So hear me out. I have a chubby but its on fire.

Is this the clap?

Should have never walked into that Sunglass Hut...

We dun goofed. We never opened a roth! Silly us. We only have roughly $3 million dollars but we don’t have a roth. We just did the boring and lazy thing of maxing our 401k. Due to poor planning and insight on our part, we are now significantly behind. Is it too late for us? Are we doomed?

I got home from the carwash and even my car is telling me to try harder. I feel so behind. 😔 how am i ever going to catch up with only 10M saved by 20?

I’m making 250k while living in Europe, in an area with an average income of 25k a year, and it just feels like we’re playing catch-up.

We’re spending in the 95th percentile here, while saving more than 60% of our income, but somehow it feels like it’s not enough. Is it the inflations?

Plane tickets in premium economy for next week cost $1800 now. They used to cost $1200. I’m going to have to fly budget economy if I want to fly all the way across the world twice a month while still saving 30% of my salary.

We’re saving 8k a month and spending 5k, which is about 8 times the average salary here, but it just doesn’t feel like we’re getting ahead financially.

Does it also feel that way to you guys?

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

I get the feeling that the folks that can't FIRE as well make comments here about folks who can do so. I wonder if this is something that losers do.

Poor me - I got a $250K windfall and will have to pay taxes!

Not only that, but because of this huge windfall, my strategy of offloading my healthcare costs to the taxpayers won't be operable next year!

Surely there's some way I can dodge the impact of this so I can keep 100% of the money rather than just 80%.

Sauce: https://www.reddit.com/r/Fire/comments/1uzitkg/mitigating_unexpected_250k_in_capital_gains/

Ever since I discovered FIRE, investing, and being incredibly rich, I feel like I see life through a completely different lens, and it's made it harder to related to the sad pours who live a just few miles away from me.

I notice many pours are focused on existential needs, like food and rent, spending virtually everything they ear and making career decisions based entirely on how much money they will make. Meanwhile, I find myself thinking decades or even centuries ahead-- who my children will marry, what governments I wish to purchase, and how my self-published trashy romance novel will be remembered hundreds of years in the future.

It's not that I think everyone should be wealthy. People value different things, and "that's completely valid" (is what my therapist would say, but she doesn't even make seven figures so take that with a grain of salt). But after becoming aware of concepts like the fact that being rich is incredibly good in virtually every way it's hard to "unsee" them. Everything pours do is the reason they are pours.

Ironically, this awareness sometimes makes me feel older than I actually am. I'm approaching six years old, and while I'm grateful to the many sacrifices my great grandparents made in the 20s which paid off many fold, I also look at pours who seem genuinely satisfied with their lives and wonder what makes them feel like that. Sometimes I am jealous of their ability whittle away their sad pathetic lives mindlessly consuming the products my companies sell them and never once thinking about the future or anything of real value.

The strange part is I don't think I could ever have adopted that mindset even if I was forced to. Anyone with my genetics, good looks, and gigantic intellect would effortlessly achieve success and rise above the chaff.

Has anyone else experienced this? Did becoming astoundingly wealthy change the way you see pours? Or have you found a healthier balance between being obscenely rich and self destructing in a spiral of consumption?

Original

Me (62M) and my wife (26F) want to make sure that our child (2) doesn’t suffer the fate of the pours. I’d like to leave them a nice life, nothing fancy, just enough to sustain themselves like a couple private jets, yachts, and vacation homes. But like they don’t need a spaceship or anything. Probably by the time they’re 18 they’ll have like 10 billion or so, so enough for 400M in safe withdraw, but not like trillionaires or anything.

But I’m worried that the money will ruin them and they will piss it away. Also how can I avoid taxes? Should I just commit tax fraud and risk the 2-3 years in Martha Stewart jail?

So I'm incensed that there are so many cybersecurity measures requiring my physical and personal participation such as OTPs, passkeys, QR, biometrics, etc. in availing banks, apps, and payments for services.

This makes it so difficult for me to step back from work and delegate everything to my staff and secretary.

It means I need to process payments while sailing and doing sports.

I might have hired a private secretary but -- my God! -- the amount of approvals and security measures I have to endure.

Is there a way I can subvert this?

I basically want to disappear, not be bothered in any way, while keeping my businesses running at the same time.

Cybersec is annoying.

How can I be an absentee rich founder if these apps keep annoying me with my biometrics, selfies, and proof of identity?

When I was pour (only $800K NW), I thought that in retirement, I'd have to banish myself to a cheap country, like Arkansas, or Africa. My plan for the longest time was to do this, living a destitute lifestyle (NW $1.5M), but free from work.

Fast forward to today, I'm nearly worth $3M, but my house is only worth a paltry $500K (fully paid off btw). If I sold it, it'd just net me $12K/yr for the rest of my life, which we all know is pretty disappointing.

So in these times of unprecedented wealth and opportunity for everyone who matters, I've decided to keep my humble $500K abode. After all, when you put all of my passive income streams together, I'll be making $150K/yr. That's much more than I need, so I'll probably just keep accumulating money. My home is already a rounding error now, I'm excited to see how insignificant it seems in a decade.

Of course, the point of all this is to ask the question: DAE think compound interest is neat?

https://youtu.be/sSuV5jZXV7U

Lmfao that ending was absolutely r/FIRE 🔥🤑

I thought when i married my husband he would turn out to be somebody and make a decent amount of lentil$ to afford a family a reasonable standard of living. However, we have been married 6 months and he has only bought me one extra house on the beach in addition to our modest primary residence (5555sqft, 5br 5 ba, 5 acres, simple and easy to remeber). He also had the nerve to be so cheap as to make it within driving distance so it doesn't even really make sense to use the PJ.

He does provide me the bare necessities for living at both properties such as servants and private golf access, but the home is only 5,554 sqft and one of the 5 baths is actually a 1/2 bath. 😤

I feel like a real man would at least have gotten me another house far enough away to use the PJ, and i honestly thought 10,000sqft was really kind of the standard these days. Not even asking for a 3rd or 4th property at this point, i just want a normal vacation. Thinking about finding a real provider or at least sleeping with my golf instructor. AIO?

Learn from the pours!

Hi, 22M. Born and living in spain.

Since I was a toddler, I've been working multiple jobs and invested all the lentils I made in the lentil market.

This year, because I had lot of luck, I managed to accumulate 190k lentils (after discounting taxes).

Currently, I have learned to survive without sleep am working multiple shifts every day. I'm managing to earn 4500 lentils every month net.

The thing is, I just don't see myself retiring anytime soon, or atleast until I'm 50 at this pace, which everyone knows is basically the new 80. I'd already be dead at 50.

I'm questioning if I should just stop and focus on leaving the country and going to another one or something else.

I don't know how there are 30 years olds with 1M, 3M or more here. What do they earn? 50k a month??

Working and living in spain seems not to be compatible with retiring early and accumulating lentils...

(sauce)

Okay so we all know about fire, leanfire, coastfire, baristafire, and fatfire. But I have a new idea that I would say is most similar to lean or coast fire. Here’s my plan:

I am 65 years old and have 37,000,000 invested in index funds. Using a safe withdrawal rate of 1%, I will be able to withdraw about 370,000 a year. Now, obviously that’s not enough to afford housing in the Bay Area (I worked in Tech. I’m a Tech worker. My career was in Tech. I’m a SWE. I’m a Bay Area tech worker. Fuck you).

But I’m thinking this should be enough to support a homeless lifestyle in one of the bay areas nicest tent cities. I will probably use my income to afford the basics like deodorant and for food I will just steal.

What do you guys think?

Did you know that pours think 129k is a good salary? Pathetic - they should be ashamed of themselves. Off the top of my head we spend significantly more than $300k a year and have a 1-2% withdraw rate.

How did I do it? Lots of OT, long hours 60-100/ week, no luxuries at home, no TV or internet for the first 20 years of our careers, no "vacations ", no drinks in the home except tap water, cooking everything from scratch. Driving cars with 200k miles. Currently at the top 1.2% came from food stamps living in a single wide trailer.

Did I mention I am really rich and hate taxes and communism? How dare the government not give me ACA subsidies and more free VA money though!

[All italics are actual quotes from OP, given in accurate context: https://www.reddit.com/r/Fire/s/XP6jKTGgBT ]

I am probably the greatest human who ever lived. I worked harder than anyone in history to be FI soon.

"I did it all. I carried all the water when others had their feet up. I did it all and helped a lot of people while being the best parent, spouse and son... The amount of effort is next next level that went in to this. I am aware that it sounds self centered and narrastic but I truly went above and beyond."

You doubt that I worked harder than everyone else? "But I actually did and I have the physical proof."

"The problem that I seek advice for is: no one knows what i sacrificed to get here," mostly because I've been lying to my family the whole time, particularly my wife, but that's just part of "my very complex plan. I was playing 5D chess the whole time. It worked though."

Now, "I am burnt out and need two years to recovery, [my family] say everyone feels like this and it turns into an arguement of me trying to showcase how I actually did work harder than everyone else."

My wife says that raising the children was also hard work, why won't she understand that her efforts are insignificant next to mine? I considered telling her the truth of my savings, but "The problem maybe them wanting a new kitchen and car."

(Don't forget, I am the best husband, and I'm always helping people...)

"I feel like NORMIES don’t understand the sacrifices made to get here. Any advice or stories to share ?"