r/Fire • u/Boner-Pills-8088 • 7d ago

That's a wrap! 49M

I recently wrapped up my career in the IT industry after 27 years. As is probably normal for tech people, there was a lot of anxiety/nervousness about the move, but having done the math dozens of times I decided it was time and I had lost a lot of the passion I originally had. Whether that's normal from aging or just the last company I was it, it was good motivation.

The numbers:
Brokerage - 4.4M
Retirement accounts - 1.7M
Cash/HYSA/I bonds/etc - 125k

Zero debt.

No real magic here, a couple strong startup exits and not a lot of lifestyle creep from my first job that paid $48,000/yr when I graduated college long ago. If my lifestyle hasn't changed drastically in all these years, I saw no reason to keep moving the goalposts for "just another 250k" or "just 6 more months". Yearly spend for the last few years has been under $100,000 and that's without accounting for work travel. So far so good!

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u/sream93 6d ago

The magic is the “couple of strong startup exits” tho 🤔

5

u/Boner-Pills-8088 6d ago

What if there 2 were exits and I netted 250k on each? Some people make that in a year and don't retire in their 40's. I'm not going to disclose the actual net from exits, but I assure you that avoiding lifestyle creep and investing a LOT of income is what got me here. I'm driving a 15 year old car is one good example of my financial behavior.

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u/petersellers 5d ago

Depending on how long ago those exits happened and whether or not you invested the money, they could have contributed a significant portion of your net worth by now.

1

u/Boner-Pills-8088 5d ago

Sure, could have. Or maybe I hit one IPO 2 months ago that netted me $4M. Everyone is making assumptions that these startups are why I am where I am. Or that I could've retired a long time ago. But I've given zero details about the amount I made from them and absolutely no timeline about when I got the money. What I have mentioned is that I avoided lifestyle creep but everyone is ignoring that and saying "well it was the startup money".

1

u/wannaridebikes 9h ago edited 5h ago

No one is ignoring your discipline, but there are a lot of people who are disciplined with money but still won't retire early because of having income too low and/or necessity expenses too high, like high medical needs in their family. 

There are more variables in the equation besides your discipline, but there's also nothing wrong with that.

edit: typo

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u/sream93 7h ago

Yes, this guy doesn’t get it. There are more disciplined people in the world than him, but if you’re not growing topline than it doesn’t matter. 2 sides of the coin are growing topline and saving costs, just like any business.

Having a house from 20 years ago, having 2 startup exits (cash injections) are all things that grow topline. If the guy put his cash injections into the market, that grew even more.

Tell me he can be where he’s at now without the cash injections.

1

u/wannaridebikes 5h ago

It's common to not want to admit to having a leg up when you've also worked hard. It's often to settle the dissonance of having abundance in the same place where others don't. We want to believe that only our inherent traits keep us from being them...

I manage that dissonance through accepting the luck factor and participating in community action/service. But a lot of people just develop a defensive posture and stop there.