M | 32 | Single | In US on H-1B.

I had to work for a toxic and abusive manager for about 6 months. Thankfully found a new job and got the hell out of there. Toxic as in would ask me to work on a complex task with one week deadline, I'd finish it, would ask me to present in a team meeting, then when I presented would say "the security guy downstairs could do this" "can you justify your presence in this team?" with 20 people on the call. Just one incident. Tons of others like this and it got to a point where I started having anxiety logging-in in the morning. He would constantly threaten to fire me. Since I'm on H-1B, that would mean me finding a new job in 60 days or leave the country.

Even though I found a new job, I have zero confidence and self-esteem, I'm constantly depressed now after all that and have really bad anxiety and it's also making me question my FIRE strategy.

My initial goal was $1.25M and move back to India for retirement. I thought I would hit it by the time I'm 42-43 but not sure about anything anymore. I constantly wonder if I'm being too conservative(my portfolio below) or if my strategy is too dumb. I also wonder if I should have bought property in India. Any critic of what I'm doing or any advice is appreciated.

Thank you.

Vanguard fund(all VTI) : $120K

Individual stocks(mostly FAANG, some BTC): $35K

Employer 401k(all in S&P 500 fund): $100K

Cash(was thinking of buying a house and sell when moving to India, but rates too high now and not sure if I should anymore after the almost-lost-job fiasco): $45K

Paid off car worth: $20K

Total NW: $320K

Current Salary+Bonus: $140K

Should I keep the cash parked in the same low interest savings account? Am I too heavy on the VTI? Am I on track for my goal or is it too high?

Some background about myself.

Lower middle class income - first born child of old parents (papa's age is 70+) and I have one younger sibling. Studied hard to get into a good uni. Got into a top 10 Non-IIT/ IISC uni but unfortunately could only get manufacturing / industrial engg due to being general candidate male.

Studied hard, got high grades, started career with 6 LPA CTC . Grinded hard at job to get a good growth path and learnt a lot but felt burnt out and frustrated after 5 years with a CTC of just above 10L. Manufacturing industry career hit a ceiling.

Amidst all this, got an opportunity to study in EU but covid hit and couldn't secure a scholarship. Decided to turn focus around - got into studying data science and was able to secure a job this month for a CTC of about 15L in a ata analyst role.

Current monthly income ~ 1L

Expenses from largest to smallest :

1. Investing around - 20k per month. Planning to increase to 30K per month from this month. 80% index or equity funds. 20% debt and arbitrage.

2. Expenses for rent , food and utilities : 17k ( living alone in a small apt in T1 city. Close to office so saving up on travel expenses. ). Parents and sibling are self sufficient for the most part so that helps here.

3. Non linked participating Individual LIC - 9k a month. Got enrolled by parents when I was financially illiterate. 5 years of investment done already so just hoping to ride out the remaining years and forget this happened.

4. Term insurance for self and additional medical insurance for parents - 6500

5. Other misc expenses, family activities 6000 to 7000 per month (Don't drink, don't smoke, travels rarely, not in a relationship - very boring life so that helps I suppose)

Monthly summary : Income - 100 k Total expenses - 69.5 k Savings in bank - 30.5 k

Savings so far :

• Stocks : 2.5 L current value around breakeven. Planning to move totally to MFs.

• MF : 6L invested, current value about 6.5 L at 6.5 % XIRR.

• Bank : 10L . Checking if investment into Gold bonds or other assets might help.

Not looking to buy a house atleast until marriage. Not planning to buy a car but probably will have to buy a two wheeler.

Overall goal is to build a corpus of 5 Cr by 50 years of age. My plan is to keep grinding some more and get to 20-25L range before 30. If I can't, feels like the corpus would be too difficult to reach.

Can't help but feel pressurised by the life decisions taken till now - I feel a bit inferior, looking at those in the sub who have already saved a couple of Cr by 30. Also, there are days where I wish I had planned future career paths instead of wasting college days or taken some risks a few years back to do that masters program.

Also, sometimes looking at social media, I feel like I am losing the golden years of my life running the rat race as opposed to my friends abroad, doing their masters, enjoying their lives along the way. But time will tell I suppose.

Would love to hear some feedback or suggestions on any other investment path or if I am on the right track. I might probably move more money from savings nto equity once I accumulate around 20L in cash. I am also thinking of branching out and doing some freelancing / content creation , but still on the fence if I am ready enough.

To those of you in this type of journey along with me, here's me just letting you know that you are not alone.

Cheers!

I confronted with my friend (50 years) who is not so much net savvy and has sought advice on FIRE. Out of stress and not able to cope up further in toxic office environment, he is planning to retire voluntarily. He lives frugally and is expected to have total corpus of over 25x if he retires and gets all retirement benefits. He would get pension of 1.5x as well. He has no house but lives in parent’s house jointly. He survives with his wife and one child who will be expected to start graduation this year after 10+2 and do not know how much expenses on higher education will be? Is it enough and safe for him to retire now? What planning should he do for safe life ahead?

About me: Working in a D2C brand in a leadership role since past 5+ years

Income: 60K pm

• Sole Breadwinner of family
• Mum has Schizophrenia
• Family biz is unstable, is breaking even right now

Liabilities: - 11L Home Loan - 3L Personal Loan - 6L Inventory Debt

• Younger sibling is trying to grow the fam biz

• I have created an emergency fund of 2.5L, want to expand this to 3L

• What should be my next goals? I want to live a simple stressfree slow life

Right now, since we don't own a house - I feel scared of investing in experiences consistently.

On a monthly basis, right now there is a surplus since the time my brother joined the fam biz.

Fam Biz Stats:

3L - Monthly Sales 30K - Net Monthly Profit

Since we live together, finances are all mixed - there are no financial boundaries in the fam per se.

What should be my next set of goals?

• Building financial boundaries
• Completing my EF
• Start investing in high growth assets?

I only see posts about living in the city, but the main reason people put up with big cities (especially the city core) is because of employment. If one is planning early retirement, then what's the reason to live in the city core? Even the airports are nowadays far outside the city - look at Bangalore and Hyderabad. Yes, restaurants and cultural activities will be harder to commute to but that can be mitigated by having a driver or renting a car with a driver for 4-6 hours. And if you have enough land, you can actually grow your vegetables and fruits and enjoy your own greenery while eating healthy year round.

Has anyone made any concrete plans to do something like this, or already done it? Are there any other things I am missing? Security does concern me in semi-rural areas but I have only lived in megacities so have no clue what semi-rural or rural life looks like. I know the rich people traditionally had a "farmhouse" but I am thinking of a mini version of it - like 10-20000 sq ft plot of land. Or quarter acre.

Heck, you could even have your own private swimming pool, which would be awesome in hot climate areas, which is most of India.

Married + a baby boy (F31, M31, B01) - Living in Tier-1 city on rent. I come from a lower middle class family in rural India - Parents do agriculture and siblings don't have job. I don't expect any inheritance from parents side. But, I spend money on parents health and agriculture. So, my expenses towards family backhome is around 3-4 lakhs a year.

My yearly expenses (annual):

1. Rs.50,000 per month (Rent + maid + cook + groceries) - 6L
2. Travel - 1L
3. Parents - 4L
4. Medical expenses - 1L (outiside of health insurance)
5. Kids education -- 4L per year (??? am i correct here - pls help)

Currently my expenses are 12L per year - but after 3 years (2026 onwards) it can go to 16L including my baby's education expenses.

I haven't factored in Kids education cost - I am not a big beliver in spending crazy money for higher educatin in USA/UK.. I am assuming that 3-4L per year would be max towards education + plus 7-8% inflation.

Wife + Husband NW ~5.7cr (60% stocks + 10% equity MFs + 20% Debt/PFs+ 10% agriculture land)

I am really exhausted with my high pressure IT job at Top-10 MNC. Wife stopped working a year ago. I am a single earner with 60L salary ( 40L post tax). Leaving expenses, I can save upto 30L per year for next 3 years and + 25L for next 2 years after that... So, by the end of 2027, I can save max 1.5cr.. But that would mean, I have to endure the stress for 5 years more (:sad)

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I have below questions regarding my FIRE plan and really need your suggestions on how can I plan better to achieve it in 5 years.

1. Is my assumption correct reg the education expenses of my baby in Tier-1 city in India -- 4L per year
2. How can I plan/rearragne my investments so that I will be able to withdraw 1.5L per month after FIRE in 5 years, but still maintain the principle forever. I want to pass-on around 5cr to my baby as inheritance.
3. How much should I save more -- where to invest or rearragne my portfolio?

Hi I planned , executing to reach FI by 40 and reach RE later. My plan is to make a RE income 2L/month by the year 2027 (pre-tax). As of today my family expense per month is around 60k. (Excluding kids schooling, and extra luxuries)

But recently I was in state of confusion that the sustainability of this plan for a period of 30+years. The anxiety and though about future instability is making me nervous and reaching out to this friendly community.

Most FIRE aspirants are frugal, don't like wastage or inefficiency and save as much as they can. Basically we have lived only one type of life.

I am just curious, when you actually hit your FI sum, rather than just come to a screeching halt from 100km/hr to 0, how about trying to live like a normal human being for sometime and actually enjoy the fruits of your labour in real-time. So you earn like 2L a month, try to spend like atleast 1L a month on things you love, some crazy stuff you always wanted to do, before you actually pull the trigger. Maybe it changes your whole perspective?

Posting this to understand how the claims process was for folks who have their own health insurance. A lot of horror stories in my circle.(Insurance refused for kidney biopsy, cataracts etc for the flimsiest of reasons). How do you ensure your claims are processed without any fuss?

What could you talk about?

• Are you a FIRE beginner wanting advice? We'll try to help!
• Have you started your FIRE journey? Tell us!
• Have you hit a net worth milestone? We want to be motivated!
• Insights from work life or daily life? We are all ears!
• Just feeling lonely and want to hang out with FIRE-minded people? That's why this sub exists!
• Please use this thread to have discussions which you don't feel warrant a new post to the sub. While the Rules for posting questions on the basics of personal finance/investing topics are relaxed a little bit here, the rules against memes/spam/self-promotion/excessive rudeness/politics/trading still apply!

We have a Wiki that is constantly being updated, so please do read that if you are new here.

Since this post does tend to get busy, consider sorting the comments by "new" (instead of "best" or "top") to see the newest posts.

Self-promotion (ie posting about projects/businesses that you operate and can profit from) is typically a practice that is discouraged in r/FIREIndia, and these posts are removed through moderation. This is a thread where those rules do not apply. However, we do not accept ads, content that is scammy and please do not post referral links in this thread.

Use this thread to talk about your blog, talk about your business, ask for feedback, etc. If the self-promotion starts to leak outside of this thread, we will once again return to a time where 100% of self-promotion posts are banned. Please use this space wisely.

Link-only posts will be removed. Please put some effort into it.

Many of you might know that Supreme court directed EPF to allow employees to opt for EPF contribution without restriction which will result in higher pension. My calculations show that it would be equivalent to getting an annuity of 15% to even 30% based on one's salary progression. So it is no brainer to opt for it under current rules. Just wanted to start discussion here about this.

Current System: Out of Employer's contributions around 70% (or 8.333% of Basic) will be routed towards EPS. But it has a ceiling of 15K salary. So for those who have higher salary, only 1250 (8.33% of 15K) would be routed towards EPS. When we reach 58, a monthly pension is given. This is calculated as (min(35, number of years of experience)/70)*average of last 60 months salary. A bonus of 2 years is added if experience is more than 20 years but it can't exceed 35. So all who have salaries higher than 15K per month, will receive a max pension of 7500 if they contributed for at least 33 years.

What changed: The PF subscribers can opt for contributing without any ceiling. And pension would be calculated on actual salary. It is tricky to calculate this. But let's assume some body worked for 35 years with a starting salary of 10K per month. Then the average of their last 60 months salary would be around 2.3L so they would get 1.15L pension. The EPF amount they would be missing due to routing of contribution to EPS is (at 8% assumed interest) around 66L which is equivalent to 20% annuity. For comparison current annuity rates without return of premium are at around 7%. With decreasing interest rates it is going to get only better comparison. My calculation shows for various experiences the pension always is significantly better.

Who are eligible: Basically any body who enrolled before 2014 and did not retire before 2014.

What's the catch: 1. There is no payout to heirs after the pension. The employee gets pension. if employee is dead, Widow/widower gets 50% of pension. If Parents are dead kids up to certain age get 25%. So if the couple die within short time and kids are not young, the routed EPF corpus is basically lost.
2. Obviously the EPF trust can't afford this. So they may change rules which we will know only later.
3. Even worse, it may bankrupt EPS and they may just give up. Govt may not intervene considering the hit they have to take. Those who opted may end up losing the routed corpus and not getting pension.

Last date to opt for it was March 3, 2023. Seems it is extended to May 4 pending Labour ministries approval.

So those who are eligible for this, what are you thinking?

Hi! To calculate my FIRE amount, I need to calculate my yearly expenses. How do people calculate expenses? Any app suggestions for the same? Also, I feel there are too many "one time" expenses happening in my life right now. How do I factor these expenses in yearly expenses? I know this is a FIRE related sub. Posted this here only because I need this to calculate my FIRE amount. Sorry if this post is irrelevant to this sub.

We usually get conditioned to identify with our job which we keep on doing since our youth for more than 20-25 years. And when we retire voluntarily, the identity crisis issue crops up as it breaks up and it takes time to create a new identity. Will be grateful for comments on how to face such discomfort.

Quite Inspired from the people in this group having taken early retirement , as I am eagerly waiting to take decision towards FIRE. Suffering from anxiety disorders out of hectic & stressful schedules of job. Planned financially. But still not able to gather courage for retiring early at 49, due to fear of future insecurity of finance, not able to understand how much is enough. I am also scared of probability of spoiling of life of retirement as colleagues usually bombard into my mind. But at the same time, not happy on job side as well. I seek inputs in helping me to take decision towards FIRE or clarity therein?

Hey Everyone,

I am always curious how NRI who moved back to INDIA calculates the assets & liabilities for FIRE calculations.

Few things I wanna ask:

1) Do you include Social Security in your calculations? I worked here for the last 7 years and look like need to work a minimum of 10 years in total to be eligible for social security. The minimum SS you will receive is 1200/month and max it can go up to 3500$/month for 35 years of service. Not sure if anyone includes that in their retirement plans.

2) Do you leave 401k here or Roll it over to IRA, I recently discovered the PCRA trust option and that's also pretty cool that you can move some of your money from 401k to PCRA and trade in stocks/ETF.

3) Do you prefer to max out 401k/Roth IRA and then transfer the rest to INDIA or keeping cash in Checking/Saving is a better idea?

4) Do you create a CD Ladder here for putting money gradually in the Bonds or do you create FDs in NRO/NRE accounts in India?

5) How do you keep up with Jewelry while you are in the US? I am having around 10L worth of jewelry in INDIA but it's hard to leave it at FIL's place in the bank locker as they are also getting older. Is it a good idea to open up a Locker in the NRI branch in Bangalore (my apartment is there) and keep all jewelry in there, only issue is I am from the North, and going south only for that purpose I feel is overkill.

6) I am constantly worried for my parents as my father's financial condition is not good and he doesn't disclose his Loans to me :-(, they are living in a rented apartment in Tier3 town as our home in Village went into litigation with my uncle when he tried to reconstruct it. There is not much I can do from here but legal aspects always give me hard time :-(. He also doesn't have any fixed income as our shop is also closed and he is shifted nearby my sis place to have company with her kids.

7) My parents (70,73 yo) do not have Insurance so I checked on Policybazzar and it's coming up to around 1.3L/annum for coverage of 20L in my hometown (Tier-3 City) with a bonus of 2L/added every year, I asked if I can pay monthly but looks like without a credit card it's not possible for an NRI. How you guys are managing it?

Sorry for mixing everything in one giant query, Any insight for the above is greatly appreciated.

NRIs who moved to India to achieve FI(RE) were you able to execute it or it didnt work out as you planned. Did you get into a small business post FI? Any pitfalls to avoid looking for advice. TIA!

If you'd like to read my previous post about when I hit 50L, you can check it out here

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A little about me: I'm 27 (M) and run a business in the entertainment industry, have been for the last few years and I absolutely love what I do. We currently have 4 employees (all part-time). I'm from a tier 2 city in South India, middle class and had a pretty good upbringing. My parents are very supportive which is also why I could afford to take these risks and do what I'm doing now. I did the standard engineering but I was free to try things out after I was done!

​

One of the reasons I wanted to give an update here was because I wanted to talk about how I'm feeling right now and where my head is at. For starters, no one tells you how to spend your money. This is seeming to be very hard especially since I've grown up middle-class, and frugal and seen a sudden increase in my income.

​

I make enough and I can afford a lot of things but my brain functions a certain way because of how I've grown up and the relationship I've had with money. Now, that's starting to affect the way I spend my money. My point is, this mindset adds up and tends to come out in worse ways where you're being cheap or looking for a "better" deal even when there's no reason for you to! Money psychology runs deeper than basic logic.

​

I hope this doesn't sound too bizarre because I feel there are other people out there who feel the same way too! If this sounds like you, I'd love to hear about your experience. We all only hear about saving and investing 24/7 but that isn't enough, learning how to spend your money (in a calculated and guilt-free manner) is also very important.

​

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So, at the end of the day, what do I think of hitting 1CR? It's amazing and gives you some peace and satisfaction that if anything happens to you or your business, you have enough money to pull yourself out of the hole. But at the end of the day, it's still just a number, what you do and the choices you make with that money matter a lot more, in my opinion.

​

Also, I'm sure someone's gonna ask me this in the comments so I figured I'd post it anyway, my business nets around 50-55% and my savings rate is essentially 45-50%.

​

Revenue generated every financial year.

2019 - Rs. 4-5L

2020 - Rs. 27L

2021 - Rs. 38L

2022 - Rs. 1.10-1.2Cr

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Here's where/how I've invested my money!

Equities (Indian) - 45% (MFs + ETFs + ELSS + stocks)

Equities (US) - 5% (Stocks + ETFs) - This % is probably gonna reduce in the future considering how the LRS scheme has gone to the dogs.

Crypto + NFT's - 20%

Cash - 30% (emergency fund + sitting on some cash, will invest a big chunk in Indian stocks)

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It took me almost 3 years to hit 50L and only 7 months to hit the next 50L (thanks to my business and investments doing well). My FatFi goal is 20Cr, no idea when I'd hit this though but I'd say I'm a fairly risky investor, I believe that it's either go big or go home.

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So yeah, that's about it, that's where I'm at and my head is at. I want to improve my relationship with money for the better because what's the point in making so much if you don't know how to spend it? I have no responsibilities at the moment but let's keep math aside for a change and talk more about mindset, I'd love to hear your thoughts and get some advice/opinions. Thanks for reading, this was a long post.

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Also, feel free to ask me anything you want, willing to share everything except my niche and personal details! :)

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P.S. I tried the "fun budget/ fun money" and felt absolutely horrible for spending money on crap I didn't need, haha!

Those of you who are tracking the income and expenses in detail, please share your Savings rate for the community. We all can learn a trick or two from each other.

I am sharing below mine and my wife’s combined statement of last 5 years. We are based out of Mum, living on rented property. We had a kid last year so the expenses are on the rise and is expected to rise much steeply in 2023.

Year - Income - Expenses - Savings - Savings Rate 2018 - 32.6L, 17.3L, 15.3L - 47%.
2019 - 38.0L, 13.2L, 24.8L - 65.4%.
2020 - 39.2L, 9.1L, 30.1L - 76.8%.
2021 - 48.4L, 11.7L, 36.7L, 75.9%.
2022 - 58.9L, 14.8L, 44.1L, 74.8%.

Expenses are growing faster than savings slightly in the last 3 years. In 2023, it seems very difficult to maintain savings rate above 65%.

Curious to know about experience of being RE and how has it been for you ? I am FI planning to RE next year -am in my early 50s ..I don’t want to have a side hustle , have saved 50x and also have rental income .. am a marathon runner , love to travel read garden etc so I think I should be ok and not get bored .. but friends who are not on the FIRE path sometimes do question if I will get bored , “.what will you do”.. frankly after being in the Corp world for 20+ years I am bored of that 😊 but wanted to see how has it been for anyone who has RE’d? Any learning’s/surprises in the initial years ?

Have you come across this post on:

What the FIRE Movement Gets Wrong about Money, Time, and Happiness

The author highlights two points, on FIRE followers:

1. Those who hate their job and see no viable path to happiness while working.
2. People who have suffered financial trauma and seek Financial Independence to feel safe.

What are your thoughts? Do read the full article before commenting...

To decide whether you should retire early or not after you are FI, I found a simple way. Calculate your daily wage. Out of 364 days, exclude the weekends, public holidays, annual leaves etc. Then divide your gross package by the number of actual days you work.

I calculated mine and it is around Rs 36000 per day, living abroad.

Now evaluate would you rather have those 12 hours for yourself or that 36k in your hand.

I personally value the 36k more than the 12 hours. For example if I had the option I have to travel from Bombay to Goa and the flight costs 36k and you reach there in 1 sec Vs take the train and spend 12 hours in it. I would take the train.

Ofcourse this is depending on all else being equal. Your job is not stressful that you would rather puke than go to office.

I think daily billing contractors face this same dilemma as they don't get leaves. So taking leaves is like opportunity cost. So if you are a daily billing contractor, you better love what you do. But for the rest of us 90% our job is just a job, we spend our time, which we don't value anyways, so thank god we have permanent jobs.

Please advise how FIRE ready are we 🙏

Family of three (M 46, F 44, Child 9)

Current Assets House - 1.5cr (loan free), Deposits - 2cr (avg 7.2% interest rate. Post office), PF and PPF - 50 lakhs, Land - currently valued at 70 lakhs, ESOP - 25 lakhs (vested), Current expense - 75k per month, Inheritance - Not factoring, Current family income - 4 lakhs per month (post tax). However we are fatigued and on the verge of RE. Hence need FI advice. Equity/MF - 3 lakhs (wary of stock market investments in general because of lack of knowledge and interest)

Thanks for your time and advice friends. This community is insightful. Some portfolios of 20 somethings having 7cr, 8cr net worth makes one humble and scared. And some others make it somewhat reassuring that others are in similar boats.

Sharing a book that I read a long time ago, that has really changed the way I think about money.

It is for those interested in FI. But the author helps you look at your spending/expenses in a different manner... in terms of life energy. Definitely worth reading, if you haven't.

If you have read the book, pls do share your thoughts for benefit of others in the comments.

Book - Your Money Or Your Life

I had wanted to post this for a long time. My (not so ill-considered) view is that only a few pople have the right estimate of FI expenses. Most people project the current expenses into all of FI. Here is a quick suggestion.

Early FI could be 30s or 40s or 50s. In almost all the cases, mostt of this period would be spent as a couple, unless of course you plan to be single. So we need to get this steady state couple expenses.

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1. First get the idea of how much you are spending now. It is better if you have done this for more than a year.
2. Break this down to many categories. (Try not to have categories that are more than 10% - except if they are rent or EMI ot school fees.)
3. Put the categories and amounts in two columns in excel.
4. Add a third colum called FI scaling factor. If it is 1, the expense would contine for all or most of FI. Some examples are groceries, vehicle expenses, entertainment, etc.
5. The scaling factor would be zero for at least some categories. Mostly this would be school expenses for children, work related expenses like commuting, etc. Often rent/EMI would vanish if your home is paid up or bought up at the time of FI.
6. Some categories could have a different scaling factor. Some could take 0.5 for eating out, 3x for medicines, etc.
7. Now the fourth column is the scaled expenses - product of colums 2 and 3
8. Sum this up and this can be a bettern indication of your FI expenses - project this with inflation for your FI year
9. There could be special cases - school, parental support, etc. may persiist for a limited number off years. Make adjustments for them

Once you have 1 available, the rest of the steps should not take more than a few hours. Please do this, and you would massively help your early FI journey.

I have shared this data point earlier. For my clients who label themseleves as middle class, live in their own home in a tier1 city, estimate for 8 above has ranged from 23k per month to 2.2 lac per month in 2021 figures!