u/justfiv

Today I was doing some modeling for mine and wife’s finances again. I was doing some barista fire calculations since we realized I can do a semi withdrawal much sooner than expected. The numbers make more sense than what I thought especially this early on. We are 34m and 36f right now, but we’re aiming for independent work by 42 till around 50. Just for example I’ve hit my coast fire number and she is relatively close to it too. Main difference is she likes her job while I sort of hate the work that I do. I find it more a means to an end.

For those who are modeling out FI, do you guys do barista fire calculations? I found it useful for us at least especially if you know you don’t want to fully stop, but you can dabble in different jobs over the years.

I’m curious for those of you who are actively tracking all your finances, is there anyone who is actually paying for subscriptions for things like ProjectionLab, Monarch, Copilot, etc?

I cancelled everything and started removing all my connections to bank accounts with Plaid just for the sake of privacy and realizing now everything you can do yourself with personal tools. If you are using them, what’s your actual use for them and do you find them actually worth the $5-15 bucks a month?

Just a reminder to everyone who is on or thinking about planning a sabbatical is to make sure you have overviews of your spend with/without partner. I’ve been doing our first monthly recaps while I am on my leave and I’ve found that we need less than we thought originally. Not only did this give me more confidence about my leave, but it also gave me confidence for my overall FIRE journey.

For me I wanted to avoid Plaid connection software, so I just got spending reports for all my cards (Chase) and used Qwen to parse through to categorize all my spend by merchants. It gave me an idea about where we could optimize and where we could also spend a little more. You can use anything you want for the PDF/CSV parsing, but you’d be surprised that maybe you’re closer than you think numbers wise. After that, it’s just a leap of faith.

I’ve been at a terrible company where I completely burned out, but the one bright thing that came out of it was that it helped me reach a point of financial independence where I could finally choose myself over my work environment. Yesterday, I officially took FMLA, and I don’t plan on returning to the company afterward. It does suck walking away from a high-paying job in this job market, but having the ability to do exactly that is what I worked and saved so hard for.

Numbers-wise, for those interested (otherwise skip this paragraph): I have $42,000 saved in cash and about $14,000 worth of PTO that will be paid out when I leave. I’ll also be getting around 60% of my pay for the next few months. My wife and I spend about $2,500 a month after accounting for some semi-passive income that comes in every month. She’s also completely supportive of me taking my foot off the gas for a while, which I’m incredibly grateful for. I’ve also reached what I consider a major milestone toward Lean FIRE: $550k in a taxable brokerage, $80k in my 401(k), $20k in my Roth IRA, and about $140k in rental property equity.

I mostly needed to vent this out because most of the people I’ve talked to have told me I’m crazy and that I should just suck it up. I honestly don’t care for that advice anymore because I see the bills and lifestyles a lot of those same people are strapped to every month. Thankfully, that isn’t the position I’m in.

I’m planning to stay completely out of the job market and not even think about interview prep for at least two to three months. I just want to remember what it feels like to own my entire schedule again and wake up without work immediately hanging over me.

I’m grateful for all the stories I’ve read in these FIRE subreddits. Some of them genuinely helped take me from being anxious about walking away to realizing that this is exactly what all the saving and investing was for. Financial independence isn’t worth much if you’re too afraid to ever use it.

Context:
~$575k in taxable brokerage
~$100k between my Roth IRA and 401(k)
~$150k equity in a rental generating about $500/month in cash flow
~$50k in cash set aside for a sabbatical
~Likely eligible for ~6 months of unemployment if I’m laid off

Wife and I moved back in with my parents, bringing our combined spending to about $3k/month. I’ve had a pretty rough 1.5–2 years at my current company. I was fortunate to earn around $275k/year and saved aggressively while I could. There’s a good chance I’ll be laid off within the next month, and instead of stressing about it, I’m planning to negotiate whatever severance I can and take a real break.

I’ve estimated about 12–18 months of runway. Even if I spend the entire $50k, I can’t imagine many other points in my life where I’ll have the opportunity to take a year off to slow down, recover, and explore what I actually want next.

For me, FIRE was never really about retiring early. It was about having the financial independence to step away when life became unhealthy. I think it’s finally time to use it.

(34M) I think I’ve reached my version of Coast FIRE, but I’m not sure what to call the next phase.

Current numbers:
401(k): ~$80k
Roth IRA: ~$20k
Brokerage: ~$580k
Total invested: ~$680k
Rental property: ~$330k value, ~$200k mortgage, ~$500/month cash flow currently
Empty Commercial Lot: $400k

My original goal was to hit around $2.5 in brokerage outside of real estate by 60. Based on the current invested amount, I think I’m roughly on track if I mostly let it compound at 5%. So instead of continuing to aggressively add to those same accounts, I’m thinking of pulling my foot off the gas a bit at least at my current company. I’m in a high-paying but stressful job, and I don’t want to keep burning myself out here just to over-optimize a number that already looks on track.

My next goal is building what I’m calling a Freedom Fund.
The idea is separate from retirement accounts: build a more income/flexibility-focused taxable bucket that could help me take breaks, switch jobs or even careers, work less, or draw down before traditional retirement age. I’m also planning to aggressively pay down the rental over the next 8–10 years so it becomes a cleaner cash-flow asset.

This doesn’t feel like pure Coast FIRE, Flamingo FIRE, Barista FIRE, etc. It’s more like: let the long-term money compound, build a separate flexibility fund, and buy back time earlier.

Is anyone else doing something similar? Basically a “Freedom Fund” after reaching Coast FIRE, instead of continuing to max growth at all costs?