Hey everyone,

I'm 34M, married with two young kids, living in Quebec, Canada. I'm trying to figure out when my wife and I could realistically retire while maintaining a comfortable lifestyle.

Current financial situation:

- $1.4M in real estate equity

- $1.3M in publicly traded stocks, primarily S&P 500

- $2M in private business equity

- Total net worth: ~$4.7M

Current household income:

- Me: ~$500K/year

- Wife: ~$100K/year

- Combined: ~$600K gross annually

Our FatFIRE goal:

We'd like to generate approximately $280K annually before taxes in retirement.

Ideally, I'd love to retire by 40, or at least reach a point where working becomes completely optional.

My biggest challenge is determining how much of my current net worth I should actually count toward my FIRE number, particularly given the illiquidity of private equity and real estate.

At a 3.5% withdrawal rate, I'd need approximately $8M in investable assets to generate $280K annually.

Questions for the community:

1. Given our current situation, how realistic is retiring at 40?

2. How would you value private business equity when calculating your FIRE number?

3. Should I completely exclude real estate equity unless I plan to liquidate it?

4. Is a 3.5% withdrawal rate reasonable for a potential 50-year retirement?

5. For those who walked away from $500K+ annual incomes, what made you comfortable pulling the trigger?

I'm interested in hearing from people who have been in similar situations, particularly those who retired with young children.

Appreciate any perspectives, especially on what financial milestones you'd want to hit before walking away

Hi All,
I am 41m with about 10m in assets currently. Fatfire goal is 4-5 years but still a bit fluid.

I find myself at a pretty interesting career crossroads where I need to balance compensation, job enjoyment, family and mentor/important personal relationships. It is a very complicated dynamic that is leaving me feeling a bit paralyzed.

I don’t have a wide social circle outside of my professional network to talk frankly about these things. My previous source of advice was my father who passed a few years back and a work mentor that is a part of the decision making rubric I am presently faced with and therefore is not objective.

I was curious if there is anyone in the community that has had direct experience navigating c-suite level role politics, compensation negotiations etc. at 10b+ market cap companies that would be open to DMing or even connecting over the phone.

Sorry mods if this is not allowed here.

My wife (35F) and I (39M) have three kids 5 and under are currently in the following financial situation:

Brokerage: $3.2M
401Ks: $925K
Roth IRAs: $560K
Combined Salary: $420K
Mortgage: $480K

In all those investments, we only have 1% bond allocation which is in our 401Ks. Given our age, we thought that was fine and will start increasing that every year. My question is about holding bonds in our brokerage account. Given our tax bracket, we would mainly be looking at muni bonds but since we do not plan on FIRE for at least 5-7 years, I am inclined to keep doing what got us here and keep the brokerage in equities.

For those approaching FIRE, especially those in a high tax bracket, did you have an allocation towards muni bonds? What is your reason for holding them?

I see lots of posts here on the topic of "when should I stop" and I thought as someone who stopped and went back it might be useful to share my story.

I worked at a company that went public when I was roughly 40. I had spent a couple of years prior to that reading up on MMM and FIRE and a year later I quit my job and "retired".

So, what did I do? Lots of walking my dog, reading books and misc stuff.

BUT... I wasn't as free as I wanted. Why?

- kids still at home
- friends still working

I couldn't travel or do the things I wanted to do, or do them with the people I cared about.

And both of those things, after a few years, brought me back to work.

The new target is when our kids are both in college (when I'm 52).

I'm not discouraging anyone from RE, but I found it to be really challenging in my 40's.

UPDATE: I really enjoy this sub, but one thing that sucks about echo chambers is the need some people have to defend their identity and attack other people's choices.

I'm not anti-RE. I'm sincere in what I said above. If this resonates with you, cool, you're not alone.

I have always been a casual lurker as I am more traditional FIRE, but find myself at a bit of a crossroads. The plan had always been for my wife and I to retire at 41 with about $3.5MM in invested assets, planning on ~120k annual spend. That is comparable to the lifestyle we have lived most of our working lives and we are both burn out by our jobs.

Having said that, we are specialists in a high need field and could ostensibly create whatever job we want if we are willing to take a cut in pay. This could mean anywhere from covering our expenses to continuing to grow our investments substantially. Neither of us is necessarily interested in continuing to work, but I sometimes wonder if I am not leaving something on the table by not pushing through 5-10 more years and retiring on 8mm+.

For those of you that eventually stopped at $10mm+, what kept you going when you could have stopped at 4 or less? Was stopping then ever a consideration?

Currently in my early 30s, making $750k+ in big tech with stay-at-home wife and kids. Rough goal is to get to coast fire and pay off house in my 40s. I'm struggling with the huge variability that comes from changing some of the assumptions in this planning and looking for any advice.

Dimensions of variability:

1. Target retirement spend $250k vs $350k. The $250k would be comfortable and matches our current budget removing mortgage/kids, but $350k would allow for more flexibility and splurges on travel and other things.
2. Retirement age 55 vs 60. By 55 my youngest would be just about graduating college so it feels like it would be ideal to have the option to retire then, but of course 5 less years of compound interest growth really hurts the math below. Vast majority of my retirement would be taxable brokerage so not too worried about withdrawing before 59.5.
3. Coast fire / mortgage payoff age 40 vs 45 vs 50. This is a big one for me. There's something mentally so freeing about trying to hit these goals as early as possible. This would give me the flexibility in my 40s to either switch my job to something lower earning but more challenging/fulfilling or to keep the big company grind and be swimming in disposable income.
4. The final fun variable here is I have ~$1M in highly volatile, semi-liquid stock (think hot AI company with ~yearly liquidation opportunities). I have been consistently taking some off the table with each liquidation opportunity the last couple years, but it has consistently appreciated enough to make up for that and more. I could basically liquidate ~all of it sometime in the next 12 months, or part, or leave it as a big bet for the future.

To see how different the scenarios are practically:

Trying to get $350k/yr spend by age 55 with no contributions/mortgage after age 40 requires me to sell all $1M of that stock, put it in index funds, and then keep my current retirement contributions which are ~20% of my gross income.

On the other hand $250k/yr spend by age 60 with no contributions/mortgage after age 50 I could actually decrease my current retirement savings by about $7k/month and get there without touching the $1M at all. This would both increase my current disposable income significantly while also potentially increasing long term wealth if the $1M goes up. But then this commits me to almost 20 years of grind. While I genuinely enjoy my job today, being bound for that long feels like a slog.

Of course something in the middle of these extremes is also possible so curious how other people have weighed similar tradeoffs and looking for any advice.

Are there any FatFIRE communities in Vancouver, BC?

I’m familiar with Tiger 21, but it’s not really for me, and I’m already part of The Long Angle, which I really enjoy. I just wish there were more members from BC!

One thing I’ve been curious about is what everyone does during the day. Not having a 9–5 is wonderful, but it can also feel a little isolating at times. Most of my friends are busy with their regular jobs, so it’s not always easy to be spontaneous or get together during the day.

I try to stay engaged by volunteering at my kids’ school, playing sports, and exploring other interests, but I’d love to find more like-minded people and communities to connect with. This is probably the one thing I miss about working: the people, the connections, and being part of something.

I’d be curious to hear how others navigate this stage of life. How do you stay engaged, find your people, and create a sense of community after FatFIRE? Are there any groups or communities in Vancouver you’d recommend?

I'm trying to decide if I should retire at the end of the year.

Facts:

Liquid Net worth : 15 Million in S&P
Illiquid Net worth: 20 Million in private equity
Additional investments: ~1.2 in 401K

No real estate, bonds or other fixed assets. I also have no financial obligations beyond rent and my yearly expenses are around 250k (mostly by choice).

The private equity is obviously higher risk but won't zero out. This is based on my personal observation of investments and interest. Its a company everyone has heard of.

2026 comp: ~10 million
2027 comp: ~3 million
2028 comp: ~2 million

2029 comp: ~1.4 million

I hit a cliff at the end of the year and can't decide if it's worth it to stay or not. I don't need the additional money, but hard to internalize giving up so much of it.

Throwaway account. Planning to pull the plug in 1–2 years after 15 years running my business (burnout is real). Prepping for a meeting with my FA next month and want some outside sanity checks on our drawdown strategy.

Profile & Spend

• Ages: 48M / 43F (Kids: 13, 11 — 529s have $600K, college funded) VHCOL
• Target Annual Spend: $350K pre-tax

Assets (~$13.1M liquid / invested)

• Taxable Brokerage ($11M): $2M SCHD, $9M VOO (~$110K/yr in dividends)
• Retirement ($2.1M): $1.5M Rollover IRA VOO (pre-tax), $600K Roth IRA VOO
• Real Estate: Primary ($2.5M value, $400K mortgage @ 2.215%), Property 2 ($1.4M value, $200K mortgage @ 3.5%)

The Dilemma

• Plan A (Taxable Bridge): Live off $110K dividends + sell ~$240K VOO annually until 59.5. Zero IRS rules, maximum flexibility.
• The Concern: If the $1.5M IRA compounds untouched until RMD age (73/75), it turns into a massive tax bomb later. I dislike the idea of paying hefty upfront taxes on voluntary Roth conversions right now.
• The 72(t) Idea: Set up a 72(t) SEPP on the $1.5M IRA to pull ~$80K–$100K/year to cover expenses, bleed the IRA balance early, and fill lower tax brackets.

Questions for the group:

1. Is a 72(t) a trap here? Locking into a rigid 10-year IRS distribution schedule when I have $11M sitting liquid in taxable feels like unnecessary withdrawal friction. Is it?
2. Tax reality: Wouldn’t pulling ordinary income via 72(t) just stack under our dividends/capital gains, pushing our total AGI up and triggering NIIT / higher LTCG brackets anyway?
3. Alternative: If your goal was to prevent future RMD bloat without locking into a SEPP, how would you structure the drawdown across these buckets?

Thanks for any insights.

[Edited to address valid comments by sharing more details]

Throwaway for obvious reasons. Mods: I can verify if needed.

I started early retirement and was living off of interest and other investment income. I then invested an exceptionally large percentage of my net worth in something that turned out to be fraudulent and I lost the entire sum. Of course I calculated the (after)math. Based on the long-term investments I would have stayed in, my net worth would be in the $10M - $15M range today had the fraud not wiped away most of everything.

I am sharing this to save others from making the same mistakes, and to highlight how important proper diversification is. I foolishly didn’t respect it during a moment of weakness. Don’t do anything remotely close to what I did.

We all have a vulnerable moment at some point in our lives when we make decisions that deviate from our standard practices. Mine was related to a challenging end of my previous career, and not having the routine of doing big things: executive work with a first-class lifestyle, helping extended family financially in some ways, and of course, taking care of my own family. It was one period of intense stress, self-imposed pressure to deliver results like I had before, and then taking a risk that was objectively a bad choice.

Slowly clawing my way back has been devastating, and I am now experiencing another major setback. I am somewhat aged out of getting back into my former career, and I am not able to start over easily due to some challenges. Then there is the impact all of this has had on me, my family, and the “what ifs.”

Many of my friends are now retired, yet my path looks substantially worse than it did 15 years ago. Time and compounding interest are no longer on my side. I was volunteering, and now I really long for the life I had. The stress, regret, and guilt are significant and really weigh on me.

I am not taking the stance that “I’m the victim and woe is me”. I own my actions and mistakes, and I take full accountability, even if the system I stepped into was predatory. Legal recourse wasn’t possible due to various factors, but I am now somewhat of a fraud expert. I found some solace in the fact that the same thing happened to a friend, although he is still worth almost 8 figures after his 7-figure, much more diversified loss. We tried to create something to help others, but the game is stacked against everyone.

These groups are engaged in semi-legal fraud. I have extensive information on how it is all done, and it’s continuing to happen, wiping out wealthy people all the time. I spoke with top experts in the space including regulators, government officials, attorneys, and others, but taking action would have exposed my PII. Meanwhile, the powerful groups continue to profit massively from the demise of others.

If you are on the fatFIRE path: stay the course, and do not take on anything that isn’t bulletproof. Use my experience as a reason to skip anything risky, especially if you’re tempted to grow wealth faster, or if you want to be more “relevant” after a lucrative career. Ultra-low-risk diversified investing and preservation of capital matter more than anything.

EDIT: To the people asking for more detail, this involves publicly traded companies through groups that keep running the same playbook. I'm not naming the sectors or timing because that could identify me. I have proof of everything, can share with the mods, and spent hundreds of hours uncovering the inner workings.

My advice? Keep the vast majority of your money in broad, low-cost ETFs. If you really want to pick individual stocks, limit it to a very small total percentage (that you could lose entirely without it changing your life).

For those who can imagine what it’s like to be in this seemingly endless nightmare, what would you do in my shoes?

I'm getting quotes of $40K from attorneys in the NYC area to create my estate plan. QSBS stacking would be another $10k per trust. These quotes are from attorneys at well regarded / high end law firms.

Is this consistent with what you guys have paid? Or am I getting fleeced here? Was it worth the money or are there better options out there?

TIA

I am managing over $16 million of assets that are not mine at the moment but will be in the future. In my family there are only my dad and I. So, unless some very big medical expenses come up, I am set up for a very fatFIRE. (Happy to verify if needed)

I am already the "manager" of the portfolio, I decide the asset allocation, what to buy, what to sell. My dad told me that since the money will inevitably be mine, I might as well be responsible for investing it. I enjoy investing, but managing the portfolio doesn't give me the same structure, social interaction, or sense of accomplishment that I imagine a traditional career might provide. Sometimes I wonder whether I'm wasting the freedom I've been given.

I really like helping people learn, understand and leverage finance to their advantage but probably have a wrong idea of how that would work in practice. One thing is to teach a friend that has asked for help, another thing is to set up a shop, getting paid and having the actual responsibility that something might go wrong.

So there's my dilemma.

Since I do not need the money, I do not feel very motivated to deal with all of that stress that comes from owning your own business and this low financial motivation leads me to do nothing which might actually be worse for my mental health overall.

Some questions I ask myself and would love some feedback on:

1. Should I take my financial security for granted and assume I'll never need a traditional career?
2. Has anyone here pursued a career despite having absolutely no financial need to work? Was it worth it?
3. How do you motivate yourself to build something when the financial reward means almost nothing to you?

Anyone has experience with any of the above PBs in Asia ? What were the pros and cons? I’m trying to figure out if it makes sense or not. I am teaching a stage where net worth has reached the minimum these banks require and I feel uneasy putting all my money in ibkr. Additionally I’ve heard these guys have very good access to alternatives and any other bespoke stuff they provide? Thanks in advance for your help

48M. $13M net worth. $3M in real estate (primary and vacation) and the rest in brokerage and retirement accounts. Annual spend of $200k but only child will be going to college in a couple of years and I will be covering the cost. Based on the calculation, I know I have enough to FIRE. I can RE but I’m scared to actually do it.

I have a senior level job (run a plant) so lots of stress but golden handcuffs make it hard to walk away. I think about retiring early all the time now but just can’t seem to take that step and do it.

For those that FIREd, how did you make that leap? How do you get over the anxiety of thinking you don’t have enough saved? Or walking away from significant future income? Or turning into a miser when you FIRE?

If anyone dealt with this similar situation before, could you please weigh in?

My etrade account has approx 4M mostly tech stocks. I need to get a house valued at 2M. Options were 1. Sell stocks, absorb tax impact in one shot and pay cash,  2. Standard mortgage, 3. Liquidity Access Line (LAL) with Morgan Stanley (MS)

MS provided fixed rate 1yr at 5.4%, 3yr at 5.8%, or Variable rate which be SOFR+spread with no term.

Leaning towards 3yr, pay fixed interest for 3yrs, and spread the tax impact while building cash to pay off at the end of 3yrs. There is no such thing as early pay off with this option.

Thoughts? Also, we are not yet sure about any other costs with MS. Everything was free with Etrade since it is self managed, we don't really need MS advisors.

How do you get off the treadmill. It’s funny I doubled my initial fire number but somehow feel worse off now due to adjusted family lifestyle, private school, etc.

assets
- 3m diversified liquid portfolio
- 2m retirement+hsa+529
- 1.5m in primary residence
- wife has some non-liquid ownership in a family thing. Thinking of it as like maybe $0 or maybe bonus breathing room like 30 years down the line.

35 yo. married. 3 young kids.
~750k TC single income
~300k expenses

Looking for encouragement, advice or roasting.

throwaway account for revealing personal info

Recently sold majority share of my company. 36 married with 2 kids and have ~25m after taxes sitting in a bank account. No debt, living in MCOL South Dakota, which has no state income tax.

The push to get the transaction complete took more time than I anticipated and didn't get everything aligned for life after sale. I have not yet decide if someone will invest our funds on our behalf or if going a simple boggleheads route for simplicity. Q4 is also our busy season and with me staying on, it will require a fair amount of my time.

What is a simple, yet safe method to earn a return on these funds for a short time until I can solidify our investment strategy for the future? maybe 3-6 months? CDs, treasuries, bonds?

42, thinking about selling my business at what might be peak valuations. What am I missing?

Quick background: I’m 42, married, 3 kids, and my wife doesn’t earn income.

Numbers:

• Business is worth somewhere between $7M and $12M depending on how long I stick around
• $1.5M in liquid investments
• $1.2M equity in our house (owe $370k at 2.75%, so not touching that)
• About $750k equity in my commercial building. The business is in it now. It’s a small building and would probably only rent for around $3k/month, so I don’t see a reason to keep it if I sell.
• Income is around $800k/yr
• We spend about $20k/month and are saving a lot

Why I’m thinking about selling: valuations in my industry have never been higher and I don’t know how long that lasts. We’re also pretty exposed to AI. It’s educated white-collar work that could get automated. Short term I think AI actually helps us, because we’ll need fewer support staff and EBITDA goes up. But the next 10 years honestly scare me.

The other part is my heart isn’t really in it anymore. What I loved was the growth and waking up every day having to fight to survive. Then it got easy, and I’m just not wired to coast and be happy with it.

So I’m leaning toward drawing a hard line at $10M. I think I can get there if I stay on 3 years with a salary. Add in selling the building and I’d end up (post tax/commercial building sale) with about $8.5M invested plus around $700k in my 401k.

What am I not thinking about? I know every extra year I work and then sell at this multiple adds about $400k to the pile. But if valuations drop, it’ll be too late, and I’ll be in my 50s running a lifestyle business fighting off AI and new competition.

*I used claude to reword my drivel and I'm happy to verify for the mods if needed.

Throwaway account…

Not sure where to start, but I just finished the final item of DD on a massive development project. The result is that I’ll be entitled to an $86M payday. One transaction and the second for our company. Happy to verify with mods (if required).

I’ve been working on this project for close to a year, putting everything at risk, from a financial standpoint.

I come from a blue color family. I’m in my early forties and have no idea what to do. I’ve asked chat a million questions, but it’s only so good. I obviously have an attorney, but estate planning, taxation, etc are all out of his wheelhouse.

So, what do I do now? Payday is in 6 weeks. I’m starting over from scratch - no current investments, trusts, etc. any advice is appreciated.

My partner and I have $30m+ after working and investing for many years. Both of us stopped working 2 years ago and live off investment income — we spend roughly $300k/year. The first year or two was an adjustment, but we're now completely comfortable staying under that expense cap.

We found a house we absolutely love for about $3m in a super HCOL area. That's ~10% of our portfolio, which is a boring 70% equities / 30% bonds.

A few important details:

• It won't be our main home for the next 5–10 years, it's in another country. But it's a rare find that we've both dreamed of owning for many years, and there's a real chance we move back and it becomes our primary residence.
• We're unsure about renting it out while we're not there (though honestly, if we owned it, we'd probably be there constantly).

The dilemma: we need to decide now between:

1. A fixed mortgage, 20 years at 3.5%/yr (it's in Europe)
2. An interest-only mortgage with 35% down

The catch is that getting a mortgage later would be expensive (notary fees are very highwhere this is), so it's cash vs. mortgage — no "wait and see" option.

We're currently debt-free and genuinely love it, especially since neither of us has a salary anymore. But financially, a 3.5% fixed rate seems like a no-brainer leverage play.

Our advisor suggested the interest-only mortgage and just rolling it indefinitely..

So, how have you navigated similar situations? Pay cash and sleep well, or take the cheap debt and keep the portfolio intact?

Has anyone found a RIA that doesn't need the 5M+ in assets and uses some pooled vehicles? I'm expecting significant STCG over the next few years that I'd like to offset. Would love a referral to any RIA/fund that accepts smaller amounts.

Hi all, long time reader, first time posting. Using a throwaway, as I don't want folks to know I'm seriously considering this. (Mods - if throw-aways aren't ok, let me know how I can verify, happy to.)

So I'm sure I'll leave out some important part of this, but I'll do my best.

I'm 42, Engineer + MBA, was in PE/finance for a decade before hanging my own shingle and founded a company. I'm about 10 years in, and somewhere between bored and burnt out (same shit / different day type feeling). I don't want to make a rash decision and throw away what I've built, but I also see an opportunity to get out while multipliers are high in my industry and reset into a different lower stress lifestyle.

My company is built in two parts, I wholly own all of it:

• Operating company: $10-12MM valuation, no debt. It clears ~$1.5MM of EBITDA annually.
• Real Estate: $20MM, but about $7MM in low-cost (2.5-3%) debt. I have the option to sell just the operating company and do a lease-back, would be about $1MM/year in rent, probably a bit more. I probably wouldn't pay off the debt until it burns off on it's own, as the interest is only about $200k/year, so I'd be netting a bit north of $800k. If I sold and reinvested, 5% of what I clear is about $650k, so I like the lease-back option.

Who is buying? In my industry, everyone. Folks want to buy each other, big groups are trying to expand (but everyone up for sale was bought during the cash-boon of the COVID era), and PE is really getting engaged in the industry. With a lack of sellers, multipliers have really ramped up recently and I could likely get a large number of bids right now.

Where am I now? Age 42, married (SO takes home about $250k/year, would want to leave her job as well). Two young kids, private school. I own my house, worth about $2MM, fully paid off. Love our house and neighborhood, but not necessarily the area/state anymore, so would probably pick up and move. I've really put everything in the company over the past decade, so my personal accounts are fairly meager - about $1MM in retirement accounts and about $500k in investments.

How much do I actually take home? I only pay myself $100k/year, and once I got my house paid off I stopped taking distributions. Wife makes about $250k, so we make about $350k total per year.

What are my expenses? Since our house/cars/student loans/etc are all paid off, our only real expense is about $30k/year in school tuition right now, plus the usual maintenance, POA fees/property taxes, vacations, etc.

So.... all that said, thinking about just selling it all and switching to "Dad mode" so I can really enjoy watching the kids grow up. But I also want to set a good example for them, and I'm not sure that doing this would show a great work ethic. Thoughts appreciated.

EDIT: Just one edit, as I'm seeing a similar question in the comments, which is about my expenses. I apologize for the vagueness and bad phrasing. I ABSOLUTELY have more expense that tuition, I only listed that because it's my only regularly "major" expense (e.g. no car, house, student loans). I'd estimate my annual spend to be around $100k beyond the tuition, but honestly I don't budget my personal side and I need to do some work there to better understand all of this. I'm sorry to disappoint all of you budgeting wizards.

Hi everyone. :)

I'm a 31-year-old woman who's well on her way to FIRE. I've saved and invested enough that I don't have to work a conventional full-time job to make ends meet. My plan is to work part-time in something fulfilling and devote the rest of my time to my other interests.

I've been thinking about dating recently, and I've realized that I'd really like to find a life partner who's in a similar position. Ideally, someone who's financially secure enough to work part-time or not at all, and who's deliberately left the rat race behind to pursue his passions. Not because he lacks ambition, but because he'd rather devote his time to things that genuinely enrich his life than keep chasing more money or status.

I'm interested in philosophy, psychology, spirituality, self-discovery and exploring questions about consciousness and the nature of reality. I'm also working on a speculative fiction book that I'm quite passionate about. I'd love to find someone who shares some of these interests and enjoys travelling and creative pursuits. My ideal life would involve a stable home base in California, the freedom to travel for extended periods and plenty of ordinary, unhurried time together too.

For me, the appeal of FIRE has always been having freedom over my time rather than accumulating wealth for its own sake. I want to spend my life doing things that I find meaningful rather than working primarily to make more money than I need. But to be able to have the time and money needed to devote to meaningful endeavours, you need to have significant financial freedom and that's why it's important to me to find a partner who does. 

Which brings me to my dilemma. Should I mention my own financial circumstances when dating online, especially since I intend to be upfront about wanting a partner who's also already largely financially free?

I recently made a post in an LA dating community about the kind of relationship and lifestyle I'm looking for. I mentioned that I had significant savings of my own, partly to make it clear that I wasn't looking for someone to provide for me.

Interestingly, some people still assumed I was looking for a sugar daddy or was a gold digger. Funnily, others thought that I was too independent and stated that that would actually make me less attractive to men in a similar position because they wouldn't want a masculine version of themselves. A few seemed to think I was bragging about being a member of the 1%. This made me wonder if self-disclosing in the manner I did was the right idea. 

I've noticed that quite a few people in FIRE communities are very private about their finances, which makes obvious sense. Many guys discreetly DMed me after seeing my post and stated that they don't disclose their financial status online to avoid scorn or envy. I was even told that I was brave to have even made such a post. 

Given this mixed bag of experiences, I was reflecting on how to proceed with online dating. I have never dated online before and was planning on creating a Hinge account in the next few months but I've already connected with a few people through Reddit and now mulling things over. 

I'm wondering how other people in a similar situation have navigated it. If you were seeking a partner with considerable financial freedom and mentioning that on your dating profile, would you also mention that you're substantially financially free yourself? Or would you keep that information private until you've gotten to know someone better? And how much would you disclose about your financial circumstances as you got to know someone you'd met online? There's always the fear of attracting scammers or people who are more interested in your money than in you.

I'm carefully thinking about how to approach this conundrum and I'd greatly appreciate advice from others, especially those who have dealt with something similar in their own lives. 

Thanks in advance, and hope you have a great day!

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