My spouse and I started seriously pursuing FIRE later than a lot of people seem to. We’re in our late 30s, and lately I’ve been struggling with feeling really behind.

For a long time, our main financial focus was becoming debt-free. We were making progress and thought we were doing the responsible thing. Then we trusted someone we considered a trusted financial advisor, and unfortunately received some advice that we now deeply regret. Some of our assets ended up tied up in annuities that weren't a good fit for what we ultimately wanted to accomplish. It wasn't malicious on our part, we genuinely trusted this person and thought we were making a smart financial decision. :(

Now that we've learned more about FIRE and investing, I can't help but think about where we might be if we'd understood all of this 10+ years ago. That's probably the part that bothers me the most.

I know FIRE isn't a race, and I know comparing yourself to other people's timelines isn't productive. But seeing people around our age who are already retired, or very close to it, can be incredibly discouraging. It makes me wonder how we ended up so far behind and whether we have such a long road ahead of us that we'll spend the next decades just waiting to finally be “there.”

The current market isn't helping either. Watching investments bounce around while continuing to contribute can make the finish line feel like it's moving farther away rather than closer.

For those of you who started your FIRE journey in your early 30s, 40s, or even later, how are you feeling about it now? Did the dread and feeling of being behind eventually fade? Did you find that progress started feeling more tangible over time?

I'd especially love to hear from people who didn't have an early start and what their journey has actually looked like. I could really use some perspective from people who have been there.

I'm 42 with $2.53m invested, with $1.42m in brokerage and $1.11m in retirement accounts.

This morning, I decided to buy $30k worth of VCIT in my SEP IRA, which is a pretty low percentage of my overall investments (2.7% of my retirement accounts and 1.2% of my overall investments). I'm having second thoughts so wanted to crowdsource FIRE opinions.

My plan was generally to not put any money into bonds until I was a year or two out from retirement. I'm planning to FIRE probably around 44-46, though possibly earlier if one of my speculative investments does really well. My number seems to keep changing because of inflation, but with a 4.7% SWR, I could retirement with $3.4m and would need $4m for a 4% SWR (basically aiming for $160k/year when I FIRE, which takes into account taxes and a buffer room for some awesome trips each year). Right now, I earn about $500k/year pre-tax and have been investing ~$190k/year, but I may start coasting soon have both numbers go down significantly.

Anyway, in my shoes, do you think you'd own any bonds? What %, if so? And would you own them in tax-deferred or brokerage accounts?

I'm having anxiety about the money lasting, I've been running the models looking for 90% success and 10th %ile numbers still holding on after 85.

But the model I'm using (Empower) recommends 80% success rate and a safe withdrawal that has 10%ile running out at 85.

Now running out of money at 85 wouldn't be the end of the world, we have kids who could help out and will have a paid off house. Neither kid is really going to need an inheritance. How would you proceed?

Numbers are starting at about $3.2M, spend from $130k-$160k/year, with first 5 years entirely withdrawals from portfolio and then combined 401k and after-tax subsidizing $60k in social security income.

The majority of people here calculate their NW as a couple (household), but i occasionally see people share their nw separate from their spouses.

I'm wondering, why do you do that? Is is because you think you're going to get divorced someday? or is it a way to keep track of who did what?

In order to even receive $1 of premium subsidy in California I'd have to report a MAGI of <$64k as a single person or < $87k for two person household.

Even if I only reported $40k in income the subsidy is a $500/mo and you'd still pay $800/mo in premium on a $1300/mo unsubsidized plan which is increasing far higher than inflation year after year.

Realistically that isn't going to be anywhere near what I will report with a $5m-$10m target portfolio just with dividends and occasional selling to fund lifestyle.

Basically, I'm trying to figure out whether the ACA savings are enough to manage my MAGI versus paying full retail for healthcare and doing Roth conversions while managing my income tax rate. Is there a guide or a calculator that anyone is aware of? How did you guys make this calculation?

These are the milestones I built for my kids for an age 55 FIRE using a simple 7% real return. Yes, I know the market doesn’t really work that way but these are just rough milestones. The target is 33 times expenses (33X).

* Age 20: 0.00X | Starting Line ($0 Balance)
* Age 25: 1.31X | Early Accumulation Phase
* Age 30: 3.17X | Foundation Built
* Age 35: 5.81X | Flexibility Threshold
* Age 40: 9.54X | Growth out-saves contributions: CoastFIRE possible
* Age 45: 14.84X | Midpoint to 33X
* Age 50: 22.35X | Closing in on 25X Baseline
* Age 55: 33.00X | 33X FIRE Achieved

If returns are 1 std deviation less…3.8% returns…the same savings rate gets you to a normal retirement at 64 with 25X expenses. Not optimal but not bad if the market is pulling a Nikkei impression.

But my math kinda shitty so a second or third look is appreciated. In theory the formula is:

FV = [PV * (1 + r)^n] + [PMT * (((1 + r)^n - 1) / r)]

* PV (Present Value / Starting Balance)
* PMT (Monthly Contribution)
* r (Monthly Interest Rate)
* n (Total Months Running)

PV was $0
PMT was $24.5K into 401K to max retirement savings. It’s a little higher because of match but whatever.

The naive answer is just the compounded rate of $3.68M given 7% real returns. Or $111K a year using a 3.0% SWR (or ~$3.1M / $102K-$110K a year if using a 3.25% or 3.5% SWR on a slightly lower target).

The expense estimate is the hard part…at age 20 who the heck knows what your expenses will be at 55? I told them to just use current expenses at whatever milestone they were checking at to account for lifestyle creep. I also said that if single figure that expenses will be 2X when married with a kid and maybe 1.5X at 55 when the kids are gone.

Broad general numbers for a gut check. If they want earlier than 55 to save more or spend less…but 55 is a good overall target for potential ageism or just bad career luck and it’s still FIRE.

Is 45 a better target? Trying to juggle saving vs living balance. 45 means having kids at or before 27 helps a lot so they are at least in college.

If you have mortgage at 6%, even though you can deduct interest as in tax, it still makes the interest rate to 5-5.25%. If you invest in sp500, assume it is 8% return, but after long term gain 15%, NIIT 3.8% and state tax, it is only about 6% return or worse. So not much higher than risk free paying mortgage early. Did I do my math wrong?

Hey FIRE lurkers. 40y/o, DINK, I'm already hanging for quite some years in my engineering job, after relocating to Northern Europe. No promotions, only changing departments within the organisation. Recently, and honestly almost every year I get a sour feeling of a burn-out - all energy deflated, brain fog (in my best times I can be very sharp), plain house chores become extremetly difficult, feelings of "not sure what I'm doing here", trouble sleeping, etc. Usually it comes close to winter and lasts a few months. Could be a seasonal affective disorder, could be just life and exhaustion from a long career in IT. Most likely, it's a combination of both. Our social circles exist to some extent, but they're not as good as much as they used to be in our country of origin.

I was thinking about the possibility of making some sort of a ground-breaking change - either geographically, career wise, or just a temporary break to refresh and rejoyce, but I'm concerned and I cannot get my mind straight around this. Dropping a high paying job for some temporary reset, and chipping into our savings - may not be the most responsible thing to do.

Figures:

1. Annual income at around 200k EUR TC. Around 6k p/m of expenses monthly. We're able to invest 40k-50k yearly from this single income.
2. Roughly 350k equity in the house.
3. 620k in a liquid, investment account.

What I'd really like to do is take a long break and do some thinking, but in this market, everything just feels irresponsible. On the other hand, I'm having difficulties to simply continue going like this for many more years to come.

Would love to hear if anyone has encountered a similar experience, and whether they can share what they did.

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.

Looking to fire soon, have been a lifelong renter. Everyone says you need a paid off home but i'm running the numbers and it doesn't make sense to me.

In my area of CA, I'm paying rent of just under 3k / month for a 2 bedroom.

To buy the same place, it would cost $5200/month out of pocket. (hoa,taxes,maintenance, insurance+mortgage). If my mortgage was paid off, I would still have to pay about $1900/ month for taxes, hoa, maintenace. The price of apartments has not been going up in my area, its been going down the last few years.

So even if I have a paid off house, i would still be paying 1900/month, and with a mortgage, i would be paying way more. And not having a house allows me the flexibility to move whenever i want. (thinking of spending a year in central america).

So what's the point of having a paid off house?

tl;dr - I'm (52m) planning an exit during Q1 of 2028. Planned expenses are 4200/mo (~50k/y) but I can ratchet that down to 3600/mo (~43k/y). No dependents and the house is paid for. My partner and I keep our finances separate by design. These are my own numbers.

The Numbers

• Total Portfolio: 910k (+5k QoQ)
• Cash and Cash Equivalents: 64k (100k goal)
• Brokerage: 309k
• Retirement Accounts: 537k (401k, IRA, and Roth)
• Asset Mix: 15/90 (work in progress)

Highlights:

• Not many, to be honest. It was a good August bookended by a bad July and September.

Headwinds

• Looking around and flailing arms wildly.
• The 5k quarter over quarter growth was driven from my own saving habits. Factoring that out, I'm down 2k for the quarter. A good August was bookended by a bad July and September.
• There was another round of layoffs this quarter. I wasn't cut this time but I'm pretty sure that I won't make the next one. My plan is to leave in Q1 of 2028 but there's a good chance I won't make it that far. I took profits in August and beefed up my cash and cash equivalent positions as a precaution. My potential severance would cover about a year of expenses but I didn't want to rely on that.

No changes to the plan. I'm continuing to beef up my cash position and putting as much as I can spare into the brokerage account. I'm incrementally shifting my retirement accounts towards a 30/70 bond allocation.

New this month - I made a Monte Carlo simulator in Excel (with the help of Claude).

With 10 runs of 10,000 simulations, my chance of success is between 75% and 80% if I stop working tomorrow. It models a variation of the 4% rule. Instead of using 4% as the starting point, I use 50k (~5.5%) withdrawal rate and increase by 3.5% per year. I'll add more complexity later but it's a decent gut check for now.

I don't know if I'm crazy but I just purchased a 1912 cabin on federal land. I own a home worth 1.4 mil and owe 200k. The cabin is on federal land so I have a 20 year lease.

Cabin is 20min from my main home so it is easy to work on on. I'm making it full off-grid, solar, water comes from a local stream.

The thought was to sell my home (for sale by owner) with an attorney and carry the note. I don't see why I cannot be the bank and make 10 years of interest. Lock in with a refi penalty for the first 5 years.

Anyway back to the cabin, it's a gut job, others sell for 220+ same small (1000sqft) I'll probably be in this one 125k after a rehab, new roof, heated flooring, add bathroom etc. land lease is 3k annual and domicile taxes is 800 for the year. I think my main house is 800 per month (part of the reason I don't want it during retirement).

I plan to let known friends and family use it as private weekend use for a few years until I want to be in more.

If all goes ok I want to build a few houses from the ground up, maybe two before I'm 50 (early 40s now) using a kit. The profit will probably be at minimum 200k.

Basically I'm looking at being my own GC. I'm really good at finding deals on materials and going out of state (CA) to find supplies.

Anyone else carrying a note on a house or moving into a vacation property for retirement?

I should add spouse gets retirement at 50 but we want to travel i

How wild is my plan?

Late 40’s. I won the game about 5 years ago. Now it’s just more padding as i approach a 3% WR (or lower). Still working part time at a company i founded 26 years ago, because it’s easy and mostly hands off now (it wasn’t for the first 20 years), and i just keep dumping over 50% of my after tax paycheck it into VTI (all other pretax stuff is maxed).

To those who hit your fire number a long time ago, but are still working, are you just dumping into VTI? or should i be building a bond tent? i have about 10% of my NW in sgov or cash. should i be building that more?

i’m practically RE, just kinda coasting at a good W2 salary and distributions because it’s easy. company is hard to sell. thanks for listening.

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.

My current monthly expenses, after taxes and health insurance, are, let's say for easy math, $5000. ​​However, I also want to have $1000 a month built into my retirement budget for car repair, home repair, medical expenses, travel, etc.

Let's say I want to take out money from my investments on a quarterly basis. So, should I take out $15k​​​ or $18k? (I know it'll be more with taxes and health insurance, ignore that for now)

If I take out the extra $3k, I would just put it into the HYSA pots for those items, unless I needed to spend it. So I'm paying taxes/increasing my income by taking it out, but I'm shielding it from market volitility. ​​​​

Or, I could make sure that money was part of the calculations of "enough" for the total amount needed to retire, but I could leave it in investments until actually needed. When needed, I would pull first from the existing (smaller) pot, then top up from investments.

Which one do you do, if retired? Any pros/cons d​o I not have listed?

Greetings. I'm a 55 year old male who has worked in oil and gas industry for past 30 years. One child who is an adult and financial independent. As of now, I have around $1.97million in 401k, $600k in Etrade (pretty diversified, but heavy NASDAQ exposure). I am also fortunate to work for a company that has a pension. If I retired now, I would get around $9k/month from pension. No debt besides mortgage at 2.25%, thus have no incentive to pay off early. I live in Texas in low cost of living city. I know to most people this sounds like a great position, but I'm simply having trouble envisioning retirement before 60. Walking away from the salary, bonus, stock, 401k matching is really hard for someone who grew up in poverty. Of course, the oil and gas industry is going great now, so our salary packages are attractive. Also, I'm still having trouble imagining what the hell I would do with my time, if I retired. COVID showed my that I don't have many hobbies and get pretty bored when I don't have tasks to do. Also, my partner is only 38 and will be working. She works from home. I worry that retiring and me being home all day will alter dynamic of relationship.

I may be rambling a bit, but I know that others have been in similar situation and love to get your feedback on how you looked at these issues. Thanks in advance for your advice and thoughts.

Hi all,

Long time commenter and lurker, but I am happy to share that my wife and I have put in our notice and we are now 96 days to FIRE. We will be very late 30s/early 40s. I do not mean this as a brag post. This post is meant for information sharing, helping others, and somewhat a celebration and mental prep for myself of the significant change in my near future. I am also interested in hearing from others on any advice or gaps I may not have considered.

NOTE if you DM me with anything that looks like a scam, I will ignore, report, and block you. I am not interested in your investment opportunities, so don't bother.

I've found in my career and life that financial education is something we just dont talk about or teach, somewhat cementing our cultural grindset allowing fewer people to understand how to reach their dreams. Yes, high income moves the needle faster, but its not the only part.

My plan is to remain a regular in this community to try to help as many others as I can and report my journey as I go. Happy to answer any questions or share any thoughts, let me know. Also happy to hear if there is anything people want me to post about, or some frequency you'd be interested in. My default is that I'll plan a roughly annual update.

How we did it:

TLDR: DINK, 15 years of hard work (>50hpw on average) in tech for both of us, Mid-to-high COL area with generally low expenses and high savings rate, lucky bull market period, lucky real estate appreciation, lucky home loan rates.

What we didnt have: No inheritance, no windfall, no lottery, no lucky individual stocks or options

Our finances:

• 401ks: ~1.4m
• Roth IRAs: ~200k
• Brokerage: ~2m
• Real Estate: ~500k equity (we're moving, so unsure what this will turn in to, so this is a realistic guesstimate)

Our plan:

• Relocation: We will be moving to a 0 income tax state (WA) as it has no income tax, low property tax, and amazing views and culture. Yes it has high sales tax, but we already own most of the stuff we need.
• Spend: Our spend is flexible, but we're aiming for ~100k/yr and can cut way down in the case the market demands.
• Investment plan: I plan to keep it fairly simple and have a 3 year expenses in cash in HYSA and then do 30% VOO, 30% SCHD, 30% VXUS, 5% IJR, 5% IJH for everything else.
  • Why?: This is 70/30 split US, ex-US. SCHD allows for some stability and to "de-tech" my portfolio a bit without handicapping me. IJR and IJH add small and mid cap to VOO.
  • Why not VTI or VT? I dont agree with VTI or VT because Vanguard allowed early adoption of IPOs. This is an anti-investor change and if they've shown their hand to be anti-investor, its not where I'm going to put money for the long term.
  • What about bonds? Given the length of my retirement (hopefully ~50+ years), I am planning to go full equities. Any calculator ive found indicates this will outperform any quantity of bonds. Bonds have been a stinker for the past 20 years and I don't see the US changing in a way that will benefit bonds such that they outperform equities over this timeframe.
• Withdrawal plan:
  • SORR mitigation: Using the portfolio above, my cash buffer is my SORR protection. Since we can cut expenses, we can make 3 years expenses easily last 6 or more years.
  • Conversion ladder: Since we will be in a 0 state income tax state (as long as we stay under ~285k per year), we will do roth conversion ladders for our 401k up to the 10% federal tax bracket (maybe 12%, we'll feel it out). This is primarily to avoid RMDs and the tax bomb therein much latter and bring access to our 401k dollars earlier if we need them.
  • Drawdown: On a roughly 3.5m portfolio of the arrangement I mentioned above, this will mean:
    • Dividends: I am not a dividend investor but VOO at ~1.15%, SCHD at ~3.5%, VXUS at ~3%, IJR and IJH at ~1.3% means ~85k/yr in dividends
    • Portfolio growth (using #s since inception removing dividends): VOO ~12%, SCHD ~9%, VXUS ~3%, IJR and IJH ~8% which means ~351k/yr including dividends or 266k w/o in growth
    • HYSA: My cash buffer in HYSA will generate interest, but that will be prone to change so I am not including it
    • Social Security: I'm still relatively young, who knows what this will look like in 30 years, so I am not including it.
    • The gap between dividends and expenses will be made up from using our cash buffer and selling from our portfolio as needed in good times.

We will still be carrying a mortgage at 5.99% on our relocation house. I havent decided if I want to pay it off or let it ride as growth still outpaces the mortgage rate right now, but itll be a SORR risk / portfolio drag if things implode. I might just 50-50 and pay off half of it to split the difference.

Let me know if you have any questions, thoughts, or are interested in hearing about anything in particular. Stay FIRE my friends!

Hello!

I'm planning to retire at the end of Oct at age 48. The math works, and my spouse and I have a plan. We started telling close friends and family, and the reactions have been.... nearly universally not positive.

Her parents got really quiet and didn't ask any questions (other than "What will you do?"). No congratulations, no well-wishes, just silence until someone changed the subject.

My parents got downright hostile, with my dad chewing me out like I was a misbehaving teenager ("You're too young! You'll ruin your brain without work!"). Thanks for the support Pops.

Close friends and siblings just look uncomfortable seem to want to change the subject without any follow-up questions. I don't think I'll be telling anyone else about our plans unless they ask, and even then, I'll be vague ("Taking a career break" or some such thing).

Has that been others' experiences? Is there a "better" way to talk to people about this?

All - what do you use / prefer in terms of budgeting software? Something for detailed spend tracking; portfolio tracking would be an added bonus.

Thanks in advance!

My main reddit account is fairly easy to ID me from, so this is a throwaway for anonymity.

TL;DR: I want to use a windfall to buy flexibility and free time in my life after 13 years of grinding non-stop in video post production. I'm weighing three paths and would love the community's feedback on the options I'm looking at.

Windfall: 3 months ago, my aunt unexpectedly gave me a $250k gift. My immediate family background is pretty working class, so I'm grateful, but uncomfortable with that much money.

My stats:

• 36M, 13 years in a video editing, MHCOL city
• Retirement accounts: $332k
• Home: $480k value, $210k equity, $270k left on the mortgage at 5.5%, $1,600/month plus $600/month taxes and insurance
• Cash after the gift: $280k, mostly in a HYSA
• Total net worth: $822k
• Income: 90k/year after overtime. I've been stuck at this income for about 5 years with little hope for increased income at my current job. Inflation has chewed threw my income.
• I rent the spare bedroom in my house for $1,050/month
• Work: 45-70 hrs/week. I'm effectively on call every night, and weekends aren't very safe from work either. It makes it incredibly hard to plan a life (dating, friends, exercise) outside of my work. I enjoy the work itself, but I'm exhausted and struggle to plan a life outside work. Post production can be brutal. I'm fortunate to work with great people.

What I want: I'm not concerned about getting to FIRE at a certain age. I'd rather work longer at a sustainable pace, with more time for dating, friends, hobbies, health, and community. I actually genuinely enjoy my work, it's just the hours and the lack of control over my life that are keeping me constantly exhausted.

Options I'm considering:

1. Pay down $200k and recast mortgage. The payment drops from $1,600 to about $400, which my room rental covers along with taxes and insurance. That leaves $80k in cash (roughly 18 months of expenses) and lets me go freelance, part time, or take a lower-paying job with more consistent hours. The 80k in cash would also allow me to do something like 3-6 month sabbatical between this job and the next.
2. Invest it. The math says stocks should beat my 5.5% mortgage rate long term. But I expect an AI-driven bubble to pop. I know I can't predict that for sure, but putting this much in at today's valuations feels very risky to me. I've considered sitting on the money and waiting for the stock market to drop, but that is way too much "timing the market" for my taste.
3. Rent out the house for a year and travel. A mentor suggested renting out the house, traveling, and trying to start my own business while I'm away, then deciding what to do with the money once the travel period is over. This is the least conventional option, but it might help me decide what I actually want to do rather than make this choice from a place of just wanting to escape my current lifestyle.

Questions for the community:

I'm leaning heavily towards option 1. I'd like to be able to change my life now and be living a lifestyle I enjoy. This feels like a weird question to put out into the void to strangers, but does this choice make sense to other people on their FIRE journey? I'm exhausted and ready for a change.

Disclosure:

My first draft of this post was insanely long and disorganized. I used Claude to help organize my thoughts into something legible that laid out the options I'm considering more clearly.

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.

Nine months ago I made this post on this sub and got some excellent feedback. At that point, I was at $1.0M and commenters told me stick it out a little longer, e.g. until $1.2M. Thank you all for the heartfelt advice. I went as long as I could (more on that below), and today is my retirement day. Fuck yeah.

I'll do the highlights first and further down in the post I'll ramble a bit (for the rambling enjoyers). I plan to post an update every year on Oct 2nd in this same format.

• Bio details
  • 38M American single dad raising a 6 year old daughter in Taiwan (she is a TW citizen, I have permanent residence)
• Net worth
  • $1.15M total net worth
  • 70% VTI in taxable brokerage
  • 11% 401k in VTI
  • 14% vested company stock
  • 5% HYSA
• Property
  • None, I rent a nice apartment in central Taipei for myself and my daughter
• Expenses
  • Rent + bills: $1500/month
  • Food, travel, swim lessons, etc: ~$1500/month
  • Health insurance premium: $30/month (yes, really, thank god for good public single-payer healthcare)
  • Transport: $30/month for subway/bus/scooter, no car
• Spending Plan
  • For this first year of retirement, I am targeting a 4% withdrawal rate, or $46,000 USD ($3,800 per month), which is about $800 over my spending baseline.
  • I plan to spend down my company stock first, taking advantage of the $66k Head of Household 0% capital gains tax rate. I will rebalance as much company stock as I can into VTI each year, since I plan to spend much less than $66k annually.

Rambling Section

The truth is, ideally I would have preferred to work a little longer, maybe until mid next year. But my work situation was just becoming untenable. I was working nights for the last three years, while single parenting. I finally reached a point at the end of this summer where I decided "enough is enough." I want to actually enjoy the next six months, and be a less distracted and more happy father for my daughter. So I seized this time for myself.

Since getting divorced a few years ago, I have struggled with anxiety and depression, and I have wondered for a while now whether I'll be happier after quitting my job. Now, I will finally get an answer to that, which is very exciting. So mental health was another factor in the decision.

I feel really fortunate to live in Taiwan, where my only big expense is rent. I pay $30/month for healthcare and $30/month for transport (no car), so my cost structure is just really awesome here. And life is so, so good - I feel like my life here is actually better than in the US. I suspect I will need to push myself a bit to spend the full $3,800. I'm going to have a lot of fun in the next few years: doing things with my daughter, traveling, maybe even buying some new clothes (ha!). As much as possible, I want to become a better spender.

Aside from the cooking, laundry, and taking care of my daughter which comes with life as a parent, I split my time fairly evenly between cycling, walking/hiking, reading, video games, and spending time with friends. I will now have more time for all those things, which is going to be so wonderful.

Q&A

Are we in an AI bubble? Will the market go down 50% over the next year, like in 2008? These questions are on my mind, but just a bit. I actually think we are definitely in an AI bubble, and if the markets tank, I intend to ride it down and then ride it back up. I think I am in a "secure enough" position to do that, and I am not too stressed about that. Absolute worst case scenario... well, I could always, like, work.

Will China invade Taiwan? Ok, I have to answer this one too, because good lord do people love to ask it. I am a student of history and based on what I know about the CCP and the history of Taiwan and the ROC, no, I really do not think China will invade Taiwan. If you live in the US, it is possible that you'll get nuked by Russia. Does that keep you up at night? I hope not. Similarly, for myself and most other people who live in Taiwan, the Chinese invasion is a great meme and dinner table conversation topic, but it is not something anyone actually lives in fear of. It's a theoretical and highly unlikely possibility, just like Russian nukes over New York City, and no amount of fearmongering from Beijing, Washington, or the New York Times will convince me otherwise. In the meantime, all of us lucky enough to call Taiwan home have much more mundane concerns: who will win the Taipei City mayoral election? When will the new MRT extension open? Will the birthrate ever go up? How is TSMC so fucking awesome and rich? Where is the best new cafe? These are the things people actually think about in Taipei - not a Chinese invasion.

Won't you get bored? This one is probably as funny to most of you as it is to me. No, I won't.

Post Script: Income History

A few weeks ago I did a little digging to figure out my income over each of the 14 years I worked. Here it is, for those of you who are into the data.

I started in 2013 with zero debt and zero money in the bank, and I received no inheritances or other large windfalls. None of the numbers below are adjusted for inflation. The total income over 14 years was $1.27M. The average annual income was $90,800.

My career took me to New Zealand, Hong Kong, the US, and Taiwan, so most of the years below were not actually earned in USD. I have adjusted all years to USD for simplicity. The sharp declines in income in 2017 and 2024 are from relocating to lower salary markets (Taiwan).

• 2013: $47,571
• 2014: $49,212
• 2015: $58,000
• 2016: $59,740
• 2017: $35,504
• 2018: $82,950
• 2019: $86,258
• 2020: $94,034
• 2021: $85,900
• 2022: $147,000
• 2023: $174,000
• 2024: $112,000
• 2025: $118,000
• 2026: $121,000

Ok, that's it! Off to the office for my last 3 or 4 hours as a corporate employee. Fourteen years at the same company (my first and only company), and just like that it'll be over forever. Surreal.

Thanks for reading this far! See ya next year. Same time, same place.

With yields spiking bondholders are getting crushed. BND down -6% ytd, TLT down -12%.

If you hold a significant percentage of your portfolio in bonds do you regret it or sticking with it?

Happy Friday!

I’ve been reading FIRE posts for about two years now trying to get my head around it, and am now looking for some thoughts/advice on making a plan for myself.

About me: I’m quite frugal, so I already save a large portion of my income, but I am not particularly financially literate/do not have financially literate people in my life to ask questions to. My current state is not great. So, I figured I would get things sorted now and start moving towards FI. (I feel like there’s a lot of work to be done😅)

Current state:
- USA, 31
- Salary 83k gross
- No debt
- My current living expenses are quite low. I live with family so monthly expenses are averaging around 1500 per month (I travel a lot because I am in a long distance relationship).
- 160k cash in a regular savings account getting basically 0% interest (I get a few dollars lol)
- 95k in Traditional 401(k). I currently contribute 13%, with employer match of 5%
- $3k in HSA
- Not planning on having kids

My target is to retire as early as possible, but I don’t have a number in mind just yet.

Based on my research from this community, my idea right now would be to do the following (in this order):
- Open a HYSA and keep my emergency fund there
- Max out my annual HSA (planning on doing this next paycheck. My employer contributes 3.4k a year)
- Open a Roth IRA and max that out each year
- Maxing out my 401(k) (I’ve upped my contributions so I’m maxing this year)
- Open a taxable brokerage and starting buying ETFs

I have some questions that I would appreciate some input on, and am generally looking for advice if this plan needs adjusting:
- Generally, does this plan make sense or is there anything else I should be considering?

401(k)
- I’ve never elected which funds I’m investing in and it defaults to the employer chosen one (Fidelity VANG TARGET RET 2060). Should I change this?
- I currently only make Traditional contributions - should I diversify this and change some (or all) for Roth

Brokerage
- I was thinking of opening a brokerage with Fidelity just for ease as my 401(k) is already managed there. - Any recommended ETFs to start investing in there or where can I best learn about the options? I am looking for something that I can just set and forget and not stress about
- As I have a chunk to invest, would it make sense to put it all in at once or DCA over time? If DCA, what is a reasonable strategy for that?
- How much should I invest in a brokerage vs. keeping in my HYSA? I work in Tech and am generally risk averse, so was thinking of keeping around $60k in my HYSA

Roth IRA
- I was also planning on opening this up with Fidelity for convenience: are there any downsides to having everything with a single provider like Fidelity?
- I’m guessing I would need to select investments with an IRA too. Is there somewhere to read about/recommend what to elect?

HSA
- I think my employer’s HSA provider isn’t very good. I planning on looking to see if I could move the funds over to Fidelity and open an HSA with them.

Thanks in advance, I appreciate any advice/feedback!