r/FIREyFemmes

I saw a post on here describing the struggles of trying to find a sapphic partner with a FIRE mindset, and I was shocked at the amount of queer women commenting. I didn't realize there were that many of us on this subreddit.

Instead of individually reaching out to each one I thought maybe I should just make a post to see if there's any of us sapphic women single in western Canada?

Straight and coupled women are welcome too, I'd love to be friends with other FIRE women as well, but bonus points if you're queer and single haha.

It'd be so cool to find a partner or a good friend to experience life with.

I would love a travel buddy or someone to indulge in my more expensive hobbies with.

I feel like most of the redditors here are American so this is definitely a shot in the dark, but please reach out if you'd like to chat!!

I am 44, and I have worked with a CFP to help with college funding for my 2 kids (15 & 9) and retirement planning at a more traditional retirement age (60). I haven't really followed FIRE, but I have always been pretty frugal. This has led me to having about 24x annual expenses in my retirement accounts. During my last meeting with the CFP, she told me that my kids’ 529s are good shape funding wise. My emergency fund is also fully funded.

Here is my dilemma: It’s hard for me to consider changing what I’m doing. The numbers show that I can pull back from work or coast on my retirement accounts but I don’t know if I can or should given how shaky the economy feels (to me).

If anyone has hit FI but didn’t RE, can you tell me what you did or what adjustments you made when you were at this point in your FIRE journey? I’m having a hard time thinking about being anything other than a saver.

I’m 48f and I was able to leave my high paying tech job in April because my husband’s last company was acquired. He still needs to keep working because we haven’t hit our full fire number. He is also a bit younger than me as well and is entering his peak earning years. After a summer with our two elementary aged kids I realized being a care giver isn’t for me. They were even in camp full time. I don’t miss my actual job but mostly the interaction with peers. I can consult for a bit but the thought of doing that in my former type of role doesn’t interest me but it’s an easy option. Volunteering is fine but I during the day most ppl in my age group are working. Any thoughts from women in similar situations?

Hoping I can find some similar minds here. I’m queer and dating, and really want to be with someone who understands the FIRE mindset.

Which is hard to find without being called a “gold digger”.

Any body in a similar boat? My last post in LGBT spaces called me elitist and that I was “hating on poor people for being poor”. But it’s not about that…

This feels like a very odd thing to try and articulate but I feel like the women in this sub may be able to add insight or be able to relate.

I am a high income earner, single, divorced 3+ years and aggressively trying to rebuild from dividing assets from said divorce. (Side note, worth every penny).

I work on 100% commission. Due to a compensation structure change my income is going to increase by 25% annually in just a couple months without me doing anything different than what I am currently doing. My income before this was already 'enough' and allowed me to save and reach my goal of early retirement in 7 years.

This increase will essentially allow me to easily double my current savings - or opens the door to spending on... whatever? It all feels a little surreal and has created this odd anxiety around feeling like I need to change my plan, just as I was settling into this one I had. I don't hate my job. I don't desire to retire any earlier. And I have a great work/life balance that allows me a ton of flexibility to travel and work from just about anywhere.

I am not a fan of the idea of hoarding money and realize this could just add to the safety margin, but since I don't hate what I do I've always known I can kick the retirement date down the road or even consult after I retire from this career. I also have this old programming running through my head that says 'if you make more you must DO more'. Therefore I am having to actively restrain myself from making a project or business overhaul from this increase I hadn't counted on.

Has anyone found themselves in a similar position? I am certainly not complaining about this - I'm just trying to honor this emotion around it, open myself to options that I hadn't considered, and also help restrain from doing things that make it feel 'justified' in adding on more work since I've just settled into a wonderful balance and rehearsal of what retirement will look like for me. TIA!

A few months ago, I posted here for validation for some of my decisions. I hated my job and wanted to hear people encourage me to keep grinding. Instead, I got a ton of good perspective and advice. In the past couple of months, I spent a lot of time working on myself and figuring out what I want from life. I wanted to share my journey and thank everyone for their valuable advice.

Some things that I had to work on before I pull the trigger:

* I decided to sell my house and downsize. One of the things that was keeping me in the workforce was my house. I had a large mortgage that ate up a lot of my income and made up a substantial portion of my NW. Having peace in my life is more important than a nice house.

* I found something to look forward to in retirement. I was running away from my job rather than towards anything - all I did was think about how much I hated my job. It actually made it much harder to let go because I was thinking about my job all the time, and it was consuming my identity. I'm now planning on slow traveling for a year and then going back to school. I love learning and aspire to become a lifelong student. I've started planning my gap year as well as looking into interesting programs to apply to.

* Actively start adapting my finances for FIRE. I'm nearly 100% in equities right now. I'll be taking some time to sell my house and put the proceeds into bonds, so I'll have a hedge against SORR. I'll need to figure out my health insurance situation and how to optimize my withdrawals.

In the meanwhile, I've stepped back at work and focused on training my team to work without me. I'm trying for a team transfer to a lower level position. I still need to work for a year while I sort everything out - there's actually a lot of prep needed to pull the trigger, but I'm optimistic for the future.

I still get days where I wonder if I'm doing the right thing. I'm making more money now than ever and I have a lot of opportunities for advancement. As an high achiever, walking away is one of the hardest things I've ever done. Leveling down is definitely a ego-bruiser. But at the end of the day, I've done the work of soul searching and figuring out a plan. I'll just take a deep breathe and keep moving towards my goal.

Hello fellow FIREy Femmes,

I wonder if other mid-forties+ femmes can share stories about how they shifted from a scarcity mindset to an abundance mindset and built something rewarding for their later life and career?

A bit of context: I (44f) worked hard since I was 17 and built a nest egg big enough for me to slow down. We have a 16x invested portfolio to our annual expenses. I know it's not 25x yet, but we can easily get there by adjusting our spending.

After being laid off earlier this year, I realize I want to go back to school - it was one of the happiest times of my life - and pick up where I last left off. I did a BA in psychology and interned at a psychiatric hospital; I always wanted to become a therapist and potentially pursue a PhD in clinical psychology, and later perhaps even specialize in financial psychology. What feeds me is meaningful connections and making space for people to process, feel, and heal.

I spoke with my spouse, who had a startup that I helped support as the reliable, often sole earner for over a decade. As he is now set up as a full-time employee working for a company, he is more than happy to support me - and asks me to look for magic and do what makes me happy

I am, however, and very surprisingly, struggling with the day-to-day. I know that I'm downregulating... I lost one of my parents when I was young; I had to take on huge responsibilities since I was ten, and this is why, when I was working in a corporate fire-fighting environment, it felt 'safe' for me, even though it might not be the best for my mental health. I think a lot of us who are 'good' at FIRE were in a position to learn that nothing is promised or guaranteed. That scarcity mindset is very good at driving us to FIRE from something, but I realize to live a richer and more fulfilled life, we kinda have to have also the abundance mindset to be excited about what we grow into as well.

If you're still with me reading to this point, I guess I'm hoping for words of encouragement. I am a little disappointed at myself that I'm still constantly looking for 'permission' to do this for myself. I know the permission can't come from a stranger on Reddit or anyone else, but from me. Yet, I struggle. Two quotes I read recently that I love:

• "The opposite of anxiety isn't calm; it is trust."
• "Courage is not the absence of fear; it is feeling the fear and doing it anyway."

Not sure who needs to read this today, but thank you for being here with me.

PS: to make sure my post is relevant to this sub, the formula for the FIRE-ish state I'm in:

1. Learned faster than folks in my field and staying sharp in emerging technology fields
2. Put in the hard work to develop technical expertise (although it is way harder with how fast AI is moving than ten years ago - back then, being able to do vLookUp made me an office superhero; the bar was way lower then).
3. Stay grounded and avoid lifestyle inflation - multiple promotions later, I was still living with roommates.
4. Maxing out 401k and budget monthly savings for investing opportunities (e.g., I had cash in hand when the 2020 crash happened - we put more money in then).
5. If you choose to partner up in life, try to find a spouse who matches your values (spiritual and financial). I know it's hard to find good partners these days, but I'd be remiss not to point out that having a good spouse (and being single is better than a spouse that works against your mental and financial health) is invaluable in the FIRE journey.

i’m one of those examples of “you don’t need college to get into the workforce, you just need skills”. and i make slightly above average net pay in the country that i live in.

i’m in my early 20s. a woman. and been working in big corpo for nearly 5 years.

i’m not going to get into how i did it or what exactly i do just because it’s irrelevant to this post. but i am a native english speaker in a european country, which helped my odds for sure.

thing is, i fucking hate my job. like most people do. but my job makes me physically feel sick. and mentally.

i am not passionate about the industry i work in.

i can’t stand dealing with ridiculous stakeholders and i would love to tell them to fuck off and eat shit, (instead i smile and pretend to care.)

i’m sick of MS teams, emails, admin on stupid systems, escalations, meetings where people use coporate jargon to come off intelligent but it’s clear they don’t know wtf they even mean.. just the whole corporate bullshit.

and sure i do make nice money, but at the cost of my life, because i hate my life. and they don’t nearly pay me enough to deal with what i do. not just me, my whole team is overworked and we are over max capacity, but management just encourages that “we do what we can for now.”

i am creative. i like to travel. i like spas. i’m good at building relationships and maintaining them (my best asset skill wise). i like art. i like managing. i like organizing. i like beauty and bettering myself. i like music. love helping people. but i can’t do any of that when i hate my job so much working over 10 hours a day.

and everyone tells you, “invest and you wouldn’t imagine over time how that money will multiply.” FUCK THAT.

i’ve had a few social media accounts that have been successful (i do this for my employer as well but indirectly) but not to the point where i can make revenue, as i just get burnt out from doing this alongside my job. and it’s not enough to create a portfolio.

i’ve had numerous ideas too, which i was so sure on until i wasn’t.

l really don’t wanna just stick to corpo. and i don’t wanna go back to college just to end up starting from scratch and ending up in a similar place.

and i have friends here who make less than me and are satisfied for the most part. but they don’t travel. they don’t experience the world. they are in their little bubble.

i’ve always said i don’t want to travel on a budget and get the minimum end of experience. i want to travel and experience the most that i can without a limit of “oh i can only spend 3k” and then… “i wish i got to do this… aww maybe next time or some day…”.

and that’s not just about travelling. that’s life in general.

i don’t want to marry a rich man. or do OF. or anything illegal.

i also don’t want to be an english teacher/tutor (everyone recommends that). i’d rather utilize my english and communication skills for something more interesting.

most importantly, i don’t want to work my life away so someone 6 levels above me can lay on a beach while i argue with stakeholders on Teams.

so woman (&/ men) who made it out young or wish they would’ve done it differently… what the fuck did you do? or what would you have done?

Just wanted to say it out loud :).

This is excluding house equity, which would place me closer to 1.3M roughly.

The problem I have now is the majority of it is tied up in retirement accounts (roughly 80/20). Is it time to only go up to the company match and start moving all extra into our brokerage?

The goal honestly is to call it quits in the next 5 years or so. My partner and I are both dual citizens, and our home country is very low COL with amazing healthcare.

I don’t want to put assets under management but I’m wondering if I should see an advisor for a check in. I’m fairly well versed in my finances but I’m considering a sabbatical (maybe early retirement) and want to make sure my ducks are in a row. I’m just not 200% that I’ve thought of everything and want to know if I’m missing something.

Has anyone seen a planner for a one time plan and was it helpful? And how much did it cost? Would I be better off spending the money to take a course somewhere and develop my own knowledge further?

Hi Ladies, seeking some advice or just general feedback I guess. I’m wondering if I’m putting feelings > finances and whether that’s actually a problem.

We own a rental property in Europe - it is fully paid of, was our first home together, and we are both citizens. It’s been rented out since we moved, we pay an agent, it’s pretty straight forward. We currently live is the US but neither of us really feels at home here and probably don’t intend on staying for ever. I don’t know that we’ll ever be able to buy a home like that in this specific city again.

About 4 years ago I got sick and my grandparents decided to give me $ so I could stop working/worrying all the time. We keep my inheritance (about $1m) separate to our joint assets (the rental property, joint accounts, and a brokerage acc of about 400k.) He has his own 401k and brokerage, and we have significant equity (about .25m) in our US home. We are late 30’s early 40’s. I’ll also add that we both grew up financially insecure (two sets of irresponsible parents) and he particularly has a lot of anxiety about $ - even though when we run the numbers, even without the inheritance, we are in a pretty secure place. He pays our mortgage/bills and I cover extras. I’d say we split expenses maybe 70/30 - he definitely covers more month to month, but I pay for all large expenses when they come up. We’ve been married 13 years, together for longer.

All this is to say - my husband wants to sell the rental, and put the proceeds (about £700k after costs if we’re lucky) into an index fund. I’m emotionally attached to the home, I moved a lot growing up (3 continents) and it’s the only place that’s ever felt like home to me. I feel like we have enough $ in the market and enough cash to put in the market as it is. The return on the rental is around 3% so I understand we’d ‘make’ more money in the market but thats not what I want. He wants more $ in the market.

He suggested if I don’t want to sell the house, I ‘buy’ him out and the rental will be entirely ‘mine’. Except legally it won’t be (and I don’t want it to be, it’s ours!)

I guess I’m wondering if I’m being unreasonable/selfish. It’s also not uncommon for him to come up with a plan and then push it until I dig my heels in and say no, or until I agree. Ask me how we ended up in an enormous house because ‘the interest rates are low’ and it’s ’a good investment’ even though the mortgage swallows up a huge chunk of his paycheck. The ultimate golden handcuffs while the mortgage ‘inflates away’.

My point is, my grandparents gifted me an early inheritance so I could live a less stressful life than my parents. His point is the inheritance is mine, and he still needs to make himself secure. I respect this so much but also…I feel like he/we just create stress where it doesn’t need to exist.

Just looking for a sanity check.

Currently pregnant with our second baby due this year and can’t stop thinking about future work options to maximize not only financial situation but time with my girls and curious what others would do in my position.

I’m 36 with $450k saved in my 401k making about $165k a year. I like my job but I don’t love it. I have a wonderful team at work but there’s always the looming threat of reorgs and layoffs in this economy. From my calculations, if I were to grind and continue to maximize contributions over the next 5 years I’d be close to $800k in investments by 41 and could really take my foot off the gas and let compound interest do her thing.

In 5 years they would both be in elementary school and I’d love to go heavily part-time, just enough to maybe bring in like 2-3k a month to contribute to mortgage and groceries. Either still at my current job or any job that will let me work while they’re at school. During this time my husband will still be working…he doesn’t have as much saved for retirement so he will need to work full time and could cover our health costs/majority of other costs.

After elementary school, maybe re-evaluate? Open to going back to full-time or remain part-time if we’re making it work.

Alternative is to grind it out until I’m 55 working full-time and hopefully retire then. At that point, they will have both graduated high school so I won’t really optimize anytime with them but my retirement should be set.

Has anyone taken a large gap in the elementary years or just a gap in general? When was the best time to take it?

Hi all,

We had our first meetup a couple weeks ago, it was great to meet other women interested in FIRE and lots of other overlapping hobbies!

If you would like to join for the second Seattle meetup. We are meeting August 22nd at 11 am at Citizen on Queen Anne.

We will grab a picnic table in their outside area.

I (24F) am entering my second year of a PhD in the social sciences. Ideally, I’d love to stay in academia and become a professor. However, I’m increasingly unsure whether that’s financially responsible given my family situation.

I was fortunate to attend college on a full scholarship, but since my first year of college, I’ve also been financially supporting my family overseas.

My parents stopped working around COVID and currently don’t have any savings, so I expect to be responsible for helping support them for the foreseeable future — potentially the next 20 years.

I’m also getting married soon and would like to have children. Growing up with a lot of financial insecurity, including worrying about having enough food, has made me particularly conscious of wanting to provide my future children with financial stability and opportunities that I didn’t have growing up.

This is where I’m extremely torn. Academia is genuinely what I’d love to do, but the compensation and job market make me nervous given my responsibilities. On the other hand, I could pivot into industry, where I’d likely have a much higher income and potentially more financial security, but I’m worried about giving up a career I’m genuinely passionate about.

Financially, I’ve been trying to stay fairly disciplined. I worked multiple jobs throughout college and have about $150k across brokerage and retirement accounts. At the moment, after expenses, I’m able to save/invest around $2,500–$3,000 per month.

But I also know that supporting parents, eventually raising children, and potentially buying a home and saving for potential college funds could change the picture significantly.

For those who have faced a similar choice between pursuing a passion and choosing a higher-paying career because of family responsibilities, how did you approach it? Do you think it’s worth pursuing academia despite the financial uncertainty, or would you prioritize a higher-paying industry career in my situation?

I’d really appreciate any perspectives, especially from people who have supported parents while also building their own families.

My birthday is coming up, what one self-care/anti-aging/health thing would you add/buy to your regular routine?

-red light
-vibration plate
-tretinoin
-others?

I am slowly working to stack healthy habits. Already working to get my steps, eat more protein and fiber, workout, take creatine, drink water, reduce alcohol, use retinol, etc.

What do you swear by? Or really enjoy?

I think one of the hardest parts of FIRE is when no one around you is doing it.

Lately, I feel like it’s really hard to keep my budget in check because of expectations from others, whether it’s eating out, the shared grocery bill, etc.

My partner is a Frugal person overall. But I work a lot and everyone thinks I make enough money that I shouldn’t worry. So when I do worry, people act like it’s annoying or inconvenient for them. But sometimes it feels like other people expect me to spend like I earn. It’s really hard to get other people to understand the overall goal is FIRE. I’m not living to go out and buy things, I’m living to find a better life for myself and take my time back.

Anyone relate to this?

Hi folks,

Thanks for letting me post here. NW is currently 145K.

I (28F) have recently hit a very "full-circle" era of my life, in terms of reflecting back onto the choices I made in my 20s leading to now. On one hand, I have gotten extremely lucky in some ways, and the other, I made stupid decisions that essentially (if all was well) could have resulted in me being in a much stronger shape to FIRE by my mid to late 30s.

I'm a pandemic grad, and at 23 I was able to secure a job offer at Amazon in e-commerce. I was preparing to take it despite heavily disliking my first job in the same field (IT troubleshooting, merchandising, etc), when my former internship team reached out with an offer to return to media research. I enjoyed media research much more, even tho the pay difference was already 20K at the time. I was very, very reckless. I remember my brother calling it and telling me I was going to regret it "in 5 years". Well, here we go.

I was on that team for about 1.5 years when I decided to go on a travel break for about 8 months at 25 (fully self funded) and when I returned back to the States I was able to transition right back to media analysis at one of the biggest titles in the field. I know I got very lucky, but right now I'm upwards of 30%+ underpaid. I don't regret the travel break however, but it has been hard for me to not compulsively compare myself with my college peers who all appear to make 200K+, when alot of that I know is confirmation bias. I've even gone on the AI chats to constantly read about how if I took that Amazon offer, I would be making 200K right now. But what is even the point of doing those comparisons?

There have been other changes in my life, too. I recently ended my relationship of 9 years, largely spurred by an unclear end to career-related long distance. He is a SWE now making 300K, and while we have completely different career tracks, I further feel the mounting pressure of feeling very behind.

At the same time, most of my family is still very poor. I compare my current situation to them and realize that in some ways, I am certainly ahead financially as well. But did I throw out further potential? Did I sabotage my own life? Is there a richer, healthier, happier version of me in some parallel universe?

Thanks for reading.

I’m looking for some perspective from people who are also working toward FIRE and navigating the balance between saving and actually enjoying day-to-day life.
For a bit of context, we are super intentional about keeping our big fixed expenses low. We both drive practical, mid-range Toyotas, and we bought a nearly new build home that’s well below our actual purchasing power about 20% of what we could technically afford so we don't have to deal with costly renovations or overextending ourselves. On paper, we are doing good with our savings rate (75-80% savings after tax) and keeping the massive budget categories modest.
Where I struggle is with the smaller, personal splurges. I’m really into fashion and style, but every single time I want to pick up something nice like a $400 pair of designer sunglasses this annoying little voice in my head goes, *“That’s not what someone trying to reach FIRE would do.”*
I know a lot of the FIRE community leans heavily into frugality across the board, but I’m really trying to find a healthy middle ground where I don't feel like I'm putting my entire life on hold until retirement.
How do you all handle your daily lives?

No party or celebration, by choice. But I did go to Starbucks this morning and order a Spinach Feta Wrap. The same thing I’ve ordered at Starbucks since the first time I celebrated at Starbucks with my first “real” job (a job where I could afford Starbucks because I wasn’t working for Starbucks-level wages) back in 2004. It isn’t even good 😩. But it is warm & largely consistent. In fact, it has been perhaps the first stable love of my life before I met my husband.

22 years (fewer than most, more than some)

Hundreds (thousands?) of Spinach Feta Wraps from multiple continents and many states later.

I got in my car this morning & as I sat there I checked my account to just see if maybe my last paycheck was there already, a day early. And there it was. So binary, just sitting there like it didn’t represent to me a lifetime of the most crazy, unusual & wouldn’t change a thing career I couldn’t have dreamt up in a lifetime of lifetimes. And the feeling that washed over me is truly indescribable. A wave & blanket of emotion, being both crushed and lifted up. So many, many years of anxiety releasing in a torrent of weeps, deep yet shallow breaths.

I’m not naive to think I won’t find something else to ramp up my anxiety again in the near future. My brain is already turning my Starbucks caffeine into a web of complexity as I sit here writing this. I feel it’s tendrils wrapping around my brain already screaming “What’s next!?”. But for that small brief 20 minutes as I sat in my car, unprepared for the impact it would have on me, I felt what I can only describe as “it.” That which I have been waiting so long for. Like being hunted by a rabid dog or bear for so very long and pausing ever so briefly to look behind you only to realize it is already gone.

FIRE feels so different to so many people, and to many it feels like nothing at all. I was pretty sure I was going to be in the last bit. I am really happy it turned out not to be true. This was a catharsis I really, really needed.

Some things, though, never change; for example, I swear that wrap still doesn’t have feta in it, hand to god.

so…

what should I do next?

I’m a nurse of 5 years and don’t often see many nurses on this subreddit? (Where y’all at?!) We make a decent living, but don’t really talk about finances much.

I wanted to share my stats and start an open forum for us to speak about our pay, goals, etc.

My portfolio currently:

401k 111k
Roth IRA 42k
Brokerage 30k (recently had to sell a good portion of my portfolio for medical/tuition reasons, so sad about how low this is)

No home equity, no debt. $183k net worth. Have a partner, but keep our finances separate.

How are you guys doing out there in the nursing world? There are a lot of super high earners on this subreddit so I want to get perspective from people of similar backgrounds/career paths.