u/RothStonk

I'm 26M, I make about $200K in tech sales, and have about $370K in investible assets (220 in a standard brokerage account and about 150 in retirement). I also have an emergency fund of $50K.

In 2024, I started an online business and it's now getting to the point where I am considering leaving my full-time job to get back my time and then potentially using these assets to coast to a normal retirement.

In 2024 (starting year of the business in July) I made $5K, last year I made $65K, and this year it's pacing closer to $90-$100K. One of the reasons I was able to scale it quickly was convincing my fiance to come work for me and to do some of the work that I did not have time to do during the day while I was working. I feel that gaining back 40 hours a week of my mental energy can at least get me close to my base salary of $130K.

There are obvious risks like us both depending on one income, health insurance, the business failing or not reaching an income level that could sustain raising a family, or other foreseen slumps as our revenue is not super consistent month to month.

However, one of the things I've realized is the traditional idea of "FIRE" and sacrificing everything to be free at a certain age is not for me. I'd much rather just spend my time doing work on genuinely enjoy and retire at a normal age.

Is it crazy to take the pay cut/uncertainty to try and do something meaningful for the next 35 years?

Looking for a sanity check here. I'm 26, living in Southern California, and getting married next year. We plan to start a family after turning 30, but I'd like to buy something in the next 1-3 years if I can afford it.

Like most Gen-Z, I am stuck in this weird place where I live in a VHCOL area, I want to buy longterm, but my rent is 50% cheaper than buying would be and it is allowing me to sock away a lot of money into index funds. This allows my savings rate to be high, but I know that long term it's probably in my best interest to get my shelter costs relatively controlled.

But in this in between period... what do I do with my asset allocation? If I hold cash in my HYSA and the market keeps ripping to all time high after all time high, there's a significant amount of money that could be further used for a downpayment.

If I hold index funds and the market goes into a recession, I may not have enough to buy anything anymore, given that I'd probably have to put down around $200K and buy something in the $800K range (average in this cheaper zip code is abut $980K). Truthfully, I am not even sure I could afford that with where interest rates are at and it may make complete sense to continue renting until conditions change.

Currently I make around $200K a year in my 9-5 job. I make a base salary of $150K, the rest is commission. This is a particularly good year so I will make probably closer to $250K, but on average I would say $200K.

I also started a business a couple of years ago that is starting to spit out a decent amount of profit. $5K in 2024, $65K in 2025, and pacing for about $90K this year. My fiance now works for the company, is paid $50K a year, and works on operations stuff while I am working my regular job.

Currently our finances look like this:

• $240,000 in index funds (standard brokerage account)
• $90,000 in an HYSA, $30,000 of this is budgeted for our wedding next year
• $143,000 in retirement accounts

Total Liquid NW excluding wedding fund: $443,000

Right now we are investing about $4900 a month including my company match. This is also not accounting for my commissions which will be around $25K a year post-tax.

My definition of FIRE is not to stop working. I equally don't think homeownership is super important to me, I just see it as a best practice to control cost in California when raising a future family. My actual goal is is to just be able to work on my business full time without getting priced out and having to move away from our family. If I knew I could do that renting, I would.

It seems like my best bet is to convert $200K of index funds to cash, hold that in my HYSA, and wait for affordability to improve? Anyone disagree?

"This recent sale comes after Brown’s estate agreed to turn over the property as part of a settlement agreement filed with the bankruptcy court in December 2025.".... yikes.

I found a full house tour for Chase Stokes