r/fatFIRE

I'm a software engineer at a big tech. 10 years in. I just came back from a vocation and I'm seriously considering resigning.

Numbers:

Net worth ~$9M: $2M house (no mortgage) + ~$7M in stocks and cash

My spouse works at the big tech with a high salary that fully covers our living expenses. 1 young kid.

Annual spending: 120k

Why I want to leave: I don't enjoy the work anymore, especially since AI changed it, and it gives me little sense of accomplishment. I'd like to spend my time managing our family's investments and learning to trade(with a small portion only). The trading P&L is small relative to our net worth, so money isn't the reason. What I want to do is manage our portfolio, which is concentrated in tech, and prepare for a possible AI correction. Trading is the part I enjoy. Point taken on the social side, though. I need to plan for that.

What's holding me back: The salary is good, and work keeps me busy. During my leave I also had some rough moments trading (missed a big move on a stock I'd watched for months), which made me doubt myself a bit.

Is there any good reason to keep working given our situation? For those who quit while a spouse kept working, any regrets?

PS: I've managed our family portfolio for a few years, mostly long-term, averaging ~20% a year. This year I also traded $500k short-term while working full-time and I'm up ~30% YTD.
I want to trade full-time with the same $500k. Will that make my results worse, e.g. by overtrading? Anyone who made this switch, how did it go?

I'm 46 and currently making around 950k in my construction business. I found this niche about 5 years ago and it's extremely stressful, but great profit. I've invested about 600k per year in real estate and developing the properties here in Southern California for the last 4 years, which doubled the value across these 4 properties. My profit now supports my 20k per month lifestyle (which is separate from the 950k).

However, I'm hoping to live a bunch more years, and my wife and I may decide we would rather spend 35k per month in the future. My savings are only around 1 million currently, but my properties are extremely stable and in good areas, so I'm not to concerned about that part of my income.

I currently have additional savings to pay for my 2 kids to go to college, and I would like to pay the downpayment on a house for each of them in 5-7 years.

The other big part of this, it's that only about 10 years ago, we had combined income of 150k. So I'm afraid I'll regret giving up on this big opportunity I'm currently in.

My current properties are valued at 8M, with 4M in equity. I add units to single family and small multifamily

Thank you in advance for your incite.

We have two young kids (3 and 1) and we recently hit our original number ($10M). We’ve since upped the number to $15M due to inflation and increased lifestyle. But wanted to know whats it like to be fatfired with young kids? We’re looking to have more kids. By the time we fire our kids will be in elementary school and we’ll be beholden to the school calendar. Is it even worth it when everyone you know is working? We’re both remote so get lots of the benefits of not working.

Edit: our spend is 350k with two kids not including private school or healthcare (we pay <10k effective right now including OOP max).

So I've been planning to move back to the US in the next 12 months - and was looking at buying a house, and also tax planning/withdraw strategies (I fired 18 months ago). I happen to come across box spreads (european SPY box spreads) as a way to effectively borrow money at near SOFR, while also offering short/long term capital loss for the 'interest' paid.

That got me thinking - with my now almost $12M in assets (80% VTI/SPY/QQQ and 10% old legacy vested RSUs that I'm planning to sell after I move back to the US for tax reasons, 10% SGOV), if I fund my full expenses with dividends and box spreads (I'd have about $100k in dividends + take out $150k/yr with box spreads) and roll it over every year - I'd still be able to keep my debt-to-asset ratio at less than 20% basically until I die. And thereby pay minimal taxes forever.

Is that right/sound? What am I missing?

I know there is risk if markets drop 80% or what not, or if VTI growth slows dramatically over the next 40 years, or if interest rates spike dramatically to the 1970s levels, etc - but all of those seem like tail risks that either means I'm screwed either way (if the trigger/shock event happens suddenly and is sustained - like WW3), or I'll be able to modify behavior to de-risk (reduce spend, stop rolling over the box spreads, etc)

Hi. Longtime lurker in this community, first time poster.

I'm debating taking time off from my career to spend time with my kids while they are young. Financially, I don't think I can fully FatFire, so my big hesitation is that I get paid so much right now (golden handcuffs), and with the pace of change in tech right now and the current hiring market, I can't imagine getting rehired in a few years and getting paid anything like I currently am. Can/should I retire (and when)? What would you do?

About me:

• 37M, married (stay at home wife), 3 kids ages 1-6
• Work in big tech and they pay me a ton (~1.2M per year, depending on stock). I don't hate it, but it does eat into my time as I can't turn my brain off whenever I want to.

Assets: 6.75M Net worth

• 2.25M taxable brokerage
• 1M Retirement accounts (401k, Roth)
• 1.3M in home equity (valued at 2M, with 700k left on mortgage at 2.5% interest)
• 2.3M in private equity (mostly anthropic stock)

Expenses: Currently ~250k/year including housing, day care for younger kids, and monthly contributions to college funds. We live a relatively comfortable lifestyle in a VHCOL area. Kids are going to public school when they are old enough.

My current plan -- Work for 3 more years (until I'm 40). Hope that with some decent market returns I can get to 10M. Then I FatFire for a while until I think of something I'd rather do. Still doesn't feel great because I'll miss the infant years with my youngest.

Hello,

My current passport (Middle East) is avarage: visa-free to around 120 countries, but not the EU or UK, which is where most of the friction is.

From what I've seen, Argentina's recently announced citizenship-by-investment program looks like the strongest option available right now. It isn't cheap, but budget isn't the constraint however taxation is important. I'm 36 with a net worth of $30M+ and my business is still going well making about $6M annual net profit.

Has anyone here looked into this CBI seriously? My main concern is tax. I live in Dubai, where the only tax I pay is UAE corporate tax and I don't want to create any tax residency, wealth-tax exposure, or reporting obligations in Argentina simply by holding the passport.

Any suggestions or first-hand experience would be appreciated, anything about tax or any other aspects.

I have an extra room that barely gets used and I’ve been considering turning it into a proper recovery space with a sauna, cold plunge, red light, etc. Budget isnt really the issue but I’m more worried about spending the money and giving up the space only for the novelty to wear off after a few months. For anyone who’s done something similar anything you’d skip or do differently if you were building it again?

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I'm currently in my early 40s, work in middle management in non-tech engineering, and make around $275k gross. It's a fairly low stress, mostly-remote job.

Since I was a typical frugal engineer throughout my 20s and 30s, I have around 3.5M saved. Although I'm self aware enough to realize that I'm in a better spot than the vast majority of people my age, I also live in a HCOL city, and I'm starting to feel like I'm fighting time. To truly fatFIRE, it will be another 12-15 years if markets perform near average, which could be optimistic after the recent run. I recognize the value of money diminishes with age, and I'm already realizing that I have lost interest in many things I looked forward to using money towards.

I'm constantly tempted to push harder and try to find something that brings in more income for the next 6-8 years. Although I appreciate the relaxed, remote role, I also get fulfillment out of challenges and hard work.

At my age, I feel like starting from scratch in tech is probably not a wise option or even feasible. Another option is consulting, but, as a solo consultant charging the typical $250-$300/hr in my field, this may not be much more lucrative than my current position after overhead unless I'm able to scale the business and hire employees.

I'm curious to hear others thoughts who may have been in a similar lower income role (for this subreddit).

My mom is retired and is seeking to leave our financial planner managing around ~$8M that was previously hired by my dad. She doesn't understand what the portfolio is invested in, or the mandate of the fund at all as she was previously uninvolved.

I went through the portfolio myself, and it seems to be an amalgamation of roughly 400 us/international securities that doesn't clearly follow an index. Think a more concentrated VT that has underperformed for ~5-6 years. The advisor charges around 1-1.5% AUM annually depending on the account, so it is clear to me that we should have left a long time ago.

I'm curious if anyone has any advice on a fee-only fiduciary, preferably on an hourly rate, that I might be able to speak with to look over the portfolio and assess the tax burden of leaving and moving the portfolio into a VTI/VXUS/BND mix as some other posters have suggested. I want to understand the burden of rotating the portfolio now, as we will be realizing a large amount of capital gains this year and next, but the returns are quite poor and I don't want to let the "tail wag the dog".

Thank you in advance for the advice, and it would be helpful to hear from others who have made this switch as well.

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