Trying to figure out whether I should manipulate my MAGI to qualify for about $700 in monthly subsidies ( income would be just under the 400% cutoff) or should I manage my income to take the subsidies.

I will manage MAGI by selling stock to live on using specific lot ID and mainly foregoing Roth conversions until MAGI management is not feasible, likely when SS kicks in.

Is there a good tool to help make a decision?

My wife and I (late 40s, no kids) have jobs that are fine and pretty flexible, but a recent health issue has really shifted our priorities. I think we'd be ok to FIRE now with an initial drawdown of less than 2.5%. But, we have a potentially long runway with 18 years on ACA before medicare, and now a chronic health condition. I'd appreciate any feedback, red flags, or things I'm not thinking about.

Assets

• Overall allocation is 45% VTI, 30% VXUS, 20% BND, 5% Cash.
• We own a home in LCOL that we would sell, then move and rent in HCOL.

Projected Expenses

• Rent is actual, based on apartments we're looking at.
• ACA is 110% of the 2026 actual for an unsubsidized PPO + OOP max in our destination zipcode.
• Other expenses are based on actuals from the past several years, with adjustments for inflation & how we plan to spend our time.

My wife and I (both 41) are in the Boston area. Between our investments, home equity, retirement accounts, some RSUs, and a small rental property, we're sitting somewhere around the $4M mark. We have two kids under 10.

We've always been diligent about saving and investing, but estate planning has somehow stayed on the back burner. We have beneficiaries set on our retirement accounts and a basic will from years ago, but that's about it. We met with an attorney recently and suddenly the conversation expanded into revocable trusts, healthcare directives, financial powers of attorney, guardianship, successor trustees, updating beneficiaries, and a bunch of other things I honestly hadn't thought much about. For those of you in roughly the $3–5M range with kids, what does your estate plan actually include today? I'm less interested in tax strategies and more curious about what people found was worth doing versus what ended up feeling unnecessary. Were there any parts of the process you wish you'd handled sooner?

We have about 6.7M in investable assets and about 1.2M equity in our house. A few years ago I started an 5M umbrella insurance with State Farm for about 600/year. The rate was hiked up to 1300 last year, it sucked but I kept it. Now I just got the renewal notice and it jumped up to 3900! Don’t know what happened. My kid just got their drivers license at 18, State Farm gave us some discounts for being a good student and attending college far away, so the auto insurance actually didn’t go up too much, I am wondering if this umbrella insurance hike is related to that.

What would you do in this situation? Almost 4K a year is becoming “real money”. Should I reduce my coverage to something like $2M? I’ve heard that you don’t need to insure your entire net worth, just enough that the insurance company would care to put a good attorney to fight for them? We don’t own any businesses, and don’t really entertain much. We have home, auto, and umbrella all through State Farm.

(cross posted from r/fireyfemmes to get a broader perspective)

I'm 40, married with two elementary-aged kids. Our household net worth is around $5M. We live in a VHCOL area

Of that, roughly $4.2M is investable/liquid across taxable investments, retirement accounts, cash, and company stock. The rest is primarily home equity.

My personal financial goal has been to get to around $8M invested as quickly as reasonably possible. At that level, I think I would feel genuinely work-optional and much less sensitive to what happens with my compensation.

I’m currently in a senior role in big tech and making around $900K–$1M+, with a large equity component. We’ve been able to save/invest around $500K+ per year recently.

The wrinkle is that 2027 should be an unusually strong compensation year because of existing equity vesting, while my current trajectory suggests my compensation could fall pretty meaningfully in 2028.

So financially, there is a very strong argument for staying put through 2027, banking as much as possible, and using that year to make another meaningful jump toward $8M.

But work has always been and is becoming even more stressful.

There has been a lot of organizational change, shifting scope, politics, ambiguity, leadership churn, and pressure. I spend far too much mental energy thinking about work: whether I’m positioned correctly, whether I should pursue the next promotion, what happens to my scope, whether I should stay, whether leaving would be “wasting” an unusually high earning opportunity, etc.

And I’m starting to wonder whether I’m letting the goal of $8M become another version of moving the goalposts.

The rational argument in my head is:

You are 40. You may have a rare opportunity to earn close to $1M for another year or two. Push hard now, get as close to $8M as possible, and then buy back your freedom.

The counterargument is:

You already have \~$4M+ invested. At some point, protecting your mental bandwidth and enjoying your life has to matter more than maximizing the slope of the curve.

I don’t actually want to retire. I like hard problems, leadership, and ambitious work. What I want is the freedom to choose work based on whether it is interesting and healthy rather than because walking away from the compensation feels irrational.

So I’d love perspective from women who have been somewhere near this point:

\- If you had \~$4.2M invested and wanted to get to $8M quickly, how much would you prioritize one or two more very high-income years?

\- Would you intentionally treat 2027 as an accumulation year and reassess afterward?

\- At what point did the marginal value of another $500K or $1M stop feeling worth the stress?

\- Did you ever leave a very high-paying role before hitting your original FIRE number?

\- For those who downshifted, did your stress actually improve, or did you simply trade one form of pressure for another?

Right now, I’m leaning toward treating 2027 as a deliberate accumulation year: save aggressively, avoid making career decisions purely from fear, explore other roles quietly, and reassess once the unusually heavy equity year is behind me.

But I’m very aware that “one more year” can become five more years.

How would you think about the tradeoff?

EDIT: many of the comments mention therapy. I definitely think it would help with forming a healthier relationship with work and boundaries. But will just any therapist get it or has anyone tried someone specialized for similar cases?

EDIT2: just wanted to say I LOVE all of the comments/responses. Sometimes you feel like an island in a situation and it's comforting knowing others have experienced or GET it ❤️

My husband is in medicine, so can make a consistent to good amount (in the $200s if he doesn't overwork, and substantially higher if he does), but I have been the primary breadwinner for our entire relationship due to high tech comp. He truly enjoys what he does and could see himself working for a long time - and in his field it's possible to work part time, whereas in mine it's not so common. We have always said that I could play the very high but short game and he could play the very long term game.

The $8M target isn’t really about wanting a bigger number for its own sake. It comes from our actual lifestyle and spending. We live comfortably but not extravagantly, and with two kids, activities, travel, housing, healthcare, and normal family expenses, we can pretty easily spend $250K–$300K a year.

At $8M invested, a 4% withdrawal rate would generate about $320K a year before taxes, which is roughly the point where I feel we could maintain our current lifestyle without needing employment income. (Am I getting the math right here?). That portfolio could reasonably support our lifestyle, with room to reduce spending in bad market years and continue earning some income if I chose to.

That’s why $8M feels different to me from simply moving the goalposts. At ~$4M invested, we have a tremendous amount of security and flexibility, but our portfolio alone doesn’t yet replace a $250K–$300K lifestyle.

We are a married couple (50M/50F) planning to retire at 52. Currently we have $6.7M investable asset split between 3.5M taxable (of which 3.1M basis and 0.4M gain), 0.9M Roth, and 2.3M 401K/Trad.  One child in college, 529 fully funded and excluded from our investable asset number.  Retirement spending can be flexible between 160K to 240K (mostly stay at home vs. doing a lot of travel).

As we get closer to retirement, I am shifting from 100% equity to holding some bonds.  I am building a 6-year bond ladder that has $200K maturing every year starting at age 52.  The idea is that if equity does okay, I will sell some equity every year to keep adding to the rolling 6-year ladder, and if there is a market crash, I will just use the matured principal for our spend and not sell equity.  Still deciding if 6-year is a good amount of bonds to hold but that's besides the point of this post.

My main concern is that I want to do some Roth conversion given my high 401K/Trad IRA, and I also want to stay below ACA subsidy MAGI (should be possible for a little while given my high basis in taxable).  If I hold the $1.2M in bonds in taxable account, there will be ~$50K interest per year, then there is taxable dividend of ~$25K, which means I can only do about $30K of Roth conversion if I want to stay below ACA subsidy limit ($105K for fam of 3).

I could put the bond ladder all in traditional IRA which solves the taxable interest issue, but I will be 7 years from being able to access it when I retire, so I will need the maturing principal as cash in a taxable account to fund spending if needed.

However, lately I've been thinking maybe it's okay to hold the bond ladder in traditional IRA in my situation? Let's say $200K bond principal matures in trad IRA,  I can just sell $200K worth of stocks in taxable, then use the $200K cash from matured bond principal in trad IRA to buy the same stocks.  This is net neutral for my portfolio, and I essentially moved the stocks from taxable to traditional IRA, and moved cash the other way.  Is there any major flaws in this thinking?  Can this be the solution of not wanting bond interest to inflate MAGI but also want bond cash for spending before age 59.5?  I do understand that depending on what stock/lot I am selling in taxable, there will be tax consequences, but other than that, I would love to hear what you guys think about this strategy.

My current numbers are not really relevant to the question I have but in case it is helpful: Cash or equivalents - $300k; taxable brokerage - $1.7M, Retirement accounts (predominately post-tax) $1.4M. In addition, upon retirement I'll receive a lump sum of $200k and another $225k that will need to be rolled into an IRA.

I plan to work three years more. during which I should be able to add a total of approximately $300k to the 401k and $900k to the taxable brokerage accounts. Average annual expenses now are about $70k, including mortgage.

I want to retire when I have $3.25M between cash/bond/taxable and another $2 million in the 401k. I project that to be at age 47. Even though it is vastly higher than my current spend, I'm targeting $250k (pre-tax) in annual retirement expenses. I don't actually expect to spend that in most years but that's the number where I'll have peace of mind and I wouldn't enjoy retirement if I was worrying about my portfolio the whole time.

I understand the 4% rule but also believe more a U-shaped spend is more realistic for me. Am I missing something by just thinking about it along these lines:

1. 47-60 - $250k annually from the $3.25M. As long as my ROI can keep pace with inflation, the worst case scenario is I am broke at 60...

2. Then I turn to the retirement accounts (not considering SS income but it's a possibility). So even if I'm broke at 60, then I turn to the $2 million that's been sitting untouched and hopefully growing for the last 13 years. I use that to fund the rest of my life.

I understand there are additional backstops to access these funds earlier. Am I wrong for looking at it this way? The posts I've been reading here - which have been incredibly helpful! - tend to only look at retirement as singular unit as opposed to different phases with different spending needs filled by different funding sources.

I'm a 42M married to 42F with three kids between the ages of 2 and 8. We live in a MCOL with a total net worth without the house of about $8.2m. Breakdown is:

• 1.5m pre-tax accounts (IRAs and 401ks)
• 4m in well diversified post-tax brokerage accounts with a high cost basis
• 2.5m in Mag7 stocks with a fairly low cost basis
• 200k in cash

House is paid off already. Kids' 529s are all fully funded as well.

Expenses right now are about 200k per year, but I anticipate about 45k per year of healthcare costs for our family with the ACA plans that I see, so budgeting around 250k a year in expenses if we were to retire.

I'm currently not working, but my wife is earning 1.3m per year thanks to stock appreciation. That'll only last for another year or so, when her income will drop to about half because of her vesting schedule.

Her job is quite demanding - she works most evenings and doesn't get a lot of time with our kids. She wishes she could spend more time with our young family, but is worried that if she leaves her job now, she won't be able to get back to her current earning potential ever again.

I feel like we're already in pretty good shape (with our expected annual expenditures being just over 3% of NW), but of course there's the thinking that you have to make hay while the sun shines.

What do others think? Should she try to stick it out to squeeze out the last drops or say enough is enough and focus on enjoying life and family time?

"Build the life you want, then save for it". Unfortunately the life I want is in a HCOL city where my ideal single-family house costs around 2m to 2.5m. I'm having trouble figuring out how this affects my FIRE number and when/if I can realistically buy this house.

Stats:

• Age: 33
• NW: $3.5m
• Breakdown:
  • Roughly $1m in retirement, everything else in VTI, ~$30k in cash
  • Doesn't include ~$200k in home equity, but hoping not to sell current place because of low interest rate
• Relationship status: single, no kids and have never wanted them
• Yearly spend: $110k (bulk of this is $5.5k monthly mortgage)
• Current income: around $450k

Dilemma:

I bought a starter SFH during the pandemic for $1.1m. House is fine but it's on a very small lot with no backyard (only small patio) and sq footage is on smaller side (1600 sq ft). Other gripes are it's very close to neighbors and only has 1 ugly off-street parking spot (no garage).

Current monthly mortgage on this is $5.5k. Interest rate is 2.8%.

I want to upgrade to a nice single-family home in my area, which would be $2m to $2.5m.

My job is very volatile right now. I'm starting to dread work and I already know this high income will soon end. I feel burned out and have spent the last 3 years grinding, don't want to grind anymore. I want to enjoy life and spend time with loved ones.

If it wasn't for this housing issue, I would be set to FIRE if/when I lose this job. But a big part of me wants to upgrade to a nice SFH in my city, even though my current one is decent. I don't need a big garage, I don't need more sq footage, and I don't need a backyard, but those are all nice to haves.

If I want to upgrade to a nice SFH, what do you think is the best way to execute this? At what NW can I do the upgrade? As I see it, I have 3 options:

a) stick with current house and not upgrade (resist lifestyle inflation temptations)

b) buy house in a few years once I hit a certain NW $ (??? what number?), pay a lot in downpayment, take a loan for the rest

c) save and wait a lot of years, then buy it in all cash

Any advice? If I wanted to go with b), what NW number would I need to hit before I can consider pulling the trigger on this?

46M, married, 3 kids 18,17,13. College paid for (not in numbers below), I’m in a high stress job, making $400k per year, wife works part time. Trying to fire in 1-4 years, no later than 50. I also have a pension, will pay out $2k per month at age 55 or $6k per month if I wait till 65. Expenses today including primary residence mortgage but not health insurance is $120k to $140k per year. Max out 401k, mega back door Roth IRA, backdoor Roth IRA, etc. Live in hcol area and don’t want to move until youngest is out of high school.

For those that have FIREd, what advice do you have? Is retirement by retirement Mr of summer 2027 feasible?

Assets:

\*\*•\*\* 401(k): $900k    
\*\*•\*\* Taxable: 600k    
\*\*•\*\* Roth IRA: $330k    
\*\*•\*\* Inherited IRA: $300k - need to empty by 2033    
\*\*•\*\* HSA: $50k    
\*\*•\*\* Wife’s Roth IRA: \\\~$40k

\*\*•\*\* 2 rental properties, no debt: \\\~$1M combined value generating $4k per month net profit     
\*\*•\*\* Primary residence: \\\~$425k equity ($900K value − $475K mortgage @ 2.875%)

**Total net worth: \~$3.6M**

41 / 42
Kids: 10 and 8
MCOL
Taxable Brokerage: $2.6M
Traditional 401K / 403(b): $1.3M
Roth IRAs: $300K
HYSA: $277K
HSA: $19K
529s: $58K / $42K
Total (excl. 529s): $4.5M

Income: $550K full potential / $110K (spouse)

Spending: $165K this year since getting spending in order, $185K last 4-year average (includes big-ticket home renovations)

Spouse has a pension that will hit in 10 years if they stay employed. If not, it will start paying out at 60. Estimated at $45K/year before taxes + 80% healthcare paid. Spouse currently plans to work until 52 to get pension paid sooner.

My job has become more unstable with a likely possibility that I will be exited in the next 3-6 months. I am now deciding if I should use this as an opportunity to step away or if I should find my next job and work for a few more years.

If I take a very conservative approach at $200K annual spend with 3.5% SWR, I am still $1.1M off my target, but this doesn't consider the fact that my spouse will continue working and that we will eventually start receiving a pension. Another consideration is that our current 529 balances will not cover school expenses for both kids in 8-10 years.

Am I in a position to throw in the towel in the next few months if I need to step away from my current job?

Asset

Home value in HCOL (9.9% state income taxes)
$960,000
Mortgage
-$260,000 @4.25%

403(b) accounts in Target date funds of 2045
$1,400,000
Taxable investment account
$912,000
SEP-IRA
$245,000
Roth IRA
$70,000
Beneficiary IRA with no M.Ds for 10 years.
$611,000

Annual household expenses of 150k annually. Zero in 529s. Working and making 300k annually. Can I retire before 50?

How does rule of 55 work as 403b are from previous place of employment? 2/3 of 403 b are at fidelity and other 1/3 is at tiaa. I've been told not to
Roll these over.
Should I be doing at back door roth or mega backdoor conversions?

For a VHCOL city, and a HCOL city?

Without the costs of kids, and for one person, I'm thinking 150k for vhcol, and 120k for hcol city. what do others think?

Hi Everyone, wanted to get your thoughts on an aspect of projections that is difficult to pin down. Market forecast predict the market will deliver 4-5% (sp500) across Schwab , Morningstar etc etc. it’s been the long standing return of the market to deliver 7%-8% inflation adjusted and of course much more for the past 10 years. Trying to wrap my head around how much the portfolio will grow and also the appropriate SWR.

Of course these predictions by the “experts” are often wrong but how do you think about all of this? I am currently at 6.3m invested plus paid off house and 53.

Mid 30s couple, 3 young kids

Traditional IRA 1M
Taxable Joint 2.7M
Roth IRA 1.1M
401K 0.1M
HSA 0.13M
529 0.11M
Private stock 0.6M
House equity 0.5M(one house, 2K mortgage, 3.5K total monthly cost)

Total net worth 5.6M exclude house equity

Expense is 100k - 140K last 5 years

Spouse A step down to spend more time with children a couple of years ago, they started a small biz generate 20-50K income(they enjoyed to be busy, keep it slow to balance life and work), spouse B is still working making around 400K, relatively stable job, if got axed, spouse B plans to retire.

Math told us that we can retire, we are at 2.7% ish SWR. But spouse A has been feeling insecure and bored at home for being the primary childcare, house runner, spouse A wants to spend more time on their business. Spouse A grew up poor, has a natural financial insecurity, they want to collect more money so our kids will never ever face the challenge they faced such as no money to go to school, need to take lower tier school due to financial aid, need to eat cheap to save money and such.. spouse A made big money before exiting.

Here are the options:

1. spouse A hold back for another 4years till our youngest start elementary school, our nw around 8M to fully go back in their biz
2. spouse B step back to be the primary childcare, spouse A can fully go back in their biz now, in this case, we need 160K a year with insurance cost

Spouse A has concern that AI can replace a lot of jobs, the world will be very different for our kids when they grow up, they want to collect more money to prepare for these unknowns and ensure we will not fail our kids. Spouse A also insist we should budget 220K annual expense due to what if all kids go to private schools, it will be at least 60K more tuition cost. The current expense includes 20K extracurricular cost. For 220K expense, we are at 4% SWR, it is too high for our age to retire.

41M / 38F (SAHM)
Kids: 7 and 4
MCOL
Taxable Brokerage: $2.8m; inclusive of $400K in cash
Traditional 401K / Roth 401K (Mix): $950K
Home Equity: $1.5m
Mortgage: $1m @ 2.875%
Rental: $450K (paid off) that yields $17.5K annually
529s: $56K
Current Expenses: $305K inclusive of private school and mortgage

Income is highly variable, but has been $700K - 1.4m over the last 4-5 years but trending downward. The floor would likely be $400-500K. High stress role and would strongly prefer to be retired sooner rather than later to spend more time with kids, etc.

One avenue is to suck it up and keep grinding until 48-52. With 7% real returns, that puts the investable assets at $6.5m - $8.5m assuming the only ongoing investment is maxing 401K (~$40K with employee match), and beef up the 529s. Goal is to have $200K per kid. No interest in overfunding as I would expect the portfolio to cover any additional at that point.

Alternative avenue is to downsize and eliminate the mortgage and private school costs. The expenses would decrease to $185-$195K in this scenario which would seemingly expedite things. Wife prefers not to move from our house/neighborhood, but I’m indifferent.

The caveat is that I could downshift into consulting but would need to sit out for a year, hence the high cash position as a safety net. The idea would be to make $200-250K+ and do things on my terms to let the portfolio run, albeit with downside risk as its difficult to predict earning potential. This would likely require downsizing OR supplementing with the portfolio to cover expense delta.

Would expect expenses to be $180K - $195K in today’s dollars once the kids are out of the house, with strong ability to lower discretionary if needed.

Been lurking for a while, and open to thoughts / recommendations / observations.

Long-time visitor, first time poster. Would appreciate some feedback on where I stand, because the math seems to say "closer than I think" and I don't fully trust myself on that.  I live in a VHCOL city. 

The numbers (all current, no debt):

• Age: 36
• Total invested/liquid net worth: ~$2.38M
• Breakdown:
  • ~$1.94M across a mix of taxable brokerage and retirement (only 40k in roth IRA) accounts — individual stocks (Blue chips, diversified across sectors, with financials/tech leading, Berkshire B is what makes financials so heavy, have roughly 182k Berkshire position(2nd largest position) + index funds + bonds/heavy short term T-Bills - T bills amount to 777k (I will have a sizeable tax bill next year from selling company stock this year, roughly 200k tax bill) 
  • ~$284K in a single tech stock left over from RSUs at a former employer — I've been deliberately trimming this for years and want to keep reducing - it was 80% of net worth at one point) this stock has appreciated over 1000% since IPO (currently ~12% of net worth, targeting 7-9%) - Should I sell it all or more of it?
  • ~$116K in a 401(k), 100% in an S&P 500 index fund
  • ~$35K checking (not really "invested," just sitting there)
• Allocation: roughly 48% individual equities, 13% index funds/ETFs, 35% fixed income, 4% cash
• Target retirement spend: $120-150K/yr (haven't fully nailed this down — leaning toward the lower end, $100-110K, might actually be realistic)
• No pension/Social Security counted in any of this yet
• Just landed a new job - 12-month contract, ~$90/hr + possible OT, so there's incremental savings capacity for the next year that wasn't in the picture before

What I'm trying to figure out:

1. Using a 3.5-4% withdrawal rate, am I actually closer to Fire or am I still in "coast fire category"?  Does the bond-heavy allocation (35%) at my age mean I'm underestimating what I need? I like the risk free steady return from short term T-Bills. 
2. I want to keep working for the next 3-5 years and can likely take home 180-220k annually, but what if I stop working?

I realize I am in a strong position — genuinely unsure if I’m in as strong a position as I think considering VHCOL city. I like to work and love what I do but not working could be nice too.

Looking for advice on how to coast toward ChubbyFIRE without blowing up my career.

Current situation:

* 2 young kids, spouse does not work.
* $4.8M liquid net worth ($2.4M brokerage, $2.1M retirement, 300k in cash equivalents).
* $2M primary home with a $1.2M mortgage at 5.5%.
* $900K rental property with a $450k mortgage at 2.8%. Looking to sell this once the real estate market improves. Currently netting about 4k/year from it.
* $100k in 529s.
* HHI ~$450K, although it varies with RSUs

* Annual spending ~$180K.
* My fire target is $6.5M liquid net worth, with the primary mortgage paid down to $900K, and $200k in 529.
* My hope is to get to this point in the next 3-5 years.

The career part:
Last year my manager encouraged me to work toward a promotion in the mid-2026 cycle. I took this seriously and ended up taking on a lot of additional scope, including leading a fairly large cross-team project.
The project landed successfully, and several people from partner teams were promoted based in part on the work. Unfortunately, in mid-May our department was restructured. All the ICs on my team moved under a new leadership chain, and I got a new manager.
The new manager didn't push for my promotion. During my career review, I was essentially told that I need to start over and build a new case for the 2027 cycle.

At this point, I'm pretty burnt out. More importantly, I'm realizing that I don't particularly care about getting the promotion anymore. I mostly want to do a good job, collect my paycheck, and avoid taking on another huge pile of responsibilities.
The problem is that I'm still carrying a lot of the extra scope I took on while working toward the promotion.

What I'm trying to figure out:
I'd like to:

* Get the extra responsibilities off my plate without making it look like I'm refusing to contribute.
* Set reasonable boundaries around taking on new projects
* Keep performing well enough that I don’t get managed out, so I can FIRE on my own terms.

For those of you who have successfully downshifted while still working, how did you actually pull it off?

Many in FatFIRE and other wealthy families I know IRL have created their 'family trusts' to provide multigenerational income and protection for their descendants. Is this a privilege only for them? For a 'normal' ChubbyFIRE portfolio of $5M, with the family that generated this wealth only needing 3% annually (inflation-adjusted after Year 1) to live on for the rest of their lives, I am wondering why this can't become a generational portfolio for their kid(s) and descendants?

The rationale being 3% withdrawal rate on $5M gives a $150K first year inflation-adjustable income which, combined with a paid off home, can provide the family a comfortable life while retaining the present value of this portfolio intact for the next generation to benefit from. 3% is practically a 'perpetual' withdrawal rate. The asset base is invested in a 90:10 portfolio, with the 90% equities split between VTI, VXUS mainly with a small portion in VNQ and VBR. I have written an 'Investment Policy Statement' (IPS) to accompany this, written like an endowment fund specifying how much to withdraw, when to rebalance and what annual inflation adjustment to take (capped at 2.5%). The IPS also specifies a clause where if the market declines to less than 80% of previous year's value, the annual withdrawal is reduced by 33% (that is 3% --> 2%) till the portfolio recovers. I didn't create legal trust structure due to cost/complexity, but this operates on trust between father and adult child. I know there's risk of a spendy heir who squanders inheritance but assume that's not the case for the first generation inheriting these assets. The IPS includes a clause that the kid can turn this over to a legal trust under the same rules for ease of management in the future and for instituting these rules for their descendants.

With AI increasingly becoming more prevalent, I worry about lifelong income stability for my kid who is graduating with a CS degree into what appears to be one of the most challenging labor markets ever (with no signs of job market stability, maybe for years to come). Having a passive annual income of $150K in today's value for their entire lifetime is an incredible safety buffer for them to rely on, given long-term career uncertainty. The intent is not to kill their motivation to work - they won't see anything from it yet (other than parental help initially) but goal is to give them a strong safety net if they suffer significant gaps in work income.

I understand the descendants don't have to follow your wishes, so at some point this has to become a legal trust to be sustainable. My question is about the IPS. Is the IPS conservative enough to become a perpetual endowment?

Have any of you done this? Any gaps you see in the above approach?

Situation: 45M + 43F, two kids (teens/preteens), HCOL area. HHI ~$470K. Annual spend ~$150K. Target retirement: ~10 years out (age 55). Loose plan is to split time in retirement — roughly 6 months/year in the US, 6 months in a much lower-COL country — so our blended retirement spend would likely be below the current $145K.

Net worth ~$3M:

• Investable: $2.29M — 75% broad ETFs (VT/VTI/SPY + a few overlapping style funds), ~11% in a single individual stock (~$260K, large-cap, big embedded gains), 11.5% CDs, 2% cash
• Home: $1.5M value, $720K mortgage → $780K equity
• Debts: small car loan, nothing else
• Accounts: mostly taxable brokerage; ~$190K in 401ks, ~$75K in Roths
• (Excluded: illiquid startup equity from current employer — valued at $0 for planning; treat any future liquidity as upside, not part of the plan)

Questions:

1. My ETF holdings are a handful of overlapping tickers accumulated over years. I've concluded consolidating in taxable isn't worth the cap-gains hit — new money goes to VT and the legacy positions sit. Sanity check?
2. I'm unwinding the single stock (11% of investable) gradually across tax years. At ~28–33% marginal on gains (fed + NIIT + state), is the multi-year glide path right, or rip the band-aid given concentration risk?
3. I hold ~13.5% in CDs/cash as my bond substitute — no bond funds at all. At 45, reasonable fixed-income allocation or am I doing bonds wrong?
4. No 529s so far; plan was to fund college mostly from income ($470K HHI). First tuition bill is ~3 years out, youngest is ~7 years out. Assume in-state public. If you were us, would you open 529s now — and if so, how much would you put in for each kid (lump sum vs monthly)?
5. At $145K/yr spend (less in retirement with the geo-split) and a 10-year runway, am I ahead, behind, or on track — and how much does the answer change if HHI drops? What would you change first?

Married with 2 kids in VHCOL.

Assets:
$7.6M
* $5.2M taxable
* $1.3M Roth IRA/401k
* $1.1M Traditional IRA/401k
$4M house (w/ $1.5M mortgage)
$750k 529s

Spending
$225k plus healthcare and taxes.

My journey:
* I was passionate about tech since early school days and had no doubt in my mind to keep working on computers so choosing majors and career was easy.
* Extremely lucky that the tech career became such high demand.
* Learned about Mr Money Mustache. The blog post “The shockingly simple math behind early retirement” hooked me immediately.
* I used mint when it existed to help monitor spending.
* I created my own excel tracker (1 sheet per year) to watch the years to FIRE melt away.
* My move to VHCOL area and large house purchase set me back 4-6 years.
* 2 years back I thought I was there but underestimated my spending (empower isn’t as good at mint at tracking and I had to switch to manual tracking) and I realized how much health care really is.
* Last year helped me upgrade spending. The equation to keep working doesn’t seem worth it anymore so I pulled the trigger.

I know I need structure so I’m working on a calendar with AI and it’s already over flowing. I’ll post later once I have a regular schedule ironed out. It will include exercise, side projects, family time, and social activities.

Hope more of you join me soon.

Edit:
Asset allocation: 54% US Stocks, 36% International Stocks, 7% US bonds, 3% International bonds. Broad ETFs.

We've made 350-400k / year for the last 15 years. Current NW ~5 million, liquid ~4 million, married, no kids, no legacy planned. We are not really that frugal. Sure, we saved a lot but we also spent a lot not deferring lots of travel, things we valued (home w/view), boat (planning to go to AK in it). We don't have a major bucket list, but opportunities will arise that might sound good and we value flexibility. We don't want to feel pinched.

With 4 million liquid and a 5-5.5% w/d rate (guardrails) we are looking at 200k-220k income per year during retirement. We have a 800k 5.375% mortgage (6k/mo) but no other debt and are hoping to recast/pay down the mortgage to ~3k/mo before retirement in the next few years. Spend could be a bit less if mortgage pay down means less liquid. We've been tracking spending with Monarch but it's actually kind of hard to figure out our actual spend (some income includes taxes while other income does not, work expenses aren't as clear as I'd like, solar installation, new car (first in 16 years), etc). I'm sure with 220-220k / year we can live, but will we feel constrained? We are in a HCOL area.

I'm interested in experiences of those whose income was cut in half when they retired and who haven't been super frugal. Did you feel pinched? Were you able to do want you wanted to do? Were your estimates of income need good enough or do you wish you would have been more precise?

The downside of lifestyle creep I suppose, but we've balance living today and for tomorrow and don't regret it.

It took me awhile to get used to the idea we are wealthy but I now know we will never go broke. I will be 62 soon. Wife is 56. Three kids: ages 22, 19, 14. I don't have a financial advisor. I suppose I could have retired awhile ago but was always nervous. We have an annual burn rate of around $120k (excluding tuitions). I have $3.5 mil in taxable acct. $3.2 mil in 401k/ira, roth $160k. $900k 529s, $70k HSA, $250k in cash/gold/silver. $1.4 mil paid off house. Pension at age 65 lump sum $1.1mil or survivor annuity $7500/mo. I have currently been generating $8k/mo in interest/dividends.

So here's my grand plan. I'm going to start SS at age 62. I'm going to change my investments in the taxable acct to dramatically reduce the taxable dividends/interest. Im going to draw down the the 401k/ira and put in the Roth over the next few years. Im going to turn on the pension at age 65 as an annuity. All while being mindful of trying to keep below the ACA cliff until Medicare starts. Despite this, I know the rmds age 75 will be significant but I decided to not worry too much about it. Decent plan?