I know that a lot of people are debating when a correction will happen. With my luck and track record, this is the most accurate forecast out there. You're welcome for my sacrifice. Thought I should let you know.

Wife and I are mid 40s with 2yo daughter.

We have a paid off small 1917 house in a really walkable area in an upper midwest city (1000sf plus an ADU with kitchen and bath plus a finished cape cod attic that is kind of our living room). I don't see us ever needing to move, and our financial situation looks like:

- $500k IRAs

- $100k emergency fund, we plan to replace our 2011 car with a another used one for cash in a few years and and are saving towards that.

-$15k 529 plus $44k education trust for our daughter (we funded the $15k, grandparents funded the $44k).

Plus the paid off house which allows us to have a household annual budget of about $40k to $50k.

Is it reasonable to think we can hinge our plans on never moving and thus that allows us to CoastFIRE on jobs we enjoy (non-cubicle jobs) and also spend more time with our daughter?

A lot of my family doesn't really understand what we are doing but I know they have high debt levels.

I do put money into the house - typically the $2500 property tax refund I get from the state every year goes into a home improvement or repair project.

Hello, I’m 27m about to turn 28 currently making 130k and I’ve been saving and investing since I was 20. I live with my dad and pay rent, but I’m currently saving for a home. We grew up very poor and I’ve watched my dad struggle badly in retirement so I’ve always been such a paranoid super saver and my first goal was to achieve coastfire and then buy a house after. So as the title says would I have mathematically achieved this where I no longer need to invest aside from maxxing out my ROTH IRA yearly? Also side note I’m union so I can not contribute to my 401k, that’s part of a set package not seen in my paycheck.

My portfolio is as follows
Taxable brokerage- $210k VOO, $35k IBIT
Roth IRA- $103k VTSAX
Work 401k- $95k VFIAX

Just turned 26, paid off all my student loans (no other debt to speak of), and have exceeded $200k NW… burning out at my tech job and craving a break but anxious about the future.
—

High level breakdown of the numbers:

Income:
- $130k USD(fully remote from LCOL area)
- Just started cat sitting on the side for a few hundred extra bucks a month.

Savings:
Bank: $33,000
401k: $139,000
Roth IRA: $24,000
HSA: $17,000

Expenses: $3000 / month
—

My goals with Coast FIRE:
To me, reaching coast FIRE would give me the financial and psychological safety net to explore alternative career paths, maybe take a gap year to experiment and figure out what’s next. I was a hardcore student through high school and college — graduated early then immediately entered into the tech industry at a very lucky time in the market.

5 years later and I’ve reached a senior level but consider this my personal limit in terms of how far I want to climb on the corporate ladder. AI has introduced a new degree of existential dread to my day to day that I’m finding increasingly exhausting to tolerate.

However… my employer has just announced that they’ll begin offering the mega backdoor option, and with my student loans gone, I could significantly increase my savings next year.

What number is reasonable to aim for before pulling the trigger and actually taking a sabbatical? Am I being foolish for even considering this option, especially given the job prospects in tech?

Hi all, I’m 40M and accumulated $1M+ in NW not including my home equity. Of that amount, I have about $400k and the remaining $600k in retirement. My job isn’t stressful and it’s a regular 40 hours/week but it’s getting boring and I just want something new.

I could technically retire early but I really don’t know what to do with the time. Instead I’m thinking of doing mini retirements of 2-3 years to do something else like travel and possibly live abroad where it’s cheaper than the US.

For those who did a mini retirement, how did you do it, what did you do with your time, what amount of $ did you spend and how did going back to work feel like?

Hey everyone. Would love for experienced folks here with kids to help us recommend what is best way forward.

I am 42, wife is 37 and two kids age 8 and 3.

Net worth : The following below is our total net worth as a family ( cad ) :
> Rrsp : $543k
> Tfsa : $250k
> Resp : $50k in family resp ( we will want to fund their bachelors education fully )
> House : $800k paid off ( market is bad so maybe get $750k )
> Emergency cash : $60k
> Non reg account : $100k

Total net worth $1.8mn cad.

Expenses : Monthly expenses in ontario are $5300 now, but thats due to our financed car and youngest day care.
Both expenses will drop next year September and our expenses will be $4000 monthly if we stay in gta.

CAGR / Return so far : All investment and retirement accounts are in low cost etf and have been blended cagr till now 12.5% but future we expect 8% )

Income : I make $150k a year while wife has taken a sabbatical last month but was making $140k. We both want a change. I have been working non stop for 18 years without break and wife 12 years. I absolutely hate my job and want to quit.

Our background : I am in tech sales and wife is in hr.

Questions :

1. Are we ready to coast fire? Ideally take a break 6 months and find something between wife and i to make gross$75k -$80k as family.

2. We are also thinking of moving from GTA to somewhere in Alberta or Saskatchewan. Buy an almost new townhouse 3 bed and work regular jobs that can give us $80k gross family income.

3. If we move which province or city you recommend to maximize geo arbitrage in Canada while same time also wife and I can get regular job in our profile.

We have not taken any vacations in past 15 years and corporate grind of high pressure tech has affected me alot.

Thank you so much.

Hey guys, I’ve been following FIREUK for a few years as I’ve always been interested in this concept / idea

Context:
I am currently 23 years old, just graduated from uni and going into my Grad Role while living at home with my parents. I wanted some thoughts on my current situation and whether I am in a good position / what else would you do?

I have been investing into my Stocks and Shares ISA since I was 18 years old. Over the years I have managed to build a portfolio of £55,000. (Portfolio ATH was £69,000 a few months ago!)

I have also been maximising my allowance for the Lifetime ISA for my first house. In this account I have £26,900. I live in the East Midlands so property prices here are much less than the 450k limit.

In terms of cash I have roughly £2,000 because I’ve been enjoying my graduation summer being on holiday etc! One thing I can take away from this subreddit is to make sure I’m experiencing life as well as investing for the future - maintaining a stable balance

Summary:
S&S ISA: £55,000
LISA: £26,900
Cash: £2,000
Pension: £5,000

I will be working from September as an engineer. Yearly Income of £36,000 and progresses every 2 years. Within 5 years I suspect I will be on £47,000

This is my salary breakdown:
£1,000 a month into my S&S ISA
£333 a month into LISA
Maximise pension contribution (5% from me will trigger 10% company contribution)
£200 to my parents
£500 to live off - may not need all of this, if so it’ll go towards my holiday money pot

Company gives a yearly bonus of 10% of the salary (+ department / individual performance multipliers)

My parents have always supported me and shown me love over the years. So whilst this isn’t the best financial decision, I would like to give mum and dad £100 each for either their own spending or towards their mortgage

I also tutor as a side hustle, used to bring me in a lot of money during uni but as of now it brings in £150 a month - enough money to pay for my monthly fuel allowance!

This is probably a lot to take in with a lot of unusual cases for example living at home etc so please feel free to ask any questions!

There’s a lot of tough thinking to do here but maybe you guys can help me out.
I can’t help to think that while I’m at home, I will be able to secure a good future / save and invest a lot

I plan to at least live at home for another 2 years while I’m on my grad scheme. After the grad scheme I will be on surplus £42,000 + 10% yearly bonus
In terms of my first property, i would like to avoid using my S&S ISA as I believe this compounding over the years will bring greater returns than using it for my first house

Any advice or guidance would be great. I’m aware that I’m young and have a lot to learn so I’m relying on this great subreddit to help me navigate what is the best way to secure FIRE :)

I would be really interested to hear if you are currently doing coast fire and have moved away from your high paying product management or tech job.

Really want to know:

1. What was the highest role level / TC you were at before moving to coastfire
2. What do you do now and TC and why?
3. How does it feel? Pros cons?
4. Does your new Role have health insurance?

I am thinking about going to Coast fire but I just don’t know what to do. Currently a product manager in a high paying role.

Hello to everyone, and especially the parents who had kids go back to school recently or in the near future!

I have a Kindergartener and....as my kid starts school my wife and I are transitioning from a "FI" mindset to a "Kinder FI" mindset. My wife is going to shift to a very reduced schedule, essentially working 30% as much as before, and we'll spend most everything that I make to cover all the bills.

If our portfolio keeps growing at 7% we'll be FI about 8 years later than originally planned, but we want to use our FU money and Financial Freedom NOW while our kid still wants to play with us, we focus on building a community based on our neighborhood and school, etc.

Has anyone else done something similar? Does this "FI term" exist? Honestly I'm hoping this is a new term / idea in the FI community and I want to write about it in detail as we make the transition and see how it goes! Would love peoples thoughts and experience.

We’ve waited long enough. 51. Married.

Started Coasting when the kids were nearing high school. Never made crazy money. Went from $120k household income to $40-60k household while the nest-egg grew. No contributions during that time, but also no soccer games or school plays missed. No summers with kids at home and us at work. They worked with us or we took time off. Kids both graduated college in May and have jobs. We’re proud of them.

Our retirement spend is projected to still be $40-50k/yr as we Schengen Shuffle. We’re already on the road, somewhere cheap where we can plan our next steps.

Stick to the plan, team. It works.

so for years i heard "diversify your income" and pictured myself running an etsy shop at 11pm after my day job, hating my life. tried it. quit after 3 months. made like $40 total.

turns out i had the order completely backwards.

here's what actually worked, in the order i did it:

1. got paid more for what i already knew how to do

before touching anything "passive," i just... asked for more money at my actual job, and picked up freelance work in the same skillset. no new skills needed, no startup cost. this alone did more for my finances than anything else on this list.

2. turned that same skill into something repeatable

once i had a few freelance clients, i noticed i was answering the same questions over and over. so i made a template/guide out of it and started selling that instead of my time. this took maybe a weekend to set up and still makes more per hour than the freelancing did.

3. the boring middle everyone skips, just investing consistently

nothing exciting here. just automated a chunk into index funds every month and didn't touch it. this is the one nobody wants to talk about because it's not a "hustle," it's just time + consistency.

4. only THEN did i look at bigger stuff (real estate, etc)

and honestly still haven't pulled the trigger on this one. it needs capital the first 3 steps build up, and i see so many people trying to start here first and getting overwhelmed/broke.

the actual lesson: everyone tells you to diversify income like it's one big leap. it's not, it's a ladder. you use the income from step 1 to fund step 2, etc. trying to start at step 3 or 4 with nothing behind you is why it feels impossible.

I just turned 33 I have 201k in traditional 401k 19k in Roth IRA 2k in brokerage account paid off house worth 160k and paid off property connected to my house with all hookups for a home worth 20k total net worth of 402k trying to hopefully retire / live off of 25k a year at 40. just not sure what to do next.

Been reading around the net on this subject, and I've been alarmed at the number of retirees with a large percentage of their net worth in equities. Concerned because a prolonged bear market could really sting and reduce these retirees' quality of life. Haven't seen many threads on this topic here, so I thought I'd poll the group. What percentage of your portfolio is in stocks and which percentage in safe assets?

40m / 44f combined:

- 315k in Roth - mostly total market
- 85k in IRA - 2060 TDF
- 125k in taxable brokerage - 75k SP500 and 50k cash in SPAXX (mostly emergency fund)
- 25k in BTC

Making 200k a year. 10 years from securing a pension that I can immediately draw on that’ll cover 100% of expenses and then some. (100-115k in today’s dollars). Can keep current health insurance.

House is paid off in 9 years. 95k at 2.25% remaining.

Currently we save close to 40%+ of our gross wages between pension/roth/brokerage.

In theory am I crazy to stop filling the tax advantaged spots? Should I keep on at this rate?

51 male. High earner. 1.1 million in various retirement accounts. Own my home. College for the kids paid off. No debt. Probably need to add to my taxable account as I have only $150k in there.

Would love to retire at 62, but I’m ok going to 65. The most important question is when can I take my foot off the gas and work a lower stress job.

Thinking $110k-120k in retirement including Social Security.

A few calculators say I’m close. I really don’t feel like it.

I put away $120k this year by end of year (mega back door Roth). Planning the same for next year.

I've always been frugal and focused on investing. And while the broad goal has always been to retire early, I really want the flexibility that comes with FIRE money. I've been thinking a lot about whether I've reached that state and, if not, how to know when I reach it. This felt like the right sub for this post.

M32, NW: $1.3M

Brokerage: 650k

Retirement: 500k

HSA: 32k

Crypto: 60k

Cash: 60k

Wife, NW: $330k

Brokerage: 125k

Retirement: 170k

HSA: 12k

Cash: 23k

Total NW: $1.6M

Couple things that come to mind:
Are we coast fire in the sense that we don't have to save for retirement at 60? Of course.

Are we coast fire in the sense that we don't have to work anymore? Hell no! We are renters. We'd like to own. The home we'd want would likely run us $600-750k. We also need a 2nd car (hence the higher cash levels), just had baby (& probably want a 2nd). And, we're moving from MCOL to HCOL in 2027.

So really, I'm trying to understand what this middle is called, whether we've reached a certain FIRE, and when to know we're officially on the other side. I have largely honed in on $2.5M NW as the crossover point (since I expect our spending to be around $100k/year with all the upcoming life changes).

Maybe my understanding of each different type of FIRE is lacking? Appreciate the insights!