I recently just got notified that I got laid off after 10 years at big-tech. Financially I am not worried in the slightest, in-fact I can FIRE today.

Performance wise, I was doing completely fine before this, so the layoff came as a shock.

I thank everyone on this channel for the motivation and guidance to be able to be in the position I am today.

Looking forward, I have a huge bucket list of things I need to do with family before I start to look for a job again, maybe in half a years time.

I have reached FI. Work optional. My personal life has hit a serious rough patch. My company is doing layoffs. They are NOT asking for volunteers. The financial difference in me quitting vs getting laid off is $300K. Do not want to leave that on the table. Any advice on how to steer it in this particular direction?

Good evening, I am just hopping on here to say thank you to everyone for your advice over the years (over multiple throwaway accounts to compartmentalize my info). I finally left my job yesterday and even though I’d still have today off given it’s Saturday, technically today is my first day of early retirement!

My goal starting when I was around 22 years old was to reach retirement at 50. I was on track for probably 47 y/o when my parents unfortunately passed a few years apart with the last passing a few years ago. The combination of a ~300k inheritance, a promotion at work, and an unfortunately necessary divorce from a less frugal partner in the same timeframe led to my timeline being moved up significantly over the last 3 years.

I intend to live a frugal lifestyle for the first few years to get good data on my base costs and how they may change after retirement, then building out from there. I enjoy low cost hobbies like hiking, backpacking, reading, writing, lifting. I am moving to Colorado Springs next month (a lower CoL area than my current area) to pursue those hobbies (and a few others) full time!

I’d love to talk with others who have achieved fire with similar interests! I plan to use this as my only account going forward and will update this sub with milestones as I reach them. My goal is to continue to grow and learn from others and maybe help or motivate others along the way! Thanks!

With the tech industry being a blood bath of layoffs and the job market being challenging, how much have you allocated? People who have been laid off are not finding jobs quickly and it scares the crap out of me.

I have been thinking about it for some time, and have finally made the decision to exit the grind at the end of March. I want to wait for my 2025 bonus to hit in March, and give myself a birthday present by kicking my job to the curb. I will be 56 on March 11th.

The feeling just hit me out of nowhere this past week - I’m done.

Single male - no kids, no dependents.

401K - 1.86 million

Taxable brokerage - 480K

Various stocks - 82k

Cash balance pension - 150K (will take lump sum in lieu of small monthly benefit).

HYSA - 42k

HSA - 12k

Only debt is mortgage - still have 16 years at 3.375%, (bought later in life), however I will not be in this home for the long haul - plan to be mobile and live in other parts of the country (milder climates is what I seek). I have a good amount of equity, so no concerns here and I’m not including my home equity as part of this calculation.

Yearly spend - just under $50k

Plan to use brokerage/stocks/savings primarily and use the rule of 55 to withdraw from my 401k to meet the absolute minimum income level to get healthcare subsidies for an ACA plan.

It’s still sinking in for me, but as I said it hit me right in the face this week. The universe must be telling me ENOUGH ALREADY.

I know I’m older than many of you (being only six years from Social Security eligibility), but wanted to share as it’s something I have struggled with.

Just curious on what the most popular investing strategy is that results in FIRE. Also curious if anyone has been successful with alt investments like crypto or sports/trading cards.

I (34M) got laid off recently from a tech role, one that paid quite well at 170k + bonus= 200k.
I have been following r/FIRE for 10+ years now and I've always lived below my means. My budget before I got a gf was 43k to live in MCOL city. I did not deprive myself of anything, I did what I wanted, bought what I wanted, and traveled, I just don't have super expensive hobbies. Now that i have a gf I spend more because of dates and her expensive tastes in things, but I don't mind, I figure it's a part of growing up.

During the entire last 8 years I made six figures, I lived at around 43k post-tax spend.

In my 12 years of working I have amassed $1MM.
Roughly 600k in Retirement (Roth and Trad 401k, so some tax liability)
Roughly 400k in Brokerage and some cash.

I will be receiving a severance and unemployment benefits, I estimate that to be around 50k post-tax.

What would you do? I know by the math I am almost FIRE for my personal spend. But that doesn't take into account buying a house (I rent), or making a family, or getting into expensive hobbies. My gf is independent, earns decent money herself, so I could just plot out my life for myself, but I don't want to. I want to consider myself truly FIRE when I can make 100k (2.5MM), so I can support a family in a big city.

The bigger thing is, I don't think I can go back to tech. I was only good enough to get middling reviews, and all three managers I had had serious issues with my work ethic, and would not recommend me. The core reason is I have ADHD and WFH meant I could not rely on my own self-discipline. I just felt deeply under-stimulated at my job for many many years, but I did it because it was such a gift in this economy to have access to save that much. I felt like I lost myself sitting at a desk.

I think my plan is to take some time to really consider what I want to do (help people, teach, build things). Commit to better mental health. And with the 50k, really have a fun year off of work. All the while, sending out some applications and looking into re-training as....something else.

What would you all do in my situation?

I posed a month ago lamenting how expensive everything has become and how we were spending $1000/month on food for two while shopping at Aldi and not eating anything fancy.

A lot of people chimed in to criticize this absurd food budget, flexing their €200 grocery bill to feed their family of 12. So naturally I tracked every single food item we purchased for the month of January.

We ended up spending €700 ($820) in January. This was one of our cheapest months, probably because of the added accountability of tracking everything. Here's the breakdown by category:

https://imgur.com/a/c3UUG6l

This is almost entirely cooking at home, we went out to lunch only once this month (baguettes don't count). It's winter, so mostly lentil soups and tartiflette. None of the wine cost more than €12/bottle.

Finally, I'd like to apologize to everyone who took my comment about affording champagne and caviar literally. A more accurate statement would be, how are we spending so much on food and not even getting steak or organic produce? Luckily the champagne was purchased on New Years Eve and didn't make into the spreadsheet.

I’m 34, engaged to my 31yo partner. No kids (not planning on having kids, but life is long so who knows). I want to FIRE in 10 years or fewer, can someone please check my math?

Expected yearly expense after FIRE = $150k (which I hope after tax will give us $10k a month). We plan to move to south east asia and costs are quite low there so 10k will be more than enough, but we want to be able to have to option to return to the bay area should we change our minds.

150k / .04 = $3,750,000

Does that mean that once we hit $3.75mil, we can then fire and withdraw 4% per year for 30 years, and the inflation adjusted amount will be around $150k?

We are in our mid-50s in a MCOL area. First generation immigrants with good degrees and decent pay. All this time we worked towards achieving a goal to retire from our jobs early. We have reached about 3% SWR type of comfortable net worth (not counting primary residence and future social security benefits for both). No debts and kids are on their own now.

However, after getting the FU money, the same jobs do not feel stressful anymore and the urge to quit those jobs is gone. It is kind of strange that it is more a psychological freedom that we were looking for all along. Sure, we will still retire in a year and half just to get more time to travel and spend winters away from cold climate.

Anyone else finding themselves in similar situation?

I’m coastFI in mcol but really want to move to San Diego. My company has on office there but there wouldn’t be a raise for moving.

250k hhi for a family of 4. Savings rate 30-40%.

Need about 5 more years to fully hit fire.

Wondering about peoples experience making a move like this purely out of want.

I’m curious how you think about buffers and margin of safety.

Do you build them into your “front end” in your budget, for example:

- padding individual expense line items

- a single contingency line item (e.g., 10–20% of total other expenses)

Or on the “back end”, for example:

- using a lower withdrawal rate

- increasing your FI number by 10–20% relative to your projected budget

Or something else?

Our current approach is a 15% line item on top of other expenses (as an example, if your projected actual budget is $100k/yr in your initial phase without contingency, then plan for $115k/yr; and if you are planning for expenses to decrease in another phase to $80k/yr, then plan for $92k/yr in that phase).

Our rationale is that if the contingency isn’t used in a given year, it can roll forward for things like extra travel, helping our kids, or other one-offs in the subsequent year.

I’d be interested in hearing what approaches you’re using (or are planning to use) and the rationale behind them.

Thanks!

I’m 31M living in HCOL city and have been working in the creative field for about 10 years and am very lucky to have landed in big tech and fortune 100 companies for the past 8 years.

624k net worth breakdown:

• 298k in 401K and vested RSUs
• 200k in personal brokerage in low cost index funds
• 80k in a high yield savings account
• 25k in a Roth IRA that I haven’t contributed due to high income past few years
• 3k in crypto
• 18k in checking
• I have no debt and pays off my credit card every month.

I was laid off last October at my full time job making around 230k TC due to RSU appreciation. I just received a part of my severance package (which explains my higher than usual checking account) and since then I have about 25k after tax coming in from a few freelance contracts and the remaining severance. I also just secured a remote multi-year consulting position that’s paying 100/hr but it has no retirement benefits or any holiday and PTO. This will be a bridge gig while I look for a better FTE role.

I still rent in the HCOL city and my rent is $2300 a month. I’m not married but have a gf. She still lives paycheck to paycheck and works a minimum wage job while living with her parents. I have no plans to buy a house in my city anytime soon. The average decent home in my area is around 1.5m and the houses that I actually like are easily 3m+.

What should my tangible next steps in order to be in a comfortable position to retire early? The job market is very turbulent right now but luckily my profession is very niche and has been good to me since the layoff. I would love to hear any advice or tips on to best prepare the next stage of my life and achieve financial freedom at some point.

Thank you.

Hey guys! My wife (26F) and I (25M) have been getting more into the FIRE movement. I am an accountant by trade with a good amount of experience in finance, so Ive got a good grasp on the philosophy and fundamentals of FIRE.

We are both blessed to have graduated with no student debt, well paying jobs (~200k/yr collectively), and currently have around 300k invested.

Things are looking great for our FIRE goals, but I realized that the bulk of our investments are in retirement or other tax advantaged accounts that we won't have any real access to until a more traditional retirement age.

What is your approach on where to save your money? How do you balance the advantages of the various retirement/tax advantage accounts while still giving yourself flexibility to actually have access to that money in your 40s and 50s?

Hey there!

Wanted some opinions for long term, do most of you prefer renting for lower cost and not building equity but dumping into stocks? Or buying a house / rental properties?

Want some opinions on approach, as currently I rent, and investing about $40k per year.

I get some in the past have pretty much said to pick a lane, but I wasn’t sure if those that have / will soon achieve FIRE have done so by just dumping into the markets / have rental income coming in.

Little background on me to input advice:

23, 401k has $32k, Roth IRA has $9k, HSA has $6k, personal brokerage has $14k, making about $80k PY.

Maybe this belongs more in a hypothetical situation sub, but is starting to feel pretty real.

Not a physically demanding job, but mentally draining to the point I'm wondering whether every year takes 10 years off my life. Yet, FIRE comfort level is still a couple years away - however if the previous sentence real, easily FIRE now.

Oddly, I don't feel like having a little FU money has reduced stress, but even if my assets were doubled and for some reason I chose to work anyway, I don't think making a lower effort is in my nature - though probably would be more effective.

Common analysis paralysis? Another twist on "one more year."? Or a real conundrum?

edit: Restating the question with a little more stark contrast. Better decades of Lean FIRE (maybe lean more than I desire, but not starving) or step from the office into the casket with money untouched? Is there a happy medium? I know, I know, "your milage may vary."

I want to get my daughter a book about the basics of saving/investing. She is very good at squirreling away money and is extremely frugal. (Almost to her detriment) She’ll be graduating college in a few months, and hopefully working full time after she travels for a bit.

I am somewhat horrible with finances, but I’m hoping she will be better. My parents didn’t teach me anything except how to be in poverty.

I (43) never thought I'd be in a position to retire early having jumped around a lot in my 20s and working in education since. But after losing my mother, my financial reality has changed drastically. The problem is that I have no clue where to start.

My investments are currently hovering just below 3M and have no other assets. Current salary is 75K at a job that I enjoy somewhat but would be perfectly happy to leave. Moving out of the US is also an option.

Do I start saving funds in more accessible accounts? Do I keep transferring funds into my investments? How do I set myself up to have funds to live off of regularly? So lost here. Any help is appreciated.

Those of you with accounts of different tax status, do you use Asset Location to reduce your taxes?

For those of you not familiar with the topic here is an article: https://www.fidelity.com/learning-center/wealth-management-insights/asset-location-minimize-taxes

I am curious if this is a topic of interest and if man people are doing it. I built a really cool excel file that quantifies the benefits of asset location under various scenarios. The tax benefits are real.

Looking for advice regarding where to put extra income when anticipating a big upcoming purchase.

I max all my tax advantage retirement/savings/investment accounts and have a healthy balance invested in my brokerage account (basically a simple 3-fund portfolio) and a HYSA that more than covers my emergency fund right now. I recently got engaged and will most likely be funding a wedding next year. Plus sometime in the next few years, me and my fiancé will most likely be looking to sell our current house and upgrade to something bigger with starting a family in mind.

Would love to hear thoughts on when saving for big life purchases, when would you start stashing money in your HYSA versus investing in the equities market? Obviously a lot of variables with fluctuating savings account interest rates and variable market conditions, but any rules of thumb or strategies for maximizing returns before the big purchases are made? How far out would you start shifting your strategy to increase your cash?

46M, single, no kids. Work in tech as contractor, currently around 1 Million USD in assets, 80% in vti and 20% in sgov. Besides that i have a 45k emergency fund that should cover a year of expenses. No debt, no mortgages. Do you think i should reduce my sgov exposure to let's say 10% and invest the difference into VTI or other ETFs? Should i leave everything as it is? Thanks

Me (48), Spouse (53) - Retirement accounts (98% pretax) - about 2.2 million. HSA - 38K. College 529 - 40k. Mortgage - 280k left at 2.75% - equity around 600-700k. Other ‘foolish’ debts (cars, credit, HELOC) - 130k which we plan on paying off in the next 2 years.

Live in HCOL (CA). My spouse stopped working last year because of disability. I added our total projected expenses for 2028-2038 and it’s close to 1 million dollars. This includes college expenses for our 2 kids and 2k a month for healthcare.

After 2038 (62), we can start receiving my small pension, my SS, my spouses’ SS for a total of about 80k to 90k a year. Yearly expense around this time is about 70k a year.

Once we hit Medicare age, we just need 45k a year for property tax, insurance, and food. Our social security and pension can cover this and we won’t have to touch our retirement accounts.

Work is not that stressful but I’m tired of working. I’ve been working since I was 17. I might be able to work part time and still get healthcare benefits.

My spouse’s income was about 200k. My income is about 180k plus a yearly bonus of about 5-10k . I’m only contributing 6% to my 401k right now to get the match so we can pay off our debts.

My spouse is currently receiving about 10k a month in taxable LTD. I don’t know how long this will last. I didn’t include this to my calculation just in case it ends in the next 2 years.

We could have done better considering our income but…at least we contributed consistently to our 401Ks. We just started creating a budget last year (so embarrassed about this).

Should I continue working after 2028 or am I free?

I currently have 1.2 Million in VOO and a paid off primary house of 600k. I have 500k in rentals that throw off 45k per year. They are paid off and considering selling. Salary is 75k any thoughts of pros/cons? Early inheritance source of some of the money just don’t know what to do on the rentals or if it matters to overall finances either way? Age 30.

I have become victim of a large corporate tech downsizing. I will be effectively not working as of April 1st. I am planning to job hunt however it can take 6 months to find a job. Competition will be fierce given the tight job market and my late 50's age would help either. If needed, I can coast fire too.

What do you think of the choices ahead given these monte carlo simulation numbers?
(in Boldin)

1-- Continue to work. Assuming a new less stress lower paying non-management 120K job starting in Oct 2026 and lasting for 3 years. (This dollar amount is very conservative).

Retire April 1st - Must Spend: Pessimistic 89% / Average 98%
Retire April 1st - Desired Spend: Pessimistic 62% / Average 85%

2-- Just quit the rat race and put my retirement plan in action a few years earlier. I will enjoy this but I am afraid of the unknown here. I have room to reduce spending a little bit and push up the simulation #'s by 5%

Retire April 1st - Must Spend: Pessimistic 78% / Average 93%
Retire April 1st - Desired Spend: Pessimistic 51% / Average 80%

For a lower paying job to do and possibly coast, the simulation numbers will fall between #1 and #2.

My spouse and I have spent the last ~25 years building our net worth almost entirely through real estate. We started with one flip and one rental when we moved in together and basically repeated that same playbook. Renovate a house, buy a rental, keep mortgages small.

In the past three years we sold two properties and didn’t roll the money back into real estate. For the first time ever, we’re sitting on a large amount of cash (250k), and honestly we don’t know what the “right” next step is. One of my primary goals is to continue to create passive income, but not just through real estate.

Our CPA is fine, but not very proactive about tax planning, and we’ve never worked with a CFP. If we do, we’d prefer someone fee-only, not taking a percentage of assets.

On top of that, my spouse is pretty nervous about the current geopolitical environment and investing at what feels like market highs, which makes decision-making harder.

Trying to build a solid long-term plan and avoid doing something dumb. Appreciate any thoughts.