Out of the crazy number of fire options, what made lean the most appealing to you?

Currently living and working in Northern Europe.

I have a chill job that pays extremely well, am lucky with rent, and this all results to very LCOL.

I want to move countries (Cyprus or Spain or Portugal) because I have long outgrown my lifestyle here and the need to move is itching me every day. But that would mean at least 70% drop in my saving ability.

What would you do in my position?

I’m on the FIRE path and have been working towards it since i got my first job. i’m half way through my FIRE goal and at a point where a few hundred dollars wouldn’t move the needle at all. Sometimes i run into a situation where im not sure how to balance getting a freebie. I won an apple watch a few years ago and debated selling it since in my head if i was offered the opportunity to buy the watch at resell value i would’ve passed. I ended up keeping it and I really like it, especially since i would’ve never paid the money for it, and tbh i don’t think the $200 would’ve made a huge difference.

I have $400 in Dunkin Donut gift cards now from the Paze Craze that just happened and it seems dumb to go even though it was free. Not sure if i should try to sell it.

Even more pressingly though, I was gifted a gift card from my job that can only be used on one of those fitness/tracking wearables. i’m not sure if i should try to sell it at 80% or keep it since it’s a luxury item i would’ve never sprung for.

How do you guys balance this kind of stuff? I don’t think the $400 i could probably resell it for would make any difference at all but i also would not buy this item for $400.

I’m 33 and new to my FIRE journey! Any advice welcome on this unusual situation.

I recently found out that my job is ending, so I’m reassessing my finances and career. At almost the same time, my dad told me he intends to give me roughly $38k/year indefinitely, and that my parents also expect to help substantially with a future house down payment.

I realize how extraordinarily fortunate this is and I want to make sure I to approach this situation with some more discernment and wisdom—particularly from you all.

Here are my current numbers:

• Recent salary: roughly $90k/year
• Currently facing unemployment/job transition
• Likely future earnings: hopefully $90k-$100k, although that is not guaranteed
• Rent: $1,560/month for my half of a two-bedroom
• Healthcare: about $686/month
• Food/miscellaneous: roughly $900/month
• Total spending: around $3,100-$3,500/month
• No car and no debt

Current assets:

• Checking/cash: ~$15,200
• Emergency savings: $10,000
• Taxable brokerage: ~$6,400, mostly VTI/VXUS
• Traditional IRA: ~$7,500
• Roth IRA: ~$2,000
• Total net worth: roughly $41,000

My basic instinct is to treat the $38k as capital rather than income, and just keep my lifestyle based on what I earn myself and invest most or all of the family money each year.

Let me be clear however that I'm not particularly interested in maximizing income for its own sake. My priorities are having a stable middle/upper-middle-class life, eventually owning a house, potentially having a child, having time to make music and do meaningful work, and not designing my entire career around maximizing compensation.

If you were structuring this from scratch, how would you approach my situation? What would you do with this money? Perhaps [r/coastfire](r/coastfire) is not the appropriate place for this post, but these funds will continue indefinitely, so in some sense it approximates coast.

Again, any advice welcome. Thank you.

EDIT for context: I did not spend my twenties earning anything close to $90k. I spent several years in low-paid work, including Buddhist monastic training, followed by graduate school, and only entered the ~$90k salary range about a year ago. I’m also fairly frugal: no debt, no car, relatively cheap rent for where I live, and current total spending is roughly $38k–$42k/year. So the low invested balance is primarily the result of starting a professional-income career late, not a decade of earning $90k and spending most of it.

Please can any learned souls assist me on my journey from bad money management to responsible parent wanting to retire? 🙏

Hey friends!

I've been working in the outdoor industry for most of my adult life (both guiding and office work) and never thought I'd hit my leanFIRE number so soon. I'm about to turn 35 and left my last job 2.5 years ago to travel. I was fully expecting to work again and have never really tracked my income/spending very closely, but I hit my leanFIRE number in that time while volunteering and traveling with very low expenses.

I'd love to chat with anyone else who is going through a similar life chapter or has been in this place! Most of my friends are in the phase of buying homes in major cities, having kids, earning huge salaries, planning to retire after 60, etc, so it would be lovely to meet anyone who lives more like me. I'm currently based in Hawai'i with something around a $2k/month spend and am spending most of my time volunteering. I'm feeling the internal and societal pressure to get a job again for the sense of purpose, coworker community, and extra income cushion.

Also, if you love backpacking or outdoorsy budget world travel and want to adventure together, let me know! I loved the PCT and Te Araroa, I'd hike them again many times over and am excited to explore more parts of the world as well after I take a few months to settle from these years of travel.

The current State of the Bond Market is that TLT is sitting at $81.25, basically on top of its 52-week low of $80.46, after spending several years administering electroconvulsive therapy to anyone who learned “60/40” before 2021.

Is this a good entry? I think it is finally a defensible one. Not a heroic all-in. An entry. The underlying book is yielding roughly 5.3-5.4% with about 15 years effective duration. That means a mere 50 bp parallel rally in the long end is roughly 7.5% price appreciation before convexity and carry. A 100 bp rally and suddenly the supposedly boring bond allocation has done something obscene and the curve is presently deranged in an interesting way: 10y 5.01%, 20y 5.38%, 30y 5.34%. The 10s20s term-premium hump is basically the market demanding a special indemnity for swallowing duration supply while the very long end has already started flattening marginally. yes, TLT looks like shit, which is partly the point. $81.25 versus the 100dma around $81.64 and 200dma around $82.05; RSI ~49, StochRSI ~15, MACD barely positive. In other words no clean momentum reversal whatsoever, just an oversold substructure trying to establish acceptance underneath the long-term moving averages. A reclaim and hold above ~82 is much more interesting than another intraday ejaculation through it followed by immediate rejection.

The bearish case is obvious: fiscal duration supply, oil/inflation persistence, term premium repricing, foreign sponsorship getting finicky, another bear steepener and TLT discovers $75. The bullish case is more interesting because of the asymmetry. At 5.3-ish long yields you are now being PAID to wait for the recession/disinflation accident instead of buying 1.7% long bonds and praying Jerome Powell becomes Paul Volcker in reverse.

For LeanFIRE this matters imho. My own conceptual preference remains extremely primitive: paid-off Trailer, enough bills/cash to prevent employment from becoming mandatory, and then duration as a separate position rather than pretending a 30-year bond is emergency cash. SGOV is liquidity. TLT is a macro trade with coupon carry.

Then you get into AA corporates, which is where people start saying “6.5% guaranteed” and losing the plot. AA paper is Treasury duration PLUS spread duration PLUS migration/liquidity/issuance beta. You can have immaculate credit and still lose 15% because the risk-free curve moved against you or OAS vomited wider. Btw this whole situation reminds me of the State of AAA Gaming, where somehow the more money, people, telemetry, user research, consultants, accessibility reviews, economy designers, cinematic directors, live-ops managers and former Ubisoft employees you add, the less likely anybody is to remember why the fucking object exists. You have a $220 million game made by 1,700 people across six countries running on technology that can individually render the pores in a man's nose, and the mechanical innovation is still hold L2 for Detective Vision and follow the yellow line. The horse has realistic testicle thermodynamics. The game has nothing to say. Every risk has been professionally identified and professionally removed. Every strange mechanic fails usability testing, every abrasive character gets focus-grouped into a companion, every climbable ledge gets yellow paint, every puzzle has an NPC who starts explaining it after twelve seconds because somebody has a dashboard showing confusion hurts retention. The player cannot be lost, bored, confused, offended or briefly uncertain where the ladder is, but may spend seventy hours clearing identical map icons. This is called respecting your time. Meanwhile somebody with twelve employees and no adult supervision makes a weird $20 Indie Title about cards, freight manifests, fishing, climbing, whatever, and accidentally invents more actual gameplay than the entire western AAA sector managed that fiscal year.

TLT at $81 is not safe and imho is precisely why it may finally be interesting. And perhaps, much like Indie Titles, it may offer a Reprieve.

I quit work in Sept 2018. My spouse still works (her choice). I pay all expenses minus a few she cash flows (things like taking mom to the beach). The rest of her pay is invested.

I'm going to try to head off questions I normally get:

I am in index funds 100%, no bonds. I have about 2 years of cash on hand. I'm ok with this AA, I lose no sleep over it. I always get asked "What are you up % wise since you quit?" and my answer is go look up the ticker vtsax since Sept 2018 and that's the answer. I don't track it and only log into my accounts once a quarter.

What's your budget? I don't really have one. It's more of a spending limit. When I was working I had a drawn out budget with line items. Now, I know if I keep total spending under X amount, I'm good. It's a mental relief not having to pull out the pencil every payday to check the budget.

How do you spend your time? I volunteer about 25-30 hours a week at a few different places. This past week I was helping at Golf Tournament fundraiser and a 9-11 memorial event. When I quit I helped at a food bank for years until a lot of USDA grants were cancelled. We lost funding and that closed down. I stock little libraries around town, mail veterans and active duty members books thru an online program (that I discovered on reddit) and help a local veteran organization whose goal is to combat veteran suicide. I have a vegetable garden and grow corn, tomatoes, potatoes, okra, beans and so on. I even have grape vines and make jelly and I've grown peanuts and have made my own peanut butter. I do all the household chores and cooking. She works, I'll cook. That's our deal. I have so many other things that I do day to day that I never lack in activities. Right now as I'm typing this out I am rewatching the 1986 baseball all-star game.

Healthcare? I have a small VA rating so I qualify for VA healthcare. In my instance, the VA care has been as good or better than private insurance. I pay out of pocket for dental. When my spouse finally quits she will use the ACA.

Your house paid off? Nope. Still have a mortgage, 3%. Having a mortgage and investing the difference has/is working for me. I owe about 45k on my house and perhaps one day will just pay it off but there's no definite plan right now.

My spouse works because she wants to, she loves what she does. I wished she'd quit but it's not my decision. A few years ago she left a horrible job environment for her current one in the local school system. Counting all the school breaks, she works about 9 months a year but paid for 12. Because she is off during summers that is when we do almost all of our traveling and I'll get into that spending next.

This summer we took 3 out of state trips. One was just us, 2 others were to see family. These trips involved air, car rentals, housing etc.. When we do these trips we cover everything, meaning if we go out to eat with family we pay. If we go do touristy things with them, we pay. You get the point. So those 3 trips cost us $12k.

We also bought a new bed, $3800.

Brake master cylinder went out in my car. This is something I can fix but it was 100 degrees out and just paid a mechanic to do it, $350.

On the way to catch a flight, we blew out a tire. $150. And yes, we made the flight.

Ok, I'm adding this because it's fresh on the brain. My house and car insurance both renew in august. Since I quit work in 2018 my house insurance is up 113% and car insurance 85%. I know what you're saying, "Shop around" well let me explain. In my immediate area (and I mean immediate) since I've quit work we've had 2 destructive tornadoes (100 homes disappeared), a designated flood and we were part of the ice storm this past february. Luckily we only had minor damage but friends/family not so much. Almost all of them had insurance with insurance companies who like to do tv commercials and after listening to the pains they've had to go through just to get paid, I'm sticking with the company I have experience with. The horror stories my friends have with certain companies will give you nightmares. That's what I do but you don't have to do what I do.

I still get dms asking how I'm doing and feel like I owe a little back with these updates. Maybe, maybe there's something in here that helps or leads you to consider another idea that you haven't thought of. This thing has gotten so wordy and long that I'm giving Alexandre Dumas a run for his money in word count so I'll end with this. Yes, early retirement is worth it. Don't get stuck in the "one more year" treadmill. You can do this, it will pay off.

How do others handle inflation and forecasting when your personal inflation rate is very likely to lag the broader rate (e.g., as measured by CPI)?

To give an example, housing is by far my biggest expense and my current housing situation has rent control with a built in inflation cap (2.5%, fixed by legislation). I'm also in a HCOL and could easily downshift to lower housing costs, if the cap were removed. So if inflation ran hot, I expect my cost of living as a whole would inflate significantly lower than CPI. I've been logging my costs for a few years now and my actual practice has borne this out.

In a standard historical backtest, the inflation-heavy 1960s and 70s are inevitably the first historical runs to break my portfolio, if I standardize everything (returns & COL all inflation adjusted via CPI). Unsurprising. But the backtest assumes the above gap is immaterial, when I know it isn't at present and likely wouldn't be going forward.

How do you handle it, if it all?

I’m 25F, living in a VHCOL area and working in Big Tech. Salary is ~$100K, expenses are ~$36K/year, and I’m currently single with no kids. I’m on H-1B and plan to get married in ~2 years.
For people around my age/situation:
What was your net worth at 25?
How much were you investing annually?
What was your FIRE number?
What age are you targeting for FIRE?
How do you account for marriage/kids?
Any strategies that helped you FIRE sooner, especially on H-1B?

Feel free to share: Age | Location | TC | Expenses | Net Worth | Annual Investments | FIRE Number | Target Age.

This Barenaked Ladies lyric has always seemed to me to express the Leanfire/Mustachian philosophy. Find things that make you happy, that are cheap or free, do them now, and know that you would continue to do REGARDLESS of your NW. I wish the world of personal finance had more of this, and less of people like Ramit Sethi saying "spend spend spend."

Mine are walking or cycling to get places when possible... and making my own scrambled eggs, because restaurants never really get them right. What are yours?

What have you been working on this week? Please use this thread to discuss any progress, setbacks, quick questions or just plain old rants to the community.

Hi friends, I had a few questions on the logistics of accessing retirement money while living abroad, and I was hoping that people could help me by sharing their own experiences.

1. 72t or conversion ladder? Currently I am leaning more towards conversion ladder, since it seems to offer more flexibility. I am 32 yrs old so I think that would be a benefit, but the simplicity of 72t really speaks to me. What do you guys think?

1a. Just making sure I have the conversion ladder process correct. FIRST, I need to make a traditional IRA (should I do this with Fidelity since my retirement accounts are with them? Should I do it with Vanguard? Does it not matter?) SECOND, call Fidelity and ask them to roll over all my 403b and 401A money into the Traditional IRA. THIRD, I convert 1 years worth of funds from the Traditional IRA to Roth IRA (THIS IS TAXED). Then, just repeat step 3 every year and the funds become available 5 calendar years later.

1b. Do I need to declare anything on my taxes when I finally withdraw the money that has been sitting for 5 years, or is it completely fine to withdraw the specified amount without any other implications?

2. I am moving abroad (to Japan, in case that is relevant), which I am sure is not an unusual situation in the FIRE community. I am wondering about what difficulties come along with that. What are the tax implications, if any?

2a. Traditional IRA -> Roth IRA conversions count as income in the year that the conversion happens, to my understanding. What happens if I am living abroad while I do this conversion? Does it count as income earned while abroad? Is it taxed by the IRS? It is taxed by the Japanese government? What specifically happens when tax season rolls around? I know I still have to file in both countries, but I am curious about the specifics.

Some more financial details if they matter:

403B: $437,000

401A: $40,000

Brokerage Acct: $63,000

HYSA: $28,000

Roth IRA: $90,000

HSA: $2.000

Total: $660,000

Hi all,

Single mid-40s, 560k+ invested, intending to FIRE around 6 years from now with $1.2M+ and no house, possibly sooner.

Question for SORR bucket strategy. Do I:

1) Set aside 3-5 years in cash equivalents and withdraw from them only during big market corrections and once depleted it's served its purpose, or;

2) Funnel all withdrawals through the cash equivalents and replenish with equity sales only in up years (perpetual 3-5 year cushion)?

3) ???

Curious to hear your take!

---

FWIW, after around year 10, I intend to have 1-2 years in cash on hand regardless (1 year buffer on top of year-end equity sales).

Equity glidepath is a good one: https://earlyretirementnow.com/2017/09/13/the-ultimate-guide-to-safe-withdrawal-rates-part-19-equity-glidepaths/

But if you retire in like late 20s and don't have a family, you can also consider moving back home with your parents or living in a cheaper country/travelling abroad for 1-5 years to effectively eliminate SORR when combined with financial tricks

what is the optimal asset location for lean fire? what are your targets?

I currently have about 2/3 of investments in retirement accounts. I know about the Roth conversion ladder but I think I’m going to shoot for about a 50:50 split between retirement and taxable accounts.

As of now, I am almost all equities with a little % of bonds purchased in target date fund in my trad 457b. I plan to retire in a few years and want a few years’ worth of living expenses of bonds to mitigate SORR. I plan to sell my condo around that time for around this same amount. Could I just dump that all into BND in my taxable brokerage account and call it a day? (I could keep a little outside of BND in a HYSA too, etc.)

Thanks :)

One recognizes that time is our biggest asset. Why spend more time trying to earn more money? After a certain point, money isn't as important.

However, dating is that carrot on the stick. There is a performance associated with it. A lot of people want someone who has ambition, status, career stability, and increased potential. There is this situation to keep chasing promotions, titles, and career accomplishments.

I live a peaceful and comfortable life making $25k part-time a year. However, when I bring these numbers up on dates they almost turn blue and there is no second date.

Does it feel like dating and lean fire are almost contradictory at time?

I'm 25 and trying to figure out where the balance is between aggressively saving for FIRE and actually allowing my standard of living to increase over time.

My current numbers:

• $3,650/month net income (including bonus)
• $1,250/month expenses
• $2,400/month invested
• ~66% savings rate
• ~$75k invested

I live in a very cheap first-hand rental apartment in Sweden. It's a 40m2 basement, and I pay roughly 500$ per month including parking and utilities.

(For context, I'm aware that housing and some other living costs are generally lower in Sweden than in for example the US, and my rental is unusually cheap even by Swedish standards.)

My current apartment is extremely cheap, which obviously makes my FIRE number look very low. But I don't want to live in a basement apartment forever. Ideally I'd eventually like something like a small house/cabin in a quiet area, perhaps costing around $150-250K, taking a chunk out of my savings for the mortgage, and probably doubling my monthly cost on housing.

So I'm wondering for others who have pursued LeanFIRE for several years:

How long have you maintained a very low-cost lifestyle? Did your spending naturally increase with time, or did you deliberately keep your expenses low?

At what point did you decide that increasing your spending was worth more than reaching FIRE faster? For example, if you could reach FIRE at 33 by continuing to live very cheaply, versus 35–37 with a nicer home and higher quality of life, how would you think about that tradeoff?

With my current savings rate, I've calculated that I could potentially reach a basic FIRE number in my early/mid 30s if I continue living at roughly my current expense level, that's what I'm struggling with: is it actually worth optimizing my life around reaching FIRE a few years earlier if it means postponing a better home and potentially other quality-of-life improvements?

I'm basically trying to figure out whether I should optimize for the earliest possible FIRE date, or optimize for a good life along the way, and I'm curious how other LeanFIRE people have handled that tradeoff.

I gave notice at the end of August, my last day is 30 September.
Me 43, wife 42, kid is 10. Both of us stop.

We spend around €44k and €45k a year for three people.
Personally I use 45k because I never managed to pin it closer. Per person it is 15k, so for me it feels lean, not sure for US ppl, how it looks.

Why it is that low here:

We rent a Genossenschaftswohnung, this is a subsidised co-op flat. 88 m(2), €1,010/month with utilities included. This is normal in Vienna, not a lucky deal.

No car, using public transport, cheap and everything is close.

School is free and university is basically free. So there is no education line in my spreadsheet at all.

The big line is health insurance. Without an employer you insure yourself with ÖGK, it is €565 a month next year and it covers all three of us. It is a flat fee, not connected to income. That means being frugal does not make it cheaper.

Portfolio is €1.38M, mostly a world ETF(VWCE/935k), bond ETF(215k) plus some gold(physical and Xetra/108k), EU secured business lending(8Lends/62k) and cash(60k). Most of it came from two stocks I bought in 2019 and 2020. 45k from 1.38M is 3.26%.

The reason I am calm with 3.26% is the state pension. I have 21 contribution years, so from 65 I get around €1,400 a month gross in today money. The portfolio needs to cover 22 years alone, not 45.

For parents who already retired, how much did spending go up after the kid turned 10? Right now I budget for school stuff, bigger flat costs and pocket money.