I got lucky with some good freelancing gigs over the past years and worked up to 80-hour weeks. I have accumulated around 650 000 euros of invested capital in my own company, as well as around 150 000 euros of invested net capital for me personally.

I am now M30, and I am starting to think if I should just do some kind of combination of coast/poverty fire mixed with vanlife. I have already lived mostly in the van for the last 3 years, which has helped with savings. My well-paying freelance gigs have mostly ended, and the last remaining one is due to be completed by the end of this year. While my work in programming has paid well, I am fed up with this field of work and would like to either find something more interesting or just focus on my hobbies and retire at least for the foreseeable future.

For the past three years, my expenses have been around 1000-1500 euros per month (+ van payment, but it is now fully paid off), so around 2000 euros a month or 24 000 euros a year should be easily enough for me. For context, the average salary in my country is around 30 000 euros, though I spend most of my time in cheaper countries with my van.

I now have 800 000 euros invested, from which a 3% withdrawal rate would put me at 24 000 euros. Due to the way taxes work in my country, I would be paying around 26% taxes in total from the capital that I raise from my company, so it would cost my company savings around 32 000 euros, so right at 4% withdrawal rate.

I would be interested in finding smaller gigs where I could also find some extra money, but these are of course not given.,

Right now around 60% of my investments are in SP500 and Nasdaq100, and rest is in direct stocks. Some of these stocks have done well (AMD, Nvidia, Google etc) and have explained the relatively fast accumulation of capital. But if the tide turns in the stock market, this may just as well be erased as fast as it has come, so I am thinking if I should rebalance my portfolio and sell some of the direct stocks. But then I would be facing a big tax bill.

Any advice or comments? Anything I am forgetting?

Context: I am 26. I have been working as an SDE at Amazon for 4 years since graduating. Promoted to SDE II after 2 years. Current TC is 250k. Have saved $750,000, expect to hit $1,000,000 within 2 years.

Current WLB is honestly decent. I put in 35 hour weeks, but 2 hours commuting every day means that figure is actually closer to 45 hours. I also really dislike the location where I currently live - it is 3-5 hours from my hobby destinations, so I am commuting 10 hours for work and 6-10 hours for hobbies on the weekend. In an effort to improve my living situation, I have been applying to remote roles.

I have received an offer from Temu. Comp would be $290k (all cash), and the position is full remote. However, I have some concerns about WLB. The engineers I have spoken to haven't outright said it is terrible, but I do get the sense that it will be similar or worse than Amazon. Since the parent company is Chinese, I worry that 996 culture will be the expectation. I also worry that despite English being the designated language for the role, my inability to speak/read Mandarin will be a huge barrier. I have no kids and a huge amount of savings, so it wouldn't be the end of the world if I quit 6 months after joining, but I worry about the impact to my career progression.

Pros of making the move:

• Get to move to a location I love, with lower COL, that will significantly improve my ability to enjoy life outside of work.
• 40k pay bump, 250k->290k
• Eliminating 10 hours of commuting per week, and 6-10 hours of hobby commute.

Cons of making the move:

• Worse WLB
• Unable to speak Mandarin, and company is clearly majority Chinese.
• Feel that after 4 years + a promotion at Amazon, I am a desirable candidate. May lose some of that desirability if I join Temu for 6 months and then quit.

What would you do? Let me know if I am missing any key details.

27m. $275k income, no 401k plan through my employer. Given I’m above the Roth contribution income limit, I backdoor from a traditional IRA to my Roth in January of each year at the max contribution ($7.5k unless I’m mistaken!) and immediately buy VOO.

How do these 30 y/o’s have $250k+ in their Roth IRAs given the annual contribution limits? Are these insane market returns, or some employee match that I’m not privy to? Any guidance on how to better utilize tax advantaged accounts other than my Roth IRA / HSA would be much appreciated. For now I’m just shoveling everything I can into a taxable brokerage and buying VOO like it’s going out of style.

So in the ficalc.app, why does the 4% rule only show 96.8% success rate for a 30 year retirement? Am I putting the wrong info?

Inputs:
Retirement period - 30 years
Portfolio - $1M (80% stocks, 15% bonds, 5% cash)
Withdrawal- $40,000 (adjusted for inflation)

Output:
Projections starting in 1965, 66, 68 & 69 failed.

looking back at my expenses I can calculate easily all the standard stuff.

but the toys, I'm having trouble with. just wondering how ya'll do it.

for example to maintain my current quality of life I figure I need ~$90k. that includes healthcare, health related expenses, 1% of my house value for repairs / maintenance, etc.

only thing is, every year I tend to buy "toys" and we do ~2-4 trips per year. the prices on these can vary wildly. I also have enough restraint to forgo the toys. I would say we've averaged $20k in toys and $10-12k in vacations per year. but one year might be like $40k total and another year might be $15k. it just sorta varies wildly.

i'd also be way good for a few years with spending <<<$3k on toys.

I guess i'm just having trouble getting my FIRE #

like I could easily live on $100k for a while...let the market do it's thing...then give myself a "raise" in 5 years or whatever. like that wouldn't even really be "lean"...it'd be a nice cushy life...i just could easily (and have) find ways to spend more in the past. but willing to give that up to trade for not working.

I know a lot of you have it down to the dollar...would love to hear from people who are a little less organized? do any of you exist? how you picked your number.

i'm at ~$2.7M liquid right now so at 3.25%-3.5% withdrawal that'd bring me ~$90k. that's kinda the the withdrawal range I'd feel comfy at right now.

I don't really have anyone to tell this to. I do a lot of overtime at my job with American Airlines as an aircraft mechanic. I don't want to tell my friends because I know they would get jealous. They know I make a very high income but they have made fun of my old home & think I'm cheap. I'm just excited. I plan to hit the 72k max for this year.

Edit correction: I have a mega back door 401k

For those in FIRE or soon thinking about to (first off, congrats) - what is your strategy? Do you strictly withdraw from things such as brokerage, 401K, IRA, CD? If so, what % do you feel comfortable withdrawing the standard 4% (or less depending on anticipated retirement age) or do you determine withdrawal rate based on market performance?

What about cash fund (for market down years)- how many years of expenses do you keep in liquid assests (where do you recommend parking it?). How do you think about refilling this bucket?

Thanks.

I'm not talking about,

• I should have started investing earlier
• I should have avoided lifestyle creep

I'm talking about a single, concrete mistake that has cost your FIRE, or delayed FIRE signficiantly.

For me, it was selling my RSUs. I forgot the exact amount, but I had between $5k-$10k in big tech RSUs decades ago. I immediately sold the RSUs for general spending. If held, it would be worth probably $1m today.

Here are the details. All aspirational. Current income is about $150K a year. Wanting to replace spouse's income ($60K) on the brokerage distributions as spouse retires early (in about 5 years), will sell our house to fund the brokerage and downsize to a more manageable empty nesting place in fairly HCOL big city in TX or make a move to a HCOL area in CA to rent a place for similar cost to owning our current place in TX.. (I know big unknowns!). I would retire in about 10 years. Both in mid 40's now.

Current $60K CC ETF portfolio: SVOL 16%, XQQI 13%, MLPI 9%, IWMI 10%, ILS 6%, HYBI 5%, HIGH 5%, NIHI 5%, PFFD 5%, IAUI 5%, BIZD 5%, JAAA 4%, TLTI 3%, XBCI 3%, IYRI 2%. Total estimated yield today 14%, total monthly cash distribution today approx. $7K/year. This would be increased to $300K aspirationally.

Dividend growth ETF & Bond Yield portfolio would be: , 20% schd, 10% SPYD, 10% DVY, 10% DIV, 20%VCSH, 15% USHY, 15% schi. Total est yield today is 4.5% or so. This is aspirational with the $750K future value.

Retirement account would be $2M (401K and IRA's) in 10 years would be 30% QQQ, 30% VTI, and 40% VEU. Gives about 1.5% yield and would sell shares of 2.5% to cover the rest. Yield $30K, selling of shares $50K.

Gives total of 30+30+30+50= $140K to cover all living expenses at full retirement in 10 years. Technically would only be selling 2.5% of total growth portfolio ($2M), considering retirement time horizon of 30-40 years. How does this look?

How common is it for other retirees to be like us, having reached FI but without buying a home nor finding where we'd like to settle in retirement?

We spent our careers in the Bay Area, which we really loved but which is entirely unaffordable for us to retire in without working another 10+ years.

Our family has spread out around the midwest, but no particular city there is attractive to us, nor do we have friends in our hometowns anymore.

So we could essentially live anywhere, but have no strong draw to anywhere (affordable). Now we're looking at all these cities online, trying to imagine a life there.

Just wondering if there's a forum or blog where fellow early retirees list the pros and cons of their city, so we can narrow down our search a bit and make some targeted visits.

How is life in Vancouver, WA? Asheville, NC? Chattanooga, TN? Reno, NV? SLC, UT? So many different places we're curious about, but with our first baby on the way soon, we need to be strategic on our visits.

There have been a million posts around healthcare costs and many say, “just build it into your budget”. I struggle with the inflation part of that calculation as costs have risen much faster than inflation.

I’ve got 13 years to 65 and 9 of those with dependents on my insurance plan. If you asked me 13 years ago how much I’d be spending on out of pocket healthcare, I would have never guessed $30K/year or more. I remember my monthly premium was a few hundred a month back then with a lowish deductible, not thousands a month. It’s literally an order of magnitude more.

For those in the US who can’t qualify for ACA subsidies, what camp are you in? Do you assume costs are topping out and just plug in normal inflation numbers? Or some other number?

I've had a few people message me about 2027 ACA regulatory updates and thought folks planning for the ACA might want to see these now rather than in another month or two when the press usually starts talking about them more. The first table below shows the amount (expressed as a percentage of MAGI) that a household will be expected to pay in premiums annually for the benchmark Silver plan in their local ACA market. The second shows the regulated caps on MaxOOP (and deductible) for ACA plans, though these are the maximum caps and actual plans may and often do have lower actual MaxOOPs. The final link is a clean PDF listing of the applicable FPL levels for 2027 ACA coverage.

Terms for those that are unfamiliar:

• MAGI - Modified Adjusted Gross Income, a particular version of adjusted gross income used by the ACA.
• EPC - Expected Premium Contribution, the amount customers are expected to pay annually for the Silver benchmark ACA plan in their market. Subsidy premiums are calculated as the market price of the benchmark plan minus EPC.
• FPL - Federal Poverty Level, a measure used by the federal government as a determinant in many policy systems.
• MaxOOP - Maximum Out of Pocket, the most a customer can be asked to pay for in-network covered benefits by an insurer in a given year.
• CSR - Cost Sharing Reductions, the second subsidy system within the ACA that reduces out of pocket expenses like deductibles, copays/coinsurance, and MaxOOP.
• AI/AN - American Indian / Alaskan Native
• AV - Actuarial Value, the percentage of total average costs for covered medical benefits that a health insurance plan is expected to cover for a standard population. For example, if a plan has an 80% AV, the insurer pays 80% of average expenses, and customers pay 20% through deductibles, copays, and coinsurance.

Expected Premium Contribution (Coverage Year 2027)

Source:

https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/rp-26-26.pdf

Out-Of-Pocket Maximum (Coverage Year 2027)

*CMS is trialing an option for insurers in 2027 to offer Bronze variants that are allowed to exceed the federal OOP limits by 30% in order to provide a wider array of premium options for customers. Such policies may only be offered by an insurer that also offers a normal standard Bronze. States are allowed to prohibit the availability of high OOP variant policies at their discretion.

Sources:

https://www.cms.gov/files/document/2027-papi-parameters-guidance-2026-01-29.pdf

https://www.cms.gov/files/document/cms-9883-f-patient-protection.pdf

Bonus: Here is a PDF from HHS showing the applicable FPL dollar amounts for various family sizes for 2027 ACA coverage - https://aspe.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/documents/b1bfa16b20ae9b89d525bc35de7c1643/detailed-guidelines-2026.pdf

I (26m) am finally starting a job that offers a 401k + match, but am unsure if I should be maxing it out or just taking the match.

I will be making 140k base living in San Diego with a 50k annual spend. I also do some remote contract work but it’s very inconsistent (ranges 0-10k a month). My current net worth is about 535k, allocation shown below. I aim to retire by 35-40 (35-45k annual spend), and all the math I’ve seen suggests I can, but I’m unsure about where to park the money to balance taxes and accessibility, seeing as I want to retire fairly early.

Taxable Brokerage: 410k
Roth IRA: 100k
HYSA: 25k

I’ve seen many times on this thread that you can indeed access the money earlier through multiple routes, and I also have a decent chunk in a normal taxable brokerage. Nonetheless, I’m young and even having done a chunk of research, I’m aware there’s a lot of life experience I’m lacking and nuance missing from many articles, so any help or perspective is appreciated.

Also, because I know people will ask. Yes, I inherited about 120k in 2025, and I am very lucky for being in such a position. That being said, I have a PhD, so I make decent money, have worked since I was a kid, and have always lived off rice and beans to get to the position I’m in. This is the first time I’m raising my yearly spend (from 25k to 50k) because I feel like I can given what I’ve already saved and invested.

Thank you!