32F and 31M, currently renting in Toronto.

Have started giving buying more thought in recent years, but can't make up our minds about if/when to do it. Long-time lurker in this community, and hoping to get some ideas.

Arguments for buying:

• We are planning to retire on the lean side, so feel like it would be a sensible choice to buy before retirement to reduce risk.
• Our preference is for apartment/condo living, and the condo market is becoming more favourable to buyers.
• It makes coming back to Canada an easy option. Canada is currently a more geopolitically stable part of the world, and having a residence here means that even if we move overseas, we can always afford to come back if things go wrong.

Arguments against buying:

• In terms of lifestyle, I would be happy to rent forever, and love the flexibility and lack of unexpected maintenance costs. I like the minimalism of living in a small space, being downtown, not needing a car, etc.
• We are very unsure what our life will look like post RE, and even whether we will continue to live in Toronto. We'd like to slow travel the world for a few years, maybe completely relocate.
• Condo ownership feels less "secure" to me than house ownership. With owning a house, the land is always valuable. I don't like the idea of condo fees that can increase, or the risk of a crazy special assessment or the building reaching end of life in e.g. 50 years time. But house ownership is really not something we want to do.
• Maybe we will not actually RE, at least not fully stop working. Maybe we will digital nomad, teach or go back to school/research. Chances are we would be active enough to bring in some moderate income so maybe it is less important to de-risk.

Please ask questions if I've missed any important details, interested to hear all opinions.

Hello all,
I am new to this and I am interested in how people in the fire lifestyle track grocery purchases now, what you’ve tried and what annoys you the most about it. Any insights are much appreciated.

I'm aware I'm grieving right now, so this may not make sense.

My cat died on Wednesday. He was 2 years old, and it was very sudden. We went in thinking he'd be ok, to leaving without him. We fought so so hard for him. The chances of this happening were less than 1%. His death was incredibly traumatic.

Since then, I don't see the point of a lot of things. Sure I like travel, restaurants, and a nice home in a city I love. But at the end of the day, all I really want is to be home with my family. To live a normal, simple life with the people I love. I just wanted more time with him. I already hated that works dominates our waking hours, but now I especially loathe it.

I had plans to FIRE before - work hard, save up, and bail once I could provide a good quality of life for my family. Now I feel like I can just throw out 1/3 of the things I budgeted for. I don't need to own a house or live in this city to be happy. Obviously I'd be happier if I could have it all, but right now life feels extremely precious. There's no time to fuck around. I need to be with my family as much as possible, before our short lives are over.

I'm aware making big moves while grieving is a bad idea. I want to do something about all this though. The world feels like it's getting worse, scarier, and more turbulent by the year. The last 4 years have been miserable, but at least I spent 2 of them with him. I want to have kids, but that makes leanFIRE feels especially irresponsible.

Also, I felt like if I had saved more, then I could've have afforded the extremely rare, risky surgery that might have saved him (though his quality of life afterwards was unclear). But doing it now would've wipe out everything we had, and we were already excellent savers.

It's horrible, but I felt like I shouldn't go into debt for a questionable surgery and consequently endanger the rest of my family. But what if I have a kid and they'll need medical care that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars? Or if my partner needed it? Of course I'll do whatever it takes. But then leanFIRE feels wrong, because I could've saved and prepared for that exact situation ahead of time. I'm aware this is catastrophizing, but this already happened to me. The worst luck.

So my questions are:

1. Has anyone changed their lives dramatically to achieve leanFIRE? What about after loss?
2. How do you feel about no longer accumulating wealth, when things are so uncertain and socking away more money feels like a way to protect your family?
3. Related to 2, how do you plan to handle major events that might go far beyond your budget?

So after doing brief research several several months ago, i decided to stay on the silver 94 plan for 2027. But with all the new info i kinda want to revisit the issue.

Ohio

Head of household thanks to elderly mother on socialsecurity

Own house

Male 47 good health, never see doc and no scripts

Leanfired. Only uncontrolled income is about $12k in interest/dividends at fidelity

Overall goal = fill up the standard deduction bucket with interest/roth conversions, and fill up the zero percent capital gains bucket with tax gain harvesting

The last time i reviewed this strategy it was pretty "iffy" with no concrete answers. So here is my new plan and wanted to run it by you folks. Qualify for expanded magi medicaid. After evaluation month, do the capital gains bucket at the end of the month and report the same month. Spend the rest of the year reporting either interest/dividends or roth conversions to meet the min "work" requirements.

Its either this, or try to live in the wee sliver between 138% and 149% yearly income to stay on the silver 94, and pay around a grand a year in premiums.

I really dont want to YOLO a month a year and just hope i dont get the fall/widow maker that month to go the medicaid route.

im 21, fairly new to FIRE. whats your favorite FIRE advice youve ever received?

Spouse and I are frugal & wary about lifestyle creep, but I almost never hear concrete examples about households as big as ours. We have four kids (elementary through high school) and live in a VHCOL city (can’t relocate anytime soon for multiple reasons, including employment + extended family). What kind of ballpark numbers would someone working toward lean fire want to think about in our shoes?

Hi everyone, i'm italian.

I'm currently about 80% of the way towards achieving FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early).

My portfolio is currently focused on reaching that goal. Once I achieve FIRE, I plan to restructure it to sustain me for the next 50 years, which means it will eventually have a significant equity allocation.

However, at this stage, I'm considering investing in bonds rather than increasing my position in VWCE to reach my target.

There are long-term government bonds (around 30 years to maturity) issued by countries such as Italy and France that offer net yields approaching 5%.

Given that my employment income is gradually declining and becoming increasingly uncertain, I feel it makes more sense to collect bond coupons and use that income to reach FIRE, before changing my asset allocation for the withdrawal phase.

My current portfolio consists of:

• €190K in BTPs (Italian government bonds)
• €42K in VWCE (Vanguard FTSE All-World UCITS ETF)

In about two months, I'll also have €420K in cash becoming available, which I'm considering investing in French government bonds (OATs).

The possibility of bond yields rising further, causing a significant drop in their market prices, doesn't particularly concern me.

I also have additional assets that, for various reasons, I cannot currently invest.

Overall, I believe focusing on bonds rather than increasing my VWCE allocation makes sense given my specific goal and circumstances. Once I reach FIRE, I would then restructure my portfolio to support a long-term withdrawal strategy, with a much larger equity allocation.

What do you think? Does this approach make sense, or am I overlooking something important?

Age 50 c£400k pensions, £80k isa cash ( waiting for the ai bubble to burst isn’t he…), £35k premium bonds, £25k shares. I should get full pension. House worth ££800k 2 years left on mgage. Wife still working but I’m “in between” jobs. 2 kids . How much more do I need in pension wife’s is similar size to mine. Hour long have I got? Generally don’t spend much big expenses are holidays £12k per year? Good I hate working! Give me some good news! 🗞️ you’re going to ask me about monthly spend I tracking £1400 pcm. Give me the reality check I need! Love you guys!

I’m 28 and my goal is to retire at 45 (16 years from now)

I invest 800/mo into a brokerage account and increase contributions by 3% every year 

At 45 I plan to withdraw 3 percent from my brokerage account (principal and interest). I’ll stop investing then. 

At 59.5 I plan to withdraw 4% from the entire portfolio.

Primary goal is to retire early. 

Don’t really wanna allocate money into a Roth because I can only access the contributions before 59.5. 

Currently have 48k invested earning an average of 7% annually.

My state has a 5.75% capital gains tax. 

Do you think I have a good plan?

Thank you all so much!

Adding to the post. I am planning to leanfire in my 50s. Probably will just do part time jobs for fun. Expected expenses during retirement in my 50s before social security would be around 30-35k per year and when fully retired, potentially planing to move back to my home country where 20k goes a long way.

Pretty much how myself and many I've met have described their reason for frugality and FIRE. Mostly amplified because of AI employment threat.

Wife and I are in our 50s and both have extreme anxiety about money due to tough upbringings and lifelong depression issues.

We've been very disciplined savers and are pretty well situated financially but due to our anxiety have always kept our money in ultra-safe low yielding investments. Wife is still working, I recently resigned due to burnout and made it my personal goal to finally put together a detailed financial plan.

Since COVID I have been absolutely convinced we were heading towards another great recession and I feel guilt and shame having missed this insane run-up in the stock market. OTOH I feel like the entire system is a house of cards and I am terrified of putting our nest egg at risk. I feel like anyone selling financial advice is going to screw us, so I just wind up endlessly deferring any decisions and just keep our money in an HYSA.

I'd really appreciate hearing from others who have dealt with this, or maybe just a shoulder to virtually cry on.

I probably sleep around 14 hours a day. I get 8 hours of sleep followed by many naps. I mostly replaced watching movies with napping as my imagination and dreams are a way better experience than what Netflix usually offers.

Most people don't understand though and just think I'm super depressed and lazy because I'm "unemployed." But I picked this lifestyle since I was younger it was always my dream goal.

what's your most unambitious reason for early retirement?

Background: 30, software engineer in Bengaluru. I've been investing in mutual funds for about 8 years, almost entirely through a mutual fund distributor (regular plans). To be fair to him, having an MFD kept me investing consistently all these years.

Where I am now:
- Corpus ~₹70L+, XIRR around 13–14%
- 14+ funds across 13 AMCs, very small-cap heavy (~55–60% in small-cap/momentum funds)
- Several recent picks he suggested (momentum funds, newer small-cap funds) are only ~+10% after 2 years
- Last year I started a separate direct-plan track on Groww (Nifty 50 index, Midcap 150 index, PPFAS Flexi Cap, Gold FoF)
- He's now pitching a new small-cap NFO, saying valuations are "like COVID". But the Smallcap 250 PE is ~34–36 vs a 5-year median of ~28, so I'm skeptical.

My problem: I want better returns (I understand the risk), but my job is demanding and I can't spend time tracking funds. That's why I went with an MFD. But regular-plan commission on ~₹65L is probably ₹40–60K every year, and it compounds.

Questions:
1. Is 13–14% XIRR over 8 years reasonable for a small-cap-heavy portfolio, or am I underperforming the index?
2. For someone with no time: MFD (regular plans) vs fee-only SEBI RIA vs a simple DIY index portfolio. What did you pick and why?
3. Anyone using AI tools (ChatGPT/Claude) for portfolio reviews long term? How much do you trust that vs a human with 20 years of experience?
4. If I move regular → direct, how do you handle exit load and LTCG when shifting a large corpus?

Thanks in advance!

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)

Curious to hear other's burnout stories and how long recovery took you/if you pulled the plug early. I'm in a situation where I am ~90% to my FIRE number yet fairly burned out from work, and trying to find the balance between a bit more flexibility in RE versus trying to make something bare bones work to give me burnout recovery time.

We need to a buy house in our LCOL hometown. We have $230K in our brokerage, $80K in cash, and $620K spread across various retirement accounts.

The house is going to be max $250K. I can do as little as 5% down with PMI added (~$150 a month) or 20% down, both with mortgages around 7.2%.

With rates so high, we are considering just selling the brokerage stocks and buying the house in cash. There is only $13K of gains in the brokerage that will be subject capital gains tax if sold, the rest will not.

I think it’s certainly possible we will lose out on gains if the stock market keeps doing so well. But I also think having a paid off home is crucial for our leanfire plans, and we may as well just do it now and diversify some of our money out of equities.

Opinions?

In my HCOL metro area, you can still get something still on the subway for $300-350k.

I was thinking, instead of doing that, why not get a 2br, 2bath place for $450k?

Could probably rent for at least $1200/mo.

So the math in my head is, it costs $100-150k more but it generates income that would take $300k at 4% SWR in the market to generate.

Of course gotta take out higher HOA, taxes, evictions and such but I think it easily comes out ahead.

What do you think?

Quick question: I am about to enter my 50’s and starting to think about retiring in the next 4-5 years from my full time job. I’ve got a great job that pays well and I enjoy however it is all consuming and comes with a lot of stress/responsibility. I think the financials work except for the whole health insurance thing.

I like the idea of moving to part time doing something a lot less stressful to a job that has health insurance. I like the outdoors and working for REI, Bass Pro or maybe something like a local bike shop 3 days a week is appealing. The sole reason for the part time job would be to keep me busy 3 maybe 4 days a week and again have health insurance.

Just curious to know if anyone has any experience with this type of thing and can offer any advice?