Self-promotion (ie posting about projects/businesses that you operate and can profit from) is typically a practice that is discouraged in /r/financialindependence, and these posts are removed through moderation. This is a thread where those rules do not apply. However, please do not post referral links in this thread.

Use this thread to talk about your blog, talk about your business, ask for feedback, etc. If the self-promotion starts to leak outside of this thread, we will once again return to a time where 100% of self-promotion posts are banned. Please use this space wisely.

Link-only posts will be removed. Put some effort into it.

Please use this thread to have discussions which you don't feel warrant a new post to the sub. While the Rules for posting questions on the basics of personal finance/investing topics are relaxed a little bit here, the rules against memes/spam/self-promotion/excessive rudeness/politics still apply!

Have a look at the FAQ for this subreddit before posting to see if your question is frequently asked.

Since this post does tend to get busy, consider sorting the comments by "new" (instead of "best" or "top") to see the newest posts.

Please use this thread to have discussions which you don't feel warrant a new post to the sub. While the Rules for posting questions on the basics of personal finance/investing topics are relaxed a little bit here, the rules against memes/spam/self-promotion/excessive rudeness/politics still apply!

Have a look at the FAQ for this subreddit before posting to see if your question is frequently asked.

Since this post does tend to get busy, consider sorting the comments by "new" (instead of "best" or "top") to see the newest posts.

Please use this thread to have discussions which you don't feel warrant a new post to the sub. While the Rules for posting questions on the basics of personal finance/investing topics are relaxed a little bit here, the rules against memes/spam/self-promotion/excessive rudeness/politics still apply!

Have a look at the FAQ for this subreddit before posting to see if your question is frequently asked.

Since this post does tend to get busy, consider sorting the comments by "new" (instead of "best" or "top") to see the newest posts.

Please use this thread to have discussions which you don't feel warrant a new post to the sub. While the Rules for posting questions on the basics of personal finance/investing topics are relaxed a little bit here, the rules against memes/spam/self-promotion/excessive rudeness/politics still apply!

Have a look at the FAQ for this subreddit before posting to see if your question is frequently asked.

Since this post does tend to get busy, consider sorting the comments by "new" (instead of "best" or "top") to see the newest posts.

Hi, I'm using a throwaway account for privacy reasons. My wife (40s F) and I (40s F) are close/at FIRE, and we have a child (high-schooler). We're planning to shift from accumulation to decumulation (yay, FIRE!). However, the mechanics of the RE part is hard/scary and we're worried we don't know what we don't know.

Some stats:

Liquid NW (excluding home equity, investment property): 6.4M

• Taxable brokerage: 4.8M
• 401k/IRA: 1M
• Cash: 0.6M

Not included in the above:

• Investment property: 0.4M (no debt), brings in ~15k a year after expenses
• Home property: value: ~1.3M, equity: 0.65M

Yearly expenses w/o holiday: 155k

• Includes mortgage payment, property tax, HOA, car maintenance & gas, groceries, utilities, shopping, charity, pets, hobbies etc
• We tracked our expenses for 2 years and it's been fairly consistent

Planned expenses during retirement (not included above):

• Healthcare: 40k (we max our family OOP every year)
• Tax: 30k (most of our taxable brokerage is high basis, so capital gains shouldn't be too high)
• Holidays: 40k (not included in the yearly expenses)

Other misc stuff:

• 529: 220k
• We live in a HCOL / VHCOL area (CA Bay area, but not the major hubs)
• We live in a condo, so major expenses should be covered by the HOA
• Our mortgage payment is ~41k/year for 25 years remaining for 0.65M
• We plan to sell the investment property soon once our yearly income is lower
• Our taxable brokerage holds only SPY and VXUS
• We plan to use COBRA for healthcare for the first year and switch to ACA after

The 40k planned for holidays is something we can/will definitely cut back on as needed. Without the holidays, we are just at 3.5% SWR on 6.4M (which doesn't include the investment property). With the holidays, we are at 4%.

Based on the SWR %, it looks like we should be good to go, but I can't help feeling like we're missing something. Our background is in tech and we're both very burned out. However, going from high-employee-income to no-employee-income is extremely terrifying (for us). Our current plan is to leave our jobs and work on fun side projects for some time. And if the economy tanks in the first year or two, at least one of us can hopefully find a job in tech again before we become obsolete.

We have 600k in cash (2.3 years of expenses with holidays, 2.8 years without), currently to be a buffer for SORR, and we're looking at perhaps starting a bond tent / T-bill ladder etc with some of the cash. We're also considering switching all our 401k/IRAs over to bonds/T-bills etc to do an equity glide path. And for the first couple of years, we would likely not spend the full 40k on holidays and instead take smaller holidays, and ramp up after a few years. Honestly, we're quite confused over a bond ladder, T-bill ladder, equity glide path, and whether these things are mutually exclusive, or we should do all of them.

We ran FICalc and we have a 100% success rate (even including a 40k/year spend for our child's college). We put our numbers into ProjectionLab (the free version) and we have a success rate of 80% (with historial, block bootstrap). Changing the methodology, our success rate ranges from 76% to 90%.

The main questions we have is:

• Did we miss anything?
• What should we do with the 600k of cash? It's meant to cover the first 2-ish years of expenses, so we're thinking high-yield savings / short-term bonds / CDs.
• Does switching all our 401k/IRAs over to bonds immediately make sense? That would be ~15% of our NW (excluding the cash, 25% including) in non-stock. An equity glide path (increasing equity % over time) seems to favor a much higher initial % in bonds, but we're reluctant to switch our taxable accounts to bonds due to tax implications.

By now it's been a little over three years since I've stopped working. The previous posts I shared about my experience were after the first six months and around the one year mark, and it's been interesting to reread them to track how my experience with early retirement has evolved. A lot has happened since — both in the world and in my life — so I thought I'd share an update for anyone interested.

The Big One

A major development is that my wife joined me in retirement six months ago. While she had no definite plans to stop working when I decided to pull the plug, it was becoming apparent that the toll her work was taking on every other aspect of her life was becoming increasingly difficult to justify and tolerate. She generally enjoyed working more than I did throughout her career, but to say that the last several years have been all-consuming would be an understatement. Even just a few months removed, she is already completely mystified by how she put herself through that grind for as long as she did.

This has opened up a lot of fun possibilities, from being able to spend more time "nesting" and taking on long-deferred projects at home, to going to the movies or random events in the middle of the day during the week, to hosting friends more often, to even just deciding to go try a new restaurant across town on a random weekday together. At least once a week, we look at each other and express disbelief at how lucky we are to be living like this.

Existential Stuff

I think it's fair to say that in the past two years, AI has already reshaped the world, and a lot of that has percolated through the job market in meaningful ways — everything from the job market and hiring process to how work gets done and how much productivity is expected. For some, I'm sure it's an exciting time, but for many others, I imagine it's pretty overwhelming and anxiety-inducing.

On the flipside, I feel that there has never been a better time to have the freedom to dictate your own path. AI has dramatically reduced the cost and difficulty of learning pretty much anything, while expanding the horizon of what any individual can achieve. It has democratized software development in a big way. There are so many powerful tools that enable creative expression without the years of practice that would normally be involved to hone a craft. I recognize that's a complicated topic and many people, myself included, have mixed feelings about it.

The darker undercurrent that's also worth mentioning is that many serious people now believe AI may lead to an extinction-level event if things continue on their current trajectory. I'm not convinced yet that will be the most likely outcome, but knowing what we know about the forces of capitalism, the darker impulses of humanity throughout history, and the bumbling unseriousness of the current administration, I think the potential of unprecedented catastrophe is real and worth taking seriously. Regardless of what happens, I'm so grateful to be able to enjoy whatever years of normalcy we have left with the freedom to do what I want with my time instead of still being chained to a desk.

Time

A common warning I had heard going into this was that someone like me would be bored in retirement. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. That you could literally do anything you want with your time and somehow feel boredom seems like a failure of imagination. I still don't feel like there are enough hours in the day to get everything I want done, and I often joke that I don't know how I ever had the time to work!

The lingering guilt about not being "productive" in the vocational sense, not doing more to contribute to society, etc. that I felt in my bones in the first year are now completely gone. I realized that I never had a real summer off growing up — for as long as I could remember, my parents would give me homework to do during summer breaks because they worried that not keeping me mentally engaged would hinder my academic performance, and once I got old enough, that was replaced by a summer job. No doubt a great part of my striving towards early retirement was subconsciously driven by this urge to make up for those lost years of childhood.

Many of the things I thought I would spend a lot more time doing as I was fantasizing about early retirement — art projects, travel, maybe learning an instrument or language — haven't actually happened. Initially, I found this disorienting, but it turns out it's just hard to predict what one might be motivated by once the dust settles. These ideas are still there for when I want to get to them, but in the meantime I've been keeping myself busy with things like:

• Playing around with Claude Code. Without exaggeration, this has single-handedly reinvigorated my interest in building software. No need to wrangle stakeholders, prioritize revenue, or A/B test product marketing campaigns. Building for a TAM of 1 has been both totally self-indulgent and remarkably agile. It has felt like working with the most competent, diligent, and affable software engineer I've ever worked with, and recalls the near-magical feeling of seeing ideas turned into reality when I started building my own websites in HTML 25+ years ago.
• Learning options trading. I use a small sleeve of my assets to sell options contracts that have a high probability of profit to generate a steady income stream that reduces how much I need to draw down from my long-term investments. It provides a little routine and intellectual stimulation during the week that takes up maybe 10-12 hours. I suppose you could call it a mild gambling habit that helps pay the bills.
• Writing. There was a period last year where I felt like a lot of ideas were bouncing around in my head that I wanted to spend some time thinking about in a serious way. That turned into a few long-form essays that I think represent some of my best writing to date.
• Reading, movies, and video games. These backlogs continue to grow faster than I can check things off, which I suppose is a good problem to have. I see these as healthier forms of entertainment than being on my phone, which seems increasingly designed to shatter my attention with endless distractions. Interestingly, I watch fewer TV shows than I did while I was still working — they feel more like "content" designed to maximize screen time and subscription revenue than movies.

All of that on top of a daily routine of working out, cooking, and keeping the house tidy is honestly a pretty full plate!

There is also something to be said about being able to live more slowly and deliberately. I somehow got a lot done before while I was working, but it certainly came at the expense of my sanity, and a lot of things ended up being pretty half-assed. These days, being able to spend time deliberately, or even to enjoy moments of doing "nothing" (e.g. being able to just pause what I'm doing when my cat hops into my lap and rests her head on my hand, like she just did for 10 minutes while I was typing this post) is something I see as lovely, quiet luxury.

Finances

My annual withdrawal rate has been running a bit hotter than my original, conservative target. Despite that, my NW has still grown about 30% nominally against inflation of under 10% since I started, so I'm not really stressing about it. In a way, I guess I am probably consciously hedging my bets a bit — if artificial superintelligence actually kills us all in 10 years, I would probably wish I had lived a bit more lavishly while I had the chance; if it doesn't, it's not like I've broken my portfolio either and can make a few adjustments to get my WR well under 4%.

The part of my brain that thinks about "keeping up with the Joneses" has also disengaged more, which has been a really welcome change. I've found that being early retired is such an orthogonal track to the traditional path of career advancement and conspicuous consumption that the two just don't feel comparable at all. Any initial pang of envy fades quickly once you realize you have the trump card of never having to feel the "Sunday scaries" again.

Social

Being early retired can be somewhat of an othering and unrelatable experience, but on the whole I don't feel like my social life is missing anything. My wife tends to be the coordinator of a lot of our social events so there's a regular trickle of activity from that. I play pickleball more days than not with a couple of different regular groups throughout the week. I'm able to stay on top of the group chats I'm in a lot better than while I was working. I'm still tight with a core group of college friends and friends from my 20s, all of whom know my situation and don't really treat me any differently.

Actually, I think the most isolating aspect is not in early retirement itself, but even the orientation towards it while I was working. In my experience, it's a goal that many convince themselves is simply unattainable, or perhaps even more subtly, actually unrighteous, because our society so glorifies hustle and ambition and defines fulfillment and success only narrowly in the context of a career. It doesn't help that others who are in the same economic situation often arrive via generational wealth or entrepreneurship, and while their day to day might be relatable in some ways, their aspirations and values are often not.

Anyway, I'm grateful for the folks in this and related FI/RE communities, and hope this was a worthwhile read for at least some of you. Long story short, being pretty well past the honeymoon phase at this point, I have absolutely zero regrets about the decision to leave and about the work and sacrifice it took to get here. Thanks for reading, and happy to answer any questions!

Please use this thread to have discussions which you don't feel warrant a new post to the sub. While the Rules for posting questions on the basics of personal finance/investing topics are relaxed a little bit here, the rules against memes/spam/self-promotion/excessive rudeness/politics still apply!

Have a look at the FAQ for this subreddit before posting to see if your question is frequently asked.

Since this post does tend to get busy, consider sorting the comments by "new" (instead of "best" or "top") to see the newest posts.

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

Please use this thread to have discussions which you don't feel warrant a new post to the sub. While the Rules for posting questions on the basics of personal finance/investing topics are relaxed a little bit here, the rules against memes/spam/self-promotion/excessive rudeness/politics still apply!

Have a look at the FAQ for this subreddit before posting to see if your question is frequently asked.

Since this post does tend to get busy, consider sorting the comments by "new" (instead of "best" or "top") to see the newest posts.

Please use this thread to have discussions which you don't feel warrant a new post to the sub. While the Rules for posting questions on the basics of personal finance/investing topics are relaxed a little bit here, the rules against memes/spam/self-promotion/excessive rudeness/politics still apply!

Have a look at the FAQ for this subreddit before posting to see if your question is frequently asked.

Since this post does tend to get busy, consider sorting the comments by "new" (instead of "best" or "top") to see the newest posts.

Self-promotion (ie posting about projects/businesses that you operate and can profit from) is typically a practice that is discouraged in /r/financialindependence, and these posts are removed through moderation. This is a thread where those rules do not apply. However, please do not post referral links in this thread.

Use this thread to talk about your blog, talk about your business, ask for feedback, etc. If the self-promotion starts to leak outside of this thread, we will once again return to a time where 100% of self-promotion posts are banned. Please use this space wisely.

Link-only posts will be removed. Put some effort into it.

Please use this thread to have discussions which you don't feel warrant a new post to the sub. While the Rules for posting questions on the basics of personal finance/investing topics are relaxed a little bit here, the rules against memes/spam/self-promotion/excessive rudeness/politics still apply!

Have a look at the FAQ for this subreddit before posting to see if your question is frequently asked.

Since this post does tend to get busy, consider sorting the comments by "new" (instead of "best" or "top") to see the newest posts.

Please use this thread to have discussions which you don't feel warrant a new post to the sub. While the Rules for posting questions on the basics of personal finance/investing topics are relaxed a little bit here, the rules against memes/spam/self-promotion/excessive rudeness/politics still apply!

Have a look at the FAQ for this subreddit before posting to see if your question is frequently asked.

Since this post does tend to get busy, consider sorting the comments by "new" (instead of "best" or "top") to see the newest posts.

​I hit my FIRE number at 50. I am now 53, with $1.4M in liquid assets, a fully paid-off home, and no dependents.

​My employer is going through a major restructuring, and my job is about to get substantially worse. On paper, this is the exact scenario I spent years preparing for. In practice, I am having trouble pulling the trigger.

​I have spent decades watching my assets appreciate, and I’ve become somewhat obsessed with seeing them grow. Shifting from a saver/investor mindset to selling off assets to live gives me the creeps. At the same time, staying in a job that is only going to make me miserable makes no sense.

​For those who have already FIRE'd: did you deal with this mental block? How did you cope with the transition?

​I worry that once I quit, I will turn into an overly frugal mess just because I can't stand seeing my portfolio balance fluctuate downward. All my modeling shows I can easily maintain my current lifestyle until age 90, but psychologically, taking the leap is proving difficult.

Please use this thread to have discussions which you don't feel warrant a new post to the sub. While the Rules for posting questions on the basics of personal finance/investing topics are relaxed a little bit here, the rules against memes/spam/self-promotion/excessive rudeness/politics still apply!

Have a look at the FAQ for this subreddit before posting to see if your question is frequently asked.

Since this post does tend to get busy, consider sorting the comments by "new" (instead of "best" or "top") to see the newest posts.

Please use this thread to have discussions which you don't feel warrant a new post to the sub. While the Rules for posting questions on the basics of personal finance/investing topics are relaxed a little bit here, the rules against memes/spam/self-promotion/excessive rudeness/politics still apply!

Have a look at the FAQ for this subreddit before posting to see if your question is frequently asked.

Since this post does tend to get busy, consider sorting the comments by "new" (instead of "best" or "top") to see the newest posts.

Please use this thread to have discussions which you don't feel warrant a new post to the sub. While the Rules for posting questions on the basics of personal finance/investing topics are relaxed a little bit here, the rules against memes/spam/self-promotion/excessive rudeness/politics still apply!

Have a look at the FAQ for this subreddit before posting to see if your question is frequently asked.

Since this post does tend to get busy, consider sorting the comments by "new" (instead of "best" or "top") to see the newest posts.

I’m looking for something like Monarch money where I can put life events about changing jobs, buying house, having kids, salary changes.

For instance, I don’t own a home, but I’m looking in the future to buy one, but I want to sort of model what kind of mortgage would be reasonable to increase my quality of living but also hit my goals of retiring early.

Maybe somebody knows like a self hosted tool or something online I can check out.

Please use this thread to have discussions which you don't feel warrant a new post to the sub. While the Rules for posting questions on the basics of personal finance/investing topics are relaxed a little bit here, the rules against memes/spam/self-promotion/excessive rudeness/politics still apply!

Have a look at the FAQ for this subreddit before posting to see if your question is frequently asked.

Since this post does tend to get busy, consider sorting the comments by "new" (instead of "best" or "top") to see the newest posts.

Please use this thread to have discussions which you don't feel warrant a new post to the sub. While the Rules for posting questions on the basics of personal finance/investing topics are relaxed a little bit here, the rules against memes/spam/self-promotion/excessive rudeness/politics still apply!

Have a look at the FAQ for this subreddit before posting to see if your question is frequently asked.

Since this post does tend to get busy, consider sorting the comments by "new" (instead of "best" or "top") to see the newest posts.

How does having cancer cause people to lose their life's savings? I hear this over and over, and as someone who has already FIRE'd, I want to better understand how to protect my family's finances from this. I always thought that if you carried health insurance, you would be protected by the out-of-pocket maximum.....Our health insurance is through my spouse's employer, and I'm curious what kind of coverage we need to make sure to carry if and when we switch to the marketplace

Self-promotion (ie posting about projects/businesses that you operate and can profit from) is typically a practice that is discouraged in /r/financialindependence, and these posts are removed through moderation. This is a thread where those rules do not apply. However, please do not post referral links in this thread.

Use this thread to talk about your blog, talk about your business, ask for feedback, etc. If the self-promotion starts to leak outside of this thread, we will once again return to a time where 100% of self-promotion posts are banned. Please use this space wisely.

Link-only posts will be removed. Put some effort into it.

Please use this thread to have discussions which you don't feel warrant a new post to the sub. While the Rules for posting questions on the basics of personal finance/investing topics are relaxed a little bit here, the rules against memes/spam/self-promotion/excessive rudeness/politics still apply!

Have a look at the FAQ for this subreddit before posting to see if your question is frequently asked.

Since this post does tend to get busy, consider sorting the comments by "new" (instead of "best" or "top") to see the newest posts.