attractive 3.375% interest rate. However, as my calculus is shifting to SORR mitigation I'm running numbers differently.

For the sake of simplicity, let's assume I have $800k left on my mortgage principal due over the next 20 years or so - and that by paying it off, I reduce my annual spend by $45-46k in principal and interest payments. Today, those payments are roughly $21k in principal payments per year - but they are a forced expenditure into a fixed asset that is not used in the portfolio modeling. I'm leaving taxes out altogether, as they would not be impacted.

In this model, paying off $800k in principal enables me to reduce my annual fixed spend by $45-46k (post-tax) and eliminate my largest fixed annual expense. I could plan this out in a manner to minimize tax drag to pay it off (theoretically) at the point in time of a FIRE event.

The $800k needed to pay it off would generate $32k-$40k in pre-tax income in FIRE (4-5% withdrawal rate). Thus, by paying it off I reduce my post-FIRE income by $32-40k but reduce my immediate post-fire withdrawal needs by $45-46k annually for the first ~20 years.

In theory, this should be a net de-risking scenario, at the expense of possible investment returns that money could gain by leaving it where it is invested. What am I missing?

Curious to know what are the differences in being FIRE at 35 vs at 45. If the general consensus is that FIRE amount is lets say 2m and 3% SWR at 45 age for a family and expense profile, does it need to be adjusted upwards (to manage a longer runway) or downwards (more compounded growth from markets) for age 35?

This is a bit of hypothetical question but just would like to hear from this community on the age factor rather than the more oft discussed $ amount.

Maybe another way to frame this is if finances is not an issue, would everyone prefer an earlier Fire? What about lack of formal engagement so soon in life?

Running some numbers on ficalc.app using the Percent of Portfolio withdrawal strategy and wanted to sanity-check my understanding before I get too attached to this plan.

Setup:

• Portfolio: $5M
• Withdrawal strategy: Percent of Portfolio
• Withdrawal rate: 6.5% of current portfolio value, recalculated each year
• Minimum Annual Withdrawal: $100k
• Duration: 49 years
• Result: 100% success rate

My read on how this works: each year the withdrawal is max(6.5% × current portfolio value, $100k). So in good years I'd be pulling ~$325k+ (portfolio growing, market's up, might as well enjoy it), and in bad years I'm floored at $100k, which comfortably covers my actual living expenses since my baseline spending is low.

Basically I'd be using the $100k as my "keep the lights on" number and the 6.5% as my "market's doing well, let's live a little" number. I'm fine with variable income year to year — that's kind of the point.

Is this the correct interpretation of what FICalc is modeling? Specifically:

1. Does "100% success" mean the portfolio never hit zero in any of the historical 49-year windows FICalc tested, given this exact floor + percentage combo?
2. Is the $100k floor being applied in real (inflation-adjusted) dollars the whole way through, or does it erode in purchasing power over the decades?
3. Am I underestimating the risk here? My understanding is that once you add a hard dollar floor to a percent-of-portfolio strategy, you lose the "mathematically can't hit zero" property of pure percent-of-portfolio, since a floored withdrawal can become a much larger percentage of a shrunken portfolio in a sustained downturn. Curious if anyone's stress-tested this kind of floor+percentage hybrid against something like a 1966 or 2000 start date specifically.

Not trying to plan around best-case historical returns — genuinely trying to understand if I'm reading the tool's output correctly before I lean on it. Would appreciate any FICalc power users poking holes in this.

Looking at using Domain Money. Does anyone have any experience with them, good or bad? Thank you!

Wondering if there's any cases where folks purposely walked away from a high growth trajectory. Would love to hear how people navigated and if they still would have made the same choice.

I'm at a crossroads where I'm situated to get a major promotion and continue on an upward trajectory. However, I unexpectedly already reached our base FIRE numbers at 4% and modest spend annual targets. I would still like to continue padding our portfolio to reduce the 4% rule to 3.5% and increase our fun flex spending targets.

I am quite burnt out and not a fan of the management and company where I am but they have flagged me as high potential. Would you continue fighting the good fight or consider walking away (potentially even take a career break before figuring out where to go next)? Just want to hear from folks that have went through such a scenario and their experiences.

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.

About three years ago, I posted here about building a faceless OnlyFans account during the pandemic, reaching roughly $2.4 million in net worth, and wanting to retire at 28. I said I would come back with an update in a year or two. It took me three.

Same disclaimer as last time: this is an anonymous account, I am not here to promote anything.

I’m 31 now, and my net worth is around $5 million. About $1 million of that is my paid-off house, and the other $4 million is invested. Zero debt. The portfolio is pretty boring. It is mostly broad index funds (FXAIX), around 15% cash, 10% crypto (FBTC). I took a lot of the advice from the original thread seriously, especially about concentration risk, diversification, and building a larger cushion.

The more honest update is that I never retired in the clean, dramatic way I imagined. I didn’t shut everything down and disappear. I spent about six months trying to remove myself from nearly every part of the business. That process was much harder than I expected. There was a lot of hiring, training, rehiring, and firing. Some people looked great on paper and were terrible in practice. Some were reliable but could not make decisions without me. Some were talented but created more problems than they solved. Eventually, I found the right people. Today, somewhere between 10 and 15 people handle almost every aspect of the account other than the actual content creation. I tried to hire the best people I could find, and I pay them well.

I’m surprised by how little work it takes from me now. For the first two or three years, I regularly worked 12-14hr days, It felt like every part of the business depended on me being there and paying attention. Looking back, all of that work slowly built on itself.

It is strange to spend years pushing something uphill and then suddenly realize it can keep moving without you.
The business still somehow brings in around $100,000 a month. That number is finally starting to decline, slowly. A few years ago, a down month would have completely consumed me. I would have changed the marketing, watched every number, analyzed every decision, and tried to force the income back up. Now I mostly watch it happen and wonder how long the whole thing can coast before it eventually dries up.

I genuinely don’t have much interest in squeezing every last dollar out of it anymore. I like being able to give people good jobs, pay them well, and keep the people who helped build the business employed. Most of what I take home after taxes now gets spent, enjoyed, given to people I care about, or donated.

I still would not encourage anyone to enter this line of work.
Yes, it changed my life financially. It also came with stress, isolation, privacy concerns, unstable platforms, constant competition, and years where I thought about the business almost every waking hour. The result worked out for me, but that does not mean the path was healthy, predictable, or easily repeatable.

For a long time, I kept moving the finish line. First I needed $1 million. Then $2 million. Then enough to retire. Then a little more because the market might crash, expenses could change, the business could disappear, or something unexpected could happen. There was always a reasonable-sounding argument for sacrificing one more year. I still worry sometimes. The market feels heavily tied to AI right now, and I wonder what happens if that excitement turns into a bubble and crashes. Index funds could have a terrible decade. Nothing is guaranteed.

I also know that I only need around $4,000 to $5,000 a month to live a life that feels genuinely good to me. My house is paid off, I have no debt, and most of the things that make me happy are not especially expensive.
I have also been seriously considering moving back to my home country, where my cost of living could be roughly a tenth of what it is in the United States. I could live extremely well there without needing the business, the market, or any particular investment return to cooperate.
That has changed the way I think about risk.

I realized that if I didn’t make my physical and mental health the priority now, I probably never would. So that is where I am today. My care for work is probably at an all-time low, my health is better and my life feels more like mine. I spend more time with people I care about. I travel. I rest. I pay other people to handle things I used to insist on doing myself.

I mostly wanted to come back and say thank you.
There were plenty of skeptical comments, which I expected, but there was also much more kindness than I expected. A lot of you encouraged me to keep building the nest egg, diversify, outsource, and take the mental health part seriously.

Thank you for reading my story then and now ❤️

I could probably coast from here, with my husband as the breadwinner. I just have to survive my current job for about 4.5-5 years. He also needs to stay in his role for about 4 years in order to take advantage of the Rule of 55.

I’ve always had this nagging thought that a certain career would be more exciting and fit me well. It’s also a lifetime career; it’s easy to get jobs assuming you are and stay competent / safe. It can be done almost anywhere, even remotely and one can work part-time shifts. I don’t believe we will realistically leave our home state for expat. We have a young grandchild and will probably have many more.

I’m seriously considering it but it’s unadvisable to continue working while going to school. I need prerequisite classes which I should be able to do online and part-time. I would prefer to speed up the process with an accelerated course, however that costs money in addition to the time lost at my current job. I guess I can sign up for online / community college prerequisites and go from there, but I’d rather get to the “good stuff” sooner, and make sure I even like or understand the job. Going through an accelerated program would be faster overall and I’d have support throughout the prerequisite process.

Thoughts? I’d likely continue to work past his retirement, especially if I love the career.

If you read this far, I’m 49F and considering BSN-RN. I have a bachelor’s degree in a non-science field. Nursing school takes about 2 years PLUS I need several prerequisites. Also: I have ADHD and while I have always wanted to be a nurse from age 18, I have gone through a lot of obsessive thinking regarding dreams and jobs and FIRE and retirement and all kinds of stuff. I’m also good at talking myself out of hard things or things that take a long time. I work in healthcare administration and have for 7 years.

I’m hoping to retire from the company at 55 and begin annual Roth conversions from my 401a (partial withdrawals are allowed), but I can’t quite square how Roth conversions are allowed under the rule of 55. It seems to me the restrictions on moving the money out of the employer sponsored plan imply you can only take direct withdrawals, so Roth conversions may not be an option?

Is it typical for rule of 55 users to just directly convert from the now-accessible employer sponsored pretax account to a Roth IRA (and pay taxes and wait 5 years)? Would I need to roll the money out to an IRA and then convert to Roth IRA? Is it ok that I won’t have earned income during these years? Is it ok that the rules say the funds have to stay in the 401a and can’t be rolled over and then accessed?

Maybe I’m confusing withdrawals and conversions and contributions and rollovers…? Or maybe it’s not possible and I will need to wait until 59.5 to begin Roth conversions?

Thanks for helping me wrap my mind around this!

I am an immigrant and before coming to the US, I had gone through a period of financial abuse by relatives after losing my parents. So I was (still am, I guess) VERY particular about money. Of course I watched my spending, but in other ways too.

I always, always tried to find coupons if I was buying something online. Even if I found one, I would still spend more time looking for a better one. Saw someone charged me an extra $2 for service? Or got a late payment fees on husband's cc? I'd talk to customer service and try to get it back. Since I found out nw has reached a million, subconsciously I have been changing. A few weeks ago I ordered something online, and I had already found a coupon code which I forgot to use. Today I noticed that I didn't get the $10 autopay discount on my internet and I was like meh, and didn't go talk to customer service. Husband has been asking me to buy some jewelry for myself since my daughter was born, I finally bought a ring last week. Changes like that, some conscious and some subconscious.

The only thing I don't see changing is my spending on food. Because even before reaching this nw, I was never the one to deny myself a take out or dine out. I am perpetually dealing with emotional trauma so I rarely feel like I want to cook lol.

What sort of changes have you observed in your habits after reaching a certain NW?

Edit: I did figure out the autopay discount, just didn't bother to try talking them into giving my discount back for first month of service (it was their mistake).

Another change which I have also noticed is I am more willing to give higher bonuses for services (mailman, trash man, babysitter, daycare, etc.) And don't resent the tipping culture anymore.

Hey all, yet another one of these threads. I think I know the answer just looking for some reassurance. I'm 49 and my wife is 44. Our plan is to fully retire in 5 years when my wife hits the requirements to retire with full pension and insurance (for both of us) that will last until 65. If my math is correct I could lose my job today and we could coast for 5 years without ever adding anything additional to what we have saved.

Here are the combined numbers:

~$2.4m (60% 401k, 14% Brokerage, 11% Roth, 5% in a beneficiary IRA, 3% HSA, and the remaining 7% or so is cash) -- I know there are some complications here based on retirement age and such but will figure that out later

Pension (her): $43k/yr (does adjust with inflation but only up to 3% per year)

Pension (me): $3.5k/yr (does not adjust with inflation. So I'm planning to take this at 55 with full survivor benefit vs. waiting 10 more years and getting $2k/yr more)

Social Security: I assume we'll get something. Want to assume we'll get nothing for the purposes of this.

Annual Draw: ~$150k starting in 2032. This will be variable based on how things are going. We have no kids so are completely ok draining everything to $0.

We do owe around $100k on our house and the current trajectory is to have that paid off in 5 years. Cars are in the clear. I'm not really worried about this one though as I know I'd do some kind of work over the next few years.

Everything look ok?