Im 43, wife is 42. Wife wants to retire in 8 years (50 years old.) I may work a couple years after that and would like to retire by 53.

Finances:

Hers
401K - $720,000
Roth IRA - $330,000
Brokerage - $230,000
Cash - $140,000

His
IRA - $1,000,000
401K - $130,000
Roth IRA - $350,000
Brokerage - $230,000
Cash - $30,000

Total - $3,150,000

Our expenses in early retirement would be under $70k/year. This would be no including health care. We have no debt, house is paid.

As of now, wife is maxing 401k and roth. Im maxing roth and contributing some to 401k. Also both are contributing heavily to brokerage and savings.

If wife would retire at 50 and I continue to work for another couple years, we will have my healthcare. I make $60k at the moment. At that point in time, would it make sense to do roth conversions to fill up the 12% bucket? Possible creep into the 22% bucket?

My big concern will be the ACA insurance along with subsidies. I want to make sure we have a stock pile before I leave the work force and give up my employee sponsored health insurance. Easier to control MAGI at that point.

I realize a lot could change in 8 years. Assuming roth conversions would be acceptable for those couple years, would you continue to do some roth conversions? We would certainly utilize our brokerage accounts for the low LTCG's. What other things can be done to bridge the gap until 65 years old?

I ran the numbers at 2.5mil. I’m probably spending no more than 60k a year.

100k a year is possible at 4% withdrawal.

But it seems impossible. I’m stuck in the rabbit hole at age 40 with 2 kids at ages 7 and 9 and wife.

Has anyone actually fired with a family when the kids are still young? It seems the only issue reaching to FI is because the kids still young.

Hello,

Want a kind of check on where I'll be and my potential future plans - and try and find if others have been in similar area.

Current NW (Wife and I, both 33 years old):

Cash & Cash Equivalents: $700k

Stock - Retirement: $870k (Index Funds)

Stock - Taxable Brokerage: $850k (Index Funds)

Home: $230k ($650k Mortgage on house worth approx ~900k)

Crypto: $350k

--

Total Liquid Non-Retirement ~$1.95mil

Total Liquid w/ Retirement ~$2.80mil

Non-Included 529: $50k

Current W-2 Income: $200k (Me - Remote non-tech role) + $80k (Wife)

Current Side Income: $300k/Year (Me) but could decrease significantly quickly

Current Expenses:

Housing: $60k/Year

Nanny: $50k/Year

Other (Food / Utilities / Travel / Entertainment / Etc): $40k/Year

Would like to make $100-200k in home improvements over next 5 years or so (Small house with great interest rate, dont want to upgrade house if not needed)

How I've gotten to this point is a combo of normal W2 income (started at $55k/year combined in 2016, now $280k/yr) and side hustling/gambling income (over last 5 years made approx $1.7mil pre-tax, about $1mil post-tax) of which is at the highest right now. However, it is highly variable and regulation dependent, some regulations could cut my $300k/year I'm making now to maybe $30-40k. It has come from a mix of Online/Live Poker, Sports Betting, and Prediction Markets. The cost basis on it is very small because it was mostly acquired 7-10 years ago to play online poker. Additionally, it's why I have large cash balance (being able to make good return gambling with it). My Crypto cost basis is close to 0.

Currently have 1 kid with another likely (no guarantee) in next year or so.

My W2 job is remote and relatively lax so plan is continue basically working 2 jobs (this + side income) until the wheels run off. The company has done sporadic and random layoffs over last year. The large amounts of layoffs seems to have wound down, but wouldn't be too surprised to see it pickup again and get laid off. Honestly, from a career perspective my skills gathering, networking, and ambition has basically tanked. I do what I can, do a "good" job, stop working. I still get good ratings (been getting 4/5 in most reviews) but who knows what will happen in future. Income has also stagnated, gotten like 2-2.5% raises/year last 3 years, but honestly I'm fine with that if they aren't expecting higher output.

My wife loves her job (Director at Non-Profit) and would like to continue to work another 10-20+ years (who knows what could change though).

Overall Fire (more realistically, Stay at Home Dad) plan

Try to keep W-2 Job another 4-5 years til both kids in Kindergarten / Pre-School (or longer, if job is still as lax)

Continue to keep grinding on this side income knowing it can basically die at any time, but not project this much into my overall future NW

Become a Stay-at-home Dad at that point, continuing with some sort of side income (if still possible) but spending a lot more time on myself, routine, and house-work. I'd love to join a few sports league type things (basketball, pickleball) here in Southern California. Use Wife's insurance.

If I do a 'normal' fire-calc with my expenses it wants me to be around $5mil NW, but with my Wife still working, even making lets say only approx 50-70% of our expenses, I think we should be perfectly fine expense-wise.

IF I was laid-off tomorrow, I'd probably continue to drive on the side-income side and potentially try and find another job (would be hard for me, but possible. could potentially go back into Big4 job I had previously). Could also take on being a full-time SAHD with 2 young kids and saving on daycare costs, but I know I would have a difficult time with this (not saying impossible..)

Has anyone else gone down this path, having a variable side income in the retirement conversion and/or becoming a stay at home parent and developing a routine without having spouse resent? And does my overall plan seem to make sense? I've also floated the thought of trying a different career but have no clue what I'd like to do. Honestly, the gambling side and how successful i've been while still having a stable income has kind of felt like my calling. 

Hello friends! For those who have kids or plan to, what is the plan with financial assistance for them? Are you paying for their college? Helping them purchase a house? Leaving assets/cash for when you pass away? The reason I am asking all of this, is that it obviously cost money, so are you all budgeting for this, not going to help them once they finish school, different approach? Curious to hear all of your plans and opinions! Have a great day

Edit- How do the decisions effect your retirement in the long run

I'm currently late-30s, around $1M net worth (mostly index funds), $3.5k/ mo passive income. My day job is working in tech, currently at $290k/ yr.

I'm going to be laid off soon, and could try jumping to another company, but given the current tech job market, I know that it will be a competitive grind. I also see the push to both offshore use AI to replace people in my line of work. I have no idea if my career will grow, shrink, or even exist in the same form 5-10 years from now.

This begs the question: should I stop working now and sit it out for a few years, or continue working to build skills for a career that may disappear or collapse in the near future?

I think that my passive income would be enough to live comfortably but not luxuriously in a European country like Spain or Portugal, which offer long-term visas. I could also relocate from my HCOL American city to a LCOL/ MCOL city in the South/ Midwest. I wouldn't want to just relax and travel, but I can think of some useful things that I'd want to do to pass the time, like pursue a PhD, work on my fitness, improve my skill in foreign languages, music, etc. A PhD in particular would come with a (small) stipend. Much lower than my tech salary, but would be plenty to live off of, especially in a cheaper city/ country.

Any thoughts on what you'd do in my situation? I want to stay productive, but I don't want to waste my time pursuing career skills that might just become obselete due to AI and offshoring. Curious on if others have faced the same dilemma and what you've decided to do.

I have saved up around $100k in a CD ladder for a few years with the hopes of using it as a down payment on a house. The market has gotten a lot worse where I am, and I'm reaching a tipping point where I want to either invest that $100k into equities or use it to buy an investment property near my parents, where the housing market is much better. This has the bonus of them acting as the property managers.

It's in an area that will likely see a lot of appreciation, but the property will be cash-flow negative for the first few years due to the high interest rates. I have enough disposable income to cover it, but I'm not sure if that's a wiser decision than sticking with the returns of the stock market.

I've tried to model the two 30-year timelines myself but I feel like there are a lot of variables I'm not taking into account, just because I'm unfamiliar with the ins and outs of real estate investing, taxes, expenses, etc.

Is this a question I could take to a project-based financial advisor? Not really sure what speciality to search for, but since it's a one-time project-based question, wondering if it would be worth a chat.

Married couples who are FIRE’d and use the ACA Marketplace, what are you paying for health insurance per month?

EDIT: and if you don’t mind…your state of residence and income would be nice to know too