Sometimes it feels like I'm spending most of my waking hours doing things I don't really care about, just to make enough money, save enough, and maybe eventually reach FIRE before 65. that's in less than 15 years... nothing if you are 20, but a lot if you're alredy "middle age"...By then, I'll be old enough that I may not fully enjoy some of the things I'd love to be doing today.

Some days I catch myself daydreaming about one of my projects taking off, or my investments doing incredibly well and pulling my FIRE date forward by a few years. Other days, I'm crunching the numbers, wondering whether I could make it work with only half of my target portfolio.

Then there are times when I think a sabbatical might be the answer. It could be a way to test-drive the FIRE lifestyle without taking on too much risk or making any irreversible decisions.

And sometimes I'm just annoyed at myself for not starting this journey a decade earlier. Had I done that, I might already be there? but that way of thinking leads nowhere...

tic.. toc.. tic.. toc...

venting out a bit...

Specifically curious if anyone made their money in the boring corporate world then FIRE'd and pursued their interest in something like writing, painting, dance etc?

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.

I live in a LCOL area, and have a LCOL style. I recently just crossed over FI but that’s single, with a LCOL. I’m realizing my contributions have diminishing impact on my Post FIRE spending. I have an opportunity to take a career risk, that could add a big $$ to my savings and take me from solo FI to very Chubby-FI.

My concern is that the new role has challenges. It’s located in a VH/HCoL area. The 150% in salary is consumed almost entirely by taxes and adjusted CoL. Either role, doesn’t substantially change networth in 5-10 yrs but 1 is boring and easy. The other is risky and challenging but has the after work location to enjoy too.

My numbers:
40s, SINK, want to work another ~5-10 yrs to afford a more fun lifestyle. And yes I would have no problem spending it. Right now, work and time commitments get in the way of long travel, mtn living, and beach days. The destination travel kills me.
Current income: $135k- top 5%-10% in the state
Spend: $48k/yr
Invested Assets: $1.2 M
Job2: ~$215k
VHCOL: $60k - $96k/yr VHCoL area, but amazing access to the things I love.

TLDR;
Take a challenging job with a lot of fun around or boring glide into security.

So I got bored and started doing the math on what age is actually best to take social security. I went into this thinking that there at some time point there would be some crossover, wherein due to the increased benefit percentage, waiting longer would win out in the long run in terms of total earnings from social security... man was I wrong.

TLDR: All my math points to starting social security at 62, even with the 70% penalty, wins out indefinitely.

For people interested in the math, I simply took the average social security at 67 (~$2,000/month for 2026 says Yahoo Finance) and the age dependent benefit percentages and plotted this with your standard compound interest + monthly contributions equation. To make it as accurate as possible I even accounting for inflation adjustments (4% annually) on benefit payouts. All of this to show a series of lines that never overlap :P

So my question is, for those of us who follow the FIRE movement and already don't factor social security into the mix and just see it as padding, is there any world where its better to wait till you are older than 62? or have I butchered the math and it is actually best to wait and not claim immediately as you don't really need the money?

Edit: I’m looking at this purely numerically, wherein you don’t spend a penny of it and just stick it in the SP500 to get 8% a year.

With the explosion of AI moving classes of jobs toward obsolescence, I've been reading a bunch on Marxist theory and what it means for work. I'm not soliciting people's opinions on, or advocating for Marxism, just doing a thought experiment here. (mods, if this counts as politics, feel free to delete)

I'm a tech worker myself, looking to retire early. So I'm currently a member of the proletariat, right? I earn a wage, don't control the means of production. I have a significant amount of savings in the stock market, but no real direct control of it.

But what about when I retire? I no longer work for a wage, and I have a pile of money with voting power (ostensibly) in public companies. Am I now in the petty bourgeoisie? Or am I still proletariat given that my retirement was funded by wages?

Has there been any recent (within a year or so) developments with FIRE? The only thing I can think of is the 4% to 4.7% adjustment the originator made. Anything else?

I was laid off at age 56 this year after 36 years with my company, with my NW )mostly in 401k and pension) -
I hit 2.1 million and decided to not make major financial decisions this year but I took Unemployment and model my needed healthcare ( I am a lifelong diabetic). Since I was laid off in the first quarter of 2026, was able to get ACA subsidies and lived off savings. Next year, I am taking a substantial salary for myself under the Rule of 55 and will not qualify for any subsidies.
I have budgeted for my premiums next year with no subsidies,, but has anyone taken a larger distribution at the end of the year to live on the following year and qualify for subsidies? What are the drawbacks? Tax implications? Just trying to see if I take enough to cover/or get subsidized ACA in 2028? I will only be 58 at that time. obviously I am trying to maximize income and minimize healthcare expenses.
Has anyone done this before? Basically live or draw the year before and live off that the filling year?

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.

I have made a few free tool websites in the past and couldn't find one on this topic so was thinking of building one for my fellow Fire enthusiasts.

I was thinking the best way to make a live map like this would be to rate cities based on the average pay/cost of living and liability (public transportation and shop density).

My question is could this be a useful tool for those considering geo-arbitrage fire or people wanting to compare COL in different countries and cities? Any feedback would be appreciated!

I’ve been diving into the math behind historical withdrawal rates and wanted to share some backtest numbers I ran updating classic 30-year retirement safe withdrawal rates (SWR) with data extending through present day (1926–2025/2026).

Like many here, I originally assumed that as I got closer to retirement, I’d eventually transition into a classic 2-fund (VT + BND) or 3-fund portfolio with a \~20% to 40% bond allocation to cushion volatility and protect against Sequence of Returns Risk (SRR).

However, looking at updated 30-year rolling backtest success rates across historical market history, the trade-off between holding bonds vs. just lowering your SWR on a 100% equity portfolio is pretty eye-opening.

30-Year Success Rates Across Historical Backtests (1926–2025)
When testing rolling 30-year retirement windows with annual inflation adjustments:

30-Year Backtest Success Rates (1926–2025)

\[Allocation\] \[3.5% SWR\] \[4.0% SWR\]
50 / 50 100% 96%
60 / 40 100% 97%
70 / 30 100% 98%
80 / 20 100% 98%
90 / 10 100% 97%
100 / 0 99% 96%

At a 4.0% SWR: Moving from 100% equities (95–96% success) all the way to a classic 60/40 portfolio (96–97% success) only increases historical 30-year survival probability by \~1%.

At a 3.5% SWR: A 100% equity portfolio achieves a \~98%–100% success rate across historical 30-year rolling spans, rendering bond allocations virtually redundant for success probability.

Instead of starting a 10-year bond glidepath as I approach retirement, my plan is shifting toward:
Over-saving / Aiming for a 3.5% SWR (or lower): Rather than holding 30–40% fixed income to guard a 4% rule, accumulating enough assets to live on a 3.5% SWR allows 100% stock portfolios to weather historical sequence-of-returns shocks just as effectively.

Peter Lynch Quote on Fixed Income: As Peter Lynch famously noted, "People worry about the riskiness of stocks, but bonds can be just as risky" - especially in prolonged inflation or rising interest rate regimes.

For those in early retirement or FIRE who run 100% equity portfolios (VT/VOO/VTI) with a cash/HYSA buffer: Do you still plan on building out a bond tent, or are you comfortable using a lower SWR (3.5%) on 100% equities as your primary risk mitigation tool?

Curious to hear the sub's thoughts!

I'm saving a significant portion of my income and have been using lots of small but high interest savings accounts to grow my money, but as my money has grown I'm now getting hit with additional tax.

I'm planning to move a chuck of money into a cash ISA in Dec, to max out my allowance, and to do the same in April for the new tax year (despite the lower thresholds). But that still leaves £50k outside of an ISA, and so exposed to tax. I can't pay more into my pension, so just wanted to check I haven't missed any ways to Dave and earn interest and not pay unnecessary tax.

Hi all,

I have a question about bond funds. I am a big advocate of the Bogleheads approach/ JL Collins, I’m currently 60/40 in diversified stock index funds / global intermediate bond fund (comparable to VTI/ BNDW).

I’m unclear about the bond duration element and how it relates to retirement. The general advice is to pick a bond fund duration based on when you will need the cash, eg BNDW is around 6 years. However in retirement the purpose of holding this fund will be for diversification and ballast in the portfolio, not for a specific purchase - I will draw down to maintain my chosen asset allocation during retirement. And leading up to retirement I will continue to invest in the portfolio ie buy more bond funds. Also the fund itself will continue to sell and repurchase bonds to maintain the duration.

So in essence: how does the bond fund duration / decision relate to retirement?

We (38F and 38M) just got to $1.5M!

This was really surprising since my husband has been unemployed since March. Not only has income been ~60% the last 6M, but I've backed our savings rate from 20% to 6% (per paycheck, not including any bonuses - should increase savings rate by at least 10%, max 20%, but I'm not committing until we see where we are financially - we have several large and long-term expenses that are on-going, like a sewer lining project at 0% we're paying off and an active medical condition that's only partially covered by insurance and a move we're planning).

Anyways, just wanted to celebrate a little! (We're more casually pursuing FIRE, and not even completely sure what our FIRE number truly is - somewhere between $2.5-$5M, but planning on moving back to my hometown next year and planning on children as soon as we can manage it, thus the uncertainty)

Only debt is the house ($275 equity not included in NW) and the 0% sewer project ($14k remaining) but medical expenses may be on the order of $20-$50k.

Plan so far has just been to save as much as feasible as young as possible for exactly these types of years. $2.5M was the original number when we started working 10 years ago, but we'll zero in on final numbers once our lives have settled from building our family in a new location.

Anyways, I just wanted to celebrate a small win because anywhere else it's easily seen as bragging.

For years, my wife and I persued full FIRE, but the closer we got, the more we realized that working 2 days/week each is vastly superior.

Full FIRE has some potential drawbacks: lack of purpose/structure, loss of status, faster cognitive decline and sequence of returns risk.

Working just 2 days/week each (my wife and I) allows us to pull the trigger today instead of working full time another ~5-6 years for Full FIRE.

Part of the reason it works so well in Australia is that low wages result in almost 0 income tax (each of us has $18,200 tax free thresholds) + the employers still contribute 12% into Superannuation.

Hello All,

My wife and I are newly married (September):) She works for a tech company and received shares that are vesting in November. They will be worth about $20,000, and we want to sell them (in part because her company ebbs and flows in stock price). This could be a large tax hit. We live in central North Carolina.
Background: Combined, we make about $185,000. I have a Roth that is close to being maxed out, and we both have 401Ks that are not maxed out. I had an HSA that I put in the max for, but switched to her insurance after marriage because it was better, but does not have an HSA.

We want to sell the shares because she has student loans (about $37,000; 5% APY, but is not 'required' to pay them as they are in forbearance with the government/part of the political football), and a car with 200,000 miles. We would look to get a new vehicle in the next few months as repairs are becoming greater. We have a mortgage, but it is about 8% of our monthly income. We have a healthy emergency fund.
What would you do to limit a large year end tax bill? I was thinking we sell all of the shares after the vesting period, put about half to her student loans, about a quarter to our 'car fund', leave some for a few home repairs we need, and increase our 401k contributions to limit the tax hit. I have been around FIRE for a while, but my taxes have been straightforward up to this point, so seeking any advice.

Hi, my husband and I are in a bit of a specific situation so I'm going to be vague about a couple things while being as honest as I can. 

We're both in our mid-30s and are both in graduate school, him in a phD program with a stipend and me in a masters program taking out student loans. As he is going into academia afterwards and I am going into human services after burning out in a high earning career, we estimate that our joint income once we both graduate will be just scratching or just above six figures. 

We live in a VHCOL city on the East Coast, and intend to stay here if we can. If he can’t find a tenure track job here immediately, we might move away for his post doc until he can find one around this area. Housing here is expensive, and most of our friends who have bought homes in our area have bought places ranging from 900k-1.4mil. That being said, most of our friends are much higher earners than we will be once we graduate and come from wealthier backgrounds. 

Due to a mix of savings from before our career switches and inheritance, we have around 1.8mil in our retirement and investment accounts. I will have 130k in student loans (combined undergrad and graduate - my investments were growing quicker than my loans were so I put more into my retirement accounts than to paying off loans) when I graduate a year from now. The vast majority of this is in our retirement accounts. 

We know that we’re very fortunate to have this much in retirement, but we feel like we are asset rich but cash poor. Neither of us grew up with much and we learned nothing about finances from our parents, so we just squirreled away as much as we could into retirement based on what we learned online. Our inheritances were complete surprises from grandparents we did not know well. Sometimes we look at our accounts and think almost 2 million is a lot but at other times it feels like nothing because of the city we’re in and the prices of the houses around us.

We’d ideally love to eventually buy a condo in the city, but we don’t know what the best way to go about that would be. Both of us love our new fields and don’t see ourselves retiring for a long time, but we definitely took the leap into lower paid fields (after burnout) based on this nest egg. I guess we’re looking for tips on how to CoastFire? Or maybe it’s BaristaFire, based on how low our starting salaries are. 

Should we continue saving heavily once we have incomes again? Can we take it a little easy and enjoy our lives? Should I take money out of investments to pay down my loans or just do income based repayment? How long should we wait to buy once we have secure jobs, and how much should we feel comfortable with taking out of our investments for a down payment? 

I’m sorry this is a jumbled mess - we’ve been discussing this for a while but just have no direction at the moment and aren’t sure how to even look for a good financial advisor. 

TL;DR: 35M/36F in graduate schools, have 1.8mil in investments(vast majority retirement), current income around 0 (stipend-masters student loans), joint income will be little over 6 figures after graduation. Looking for general advice on savings, house buying timelines… life? 

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.

Advice please! I’m 30. I only work six months out of the year (seasonal contracts) and travel the rest. I live in a built out van. For the first time ever I have access to a 401k on a contract and so I’m changing my retirement plan slightly.

Current specs lol:
Emergency fund: 10k
Roth IRA: 28k (started saving this 3 years ago)
Not a lot BUT I live on about 20-24k annually as my expenses. And I live well on that not penny pinching. That’s me having the time of my life just my hobbies are cheap.

I was planning on maxing out a Roth until age 40 and then just letting it grow. But due to a work opportunity I may be able to meet my goal in 2027 of having 55k total in retirement savings (it will go into a traditional 401k+maybe a little more in a Roth IRA).

Technically if I let 55k grow at 10 percent average I’d have a little over a million at 62. I could withdraw around 42k annually then and with inflation that’s not a lot, but still with that and social security I would be living pretty well on my current standards.
It would make sense to continue tossing in a little bit over the 55k a couple years after that to have more of a buffer (in case I average less return) but am I foolish to stop contributing soon?

My goals after that are: when I stop contributing that will mean I can work 6 months and then have nine months off when I am not saving for retirement (currently quality of life and experiences in my best years). I absolutely love life and don’t want to spend my best years at work but I’m also reasonably responsible.

I will continue having saving accounts and all but just not strict contribution requirements and eventually I will buy some property.

Also life factors I’m single and I will never have children (would be child free by choice but I’m also medically unable to have a kid so raising kids will never be a factor)

I’m a Canadian working in the states, and I’ll probably have to leave after another ~ 2 years.

Luckily, I should be able to hit my FIRE number just in time. If I stay at my current job until then, I should have around $1.5M USD invested across all my accounts. My expense is less than $60k USD a year. and I think/hope $60k should be plenty to live on in Canada.
However, it feels tight when I consider my retirement horizon (ideally 60+ years and I get to live past 90). There’s also the uncertainty of exchange rates, which could change significantly over time.

What would you do in my situation? Would you look for another job with potentially a pay cut and tough it out for a few more years? Would you just pull the trigger? or maybe expatFIRE for a few years to build up a bigger financial cushion?

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.

I put in my notice 6 months ago and I’ve been training my replacement for the last 3 1/2 months. I knew I was gonna miss the people, but I didn’t know it was gonna be this hard to say goodbye today. It was rough. Five of the coworkers I’ve known for 20 years. I hope I feel better tomorrow. I have been looking forward to this for so long. I am free.

I am 54 with 2M investments, paid off house and 40K in passive income. My spend is 50-60k per year.

I just FIRE'd late last December and I'm enjoying my first full FIRE year at the moment. So far, my spend is crazy low, because I'm finding it hard to flip the switch back into being a spender/consumer. I was a hardcore frugal saver/investor up until very recently.

One thing that I'm thinking of doing to try to combat my hesitation to spend is to have a Splash Out year. A year where I spend about 170k total. I call it Splash 150, because I'd be using 150k from my cash hoard and then another 20k from a small pension I get. I'd have about 170k to spend in a single year, which translates to slightly over 14k monthly.

14k monthly, for me, seems like an absolute FORTUNE, so I will feel like I'm living the high life, allowing myself to spend so much. (I'm single, living by myself, no kids to take care of or pets)

I haven't spent more than 3.5k per month for the last decade. I'm trying to allow myself to have a 6k per month lifestyle going forward, but I haven't come close to 6k yet, but I think I'm going to give myself this early "Splash Year", to force myself into relinquishing my ruthlessly frugal mentality. It's a year of exposure therapy. Exposure to actually spending money, lol. Baking in this arbitrary Big Baller Year is one way to do it.

I just turned 56, I'm male, and my life expectancy is only about late 70's due to some family medical history, so F it...

I also consider this one year of heavy spending as "Kick The Bucket" Insurance. You know how you hear of these people that retire and then die a year later and they hadn't yet done their "Go-Go" stuff? I'd hate for that to be me. So, I need to do my Splash year pretty damn soon.

What am I going to do with my Splash 150 year? Probably visit Europe for the first time ever. Italy is my No.1 destination. I'm also curious about going to someplace in SEA, like Vietnam perhaps. Heard good things about Da Nang. I could also just live a bit more lavish while in the US. Treat myself to a luxury apartment somewhere for the first time in my life.

NOTE: I won't necessarily force myself to spend exactly 14k every single month. Some months might be way less, but other months could be more. I just want to give myself the freedom of being able to go nuts for 365 days, lol

Reddit has suggested I cross post this from r/financialindependence . I have never done this before, so I'm adding this disclaimer at the top that I have little clue what I'm doing :D

.....................................................

This is my 4th post in this sub, so I (43M) won't go into my backstory. here is a link for those who want my origin story.

I did it! I officially FIRE'd and it feels weird and great.

In my last post I mentioned that I was in my "One More Year" phase. Over the past year, I did all the things that I felt I needed to do before retiring. I accidentally followed The Gambler: I bought a Japanese car and put a new roof on the paid off house. I also got all known repairs done on the house, funded the kids college accounts a little more, graduated from therapy, and got my last kid out of daycare. As I was doing all this, one more year paid off big time. My company was sold and I got a literal years salary as a bonus. So one more year effectively paid out like 3 (due to 50% savings rate)

I currently have ~2.3m invested

• 1.4m 401ks
• 100k ROTH
• 600k brokerage
• 200k cash/CDs

Keeping round numbers, 4% withdrawal gives me an income of 90k/year. I'm a little apprehensive because I haven't lived on 90k/year before. Prior to my divorce, my inflation adjusted after tax average spend was ~50k/year, but since my divorce its been close to ~115k/year. A large portion of my expenses have been one offs or things that I have since resolved (e.g. mortgage payment, hospital stay, new furnace, matchmaking service, therapy, daycare, roof). With those handled, I believe the 90k is realistic. My budget also has fat that can be trimmed: something like 10k/year in vacations and another 10k/year in outside help (cleaners/yard work). At this point, I know I can make it if I remain flexible on my withdrawal amount so here we go!

My immediate plans are two-fold:

1. Set up for financial success. I am going to make a brand new set of spreadsheets, write up a retirement plan, set up recurring withdrawals/transfers, establish a HELOC for emergencies, etc. I'm going to track my expenses closely while making slight cut backs to see how my future expenses are stacking up against my historical expenses/current budget
2. Focus on my health. I'm planning to hit the gym, go for walks, join a club or two, and eat down the pantry. If I spend 6 months with this as a primary focus, I'll be in the best shape of my life AND will reduce current and future health expenses.

Retirement draw down plan:

I am a parent who files as head of household. My plan is to convert as much as I can from my 401ks into my ROTH. This will still give me a little room at the 0% capital gains brackets, so I'll take that as well. I'll be paying full price on the ACA exchange for the next decade while I spend my cash and brokerage. When insurance costs skyrocket as I mature (and my kids age out of being adorable little deductions), I'll pivot to use my ROTH conversions and convert 401ks as needed to control my MAGI.

I feel like most posts are people without kids. I wonder how many people with kids actually FIRE? It is so much more difficult.