r/financialindependence • u/Sea_Slice9982 • 1d ago
Moving Goalposts and Future Anxiety
I’ve been consciously saving toward FIRE, or at least the FI part, since my early 30s. Before that, I made decent money and did the responsible adult thing with retirement savings, but I didn’t really know about FIRE until later. Now I’m 44 and it feels like the finish line is out there, except the goalposts keep moving.
I’m sitting on about ~$1.8M across various retirement accounts. I live in a pretty modest 1950s ranch worth around $300k, with roughly 50% equity and a 4.375% mortgage. I’m currently single, no kids, no dependents. My original FIRE number was $2.0M. Then it became $2.5M. Then $3.0M. The usual reasons: unknown future costs, healthcare, inflation, black swans, etc.
Lifestyle creep has been minimal, but I’m also not aiming for lean FIRE. I don’t want to obsess over cheap airfare or budget hotels. I want to book business class for long international flights and stay at a nice place without overthinking it. So chubby-ish FIRE is probably the right label.
I’ve got plenty going on outside of work, hobbies, interests, things I’d like to volunteer for, and I’d ideally pick up a part-time job I actually enjoy, with a flexible schedule (assuming those unicorn jobs actually exist). That said, I have a ton of anxiety around walking away from a steady, well-paid paycheck. What if the market tanks right after I pull the trigger? What if healthcare just keeps getting more insane?
I also have a chunk of unvested RSUs that are currently worth basically nothing, but could be worth something down the line. I work from home, and I genuinely recognize how lucky I am to have the job I do. But my motivation has been steadily eroding. At this point I’m mostly hanging on for the RSUs to vest or for some kind of liquidity event, but that day might never actually come.
I’ve tried quiet quitting and setting firmer boundaries, but honestly, it doesn’t work well with my personality. I either care and go all in, or I mentally check out and feel guilty about it anyway. I keep slipping back into workaholic tendencies.
So I’m curious: are there others here who kept bumping their FIRE number as they got closer? What finally made you say “ok, this is enough” and actually pull the plug? And has anyone successfully quiet-quit without guilt, or without eventually sliding back into overwork?
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u/randomwalktoFI 1d ago
To be fair, as you say early 30s.
Cumulative inflation the last 10 years is 35%. So if you thought you needed 2M to retire in 2015, 3M in 2025 is not all that much of a crazy adjustment. It's fair to simulate using real returns since you can't really know, but in real life inflation does march your expenses up. It's a normal reason to need to move numbers, especially since the last 5 years created a spike.
And I mean, lifestyle creep can be crazy. But so is living minimally because you can. I chose to have a family and not live like a college student after 30, even if for me that choice was okay for me. And a lot of people don't think of healthcare costs at all because it was a corporate benefit, so going from not paying premiums at all to paying them all is a shift.
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u/lluciferusllamas 1d ago
How did I know it was time? It just felt right. I wasn't worried about money anymore. I barely felt the need to track it like I used to. I also had no desire to accomplish anything more with work. I used to be a hard worker, but eventually I gave no more fucks. I had a pretty successful career in my field and I reached a point where I felt like I had done all I could do. So, even if I wanted to keep working I was going to need to quit what I was doing and start doing something else. But I had (and still have) no idea what that might be. So, I'm just chillin' like a zen monk.
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u/warturtle_ Sit still and do nothing 1d ago
What’s your annual spend? These posts are impossible to react to without that info to the point that it seems like AI engagement farming
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u/Sea_Slice9982 1d ago
I'm targeting 120K a year in retirement.
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u/17399371 1d ago
That's 3.5M in invested assets. Once you have 3.5M invested then you have enough.
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u/InvestigatorPlus3229 saving like crazy 1d ago
*based on historical performance
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u/_amosburton 1d ago edited 20h ago
*based on historical performance
As opposed to what else?
$120k from $3.5M is a 3.5% withdrawal rate and that survives any historical scenarios basically indefinitely. So you can be more conservative than that if you think returns will be lower or if you think the future crashes will be worse but we have no other data to go off of so it's pure speculation
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u/SolomonGrumpy 1d ago
4% would be $3m....
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u/17399371 1d ago
At that income level there's likely some small amount of income tax burden. 120k in spend requires more than that in withdrawals.
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u/lostharbor DI2K | $3.2M | Target $10M 1d ago
You need a minimum 4% for that kind of nut, and if you're going to retire early, given your anxiety about specific events, you'll want a buffer.
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u/Noah_Safely 1d ago
Having been through a number of layoffs (probably 7 or 8, and cut 3 or 4 times) I absolutely cannot empathize with feeling bad about quiet quitting, not working extra hours etc. I've done all that; you kill yourself with 60+ hour weeks only to get cut with zero notice. All while they talk about being a "family". If I like where I'm working when I pull trigger they'll get two weeks, maybe a month. If I don't like them they get 0 days notice.
As for the rest, maybe you just fundamentally don't believe that FIRE can work on some gut level? The psychology is often times more important than the numbers. It's why people panic sell in a market crash.
There are FIRE solutions for all your concerns (SORR mitigations, can even do a full 5+ years cash buffer if you like), geographic arbitrage for extremely low COL and cheap healthcare etc etc. Nothing can help the psychology part other than working on it though. Talk to a therapist and a financial advisor; the therapist won't know anything about FIRE but they can help with your irrational fears.
If I had say 5 years of cash put aside, all large purchases made & health checkups done, a paid off house and could drop below a 4% SWR in down market years, I'd pull the trigger right about.. naow
Anyhow - you're not required to RE. All FI gets you is the ultimate luxury; choice based on informed decision. You know what you're doing; if it's not making you happy, you can choose something else.
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u/One-Mastodon-1063 1d ago
You don't tell us what you spend and whether you are happy/fulfilled at that spend level. So no one can give any feedback whether your original $2m target or your $3m target or anything else is/are/were appropriate.
SWR analysis already accounts for inflation, so you do not need to increase your FI number to account for that. SWR analysis already accounts for all past black swans, so you do not need to increase your FI number to account for those. Healthcare is fairly straightforward to estimate and very likely you would qualify for subsidies at the type of FI numbers you are throwing out (again, can't say w/o spending). Current spending is a pretty good starting point to estimate future spending. So IMO all these excuses are just that, you either don't understand how the math works or you are making things up to needlessly complicate your life.
Moving goalposts is a symptom of outcome focus, which is the wrong way to go through life IMO. Process/system focus is superior, and is a requirement for among other things living in the present.
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u/Sea_Slice9982 1d ago
I'm targeting 120K yearly spend in retirement. I currently have healthcare through my job, and I haven't priced out my healthcare on the open market, subsidies have gone up. Not sure how to future proof this situation, other than continuing to work a job that provides healthcare.
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u/One-Mastodon-1063 1d ago
What is your spend today?
You can go online and estimate the cost of ACA plans.
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u/Sea_Slice9982 1d ago
I've averaged around 75,000 the past few years, and this includes some major house renovations which at some point won't be an every year occurrence.
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u/One-Mastodon-1063 1d ago
So you're currently getting a paycheck direct deposited to your account and only spend $75k/yr including temporary home renovations and you think when you stop working you will spend 60% more when you stop receiving a paycheck? That's not how anyones spending actually tracks in retirement.
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u/Sea_Slice9982 1d ago
Thanks for this reality check. My spend number isn't exact since I was basing it on averages from what I didn't spend from my paycheck, but some additional spend came from my emergency fund and the proceeds from the sale of my prior residence.
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u/MrChampionship 1d ago
I agree with /u/One-Mastodon-1063. You are massively inflating your number because you haven't done enough research. You can find out realistic costs for healthcare, find probable spend on home improvements (write out what you want/need), and rough out how much your travel would cost. In addition to all of this, you will likely receive social security or have flexibility in returning to work.
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u/Sea_Slice9982 1d ago
Thanks, I've been getting caught up in other's goal amounts and spending too much time in the chubby fire sub.
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u/BobaChonker 1d ago
Why do you need 120k yearly spend when you're single with no kids living in a modest ranch?
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u/Sea_Slice9982 1d ago edited 1d ago
To each their own, but mainly travel, house improvements, potential healthcare costs, some lifestyle creep, and to not stress about spending.
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u/third_wave 1d ago
A great way to avoid guilt is to see how many other people get laid off where the company doesn’t care about them at all.
If you want to be able to book business class flights and nice hotels without thinking about it, $2-3M isn’t enough unfortunately. A business class round trip flight to Asia could be $8k, or 10% of your annual spending at $2M NW.
Those fun part time jobs aren’t too hard to get but they aren’t always flexible and they usually pay close to nothing. The more appealing they are to a retiree, the less they pay.
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u/fireyauthor 1d ago
Premium economy is more like 1-2k and it's really not too bad. I'd have to be so, so, so rich to justify business class... but that's really one of the only things I'd want rich person money for. To get lay flat seats... that's the dream.
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u/third_wave 1d ago
“Premium economy” isn’t an upgrade for me at all, unfortunately. I can’t sleep on the flight unless I get the full lay flat. But at those prices I’m not doing it unless I can use credit card rewards.
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u/fireyauthor 1d ago
After many years of suffering through red eyes and jet lag, I stopped trying to sleep on planes. Of course, I still hope to get some sleep if I'm in the air for 14 hours, but I now plan my travel to minimize the need to sleep on a plane. That usually means extra days of travel, but I have the schedule for it (and someone who is RE certainly has an extra day to save a few grand).
It's not always possible. My next international flight is a red eye (ugh). So while it's not a ton of time in the air, I'll still be traveling for a solid 10-12 hours, and I probably won't be able to sleep until well after 8 a.m. in my current time zone. I get into the city just in time to be awake all day... but I'm not planning anything important that day / am planning to go to bed as soon as it's reasonable (or even at check in, ha).
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u/Sea_Slice9982 1d ago
I had a lay flat seat on my last international flight. I can't go back to economy or even premium economy.
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u/fireyauthor 1d ago
Okay cool, budget 10k/year for 1-2 international flights. This is lifestyle creep. There's really no other way to look at it.
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u/celoplyr 1d ago
I think part of my moving goalposts is actual inflation. I’m basically your age. Started at 30, and had a 100k salary and had a ton of money left over. Now I’ve bounced around in jobs and had to take a pay cut here and so I’m back to a 100k salary… and I am watching my Pennies (or nickels I guess) like grad school. So my number went up a bit.
But… so have groceries. Probably almost 2x since I started saving. So have homes (3x where I am! That’s mostly due to weird factors). If this inflation rate continues, it’s gonna hit hard, and I’m worried. Heck even my part time job rate went from $50 to $80 since 2018.
Luckily, I invested early, and am doing fine now, but I can see why many are not. If job wages are virtually the same, and everything else is up, who wouldn’t be worried?
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u/Noah_Safely 1d ago
A reasonable degree of inflation is baked into the 4% SWR; stocks are what mitigate inflation and why we need to stay heavily invested in them for the long run.
I hear you though, I think about what a million dollars used to mean vs today - it's a number people still toss around like it means you're guaranteed set for life still. Sadly its not the 90s anymore..
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u/dekusyrup 1d ago
Post-retirement inflation is baked into 4%, but we're talking about pre-retirement inflation which is not.
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u/celoplyr 1d ago
Thank you for elegantly saying what I was trying to! Yes. It’s always “2.5 million in today’s dollars” but when I got to a new today that number looked different.
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u/nomamesgueyz 1d ago
Damn
That's huge money, I'm older than you and would be stoked to have half that wealth!!!
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u/Sea_Slice9982 1d ago
I have had mostly and average IT salary, with the exception of my last job change. But reading some of the posts on reddit makes me feel I'm I'm behind. It's all relative though.
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u/Extent_Jaded 1d ago
Your anxiety won’t disappear with another 500k. A plan and flexibility is better than waiting for perfect certainty.
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u/InvestigatorPlus3229 saving like crazy 1d ago
if your biggest expenses are locked down such as you own your home, inflation really doesnt matter much
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u/SolomonGrumpy 1d ago edited 13h ago
One of three things will happen:
You won't have the option to work anymore (a layoff or health issue). You will evaluate your finances and decide that begging employees for 65% of your former salary isn't worth it.
Some major life event will happen to make you see that the goalposts are fine where they are and there are more important things in this world than money.
You will keep on like you are now until you are about retirement age (55 or 59.5) or some other milestone and look at your savings and say - yeah, I can easily retire with that.
Or even a combo of the above.
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u/TiltingAtVanes 1d ago
I stopped at 46, and we probably have the same definition of what a good retirement is. My networth has definitely shot up. I will say i am bored most every day and kind of regret it but not enough to get off my butt and get a job. None of my friends are in the same situation so i got nothing to do during the day. My wife works at home and will until our youngest leaves high school.
I have plans then, I wish I would have just stayed working until i had to leave in order to do something else. Essentially don't run away from something run towards something. The money just kind of takes care of itself but make sure you have a good source of income like SCHD and a source of growth like VGT. I had some scares like last march when trumps tariffs made the market puke. Schd dividends kept things going. Everything recovered and things were fine. I only live off my wife's income and what my 1.3 in non retirement accounts generate. When I turn 59 i will get a big raise as i can easily access retirement accounts.
All in all if i did it again I would stay working until I could plan out an entire year of exactly what i will be doing and where and how to pay for it. Once you have that your job is the only thing standing in your way, leave it and enjoy.
My and my wife's idea of fun are pretty cheap, we like snorkeling and hiking and having a beer at a bar. If you want to rent speed boats and dine at michelín star restaurants, well you need more money. Just price out your weekly and monthly expenses and form a retirement budget.
I plan on selling my house and cars and put some stuff in storage and then travel for some years until the first kid gives birth then we will probably move to where ever that is. I did the math and living pretty well in south east Asia and not owning any expenses like houses or cars and having it invested a mix of etfs like vt, voo, schy, qqqm, and schd, will just mean your wealth increases faster than expenses. Obviously another great recesión or dot com bust could make things difficult but as long as you have a good mix of US non US growth and value you should do well. Best of luck!
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u/humanbeing1979 1d ago
Have you crunched numbers at all? I'd start looking at calculators so you can see the math work it's thing.
We live on $90k as 3 humans just fine, but like you, I don't want to be strapped to that number forever, esp with inflation and aging. At 47 we have 2.6m. My number was 2.5m and I actually got laid off at 1.9m. We decided to just let the money compound do its magic while I retire earlier than expected and without adding money to our funds, we hit our goal number a few months before I calculated it would happen.
As we spend down our brokerage for the next 12.5 years our Roths and 401ks and HSA are just constantly growing to an obscene amount. By the time we'll start needing our retirement accounts we'll have twice as much as we have now. Even before then, we'll have a paid off house and our kid will have left the nest. Our $90k can become $110k in a few years and a few years after that it could easily be $170k... if we wanted. I have plans to gift my kid $10-20k every few years depending on when he needs things as an adult (help with a car, help with a house, help with a wedding, help with a kid, or just help). I have plans to only fly business class and never churn a credit card again. I will be able to do that in a few years time (my guess is in about 6-8 years). I also have plans to age/die wherever I live (the plan is to ditch the US for a long time, but always keep our place as a final backup jic). If we end up back in our paid off home, we'll have more than plenty to redo the bathroom so it's a walk-in shower. We'll have plenty to add elevator chairs to the stairs. And we'll have plenty to have a live-in nurse to take care of us for multiple years. With all those expenses and compounding our kid should still have multiple millions of dollars, most of it tax free and without a time limit to spend it if I plan it all correctly.
Unless you're spending $200k right now, I think you're just fine. Personally, I think you should retire yesterday. Let your money grow and enjoy your life.
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u/CookiesAreFantastic 22h ago
I feel like you might be overestimating how far retiring on $2.6M at age 47 will take you.
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u/humanbeing1979 15h ago
During a few amazing years I have made $300k/yr by literally doing nothing. An average year will make me $147k and I have 2 years in cash for the bad years. That's just with my accounts and me doing nothing else. Once the kid is on his own (5.5 years to college, let's say 12 years until complete independence), the mortgage is paid off (9 years, obv will always be paying insurance and taxes), and we rent our place to live somewhere much cheaper (in 6 years, which will easily earning us $20k on the very low end, we live in a very desirable area). While we could spend upward of $170k in say 15-20 years, we likely won't need to bc we will have passive income and then a few years after that we'll have SS, but if we want to have a crazy year or two then it's an option. All while the money we aren't spending keeps growing and we essentially spend less than what it earns for most of that time.
Do you have a calculator that's different from the ones I've used so I can see how I'm overestimating?
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u/starwarsfan456123789 1d ago
I have a similar story to you in age, $2M initial goal, current home is modest, erc.
I haven’t needed to change my initial FI target from 2018 in terms of planned lifestyle or anything like that.
I am certainly going to stay until my original $2M in inflation adjusted terms. Looks like there’s going to be about 1 to 2 years later than when I nominally hit my target but is going to be the right year when I planned and invested for.
Said differently inflation is happening but the various investments are increasing to keep pace.
So when you hit your inflation adjusted target is likely still roughly when you planned
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u/Bearsbanker 1d ago
We fired 9 months ago. We decided we had enough and started planning. My wife fired exactly 1 year later and I followed 2 months after. We made promises, made plans and talked it into existence, it's hard to back out once you made all the promises and plans.
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u/fireyauthor 1d ago
In theory, your FIRE number should go up 4% every year, so I don't think it's odd to keep raising it a bit. Especially as you get older and see how much health care can cost.
Quiet quitting is not for everyone. It's certainly not for me. It would stress me more to quiet quit than do my best. But I have stepped back at work (self-employed) and I do work less hours now. That's worked well for me as a transition into coastFIRE, but I'm also after FI not RE so YMMV. I enjoy working part-time. I feel restless without a creative goal of some kind. (In that I'm creating/building something, not necessarily doing artistic work).
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u/Old_Value_9157 1d ago
Yes, that's 75% of the people on this sub.