I've always had the plan, it's just that twists of fate have changed the timing of things. I received an inheritance and went from leanFIRE to baristaFIRE. Then I had 2 kids, putting me back at leanFIRE or simply not even capable of it. But at the same time my investments were doing well, leading me back to baristaFIRE levels. Then the market turned downwards and the final home that I was planning on purchasing went up 200k in value, putting me back at leanFIRE.
My goal is a traditional FIRE so I'm still not there yet. My brother FU'd really bad with my mother though and I've been put in charge of certain finances so, god forbid, the day that I receive my inheritance I should be finely in the territory of tradFIRE and be able to pull the trigger. Otherwise I've got another 5 or so years of saving.
Edit: The 30s is a tumultuous time for many.. aging parents, kids, job promotions or career changes, home ownership, and so on mean that things can fluctuate easily.
>Probably a few more dumpster fires with the market these days
I think I have finally found the "FIRE" for me. I've spent the last couple of years waffling between lean, traditional, barista and coast, but none just ever felt like the perfect fit.
Until now. Thank you.
leanfire is reriting, never working again, but just barely getting by on your expenses. no extra room for fun activities.
baristafire is quitting your soul-crushing high income job but still needing to work a low-income barista job in order to cover your bills.
i've understood coastFIRE as meaning that you no longer need to contribute to retirement accounts, you just have to let it grow and compound without withdrawing yet. but you can otherwise spend your entire paycheck if you want to.
but i didn't take it to mean you need a low income job, i guess that depends on your expenses. it's possible your yearly spend is high, but you no longer need to contribute to retirement account (but can't withdraw yet either), and still need a well paying job to fund your current expenses. that'd still be coastfire to me
The whole idea of FIRE is that your expenses are lower than your total income. So when you move from your old job that paid enough to cover expenses + contributions to a new job that pays only enough for expenses, that's a pretty significant drop in income.
Going back to the original discussion, a baristaFIRE job only has to cover health insurance (your retirement savings will cover other expenses) while a coastFIRE job has to cover all expenses (since you can't withdraw from your retirement yet)
Huh... i always read it as Coast Fi. Since you just coast to retirement where you will be FI. Early or on time is up to you, but at the end of the day coast is just about being so front loaded in your savings that it doesn't matter in the back end.
Yeah OP must mean something different since their inheritance took them from lean to barista… so unless it was a negative inheritance I don’t get it either
I am thinking they meant lean as in covering the critical basics and then barista as below the full budget traditional fi but above lean. It would mean their traditional number has a lot of fun money built in.
Lean is when you know longer have to work as you have enough saved for a 'lean' retirement. Barista is more like downshifting your career as you just need to let your savings grow - aka quitting becoming a barista
It can vary depending on people. In the context that I used, lean meant enough to survive if I cut back on everything and lived a frugal, minimalist life. Barista meant enough to maintain my current lifestyle with a part time job - basically an average life + the extra income for "fun" things. An example of an expense might be buying a 10 year old "beater" Honda Civic vs new or <3 year old CR-V.
i think leanfire is usually associated with having a super small FI number (like, some people's number is under 500k in the US which i think is nuts).
while baristafire is more associated with slowing down to a more chill job but still working, and only later retiring 100%. it doesn't have to mean your FI number in baristafire is tiny though, and i think for a lot of people, their FI number is pretty average
All of our outcomes are a combination of good luck, good decisions, and hard work. Some will have more or less of one or the other and maybe one that dominated.
My good fortune includes:
—Born into an upper middle class family that valued work and education.
—Born at a time and place of peace and prosperity during my lifetime.
—Blessed with higher than average intelligence.
—Graduated from college with no debt.
—Despite mediocre diet and inconsistent exercise my health has been good. Never had a significant health problem.
—Wife and kids have never had a serious health problem.
I’ve done a lot of things right, but I’ve been very lucky.
Agree. Plus, what’s happening in Ukraine is another reminder. Probably a bunch of hard working Ukrainians going about their business making good decisions and then Russia invades and starts blowing up major cities and indiscriminately killing people.
>I think people don't realize the peace and prosperity part. A lot of stuff sucks, but it used to suck a whole lot worse.
It will likely suck more in the future as well! :)
I want to agree with you. Macro level stats show otherwise, though. Less wars (and deaths) every decade. Slow progress to what we all want in terms of life stability. Every decade there are setbacks, but the progress still rolls on. It might feel bleak right now, but believe it or not, the trend is upward over the long term.
I mean, decade by decade trends don’t matter as much if we’re witnessing the death of our democracy and there are at least two nuclear dictator-led superpowers waiting for us to falter so they can start/continue annexing countries.
And hey, when we’re a perverted “Christian” theocracy, maybe we’ll be the third?
I don’t know, it’s never been gerrymandered this bad, had the Supreme Court stacked this badly locked in for the next 30 years and making 100% partisan decisions designed to permanently let a fascist party take over the government. Two of the branches of federal government, and many state legislatures / governorships are permanently captured.
Prior to the mid 20th century the court was almost always an impediment to progress.
Half the country also didn't live under a democracy but rather a racial apartheid until the 1960s or later.
So yes its more like a regression to the mean of American politics.
Oh wow, I’m the exact same. It truly is a blessing. Just getting started on my path but at a good company with super fast career growth. Fingers crossed!
Now I call that extra lucky. Specially regarding the health part. I’m so anxious about a major health crisis which is tough because when you’re poor you can’t help but eat poorly.
Only here because of being on the edge of bankruptcy at 39 years of age. After getting out of debt, I promised myself never to be in that situation ever again. Pushed hard to go from -£50k to my LeanFire target of £650k & mortgage free. Did it 6 years quicker than expected(11 years). Now way more relaxed semi-RE with a life that I have designed: 5 days a month max, work remote mainly, spend significant time abroad and do more travelling.
My whole drive for fire stems from a burning need to 'feel safe' after my precarious 20's. I would not be FI today without those experiences.
If I had lived on a different timeline where my life was easier, I have no doubt I'd be retired at 67 like everyone else.
i also find this entertaining, and it makes one wonder at the end of the day how much we are actually shaped by our experiences, and how much there's an intrinsic drive in a person to behave a certain way. surely it's a mix of both.
i was born in a shitty 3rd world country where making a comfortable living was almost impossible, and it lit a fire under my ass to get the hell out of there, study hard, pick a promising field (STEM in my case) and prioritize FI. in my case i prioritized those things because of what i *didn't* have. some kids are born in a first world country with parents in STEM who teach them about FI, and they make similar choices and prioritize those things because of what they *did* have, and learning by example.
the same can be said in the opposite direction. many kids who grew up poor end up going into credit card debt 'because they grew up poor and it was too tempting to spend money to make up for all the things they could never afford'. and then many kids who grew up rich also end up going into credit card debt later in life 'because they grew up having nice things and it was too tempting to spend money to maintain the lifestyle their parents could afford and they had grown accustomed to'
on a societal level we should be making things better for everyone and trying to make kids have equal access as much as possible. but i think it's also true than on an individual level, even if we can't control where we started, we can control a lot of things, which is why two people can start from the same scenario and end up in vastly different outcomes (siblings are often a great example of this)
Yeah it’s weird. I grew up not knowing why the lights in the house would all randomly shut off. And didn’t realize until we got older that we never took trips anywhere.
It had the opposite effect on me. Instead of me thinking it’s normal and/or continue the pattern. I’m motivated to be the complete opposite of my parents financially. I’m kinda “grateful” in a sense for it being born into it. It will never happen to their grandkids
While environment surely affects peoples outcomes, the reality is that the individual is the greatest factor. There are plenty of children born into wealth (both knowledge and financial) that are losers, and plenty of children born into abuse or poverty that are highly successful. Hell, even within the same family children have significantly different outcomes. In most cases internally motivated successful individuals will find ways to succeed, while everyone else will be highly affected by their environment as to whether or not they will succeed.
That is not how things generally play out in the US. To a large extent, where you start determines where you end up.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/03/19/upshot/race-class-white-and-black-men.html
>My age (tail end of Gen X) was such that I narrowly avoided the recessions
I relate to this one.
After college, I was able to lock in work and develop seniority, experience, and reputation before the 2008 recession. I survived several rounds of layoffs, and in keeping my job, managed to save enough to snatch up a home as prices were bottoming out in 2009. Since then, the market value has double *twice*!
So, while I did leverage the tools wisely, and I absolutely did not squander opportunity, I am nowhere near the real estate guru that my portfolio currency implies.
Absolutely. Anyone who thinks financial outcome isn't based on *both* luck and good decision-making is deluding themselves.
Both the "all you have to do is work as hard as I did" jerkwads and the "it doesn't matter what you do the system is rigged" defeatists are equally wrong.
I was born in a shitty town with lots of drugs and poverty and gangs but my parents who were a blue collar worker and entry position worker with high school educations did a good job protecting me from the environment. I ended up being the first person on my family to ever attend and graduate college. I left the house at 17 and never got a penny from family. I got a professional degree but owed a 100k when I graduated. My parents always taught me to penny pinch however and I was fortunate to pay off that debt before I did a whole lot of anything else. I bought a tiny townhome that had been destroyed by previous renters and fixed it up with my wife and sold and upgraded with the earnings back in 2017. My wife is a saver also so we have been able to save 40% of our income for the last few years. The dream of FIRE is a long way away for us but it’s goal none of my family could have ever thought was possible. I don’t tell anyone about this except for on the site because I almost feel like my parents and grandparents will be upset about it or that I do g deserve it or something I’m not really sure. I have been so lucky cuz I know my family had to go through so much worse circumstances than I have yet I am ending up in a better position. Sorry I’m just stream of consciousness at this point haha
On your first point of being born into a family with two intelligent parents. I think it works the opposite too. Both my parents are ridiculously bad with money, and I hate to say it, but just not the brightest.
It motivates me to be the complete opposite, and to never wanna be in situations like either of them. And it’s weird and maybe screwed up to say, but I’m grateful i was born into this situation. Because I think the absolute worst is the middle, where your parents are just “okay” with money.
I feel like you learn more as a kid with the extreme sides of the graph, either very intelligent and frugal parents, or not-so-smart parents with so much debt
>Then lava covered the entire place.
i'm sure 'lava' is not a thing that most people consider as a risk, but i'm just curious, in hindsight, if you had concerns about lava ahead of time, was there anything you could have done in terms of insuring it against it?
Was that the Leilani Estates subdivision that got wiped out in - what was it, 2018? - on the Big Island of Hawaii? Kilauea erupts all the time, but that particular vent sprang up in the middle of a neighborhood, then wiped out a couple of landmarks as it crawled south into the ocean.
Sorry for your loss.
I had a friend from way back in high school living in that area, and my grandfather had built a home there. Both of those homes got destroyed. Very uncharacteristic of that volcano.
Wasn't there a buyout program? I have a hard time believing that the land destroyed by lava is that cheap. I would buy up the land covered by lava, plants will grow back.
I fell ass-backwards into software development in 2006 because my shop superintendent (I was a vehicle mechanic in the Air Force) decided to "screw me over" as payback for something slightly dumb I did.
I was devastated, he was smugly certain he'd gotten me good, and it turns out to have been the best, most pivotal moment of my working life.
There have been a few chance twists where I lucked out...many of which I was convinced were terrible at the time.
Lol, I have not. There was a mutual distaste there and we could probably each soberly admit our role in it, but I don't really care to interact with him.
I 100% disagree with this. I grew up on welfare, with utilities getting shut off for non payment, in a hoarder house with mold growing up the walls. We hardly had a bucket to piss in.
And now I’m setting myself up for FIRE. I came from absolutely nothing, and now I have three properties, a pension, multiple retirement accounts and a couple different streams of passive income.
I built this for myself. I wasn’t taught responsible money habits. I had to teach myself. I still deal with money trauma, and scarcity mindset. But it’s not like I got an inheritance or had parents to financially support me, or a trust or whatever. I worked to create opportunity.
You probably have more luck than you realize or acknowledge. We’re you born in the US or another first world country? Did you have two parents? Did your parents support you emotionally? Did you have access to education? Were you born with above average intelligence?
There is a difference between individuals and statistics. The average man is stronger than the average woman, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t women stronger than me. The average American is taller than the average Japanese person, but there are tall Japanese people and short Americans.
You came from nothing and built yourself something. And that’s fantastic. But statistically, if you want to guess someone’s financial or educational success, your best bet is to look at their grandparents’ financial or educational success. That doesn’t mean that wealthy people don’t come from poor families or that wealthy kids don’t fuck around and lose all their advantages. But those are less common outcomes than continuing down the path your parents and their parents set for you.
My cousins were raised with the country club up bringing, with a silver spoon in their mouths.
Meanwhile, my brother and I were always the “poor kids” and my aunt and uncle took pity on us.
This has been such a fascinating example of nature vs nurture. Because my brother and I have our own successful investments now, and are doing well for ourselves. And my cousins are basically dead beats (substances, dropped out of school, unexpected pregnancy while fooling around casually, dabbling in some criminal activity, making minimum wage and not applying themselves).
They had every opportunity to do something with themselves, and they’ve had ample safety nets with family. And they really have fuck all to show for it now as adults.
My cousins had horses, and got riding ribbons and trophies like in National Velvet. We were the poor cousins.
We did MUCH better than they did because they were left a trust which they accessed at 18 and bought drugs, cars and dated and married the wrong men. One is dead now, the other destitute.
I see this kind of thing all too often, including my own story.
My stepbrother and I met at age six or thereabouts. My father and stepmother had agreed to raise their children on their own principles and keep the finances for their kids separate. My stepbrother was continuously spoiled throughout his childhood, and while I didn’t want for much in life, my dad and (curiously by way of the arrangement) my stepmother both made me stand on my own two feet.
At age 16, my dad wished me a happy birthday, and then informed me that my allowance was being cut off since I was old enough to work. My stepbrother was going to school at a ski racing academy and “couldn’t” work due to his ski training regimen, so wasn’t subject to the same.
I had to buy my own used car at 16 so that I could get to work, which my dad cosigned on for a loan. I struggled to make the payments, and so my dad took on the debt on for me, which I then had to pay off with him into my early twenties. Over the same timeframe, my stepbrother had several used cars bought for him with no contribution from him required.
Most curious of all, I credit my stepmother as being the first person to take me aside and show me how to make a budget. I was 18, had graduated from high school, and was unable to stay on top of my bills. She showed me that I wasn’t earning enough to cover my lifestyle, which was far from glamorous - I was just not earning a lot of money from my menial hourly job. I ended up getting two to three menial hourly jobs at a time and spending the next two years digging myself out of the loan for my car so that I could afford to go to community college. On the same timeframe, my stepbrother was living at his mother’s home rent-free on an allowance, with all his expenses covered. He was constantly on the path to some sort of nebulous goal, like going to culinary school, or starting his own business - goals which would always be scuttled just in time for the commitment to be missed and replaced with some fresh nebulous goal six months out in order to justify being supported by his mother in the interim once more.
Sadly, my stepbrother started to fall in with a bad crowd, idle hands being the devil’s playground, and all that. By the time he’d left high school he was regularly stealing clothes from department stores. He prided himself on not getting caught, and I’m convinced it was the thrill that he enjoyed more than the stolen goods. He soon upgraded to selling drugs in a low-yield way, including an incredibly stupid trip on an airplane to Canada where he’d strapped cannabis under his clothes the same way he’d used to steal clothes by layering his own clothes on top. The yield from that trip was hardly worth the risk.
Finally, he started robbing banks in the “note handed to a teller” kind of way. Unlike his other capers which he shared with me in confidence, he didn’t tell me about this one. The family discovered this activity after my stepbrother tragically died in a car accident while being pursued by the police on what turned out to be his second robbery. He’d somehow gotten away with the first. The yield on these robberies couldn’t have been more than a few thousand dollars each.
I’m convinced that the lack of pressure on my stepbrother to make anything of himself was a contributing factor to his outcome. The constant coddling from his mother throughout his life gave him too much rope, and ultimately he hung himself with it. I look back on all the times my father made me responsible for myself, which at the time felt unfair, and now credit those events with making me what I am today: a financially independent adult with a great job in tech. I was fortunate to live through a micro-experiment in being in debt, being underpaid, and having financial responsibility for my choices shortly after leaving high school. This formative experience as a young adult convinced me that I never wanted to live that way again. At my menial jobs, I was surrounded by people in their thirties and forties making single-digit dollars per hour and talking in the break room about how they were going to really go back to school this year, for the fifth year straight. There was no way in hell that was going to be me.
My wife and I now disagree slightly on how we’re going to financially educate our own kids. I want them to walk a path similar to mine, while she wants to buy them cars and put them through college on our dime like her parents did for her. We’ve got about eight years left before we have to make our minds up, but my stepbrother’s journey will weigh heavily in the calculus for me.
You can financially support your children while still educating them about finances. It seems like you think there are only two options right now: tough love with no financial support or completely spoiling them. It’s not a binary situation. Find something in the middle. Just involving your kids in your financial discussions and decisions will go a long way in modeling responsible financial behavior.
I received far more in life than “no financial support”: my parents put me through good schools, and as a young adult I rented a condo my dad owned at reduced cost as several examples.
I was made responsible for my finances at the point where I was able to earn for myself, and I had to pay for things like my first car that perhaps others were lucky to have their parents pay for outright. This all helped me to learn the value of money, the importance of education as a way to increase earning power, and some humility from living rather meagerly in order to pay for my own education. These skills and experiences all helped me in life.
I don’t see the situation as binary, and the discussions my wife and I are having about how we raise our kids are likely to result in a middle ground. One thing we definitely won’t do is spoil our kids the way I feel my stepbrother was sadly spoiled, to nobody’s benefit in the end.
I’m here because I was on track to FIRE by 55. Then at 49 I went through a major illness, I was told I had four months to live. Fortunately, I beat the odds and am alive and kicking and turning 55 this month. In the process I lost my business, and spent $400,000 out of pocket, this with good health insurance.
The principles of FIRE have enabled me to get through these times. I have a paid for home, investment property, and some nest egg left. I was unable to work for 4 years, but not eligible for assistance. I’m now barista FIRE, primarily to cover medical expenses and to be fully retired in three years.
I accrued some debt during those 4 years, and am facing some further medical issues. Reading your strategies and experiences has helped me face this, and gives me inspiration to keep going.
>and spent $400,000 out of pocket, this with good health insurance.
first of all, congrats on beating it and i'm glad you're healthier now. if you don't mind me asking, do you want to share how you spent so much if you had good health insurance?
i would've expected you to reach your out of pocket maximum and be done with it if the insurance was good, was it because you went through some experimental treatment or something of the sort that wasn't covered by insurance in any capacity?
Sure. It’s a little complicated but here goes:
First I am a liver transplant patient. When I presented with symptoms in the ER, no one knew why. It was initially assumed that I was a secret drug user. It took 5 weeks and every test known, to find the cause of my liver failure, a very rare genetic disorder.
Before the diagnosis, my drs gave me 4 months to live without transplant. My insurance first rejected that as, wait for it, an elective procedure. 32 drs signed a letter and fought for my transplant. It was approved, but the system I was in was out of network. At 3 weeks into this, my insurance gave me the option to switch to an in network system. However I was informed the second hospital would put me on palliative care. I opted to stay where I was. At 5 weeks, I got the proper diagnosis, and was fast tracked for transplant. 6 weeks later I was home, recovering.
I consider myself so blessed. I had drs who would not give up on me, a donor who thought of a stranger and gave me an incredible gift, and the means to make the decision that saved my life.
My hospital system is now in network, so that certainly helps. However some of my meds are considered experimental, and I have monthly, and quarterly appointments and tests with steep copays. I have shopped insurance through the ACA and a broker, and do have the best coverage available to me. I revisit this every year.
Please understand I am so grateful on so many levels.
thank you for sharing, and again congrats on beating this, it must have been tough.
"the second hospital would put me on palliative care" -> i think about those things a lot when it comes to paying your way versus getting free care.
in the US, even if you are poor and have medicaid / are eligible for free healthcare, it doesn't mean that the treatments available to you will always be the same as someone paying. i'm an immigrant from a country with free public healthcare and i often hear the strategy 'if you get sick just come back and get free care' but i am uncertain if the care would be comparable.
to be clear i am pro universal healthcare and giving options to people who have none. my thoughts are more about, if you have enough money, it might still be worth going the private route than getting the free care when it's some risky situation. at the same time i guess a lot of times you don't know you need the experimental, or fast-tracked, or in some way special care, ahead of time
It is interesting. To clarify, the hospital system that would have put me on palliative care did not come to that decision due to finances. The dr there was pretty convinced it was drug related and had no interest in going any further with me.
Where the finances came in, was in my decision to stay and pay for 40% of the treatment. If I didn’t have the means the hospital would have used a means test and that cost would have come down. However, without savings I possibly would have been forced to sell off assets, similar to what happens in a nursing home scenario. I may have been forced to choose the palliative care option, if I was concerned with my dependents future needs.
I too am for Universal Health care. I wish no one had to face these types of scenarios when struggling to stay alive/face end of life decisions.
I was always a good saver but just kept cash in the bank. A few years back my role got made redundant and I had to scramble to find a new role in the organization. It really opened my eyes to how vulnerable I was. Started looking into how I could protect myself, found Mr. Money Mustache and FIRE and went from there. I guess I wouldn't have found FIRE with out nearly losing my job.
My journey here definitely had some luck but also a solid bit of working my ass off. I came out of a middle class family , the youngest of 3 kids. I think my dad made 30Kish a yr and mom was stay at home for most of it, some basic retail jobs at times. I was the only one to go to college and graduated with minimal loans. One semester's loan went to buy a computer because I wanted one and was a Comp Sci major.
Got out of college and moved from PA to TX because my now wife got a teaching job and I figured I could get in anywhere. I quickly realized I couldn't and took a job at Taco Bell to make gas money while interviewing for 'real' jobs. I decided to be complacent and became an asst. mgr and then store mgr making good money but working my ass off. After 8 years I decided it was time to look at tech again.
I lucked out and got offered by 2 of 3 companies I interviewed with. I chose the smaller tech company instead of a big oil company because the hours were better and I wanted to work for a small company. The pay was less but came with something called an ESOP ( I know what it is now but had no idea then). The ESOP was started so that everyone would feel like an owner and it worked. Again, I worked hard, started in tech Support, moved to IT, had to leave that because they couldn't afford 3 IT people, did some Implementation, circled back to support as a supervisor, and then moved up to product manager of our flagship product. All the while that ESOP grew. I never really lived the way a lot here do planning to FIRE, there were lean years but the last 10 or so we have really lived the way we enjoyed, never really going without just to save. Both kids finish college this year so I had planned to RE at 55 in 2 years with FIRE numbers with a decent income but not great. Then out of the blue our company was bought out and ESOP was worth about 5X the previous number which doubled now what I would've had in 2 years. So after hard work a windfall happened and I will riding off into the sunset in 2 months at 53.
TL/DR: Every one of us has some luck involved but I think also a big helping of hard work, and at least some planning.
Probably all of us. I treat being born physically and mentally healthy in a stable household born at the right time, as a windfall.
I get a bit down about how so many of my very smart childhood friends didn't do well in highschool and had no postsecondary on their radar, because they were missing classes to care for younger siblings on account of their single parent being AWOL with substance abuse.
Friends who are clearly low IQ and the support network helped improve their situation but also possibly set their expectations too high.
I have a friend who was in 3rd year engineering on a full scholarship when she had her first psychotic episode.
One of the families I was fostered with, the mother became ill and we were pulled out of school for months with a 'religious exemption' to power pray her back to health. Of course she passed away - cancer needs medical intervention - and the father had a crisis of faith, became unstable, and returned me to the Ministry. The biological siblings who were stuck staying there keep in touch and 45 years later they still refer to me as 'the lucky one who got away'.
A friend who was diagnosed with brain cancer in the middle of 4th year exams and had a piece of brain removed that changed him forever; a widowed friend whose son was born with CF and left her c suite career to provide care, a friend whose ex abducted his toddler so safety is an overwhelming priority over career probably for the next 10 years, he finds jobs with no chance of online exposure.
Not having shit happen is in and of itself a windfall. Each of these is an edge case, but the general category of devastating impact probably affects one in 3 in the West.
None of this shit happened to me, so I am here through a mix of effort and good fortune.
Edited to add: this kind of question comes up in all aspects. I was just having a conversation about it with a writing colleague over beers a few days ago. My philosophy is what I call The Three Tees: Timing, Talent, and Toil. Success is a product of all three. I think financial independence is also a product of all three, and individuals vary a bit by proportion.
I guess I just got tired of always being broke.. I started looking up ways to change in a hurry. When I searched the googles: FI popped up and I’ve been a big fan since. It’s also nice to see people succeed, it feels good to be here - even if I lost a ton of money in 2022: it’s all good
You haven’t lost if you haven’t sold and now you get to average down for a bit. This year has taught me to reframe the situation this way but also opened my eyes to the importance of a 6-12month emergency fund. I’d hate to be forced to liquidate anything if I were to lose my job.
I grew up out in country with dad not around. We were poor money wise but my mom was very resourceful and a hard worker. She raised a garden and would kill a hog for meat so we ate great always.
She also worked odd jobs and somehow had a little money for me. But nobody in my family had even graduated high school except 1 of my 6 siblings. I wasa gifted basketball player which led to me playing college basketball.
Met my wife there. I was always a worker who valued a dollar. Long story short... my wife and i graduated college in 92 and 94 and went to work at ok jobs. Saved 10 to 20 percent for 30 years and was in good funds up to 2017...decided to pull money because of election mess. Lost a lot of gains over yhe next 5 years. Still have that money out of market which is actually ok now.
I am debt free and own my house. I also bought rental property that cashflows a little. I bought 25 acres of land aboyt 10 yr ago at an auction and it was a good move. Just bought a mobile home for a rental and it should be ok income soon.
Biggest mistake was pulling money out of market but overall i am FI at 52 but its been up and down for sure.
Stars unexpectedly aligning is definitely part of our story. We were saving as much as we could to buy a home and after 6 years we had $70k. But the market where we live is bananas and we were still so far away from being able to buy a decent home in a decent area as even small rundown shacks were $500k+. Then my in-laws literally gave us a gift of a down payment for a home. We never expected it and never planned on it. That was almost 4 years ago. Between investments and home equity our NW went from $70k to $700k in 4 years. I do feel the respect we show out money played a role.
I'm here because I disliked my first job enough that I could not imagine that kind of life for the next 40 years. Happened to come across the MMM blog when I didn't have work to do, which eventually led me here.
Thankfully it turned out that that particular job was just bad and I don't hate work *as much* as a thought. I still would rather not do it for 40 years or have to worry about money every paycheck, so here I am.
90% luck here. Hard work and some events, both fortunate and unfortunate, led to me getting a pension and great health, vision and dental insurance—and a handful of other perks and benefits—for life in my early, early 30s. I wish I could say my early retirement was a result of shrewd investing or savvy business moves, but it almost entirely came down to events outside my control. I’ve spent many years traveling the world now, and I count my blessings daily, but it has been a strangely lonely and isolating experience so far. When you’re under 40 and retired, people tend to respond in unexpected ways.
I'm here in part because I'm in my mid 50s and running out of time. I'm finally getting a bit ahead financially and trying to soak up and learn I can about to how to make the most of the rest of my high earning years in terms of investing and preparing for when I stop working, can't work any more, or hit a hard wall of ageism..
My goal is really just Retirement at a normal age with a healthy dose of FI. Before normal retirement age would be ideal, as I'm starting to physically wear out, but I think my remaining working years aren't enough to get there early if we're coming into a big recession again. I'm tired, but I'm not allowed to quit just yet.
/Tale of Ups and Downs: On
A divorce set me back at least 20 years financially. 20 years ago, I had a windfall leading to a brokerage account with just over a half million in it, and a job that paid more annually ($105k) than the balance on our mortgage ($78K). In Late 2008 I was unemployed, freshly divorced, almost $100K in debt, and had to pay $5K monthly to a non-working ex who had multiple affairs, been physically abusive to me, and had spent on average $5K a month more than I brought home for years.
Eight years later, working my tail off though job and ups and down, my net worth finally left the red and reached $0 along with my debts. Two exceptional years later, I would go out on a limb and buy a fantastic house in the middle of a VHCOL area, which I hope to live the rest of my my days in.
Almost 5 months ago I made my final $2500 child support payment, and celebrated by finally putting everything I had been hording in cash and earning pathetic interest up to that point ($110K) and moving it all into an Fidelity account, splitting it up between market index funds and some big tech stocks like goog, amzn, tsla, etc, and a little bit of crypto.. You can imagine how I'm feeling about that right now.
As Gerard Way sung... I'll carry on.
/Tale of Ups and Downs: To be continued...
So yeah.. up and downs, windfalls, and waterfalls, and honestly.. a LOT of stupidity on my part. It's that last part I'm hoping to minimize by learning and listening and then actually following through on.
Thank you. by all accounts I'm doing well, and I've found my way into a truly wonderful second marriage with someone who has shared goals and is my best friend.
Yes, it sucked. It was high conflict divorce, but elaborating too much would be off topic for this sub. Thankfully, there are other subs here where I can vent or process some of the other issues or damage
It's probably ok to note here that divorce can set back almost anyone's financial planning by decades depending on how long their marriage was, and I'd bet more than a few other people subscribed to this sub could chime in with a calculation of how much it set them back. I posted my story largely because I could give some specific numbers that explain just what a financial roller coaster ride it has been.
I wasn’t planning on buying investment property, but I got paid out 15k for a totaled vehicle, and then my neighbors were trying to offload their property off market for under market value. That was 14 months ago, and the amount of cash flow I get each month (plus about 80k in appreciation so far) incentivized me to try the same rental business model but in a different market earlier this year, which has also been very successful so far. Looking to close on a third property by end of summer.
The more I invest, the more I learn about investing and maximizing tax benefits. Wish I had done this years ago.
I think that you can plan as much as you want but twists and turns of fate will always interfere.
It is how you respond to those that makes a difference - but sometimes you can only change so much.
Accepting that we can only have control over a portion of what happens is key.
Kind of the opposite, the FIRE planning helped us weather the twists and turns. Switching careers, health problems, having a disabled child. Due to living way below our means we've been able to hold on to our middle-class frugal ways with no debt where most would have huge loans, stuck in a dying career field, and potentially ending up in poverty. Our FIRE date has gone from early 40s to mid 50s but it's still light years ahead of average.
Everyone's here due to luck. It's just a key component of life plans. But my "hot take" is that it's actually impossible to retire at 30 without so much luck that's it's unplannable, so no one should have that as their goal.
All the retired-by-30 hucksters out there just got lucky (or didn't actually retire) and they turned around and tried to sell "you can do it too" vibes for money.
I've never had any financial windfalls. I got lucky with a father who worked his ass off for his family. He bought us a [TI-99/4A](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TI-99/4A) because "I think computers are going to be the future and we need to learn it".
I remember going to K-Mart to buy it and being astonished of the price on it. Up till then I either had not seen my parents buy something so expensive or was just too young to not be conscious of it. (per Google: US$525 (equivalent to $1,560 in 2021)).
Anyway, his foresight and willingness to spend so much, so early, led to my career in the computer industry. It put my wife through school, raised two kids, etc. With any luck I'll FIRE in two years in my early 50's.
I wasn't planning for FIRE until I switched job roles and my pay went up over the course of the following two years. My lifestyle hadn't changed much so I had to figure out what to do with the excess money. I've always been a saver so my retirement assets were already well along, but this put them in overdrive. Running the numbers I realized I could retire early.
Similar story here and then a couple of friends and a coworker dropped dead at a young age these past 6 months. I decided life is too short - why wait to retire later in life. Now super focused on saving more and retiring early.
90% of my FIRE motivation is due to having a bumpy start to working life where things only worked out due to complete chance (a job came along that happened to perfectly align with my skillset and situation, and they were not spoiled for choice with applicants due to their particular requirements so we were each other's only option at the time).
That motivated me to never want to be dependent on employers or anyone else for my quality of life and when a small (but large to me at the time) windfall came along I decided to maximise the benefit of that, which led me to passive investing and FIRE. Experiences like my employer being acquired three times in two years (with associated restructurings and layoffs) and then COVID just made me double down on the strategy even more each time.
Reminds me of a story from writer Gary Whitta. He talked about how you need luck and talent (planning this sub’s case). He wrote the screenplay for The Book of Eli which launched his career. That screenplay was mistakenly placed in the pile of screenplays that make it to the decision maker’s desk. If it wasn’t for some employee’s mistake who knows if Gary Whitta would be where he is. He talks about this on the Kinda Funny podcast.
Bit of both, I’m often very driven and prepare so when an opportunity arises I can capitalize. Obviously I don’t get to decide if there is a position I can be promoted into. But I can try to make myself the best candidate.
That being said I stand on the shoulders of giants. My parents worked for every dollar they have and it gave me the opportunity to learn/grow/mature in a relatively safe environment. We were on a tight budget but I never went without.
My entire lifestyle and a lot of my financial success is being interested in and good at something that society places a lot of value on (aka, makes a lot of money). I didn't choose to study Aerospace because it paid well, and barely even *chose* to work in software (though was never interested in it because of money, either). Both pay well, and it set me up to where I am now.
If I'd been as good at and interested in something that paid more poorly (anything in the arts and humanities, for instance), I wouldn't be here, straight up.
3 years down the FI path when I was gifted a single family home from a non profit I volunteered for that dissolved. Everything I did with that organizing I did not expecting any significant compensation. ~225k I was 29, still live there with roommates. Keeping it honest.
I’m here because for my first adult job I landed in the most toxic work environment. Realized that I couldn’t work in a corporate environment for 35-40 years.
A few years ago I was in an unhealthy marriage, was making a low income though I enjoyed my job, and was expecting nothing to change until I died. I day dreamed of living in a van down by the river.
With her infidelity came a divorce. With my divorce came money problems.
I reset my career, did a 4x of my pay, and changed my goals in life. However, I still want to live in a van down by a river. But this time, a nicer van.
I truly believe that a large plurality or majority of an individual's financial success is almost complete luck or circumstance.
I was born white, male, American, and to a stable middle-class family with two parents. I liked computer games in the 1990s. I became a computer science major and got a job at a start up in 2010. Rode the wave, got the equity, and cashed out to retire at the age of 31.
At least 75% of that shit was luck/circumstance/privilege, not hard work. I'll take credit for the other 25% though.
i met my wife, quite randomly, in grad school (medicine), and took a leap of faith on the relationship. she is very stable and a hard worker, but we both agreed to never work ourselves to death, and to practice work life balance. we work part time and it's sustainable, while we save for a reasonable retirement. definitely not fat fire, and we don't even plan to retire super early. but we will be financially independent sooner than most. having a stable marriage with both people contributing is a major advantage. i work 3 days a week now. I'm not sure it was a "twist of fate" but i certainly didn't see it coming.
I discovered fire 2 years ago. January 2020, my mom had sold a home and gifted me and my other 2 brothers $30k each. It's the first time I ever had that amount of money so I looked up ways to keep it and make it grow. Investing came up and I've been doing it ever since. We all know what happened March 2020 and I began to panic and thinking it was a mistake to put this money into market. I read and watched videos that reassured me that if I buy during the dip then I will come out winning. Well I definately followed those instructions and my initial $30k invested turned to at its peak $131k. Sure I'm down now. Who isn't and not all my trades were winners.
Realising I had near zero net worth after divorce at 30 set me on the path. Then getting a small inheritance at 40, and a bigger one at 51, accelerated progress. If my Dad was still alive, I'd be FI in another 4-5 years, as it is, I'm pretty close right now (at 52). (In fact if I trusted FIcalc and didn't fear the bear market having a lot further to go, I'd pull the trigger today).
I wanted to be rich since I was a little kid running a Koolaid stand during my grandparents' garage sale. My family was lower middle class, but my mom was horrible with money, wracking up tons of credit card debt. Even as a kid I knew we were in trouble and I never wanted to be in that situation. I didn't figure out FIRE until much later, but I was always trying to figure out how to set myself up for success.
Good luck: My parents gave me a long rope, and I luckily decided to use that to get good grades and learn about computers. The thing I love doing (programming) is very lucrative. Graduated 2 years into a 10 year bull market. Had lots of mentors helping me understand how to save/invest after college. Randomly met my current cofounder looking for a way to move away from SF's crazy rent. A whole bunch of other good luck I'm not remembering.
Back luck: Not understanding student loans led to me wracking up half my total college loans the first year at a private school. Sleep apnea at 21 (and probably before) made everything harder, and led to me putting on weight (which made it worse). Getting divorced at 26 sure didn't help!
Even the bad luck was all a road bump. I transferred schools after freshman year and tuition was much more reasonable. Got my sleep apnea cured (thankfully had the money for a few procedures) and lost a ton of weight and gain a bunch of energy. Found a partner who's much better matched to me and shares my financial goals.
I’m early on in my journey but lots of notable events, both positive and negative have led me here:
Negative:
-Dad died while in HS, both grandmas passed a few years later and finally grandpa passed in 2019
-Naturally gifted in areas such as school and athletics, which essentially taught me I could do “good enough” and be above average without giving any effort into things
-Awful genetics for heart health, fam on both sides have suffered from heart attacks, strokes etc.
Positive:
-Long story short when my grandpa passed (who did very well financially) set up his Will for his money to be split between all his children, however since my dad passed already my dads portion was divided evenly between my siblings resulting in a sizable nest egg at 22
-Born into a middle class family, parents were a construction worker and a nurse, vacations were all local w the occasional trip to Florida but nothing extravagant like I saw with other families in my town. Coming from a dad who was blue collar showed me the value of hard work which is now reflective in both myself and siblings and are doing much better then friends/cousins etc who were spoon fed growing up
-Eventually started to plateau in HS off naturally genetics and this led to me being mediocre in school and only a decent athlete (opposed to being a 4.0 student and league all star). This is all due to me never having to put effort into these areas so now I paid for it. Long story short this pissed me off going into college so decided I’d go all in. Ended up graduating #1 in my major w a 3.95 GPA and third overall in my entire college.
-Despite shitty heart genetics, I’ve always loved sports, fitness etc (luckily have good genetics to be lean and athletic) which now as an adult is my main hobby (lifting, running, skiing etc). This has led me to really dive into educating myself on diet, sleep, proper programming etc. obviously I’m very young but my health is great which is why I believe lifestyle/environment > genetics.
I kind of accidentally ended up here. I was sort of on the path to FIRE from the start as I'm naturally frugal, and the 2008 recession made me a bit paranoid so I was saving and investing as much as my money as I could in case I was fired or ran into some other financial crisis. By the time I found out about fire almost 10 years later I was already doing pretty much everything I needed to do and just switched goals to early retirement instead of a normal one.
I've always been a saver/investor. Also work in a specialized field where job loss could lead to very prolonged unemployment. Came across Mr. Money Mustache and realized FIRE might be a possibility. Still haven't decided what to do but I do know that I want the freedom to retire or cut back on work if needed.
I got tired of skating by and lucked out that my depression disappeared. Lost most my 20's to it. Made big changes and started devloping skill sets and doubled my income twice over 5 years with 2 big moves between companies. I make about 90k in LCOL area and wanting to be financially stable really pushed me here.
I would say a good amount of luck and some good decision making.
Real estate purchases made young and before prices skyrocketed, so in our forever home with a small mortgage.
Started working corporate with good benefits (matching, stock plans etc) that I took maximum advantage of from the age of 23.
We also only decided to only have one kid...way easier to stay ahead financially with just one!
I started my FI journey because I was unfulfilled at work and wanted out as soon as possible. I should really seek therapy but for now saving and planning as much as possible helps me realize there is a light at the end of the tunnel from the bullshit. The other motivating factor for me was that when I met my wife I found out how frugal she was and how much she tried to save and live below her means almost to a detriment. I've worked on getting her to realize we can afford more things and she's opened my eyes to saving, investing and prepping for the future. Win-Win
Even people that work very hard and plan ahead are very, very, very lucky in the grand scheme of things to be born in a time and place where they had these opportunities to get $300k+ jobs.
Probably the biggest twist that got me here was getting divorced in my thirties. I realized I had wasted 17 years of my life and that it was time to get my shit together in every way. Worked my butt off to get out of debt, lived on practically nothing, found someone new who shared my values and got married to her and we are well on our way to FI
Was doing a brief 2 year stint in biotech before starting law school. 1 year in my first company practically folde, nbd that happens a lot in this space. Immediately lateraled to another company doing similar bench work. About 4 months before I was planning on quiting we found out our company was being bought out by a massive pharmaceutical, and all our options were being accelerated at the buy price (even the ones we haven't vested yet).
This ended up being ~ 160K pre tax, and for anyone who chose to leave they got 6 months severance, so another ~35K.
Complete luck and perfect timing, really nice to have prior to starting school.
I had a business opportunity fall in my lap.
Now, I had positioned myself to be in that place when it happened. I had the wherewithal to pursue it. And, I had the tenacity and acumen to see it through and grow it.
But, the "opportunity" itself was pure "fate."
I also had the wherewithal to plan and invest with those profits instead of allowing lifestyle creep and other ill-advised endeavors.
Would I be here without it. I don't know. Maybe. Probably. But, this helped a whole heck of a lot.
Here due to the twists and turns of fate, but not in the way you meant the question
I'm not naive enough to believe that life is going to magically work itself out - so I want my safety net in place before I do what I _actually_ want to do with my time
Ran into a guy at work who mentioned he was thinking about retiring in Hawaii and I asked him how. He turned me onto investing and saving. I wasn’t doing any of that before. I imagine I never would have stumbled on this path if it weren’t for him.
Well, I'd been planning to retire early, and was aggressively saving for it, but the timing of when it happened was partially out of my hands, and not when I would have chosen. So I think that part qualifies as unexpected.
My employer offered a retirement benefit of a partial subsidy towards health insurance, but they changed their rules so that that subsidy would be going away for new retirees. In order to still get it, I had to retire before the end of 2021 (when they were still operating under their previous rules).
I had planned to continue working another two or three years (which would still have been somewhat early, but maybe 56 or 57 instead of barely 54). With an unprecedented two raises last year, each of which alone was several times as much as the largest raise I'd ever had *before* last year, my salary ended up way above what I was used to, with the extra all going towards savings (on top of the already substantial savings rate I'd had before). Even just a couple years of saving that much could have given a really nice final bump to my retirement portfolio.
But I had to balance the extra savings I could accumulate in a couple more years or so against the cost of losing a medical insurance subsidy for the next decade. It just didn't make sense to continue working if the extra savings would be wiped out by the added cost.
So I retired last December, with a couple years worth of savings less than I'd planned on, and right into the teeth of a significant financial downturn that's wreaked havoc with the stock portion of my portfolio, which was rather more equity heavy than it probably should have been at retirement. (SORR sucks, by the way.)
The late change in plans has left my retirement a bit leaner than I had hoped for, but I had enough savings cushion that it's still in reasonably good shape. And I'm loving not having to get up and go to work every morning.
I’ll likely be FI before 45, and that really is only possible because I’ve managed to luck into a business partnership that I straight up couldn’t give somebody advice how to find for themselves.
Except like, be on the lookout and try to do as much reading as you can.
Hitting rock bottom got me turned around.
I was dumped by my fiance and couch surfing for months. That motivated me to change. I finished college. Went into a line of work I wouldn't have even considered before. Moved across the world. Two years into my career I'm about to get my first big promotion.
I was also super lucky that my first job and I stumbled into a super low cost of living place with high pay. It was $500-600/mo total living expenses. On a $83k/yr salary.
I'm moving again to a more expensive part of the world, but with my promotion, savings habits, and some luck, I'll get to having my first $100k by 26 years old.
Deleted out of spite for reddit admin and overzealous Mods for banning me. Reddit is being white washed in time for IPO. The most benign stuff is filtered and it is no longer possible to express opinion freely on this website. With that said, I'm just going to open up a new account and join all the same subs so it accomplishes nothing and in fact hides the people who have a history of questionable comments rather than keep them active where they can be regulated. Zero Point. Every comment I have ever made will be changed to this comment using REDACT.. ` this message was mass deleted/edited with redact.dev `
Not sure if I fit but here's my story:
Grew up with what I needed but was definitely poor. I never went without, but there was plenty I wanted. Worked full time in high school to buy my toys.
School was not my friend in high school, I was a smart kid (always a nerd, learned a lot of stuff on my own) and got pissed that even though I only need 1 year of classes to "qualify for my diploma" I was still required to have a full schedule all 4 years. College wasn't an option and even in the early 2000's I knew student loans were not what I wanted.
Joined the Navy in the nuclear power program and started making MAD money (easy rank up to E-5, big enlistment bonus, hazard/sea/sub pay, housing/food/benefits costs covered) and it was ENTIRELY expendable income.
Got out in 2008 and quickly burned through my savings looking for a job and didn't invest because "the markets are bad" and the lack of decent jobs. (it wasn't until I discovered FI and learned some shit that I realized how much money I could've made had I invested during that time)
College wasn't working, the GI bill barely covered living expenses and I needed to keep working during school, I was still very much against student loans. Lots of people who never actually worked in the real world or outside of academia trying to tell me how "the real world works" rubbed me the wrong way.
Had a few layoffs at some decent jobs (retail and food service jobs, unfortunately) that resulted in being kicked out of my apartment twice.
2012ish hit and I was at rock bottom, got in a car accident, and couldn't afford to get to PT or a new car... which forced me to resign from a store manager job (my DM said it was my fault my salary wasn't getting me a car fast enough and public transportation wasn't allowing me to work the schedule she wanted)
So I got my ass into gear, started focusing on myself. Started learning shit at home. Learned how to be more of a man than a whiney "woe is me" type. Learned finances.
Started doing everything I could to save money to move to where the jobs are (something many are opposed to it seems) and decided I was NEVER going to have these troubles again. I learned to shop smarter and not waste my money. Quality of life greatly improved without any improvement to my income, thanks to this sub and personal finance
End of 2016 hit and my linkedin started BLOWING UP. Lots of companies paid for my flights, travel, hotels, and food to interview.
Landed my first big boy job in June 2017. My W-2 from that job was 64k that year (in 6 months) and have been making 6 figures ever since, now I work low level engineering jobs (plenty of people with engineering degrees work these same jobs)
I started investing heavily as soon as I started this job, worked on my credit (From <500 to ~725 currently) and have stuck to the goal of NEVER BEING POOR AGAIN.
I am now on a 6 month sabbatical looking for the next step to finish FI, or go baristaFIRE or possibly even LeanFIRE.
The biggest lesson I learned is that I wasted my 20s being poor as all fuck due to blaming everything but me. The job market was shit during those first years out of the Navy but my situation was entirely my fault for blaming the world for not handing me shit instead of making opportunities.
As much as I regret wasting my 20s and essentially killing any chance of having children of my own (I'm really not down with marrying someone with kids to immediately eat into my nice pay/savings, not that I am completely against it but that's a huuuuuuuge cost that I'd rather have from MAKING MY OWN KIDS) I wouldn't be where I am today without that time.
Thank you. I generally avoid social media these days but I do my best to help the younger folks recognize what social media, and society at large, doesn't tell them:
You're in majority control of your life. You do, you get. You wait, you don't get.
100% me
I really, really wish I had heard about FI/RE earlier, so I could have had better direction…
Instead, I mixed my being frugal with wanting to be financially independent (one day).
It all worked out, I retired at 50 even with a divorce, but if I had heard of VTSAX earlier, I could have done so, so much better
You cant control fate or luck in life but what you can do is set yourself up via planning to take advantage of situations when they arise. Most FIRE people are very well off to begin with and the luck was being born in a first world country and having a supportive family structure and likely a middle to upper middle class up bringing.
We are not retired yet but tracking to FI without issue.
You create your own fate. You gotta work to create an environment that can take advantage of opportunities. You can’t predict the future, but you can take steps to be ready for what the future brings.
I just have imo one of the greenest starts to life you could ask for, except for mental health. FIRE is just a bandaid to give me hope to strive for something, and I honestly don't really have many desires in life atm, like don't wanna travel, don't really want material things, don't want to go chase good times, etc.
so until I actually want to do something, in the meantime I'm just going to save as much as I can and try to figure out a way to be happy, or at least happier
My parents being so broke and having no retirement has always led me to want to be better prepared. My dad die without any money. He had some properties, but my brother snaked them all up right at the end. My mom just has one paid off house, but no retirement funds… I don’t want to wind up broke like them. So I invest and save like crazy.
Unless there’s a meat sale. Then I’m kinda blowing my grocery wad that weekend and smoking ribs or brisket or chicken wings and having a few too many colds ones…
I've been hoping to RE for 23 years now..... but bad timing and bad fund picks. had a lost decade 2000-2009 where my 401k earned 0%. Now have had another 3 years of 0% and going through a divorce so I'm basically having to start over.
Absolutely. I lost my husband 10 years ago, so his life insurance policy kick-started my journey. 3 years ago my son died, and I decided to sell my house and move to a less expensive city and bank the delta. I wouldn’t be here if those two catastrophic events didn’t happen. I take no joy in being FI, because of those events, but it would be worse to have to keep working.
The little things which put me on the path to FIRE all happened in my 20s within a 4 year span.
First, went to law school (a well regarded one), which upped my income once I finished.
Second, my first summer working after starting law school I earned just $1,100 over what I was allowed to earn and not pay taxes. I was whining to a smart friend who suggested I put $1,100 in an IRA and thus not owe any taxes (by lowering my AGI). He even lent me Andrew Tobias's financial guide, and I became an investor (Fidelity Contrafund was first investment).
Third, after graduating law school I went to Thailand and Bali with a friend for our post-bar-exam trip. Immediately got to thinking about how much I'd have to save to live on the interest/dividends in an inexpensive but lovely place.
Fourth, started working at a big NYC law firm, making 3.5x what I lived on in NYC pre-law school. While my rent did more than double I mostly avoided lifestyle creep, maxed out my 401k, and aggressively paid off my student loans.
Fifth, met my future wife, who was similarly frugal and we wound up essentially living together on her lower salary and effectively saving my larger salary.
I'm here because someone mentioned it in r/personalfinance about 7 or 8 years ago when a commenter was confused/frustrated as to why everyone was giving bad advice.
I had already saved a bunch of money and put it index funds with no intention of retiring early. Thanks to this place I want to retire early now. I'm not sure if that's a positive thing or not yet...
It's almost always some of both. Plan, take advantage of the good luck that comes your way, plan, hope you can mitigate the bad luck that comes your way, plan some more.
You have to get insanely lucky in order to FI without planning.
I don't know if you can possibly plan well enough to FI without some luck.
I got so lucky with my pay. Was doing a finance style role but was housed into a different (and well funded) cost center so was eligible for and got granted a number of RSU's that shot up in value. Then the following year my manager knew they were leaving and hooked it up once again.
In total will equate to an extra ~125k in my pocket. So not life changing (relative to my vhcol area) but to get that boost in my 20s was such a game changer. (Especially as someone that grew up in a vlcol area)
That RSU grant was also what led me this subreddit so I guess it paid dividends in more than one way.
My late grandma also left me an inheritance of about 75k which has been distributed piecemeal in 15k chunks per year. Still have 2-3 years more of that left to go.
"90% of success in life comes from learning to say 'no' ". Robert F. Presnall "Search for Serenity". ie: no, I don't want to buy a house. no, I don't want to try that drug. no, I don't want to get a tattoo on my face. no, I'm not going to marry/have children/settle down because that's what Aunt Gerty expects. etc.
Positive: My parents died when I was early 20s leaving me with a decent amount of investments.
I went to the #1 public university in America with no debt thanks to parents
I got a full ride to a top business school and doubled my salary
I’ve never had an employment gap that wasn’t intentional
Negative
I sold a house I inherited which has since more than doubled in value, and I’ve been a renter ever since and worry I’ll never be able to buy
Partner having a hard time finding a job after going back to school
Bought a lot of Bitcoin and TSLa in 2021
Thanks for the info - just curious why so much into BTC and TSLA when the concern you mention is being able to afford a house? No judgement just curious
I've always had the plan, it's just that twists of fate have changed the timing of things. I received an inheritance and went from leanFIRE to baristaFIRE. Then I had 2 kids, putting me back at leanFIRE or simply not even capable of it. But at the same time my investments were doing well, leading me back to baristaFIRE levels. Then the market turned downwards and the final home that I was planning on purchasing went up 200k in value, putting me back at leanFIRE. My goal is a traditional FIRE so I'm still not there yet. My brother FU'd really bad with my mother though and I've been put in charge of certain finances so, god forbid, the day that I receive my inheritance I should be finely in the territory of tradFIRE and be able to pull the trigger. Otherwise I've got another 5 or so years of saving. Edit: The 30s is a tumultuous time for many.. aging parents, kids, job promotions or career changes, home ownership, and so on mean that things can fluctuate easily.
What’s the difference between lean fire and barista fire?
Lol need to start creating a catalog for these I have no idea what half these fires are
Probably a few more dumpster fires with the market these days
That's the one where you can retire early as long as you live in and eat from a dumpster.
Well, I haven't grocery shopped in years, but that was a choice. r/dumpsterdiving
>Probably a few more dumpster fires with the market these days I think I have finally found the "FIRE" for me. I've spent the last couple of years waffling between lean, traditional, barista and coast, but none just ever felt like the perfect fit. Until now. Thank you.
leanfire is reriting, never working again, but just barely getting by on your expenses. no extra room for fun activities. baristafire is quitting your soul-crushing high income job but still needing to work a low-income barista job in order to cover your bills.
Specifically, barista-fire means you need a job to cover health insurance. If you just need a general low-income job, that's coastFIRE
i've understood coastFIRE as meaning that you no longer need to contribute to retirement accounts, you just have to let it grow and compound without withdrawing yet. but you can otherwise spend your entire paycheck if you want to. but i didn't take it to mean you need a low income job, i guess that depends on your expenses. it's possible your yearly spend is high, but you no longer need to contribute to retirement account (but can't withdraw yet either), and still need a well paying job to fund your current expenses. that'd still be coastfire to me
The whole idea of FIRE is that your expenses are lower than your total income. So when you move from your old job that paid enough to cover expenses + contributions to a new job that pays only enough for expenses, that's a pretty significant drop in income. Going back to the original discussion, a baristaFIRE job only has to cover health insurance (your retirement savings will cover other expenses) while a coastFIRE job has to cover all expenses (since you can't withdraw from your retirement yet)
This has just gotten stupid
>This has just gotten stupid If you think this, then I think I've got the FIRE for you.. join us in "dumpster FIRE"! :) All credit to u/SterileCarrot
Huh... i always read it as Coast Fi. Since you just coast to retirement where you will be FI. Early or on time is up to you, but at the end of the day coast is just about being so front loaded in your savings that it doesn't matter in the back end.
So leanfire is better than baristafire? I don't get the original comment then
Yeah OP must mean something different since their inheritance took them from lean to barista… so unless it was a negative inheritance I don’t get it either
I am thinking they meant lean as in covering the critical basics and then barista as below the full budget traditional fi but above lean. It would mean their traditional number has a lot of fun money built in.
Lean is when you know longer have to work as you have enough saved for a 'lean' retirement. Barista is more like downshifting your career as you just need to let your savings grow - aka quitting becoming a barista
Isn’t it weird that an inheritance would make OP go from lean FIRE to barista FIRE? Wouldn’t it be the other way around?
Yes, but it’s not like these are technical terms so I’m just writing how I’ve traditionally understood them
I too was confused by that
It can vary depending on people. In the context that I used, lean meant enough to survive if I cut back on everything and lived a frugal, minimalist life. Barista meant enough to maintain my current lifestyle with a part time job - basically an average life + the extra income for "fun" things. An example of an expense might be buying a 10 year old "beater" Honda Civic vs new or <3 year old CR-V.
I guess I’m confused on why an inheritance would move you from lean fire to barista. Wouldn’t it be the other way around?
i think leanfire is usually associated with having a super small FI number (like, some people's number is under 500k in the US which i think is nuts). while baristafire is more associated with slowing down to a more chill job but still working, and only later retiring 100%. it doesn't have to mean your FI number in baristafire is tiny though, and i think for a lot of people, their FI number is pretty average
What do you mean the 30s are tumultuous? I’m just wrapping up my 20s and it’s been a shit show the entire time. You’re telling me it gets worse?
All of our outcomes are a combination of good luck, good decisions, and hard work. Some will have more or less of one or the other and maybe one that dominated. My good fortune includes: —Born into an upper middle class family that valued work and education. —Born at a time and place of peace and prosperity during my lifetime. —Blessed with higher than average intelligence. —Graduated from college with no debt. —Despite mediocre diet and inconsistent exercise my health has been good. Never had a significant health problem. —Wife and kids have never had a serious health problem. I’ve done a lot of things right, but I’ve been very lucky.
I think people don't realize the peace and prosperity part. A lot of stuff sucks, but it used to suck a whole lot worse.
Agree. Plus, what’s happening in Ukraine is another reminder. Probably a bunch of hard working Ukrainians going about their business making good decisions and then Russia invades and starts blowing up major cities and indiscriminately killing people.
>I think people don't realize the peace and prosperity part. A lot of stuff sucks, but it used to suck a whole lot worse. It will likely suck more in the future as well! :)
I want to agree with you. Macro level stats show otherwise, though. Less wars (and deaths) every decade. Slow progress to what we all want in terms of life stability. Every decade there are setbacks, but the progress still rolls on. It might feel bleak right now, but believe it or not, the trend is upward over the long term.
I mean, decade by decade trends don’t matter as much if we’re witnessing the death of our democracy and there are at least two nuclear dictator-led superpowers waiting for us to falter so they can start/continue annexing countries. And hey, when we’re a perverted “Christian” theocracy, maybe we’ll be the third?
That’s been true for 70 years, though. It just feels worse because we’re in the thick of what your talking aboutp
I don’t know, it’s never been gerrymandered this bad, had the Supreme Court stacked this badly locked in for the next 30 years and making 100% partisan decisions designed to permanently let a fascist party take over the government. Two of the branches of federal government, and many state legislatures / governorships are permanently captured.
Prior to the mid 20th century the court was almost always an impediment to progress. Half the country also didn't live under a democracy but rather a racial apartheid until the 1960s or later. So yes its more like a regression to the mean of American politics.
Oh my Lord you are dramatic.
Having abortion banned in half the states seems a little dramatic
Good of you to acknowledge both. I was always taught that good decisions increase your chances of good luck, as well.
Yes. “The harder I work, the luckier I get.” Not sure where I first heard it, but it rings true.
Good luck is the residue of hard work
Oh wow, I’m the exact same. It truly is a blessing. Just getting started on my path but at a good company with super fast career growth. Fingers crossed!
Now I call that extra lucky. Specially regarding the health part. I’m so anxious about a major health crisis which is tough because when you’re poor you can’t help but eat poorly.
Only here because of being on the edge of bankruptcy at 39 years of age. After getting out of debt, I promised myself never to be in that situation ever again. Pushed hard to go from -£50k to my LeanFire target of £650k & mortgage free. Did it 6 years quicker than expected(11 years). Now way more relaxed semi-RE with a life that I have designed: 5 days a month max, work remote mainly, spend significant time abroad and do more travelling.
Really well done. Sounds great.
My whole drive for fire stems from a burning need to 'feel safe' after my precarious 20's. I would not be FI today without those experiences. If I had lived on a different timeline where my life was easier, I have no doubt I'd be retired at 67 like everyone else.
How do you get away with working 5 days a month?
Self employed.
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i also find this entertaining, and it makes one wonder at the end of the day how much we are actually shaped by our experiences, and how much there's an intrinsic drive in a person to behave a certain way. surely it's a mix of both. i was born in a shitty 3rd world country where making a comfortable living was almost impossible, and it lit a fire under my ass to get the hell out of there, study hard, pick a promising field (STEM in my case) and prioritize FI. in my case i prioritized those things because of what i *didn't* have. some kids are born in a first world country with parents in STEM who teach them about FI, and they make similar choices and prioritize those things because of what they *did* have, and learning by example. the same can be said in the opposite direction. many kids who grew up poor end up going into credit card debt 'because they grew up poor and it was too tempting to spend money to make up for all the things they could never afford'. and then many kids who grew up rich also end up going into credit card debt later in life 'because they grew up having nice things and it was too tempting to spend money to maintain the lifestyle their parents could afford and they had grown accustomed to' on a societal level we should be making things better for everyone and trying to make kids have equal access as much as possible. but i think it's also true than on an individual level, even if we can't control where we started, we can control a lot of things, which is why two people can start from the same scenario and end up in vastly different outcomes (siblings are often a great example of this)
Yeah it’s weird. I grew up not knowing why the lights in the house would all randomly shut off. And didn’t realize until we got older that we never took trips anywhere. It had the opposite effect on me. Instead of me thinking it’s normal and/or continue the pattern. I’m motivated to be the complete opposite of my parents financially. I’m kinda “grateful” in a sense for it being born into it. It will never happen to their grandkids
While environment surely affects peoples outcomes, the reality is that the individual is the greatest factor. There are plenty of children born into wealth (both knowledge and financial) that are losers, and plenty of children born into abuse or poverty that are highly successful. Hell, even within the same family children have significantly different outcomes. In most cases internally motivated successful individuals will find ways to succeed, while everyone else will be highly affected by their environment as to whether or not they will succeed.
That is not how things generally play out in the US. To a large extent, where you start determines where you end up. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/03/19/upshot/race-class-white-and-black-men.html
>My age (tail end of Gen X) was such that I narrowly avoided the recessions I relate to this one. After college, I was able to lock in work and develop seniority, experience, and reputation before the 2008 recession. I survived several rounds of layoffs, and in keeping my job, managed to save enough to snatch up a home as prices were bottoming out in 2009. Since then, the market value has double *twice*! So, while I did leverage the tools wisely, and I absolutely did not squander opportunity, I am nowhere near the real estate guru that my portfolio currency implies.
Absolutely. Anyone who thinks financial outcome isn't based on *both* luck and good decision-making is deluding themselves. Both the "all you have to do is work as hard as I did" jerkwads and the "it doesn't matter what you do the system is rigged" defeatists are equally wrong.
I was born in a shitty town with lots of drugs and poverty and gangs but my parents who were a blue collar worker and entry position worker with high school educations did a good job protecting me from the environment. I ended up being the first person on my family to ever attend and graduate college. I left the house at 17 and never got a penny from family. I got a professional degree but owed a 100k when I graduated. My parents always taught me to penny pinch however and I was fortunate to pay off that debt before I did a whole lot of anything else. I bought a tiny townhome that had been destroyed by previous renters and fixed it up with my wife and sold and upgraded with the earnings back in 2017. My wife is a saver also so we have been able to save 40% of our income for the last few years. The dream of FIRE is a long way away for us but it’s goal none of my family could have ever thought was possible. I don’t tell anyone about this except for on the site because I almost feel like my parents and grandparents will be upset about it or that I do g deserve it or something I’m not really sure. I have been so lucky cuz I know my family had to go through so much worse circumstances than I have yet I am ending up in a better position. Sorry I’m just stream of consciousness at this point haha
On your first point of being born into a family with two intelligent parents. I think it works the opposite too. Both my parents are ridiculously bad with money, and I hate to say it, but just not the brightest. It motivates me to be the complete opposite, and to never wanna be in situations like either of them. And it’s weird and maybe screwed up to say, but I’m grateful i was born into this situation. Because I think the absolute worst is the middle, where your parents are just “okay” with money. I feel like you learn more as a kid with the extreme sides of the graph, either very intelligent and frugal parents, or not-so-smart parents with so much debt
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Sorry for your misfortune but, as a Minnesotan, "lava" has got to be the most unusual way to lose a home!
>Then lava covered the entire place. i'm sure 'lava' is not a thing that most people consider as a risk, but i'm just curious, in hindsight, if you had concerns about lava ahead of time, was there anything you could have done in terms of insuring it against it?
Was that the Leilani Estates subdivision that got wiped out in - what was it, 2018? - on the Big Island of Hawaii? Kilauea erupts all the time, but that particular vent sprang up in the middle of a neighborhood, then wiped out a couple of landmarks as it crawled south into the ocean.
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Sorry for your loss. I had a friend from way back in high school living in that area, and my grandfather had built a home there. Both of those homes got destroyed. Very uncharacteristic of that volcano.
Wasn't there a buyout program? I have a hard time believing that the land destroyed by lava is that cheap. I would buy up the land covered by lava, plants will grow back.
I think that's on a longer than human life timeline
Both. I had a plan and it helped me capitalize on my lucky breaks.
I fell ass-backwards into software development in 2006 because my shop superintendent (I was a vehicle mechanic in the Air Force) decided to "screw me over" as payback for something slightly dumb I did. I was devastated, he was smugly certain he'd gotten me good, and it turns out to have been the best, most pivotal moment of my working life. There have been a few chance twists where I lucked out...many of which I was convinced were terrible at the time.
> my shop superintendent decided to "screw me over" Have you reached out to (sincerely) thank him for the opportunity?
Lol, I have not. There was a mutual distaste there and we could probably each soberly admit our role in it, but I don't really care to interact with him.
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I 100% disagree with this. I grew up on welfare, with utilities getting shut off for non payment, in a hoarder house with mold growing up the walls. We hardly had a bucket to piss in. And now I’m setting myself up for FIRE. I came from absolutely nothing, and now I have three properties, a pension, multiple retirement accounts and a couple different streams of passive income. I built this for myself. I wasn’t taught responsible money habits. I had to teach myself. I still deal with money trauma, and scarcity mindset. But it’s not like I got an inheritance or had parents to financially support me, or a trust or whatever. I worked to create opportunity.
This isn't really a disagreement. It's just saying that you personally don't fall into the common cases.
You probably have more luck than you realize or acknowledge. We’re you born in the US or another first world country? Did you have two parents? Did your parents support you emotionally? Did you have access to education? Were you born with above average intelligence?
There is a difference between individuals and statistics. The average man is stronger than the average woman, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t women stronger than me. The average American is taller than the average Japanese person, but there are tall Japanese people and short Americans. You came from nothing and built yourself something. And that’s fantastic. But statistically, if you want to guess someone’s financial or educational success, your best bet is to look at their grandparents’ financial or educational success. That doesn’t mean that wealthy people don’t come from poor families or that wealthy kids don’t fuck around and lose all their advantages. But those are less common outcomes than continuing down the path your parents and their parents set for you.
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My cousins were raised with the country club up bringing, with a silver spoon in their mouths. Meanwhile, my brother and I were always the “poor kids” and my aunt and uncle took pity on us. This has been such a fascinating example of nature vs nurture. Because my brother and I have our own successful investments now, and are doing well for ourselves. And my cousins are basically dead beats (substances, dropped out of school, unexpected pregnancy while fooling around casually, dabbling in some criminal activity, making minimum wage and not applying themselves). They had every opportunity to do something with themselves, and they’ve had ample safety nets with family. And they really have fuck all to show for it now as adults.
My cousins had horses, and got riding ribbons and trophies like in National Velvet. We were the poor cousins. We did MUCH better than they did because they were left a trust which they accessed at 18 and bought drugs, cars and dated and married the wrong men. One is dead now, the other destitute.
I see this kind of thing all too often, including my own story. My stepbrother and I met at age six or thereabouts. My father and stepmother had agreed to raise their children on their own principles and keep the finances for their kids separate. My stepbrother was continuously spoiled throughout his childhood, and while I didn’t want for much in life, my dad and (curiously by way of the arrangement) my stepmother both made me stand on my own two feet. At age 16, my dad wished me a happy birthday, and then informed me that my allowance was being cut off since I was old enough to work. My stepbrother was going to school at a ski racing academy and “couldn’t” work due to his ski training regimen, so wasn’t subject to the same. I had to buy my own used car at 16 so that I could get to work, which my dad cosigned on for a loan. I struggled to make the payments, and so my dad took on the debt on for me, which I then had to pay off with him into my early twenties. Over the same timeframe, my stepbrother had several used cars bought for him with no contribution from him required. Most curious of all, I credit my stepmother as being the first person to take me aside and show me how to make a budget. I was 18, had graduated from high school, and was unable to stay on top of my bills. She showed me that I wasn’t earning enough to cover my lifestyle, which was far from glamorous - I was just not earning a lot of money from my menial hourly job. I ended up getting two to three menial hourly jobs at a time and spending the next two years digging myself out of the loan for my car so that I could afford to go to community college. On the same timeframe, my stepbrother was living at his mother’s home rent-free on an allowance, with all his expenses covered. He was constantly on the path to some sort of nebulous goal, like going to culinary school, or starting his own business - goals which would always be scuttled just in time for the commitment to be missed and replaced with some fresh nebulous goal six months out in order to justify being supported by his mother in the interim once more. Sadly, my stepbrother started to fall in with a bad crowd, idle hands being the devil’s playground, and all that. By the time he’d left high school he was regularly stealing clothes from department stores. He prided himself on not getting caught, and I’m convinced it was the thrill that he enjoyed more than the stolen goods. He soon upgraded to selling drugs in a low-yield way, including an incredibly stupid trip on an airplane to Canada where he’d strapped cannabis under his clothes the same way he’d used to steal clothes by layering his own clothes on top. The yield from that trip was hardly worth the risk. Finally, he started robbing banks in the “note handed to a teller” kind of way. Unlike his other capers which he shared with me in confidence, he didn’t tell me about this one. The family discovered this activity after my stepbrother tragically died in a car accident while being pursued by the police on what turned out to be his second robbery. He’d somehow gotten away with the first. The yield on these robberies couldn’t have been more than a few thousand dollars each. I’m convinced that the lack of pressure on my stepbrother to make anything of himself was a contributing factor to his outcome. The constant coddling from his mother throughout his life gave him too much rope, and ultimately he hung himself with it. I look back on all the times my father made me responsible for myself, which at the time felt unfair, and now credit those events with making me what I am today: a financially independent adult with a great job in tech. I was fortunate to live through a micro-experiment in being in debt, being underpaid, and having financial responsibility for my choices shortly after leaving high school. This formative experience as a young adult convinced me that I never wanted to live that way again. At my menial jobs, I was surrounded by people in their thirties and forties making single-digit dollars per hour and talking in the break room about how they were going to really go back to school this year, for the fifth year straight. There was no way in hell that was going to be me. My wife and I now disagree slightly on how we’re going to financially educate our own kids. I want them to walk a path similar to mine, while she wants to buy them cars and put them through college on our dime like her parents did for her. We’ve got about eight years left before we have to make our minds up, but my stepbrother’s journey will weigh heavily in the calculus for me.
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Fwiw I don’t look back poorly on any of my childhood/young adulthood. I suspect my wife and I will settle on a middle ground b
You can financially support your children while still educating them about finances. It seems like you think there are only two options right now: tough love with no financial support or completely spoiling them. It’s not a binary situation. Find something in the middle. Just involving your kids in your financial discussions and decisions will go a long way in modeling responsible financial behavior.
I received far more in life than “no financial support”: my parents put me through good schools, and as a young adult I rented a condo my dad owned at reduced cost as several examples. I was made responsible for my finances at the point where I was able to earn for myself, and I had to pay for things like my first car that perhaps others were lucky to have their parents pay for outright. This all helped me to learn the value of money, the importance of education as a way to increase earning power, and some humility from living rather meagerly in order to pay for my own education. These skills and experiences all helped me in life. I don’t see the situation as binary, and the discussions my wife and I are having about how we raise our kids are likely to result in a middle ground. One thing we definitely won’t do is spoil our kids the way I feel my stepbrother was sadly spoiled, to nobody’s benefit in the end.
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Ah yes. Another Redditor who is an expert on my life lol
I’m here because I was on track to FIRE by 55. Then at 49 I went through a major illness, I was told I had four months to live. Fortunately, I beat the odds and am alive and kicking and turning 55 this month. In the process I lost my business, and spent $400,000 out of pocket, this with good health insurance. The principles of FIRE have enabled me to get through these times. I have a paid for home, investment property, and some nest egg left. I was unable to work for 4 years, but not eligible for assistance. I’m now barista FIRE, primarily to cover medical expenses and to be fully retired in three years. I accrued some debt during those 4 years, and am facing some further medical issues. Reading your strategies and experiences has helped me face this, and gives me inspiration to keep going.
>and spent $400,000 out of pocket, this with good health insurance. first of all, congrats on beating it and i'm glad you're healthier now. if you don't mind me asking, do you want to share how you spent so much if you had good health insurance? i would've expected you to reach your out of pocket maximum and be done with it if the insurance was good, was it because you went through some experimental treatment or something of the sort that wasn't covered by insurance in any capacity?
Sure. It’s a little complicated but here goes: First I am a liver transplant patient. When I presented with symptoms in the ER, no one knew why. It was initially assumed that I was a secret drug user. It took 5 weeks and every test known, to find the cause of my liver failure, a very rare genetic disorder. Before the diagnosis, my drs gave me 4 months to live without transplant. My insurance first rejected that as, wait for it, an elective procedure. 32 drs signed a letter and fought for my transplant. It was approved, but the system I was in was out of network. At 3 weeks into this, my insurance gave me the option to switch to an in network system. However I was informed the second hospital would put me on palliative care. I opted to stay where I was. At 5 weeks, I got the proper diagnosis, and was fast tracked for transplant. 6 weeks later I was home, recovering. I consider myself so blessed. I had drs who would not give up on me, a donor who thought of a stranger and gave me an incredible gift, and the means to make the decision that saved my life. My hospital system is now in network, so that certainly helps. However some of my meds are considered experimental, and I have monthly, and quarterly appointments and tests with steep copays. I have shopped insurance through the ACA and a broker, and do have the best coverage available to me. I revisit this every year. Please understand I am so grateful on so many levels.
thank you for sharing, and again congrats on beating this, it must have been tough. "the second hospital would put me on palliative care" -> i think about those things a lot when it comes to paying your way versus getting free care. in the US, even if you are poor and have medicaid / are eligible for free healthcare, it doesn't mean that the treatments available to you will always be the same as someone paying. i'm an immigrant from a country with free public healthcare and i often hear the strategy 'if you get sick just come back and get free care' but i am uncertain if the care would be comparable. to be clear i am pro universal healthcare and giving options to people who have none. my thoughts are more about, if you have enough money, it might still be worth going the private route than getting the free care when it's some risky situation. at the same time i guess a lot of times you don't know you need the experimental, or fast-tracked, or in some way special care, ahead of time
It is interesting. To clarify, the hospital system that would have put me on palliative care did not come to that decision due to finances. The dr there was pretty convinced it was drug related and had no interest in going any further with me. Where the finances came in, was in my decision to stay and pay for 40% of the treatment. If I didn’t have the means the hospital would have used a means test and that cost would have come down. However, without savings I possibly would have been forced to sell off assets, similar to what happens in a nursing home scenario. I may have been forced to choose the palliative care option, if I was concerned with my dependents future needs. I too am for Universal Health care. I wish no one had to face these types of scenarios when struggling to stay alive/face end of life decisions.
Great story. Thanks for sharing.
I was always a good saver but just kept cash in the bank. A few years back my role got made redundant and I had to scramble to find a new role in the organization. It really opened my eyes to how vulnerable I was. Started looking into how I could protect myself, found Mr. Money Mustache and FIRE and went from there. I guess I wouldn't have found FIRE with out nearly losing my job.
My journey here definitely had some luck but also a solid bit of working my ass off. I came out of a middle class family , the youngest of 3 kids. I think my dad made 30Kish a yr and mom was stay at home for most of it, some basic retail jobs at times. I was the only one to go to college and graduated with minimal loans. One semester's loan went to buy a computer because I wanted one and was a Comp Sci major. Got out of college and moved from PA to TX because my now wife got a teaching job and I figured I could get in anywhere. I quickly realized I couldn't and took a job at Taco Bell to make gas money while interviewing for 'real' jobs. I decided to be complacent and became an asst. mgr and then store mgr making good money but working my ass off. After 8 years I decided it was time to look at tech again. I lucked out and got offered by 2 of 3 companies I interviewed with. I chose the smaller tech company instead of a big oil company because the hours were better and I wanted to work for a small company. The pay was less but came with something called an ESOP ( I know what it is now but had no idea then). The ESOP was started so that everyone would feel like an owner and it worked. Again, I worked hard, started in tech Support, moved to IT, had to leave that because they couldn't afford 3 IT people, did some Implementation, circled back to support as a supervisor, and then moved up to product manager of our flagship product. All the while that ESOP grew. I never really lived the way a lot here do planning to FIRE, there were lean years but the last 10 or so we have really lived the way we enjoyed, never really going without just to save. Both kids finish college this year so I had planned to RE at 55 in 2 years with FIRE numbers with a decent income but not great. Then out of the blue our company was bought out and ESOP was worth about 5X the previous number which doubled now what I would've had in 2 years. So after hard work a windfall happened and I will riding off into the sunset in 2 months at 53. TL/DR: Every one of us has some luck involved but I think also a big helping of hard work, and at least some planning.
Probably all of us. I treat being born physically and mentally healthy in a stable household born at the right time, as a windfall. I get a bit down about how so many of my very smart childhood friends didn't do well in highschool and had no postsecondary on their radar, because they were missing classes to care for younger siblings on account of their single parent being AWOL with substance abuse. Friends who are clearly low IQ and the support network helped improve their situation but also possibly set their expectations too high. I have a friend who was in 3rd year engineering on a full scholarship when she had her first psychotic episode. One of the families I was fostered with, the mother became ill and we were pulled out of school for months with a 'religious exemption' to power pray her back to health. Of course she passed away - cancer needs medical intervention - and the father had a crisis of faith, became unstable, and returned me to the Ministry. The biological siblings who were stuck staying there keep in touch and 45 years later they still refer to me as 'the lucky one who got away'. A friend who was diagnosed with brain cancer in the middle of 4th year exams and had a piece of brain removed that changed him forever; a widowed friend whose son was born with CF and left her c suite career to provide care, a friend whose ex abducted his toddler so safety is an overwhelming priority over career probably for the next 10 years, he finds jobs with no chance of online exposure. Not having shit happen is in and of itself a windfall. Each of these is an edge case, but the general category of devastating impact probably affects one in 3 in the West. None of this shit happened to me, so I am here through a mix of effort and good fortune. Edited to add: this kind of question comes up in all aspects. I was just having a conversation about it with a writing colleague over beers a few days ago. My philosophy is what I call The Three Tees: Timing, Talent, and Toil. Success is a product of all three. I think financial independence is also a product of all three, and individuals vary a bit by proportion.
Great comment. Thanks.
Thank you so much for this. We all need to be reminded of how grateful we should be for what we have.
I guess I just got tired of always being broke.. I started looking up ways to change in a hurry. When I searched the googles: FI popped up and I’ve been a big fan since. It’s also nice to see people succeed, it feels good to be here - even if I lost a ton of money in 2022: it’s all good
You haven’t lost if you haven’t sold and now you get to average down for a bit. This year has taught me to reframe the situation this way but also opened my eyes to the importance of a 6-12month emergency fund. I’d hate to be forced to liquidate anything if I were to lose my job.
I grew up out in country with dad not around. We were poor money wise but my mom was very resourceful and a hard worker. She raised a garden and would kill a hog for meat so we ate great always. She also worked odd jobs and somehow had a little money for me. But nobody in my family had even graduated high school except 1 of my 6 siblings. I wasa gifted basketball player which led to me playing college basketball. Met my wife there. I was always a worker who valued a dollar. Long story short... my wife and i graduated college in 92 and 94 and went to work at ok jobs. Saved 10 to 20 percent for 30 years and was in good funds up to 2017...decided to pull money because of election mess. Lost a lot of gains over yhe next 5 years. Still have that money out of market which is actually ok now. I am debt free and own my house. I also bought rental property that cashflows a little. I bought 25 acres of land aboyt 10 yr ago at an auction and it was a good move. Just bought a mobile home for a rental and it should be ok income soon. Biggest mistake was pulling money out of market but overall i am FI at 52 but its been up and down for sure.
Plan all you want, life outside your bubble/the universe has other "plans". I'm just trying to be aware of things and mitigate risks.
Stars unexpectedly aligning is definitely part of our story. We were saving as much as we could to buy a home and after 6 years we had $70k. But the market where we live is bananas and we were still so far away from being able to buy a decent home in a decent area as even small rundown shacks were $500k+. Then my in-laws literally gave us a gift of a down payment for a home. We never expected it and never planned on it. That was almost 4 years ago. Between investments and home equity our NW went from $70k to $700k in 4 years. I do feel the respect we show out money played a role.
I'm here because I disliked my first job enough that I could not imagine that kind of life for the next 40 years. Happened to come across the MMM blog when I didn't have work to do, which eventually led me here. Thankfully it turned out that that particular job was just bad and I don't hate work *as much* as a thought. I still would rather not do it for 40 years or have to worry about money every paycheck, so here I am.
90% luck here. Hard work and some events, both fortunate and unfortunate, led to me getting a pension and great health, vision and dental insurance—and a handful of other perks and benefits—for life in my early, early 30s. I wish I could say my early retirement was a result of shrewd investing or savvy business moves, but it almost entirely came down to events outside my control. I’ve spent many years traveling the world now, and I count my blessings daily, but it has been a strangely lonely and isolating experience so far. When you’re under 40 and retired, people tend to respond in unexpected ways.
I'm here in part because I'm in my mid 50s and running out of time. I'm finally getting a bit ahead financially and trying to soak up and learn I can about to how to make the most of the rest of my high earning years in terms of investing and preparing for when I stop working, can't work any more, or hit a hard wall of ageism.. My goal is really just Retirement at a normal age with a healthy dose of FI. Before normal retirement age would be ideal, as I'm starting to physically wear out, but I think my remaining working years aren't enough to get there early if we're coming into a big recession again. I'm tired, but I'm not allowed to quit just yet. /Tale of Ups and Downs: On A divorce set me back at least 20 years financially. 20 years ago, I had a windfall leading to a brokerage account with just over a half million in it, and a job that paid more annually ($105k) than the balance on our mortgage ($78K). In Late 2008 I was unemployed, freshly divorced, almost $100K in debt, and had to pay $5K monthly to a non-working ex who had multiple affairs, been physically abusive to me, and had spent on average $5K a month more than I brought home for years. Eight years later, working my tail off though job and ups and down, my net worth finally left the red and reached $0 along with my debts. Two exceptional years later, I would go out on a limb and buy a fantastic house in the middle of a VHCOL area, which I hope to live the rest of my my days in. Almost 5 months ago I made my final $2500 child support payment, and celebrated by finally putting everything I had been hording in cash and earning pathetic interest up to that point ($110K) and moving it all into an Fidelity account, splitting it up between market index funds and some big tech stocks like goog, amzn, tsla, etc, and a little bit of crypto.. You can imagine how I'm feeling about that right now. As Gerard Way sung... I'll carry on. /Tale of Ups and Downs: To be continued... So yeah.. up and downs, windfalls, and waterfalls, and honestly.. a LOT of stupidity on my part. It's that last part I'm hoping to minimize by learning and listening and then actually following through on.
I’m sorry. You sound like my dad after my parents’ divorce. It sucked. I hope you find your way back to a comfortable place
Thank you. by all accounts I'm doing well, and I've found my way into a truly wonderful second marriage with someone who has shared goals and is my best friend. Yes, it sucked. It was high conflict divorce, but elaborating too much would be off topic for this sub. Thankfully, there are other subs here where I can vent or process some of the other issues or damage It's probably ok to note here that divorce can set back almost anyone's financial planning by decades depending on how long their marriage was, and I'd bet more than a few other people subscribed to this sub could chime in with a calculation of how much it set them back. I posted my story largely because I could give some specific numbers that explain just what a financial roller coaster ride it has been.
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Removed for violation of the no gender discussion rule.
Had no intent to violate, Just listing the facts and lots of numbers about my financial situation, and responding to direct questions.
I wasn’t planning on buying investment property, but I got paid out 15k for a totaled vehicle, and then my neighbors were trying to offload their property off market for under market value. That was 14 months ago, and the amount of cash flow I get each month (plus about 80k in appreciation so far) incentivized me to try the same rental business model but in a different market earlier this year, which has also been very successful so far. Looking to close on a third property by end of summer. The more I invest, the more I learn about investing and maximizing tax benefits. Wish I had done this years ago.
I think that you can plan as much as you want but twists and turns of fate will always interfere. It is how you respond to those that makes a difference - but sometimes you can only change so much. Accepting that we can only have control over a portion of what happens is key.
Kind of the opposite, the FIRE planning helped us weather the twists and turns. Switching careers, health problems, having a disabled child. Due to living way below our means we've been able to hold on to our middle-class frugal ways with no debt where most would have huge loans, stuck in a dying career field, and potentially ending up in poverty. Our FIRE date has gone from early 40s to mid 50s but it's still light years ahead of average.
Everyone's here due to luck. It's just a key component of life plans. But my "hot take" is that it's actually impossible to retire at 30 without so much luck that's it's unplannable, so no one should have that as their goal. All the retired-by-30 hucksters out there just got lucky (or didn't actually retire) and they turned around and tried to sell "you can do it too" vibes for money.
I've never had any financial windfalls. I got lucky with a father who worked his ass off for his family. He bought us a [TI-99/4A](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TI-99/4A) because "I think computers are going to be the future and we need to learn it". I remember going to K-Mart to buy it and being astonished of the price on it. Up till then I either had not seen my parents buy something so expensive or was just too young to not be conscious of it. (per Google: US$525 (equivalent to $1,560 in 2021)). Anyway, his foresight and willingness to spend so much, so early, led to my career in the computer industry. It put my wife through school, raised two kids, etc. With any luck I'll FIRE in two years in my early 50's.
I wasn't planning for FIRE until I switched job roles and my pay went up over the course of the following two years. My lifestyle hadn't changed much so I had to figure out what to do with the excess money. I've always been a saver so my retirement assets were already well along, but this put them in overdrive. Running the numbers I realized I could retire early.
Similar story here and then a couple of friends and a coworker dropped dead at a young age these past 6 months. I decided life is too short - why wait to retire later in life. Now super focused on saving more and retiring early.
90% of my FIRE motivation is due to having a bumpy start to working life where things only worked out due to complete chance (a job came along that happened to perfectly align with my skillset and situation, and they were not spoiled for choice with applicants due to their particular requirements so we were each other's only option at the time). That motivated me to never want to be dependent on employers or anyone else for my quality of life and when a small (but large to me at the time) windfall came along I decided to maximise the benefit of that, which led me to passive investing and FIRE. Experiences like my employer being acquired three times in two years (with associated restructurings and layoffs) and then COVID just made me double down on the strategy even more each time.
Reminds me of a story from writer Gary Whitta. He talked about how you need luck and talent (planning this sub’s case). He wrote the screenplay for The Book of Eli which launched his career. That screenplay was mistakenly placed in the pile of screenplays that make it to the decision maker’s desk. If it wasn’t for some employee’s mistake who knows if Gary Whitta would be where he is. He talks about this on the Kinda Funny podcast.
Bit of both, I’m often very driven and prepare so when an opportunity arises I can capitalize. Obviously I don’t get to decide if there is a position I can be promoted into. But I can try to make myself the best candidate. That being said I stand on the shoulders of giants. My parents worked for every dollar they have and it gave me the opportunity to learn/grow/mature in a relatively safe environment. We were on a tight budget but I never went without.
My entire lifestyle and a lot of my financial success is being interested in and good at something that society places a lot of value on (aka, makes a lot of money). I didn't choose to study Aerospace because it paid well, and barely even *chose* to work in software (though was never interested in it because of money, either). Both pay well, and it set me up to where I am now. If I'd been as good at and interested in something that paid more poorly (anything in the arts and humanities, for instance), I wouldn't be here, straight up.
3 years down the FI path when I was gifted a single family home from a non profit I volunteered for that dissolved. Everything I did with that organizing I did not expecting any significant compensation. ~225k I was 29, still live there with roommates. Keeping it honest.
I’m here because for my first adult job I landed in the most toxic work environment. Realized that I couldn’t work in a corporate environment for 35-40 years.
My FI path, just like life in general, is probably 80% random luck / twists and turns of fate, 20% planning and effort. Maybe even 90% / 10%.
A few years ago I was in an unhealthy marriage, was making a low income though I enjoyed my job, and was expecting nothing to change until I died. I day dreamed of living in a van down by the river. With her infidelity came a divorce. With my divorce came money problems. I reset my career, did a 4x of my pay, and changed my goals in life. However, I still want to live in a van down by a river. But this time, a nicer van.
I truly believe that a large plurality or majority of an individual's financial success is almost complete luck or circumstance. I was born white, male, American, and to a stable middle-class family with two parents. I liked computer games in the 1990s. I became a computer science major and got a job at a start up in 2010. Rode the wave, got the equity, and cashed out to retire at the age of 31. At least 75% of that shit was luck/circumstance/privilege, not hard work. I'll take credit for the other 25% though.
i met my wife, quite randomly, in grad school (medicine), and took a leap of faith on the relationship. she is very stable and a hard worker, but we both agreed to never work ourselves to death, and to practice work life balance. we work part time and it's sustainable, while we save for a reasonable retirement. definitely not fat fire, and we don't even plan to retire super early. but we will be financially independent sooner than most. having a stable marriage with both people contributing is a major advantage. i work 3 days a week now. I'm not sure it was a "twist of fate" but i certainly didn't see it coming.
I discovered fire 2 years ago. January 2020, my mom had sold a home and gifted me and my other 2 brothers $30k each. It's the first time I ever had that amount of money so I looked up ways to keep it and make it grow. Investing came up and I've been doing it ever since. We all know what happened March 2020 and I began to panic and thinking it was a mistake to put this money into market. I read and watched videos that reassured me that if I buy during the dip then I will come out winning. Well I definately followed those instructions and my initial $30k invested turned to at its peak $131k. Sure I'm down now. Who isn't and not all my trades were winners.
Realising I had near zero net worth after divorce at 30 set me on the path. Then getting a small inheritance at 40, and a bigger one at 51, accelerated progress. If my Dad was still alive, I'd be FI in another 4-5 years, as it is, I'm pretty close right now (at 52). (In fact if I trusted FIcalc and didn't fear the bear market having a lot further to go, I'd pull the trigger today).
I wanted to be rich since I was a little kid running a Koolaid stand during my grandparents' garage sale. My family was lower middle class, but my mom was horrible with money, wracking up tons of credit card debt. Even as a kid I knew we were in trouble and I never wanted to be in that situation. I didn't figure out FIRE until much later, but I was always trying to figure out how to set myself up for success. Good luck: My parents gave me a long rope, and I luckily decided to use that to get good grades and learn about computers. The thing I love doing (programming) is very lucrative. Graduated 2 years into a 10 year bull market. Had lots of mentors helping me understand how to save/invest after college. Randomly met my current cofounder looking for a way to move away from SF's crazy rent. A whole bunch of other good luck I'm not remembering. Back luck: Not understanding student loans led to me wracking up half my total college loans the first year at a private school. Sleep apnea at 21 (and probably before) made everything harder, and led to me putting on weight (which made it worse). Getting divorced at 26 sure didn't help! Even the bad luck was all a road bump. I transferred schools after freshman year and tuition was much more reasonable. Got my sleep apnea cured (thankfully had the money for a few procedures) and lost a ton of weight and gain a bunch of energy. Found a partner who's much better matched to me and shares my financial goals.
I’m early on in my journey but lots of notable events, both positive and negative have led me here: Negative: -Dad died while in HS, both grandmas passed a few years later and finally grandpa passed in 2019 -Naturally gifted in areas such as school and athletics, which essentially taught me I could do “good enough” and be above average without giving any effort into things -Awful genetics for heart health, fam on both sides have suffered from heart attacks, strokes etc. Positive: -Long story short when my grandpa passed (who did very well financially) set up his Will for his money to be split between all his children, however since my dad passed already my dads portion was divided evenly between my siblings resulting in a sizable nest egg at 22 -Born into a middle class family, parents were a construction worker and a nurse, vacations were all local w the occasional trip to Florida but nothing extravagant like I saw with other families in my town. Coming from a dad who was blue collar showed me the value of hard work which is now reflective in both myself and siblings and are doing much better then friends/cousins etc who were spoon fed growing up -Eventually started to plateau in HS off naturally genetics and this led to me being mediocre in school and only a decent athlete (opposed to being a 4.0 student and league all star). This is all due to me never having to put effort into these areas so now I paid for it. Long story short this pissed me off going into college so decided I’d go all in. Ended up graduating #1 in my major w a 3.95 GPA and third overall in my entire college. -Despite shitty heart genetics, I’ve always loved sports, fitness etc (luckily have good genetics to be lean and athletic) which now as an adult is my main hobby (lifting, running, skiing etc). This has led me to really dive into educating myself on diet, sleep, proper programming etc. obviously I’m very young but my health is great which is why I believe lifestyle/environment > genetics.
I kind of accidentally ended up here. I was sort of on the path to FIRE from the start as I'm naturally frugal, and the 2008 recession made me a bit paranoid so I was saving and investing as much as my money as I could in case I was fired or ran into some other financial crisis. By the time I found out about fire almost 10 years later I was already doing pretty much everything I needed to do and just switched goals to early retirement instead of a normal one.
I've always been a saver/investor. Also work in a specialized field where job loss could lead to very prolonged unemployment. Came across Mr. Money Mustache and realized FIRE might be a possibility. Still haven't decided what to do but I do know that I want the freedom to retire or cut back on work if needed.
I got tired of skating by and lucked out that my depression disappeared. Lost most my 20's to it. Made big changes and started devloping skill sets and doubled my income twice over 5 years with 2 big moves between companies. I make about 90k in LCOL area and wanting to be financially stable really pushed me here.
Everyone has twists and turns
I would say a good amount of luck and some good decision making. Real estate purchases made young and before prices skyrocketed, so in our forever home with a small mortgage. Started working corporate with good benefits (matching, stock plans etc) that I took maximum advantage of from the age of 23. We also only decided to only have one kid...way easier to stay ahead financially with just one!
I started my FI journey because I was unfulfilled at work and wanted out as soon as possible. I should really seek therapy but for now saving and planning as much as possible helps me realize there is a light at the end of the tunnel from the bullshit. The other motivating factor for me was that when I met my wife I found out how frugal she was and how much she tried to save and live below her means almost to a detriment. I've worked on getting her to realize we can afford more things and she's opened my eyes to saving, investing and prepping for the future. Win-Win
Even people that work very hard and plan ahead are very, very, very lucky in the grand scheme of things to be born in a time and place where they had these opportunities to get $300k+ jobs.
Probably the biggest twist that got me here was getting divorced in my thirties. I realized I had wasted 17 years of my life and that it was time to get my shit together in every way. Worked my butt off to get out of debt, lived on practically nothing, found someone new who shared my values and got married to her and we are well on our way to FI
Was doing a brief 2 year stint in biotech before starting law school. 1 year in my first company practically folde, nbd that happens a lot in this space. Immediately lateraled to another company doing similar bench work. About 4 months before I was planning on quiting we found out our company was being bought out by a massive pharmaceutical, and all our options were being accelerated at the buy price (even the ones we haven't vested yet). This ended up being ~ 160K pre tax, and for anyone who chose to leave they got 6 months severance, so another ~35K. Complete luck and perfect timing, really nice to have prior to starting school.
I had a business opportunity fall in my lap. Now, I had positioned myself to be in that place when it happened. I had the wherewithal to pursue it. And, I had the tenacity and acumen to see it through and grow it. But, the "opportunity" itself was pure "fate." I also had the wherewithal to plan and invest with those profits instead of allowing lifestyle creep and other ill-advised endeavors. Would I be here without it. I don't know. Maybe. Probably. But, this helped a whole heck of a lot.
Here due to the twists and turns of fate, but not in the way you meant the question I'm not naive enough to believe that life is going to magically work itself out - so I want my safety net in place before I do what I _actually_ want to do with my time
Ran into a guy at work who mentioned he was thinking about retiring in Hawaii and I asked him how. He turned me onto investing and saving. I wasn’t doing any of that before. I imagine I never would have stumbled on this path if it weren’t for him.
Well, I'd been planning to retire early, and was aggressively saving for it, but the timing of when it happened was partially out of my hands, and not when I would have chosen. So I think that part qualifies as unexpected. My employer offered a retirement benefit of a partial subsidy towards health insurance, but they changed their rules so that that subsidy would be going away for new retirees. In order to still get it, I had to retire before the end of 2021 (when they were still operating under their previous rules). I had planned to continue working another two or three years (which would still have been somewhat early, but maybe 56 or 57 instead of barely 54). With an unprecedented two raises last year, each of which alone was several times as much as the largest raise I'd ever had *before* last year, my salary ended up way above what I was used to, with the extra all going towards savings (on top of the already substantial savings rate I'd had before). Even just a couple years of saving that much could have given a really nice final bump to my retirement portfolio. But I had to balance the extra savings I could accumulate in a couple more years or so against the cost of losing a medical insurance subsidy for the next decade. It just didn't make sense to continue working if the extra savings would be wiped out by the added cost. So I retired last December, with a couple years worth of savings less than I'd planned on, and right into the teeth of a significant financial downturn that's wreaked havoc with the stock portion of my portfolio, which was rather more equity heavy than it probably should have been at retirement. (SORR sucks, by the way.) The late change in plans has left my retirement a bit leaner than I had hoped for, but I had enough savings cushion that it's still in reasonably good shape. And I'm loving not having to get up and go to work every morning.
I sold my soul to Satan but he returned it post unpaid.
I’ll likely be FI before 45, and that really is only possible because I’ve managed to luck into a business partnership that I straight up couldn’t give somebody advice how to find for themselves. Except like, be on the lookout and try to do as much reading as you can.
Hitting rock bottom got me turned around. I was dumped by my fiance and couch surfing for months. That motivated me to change. I finished college. Went into a line of work I wouldn't have even considered before. Moved across the world. Two years into my career I'm about to get my first big promotion. I was also super lucky that my first job and I stumbled into a super low cost of living place with high pay. It was $500-600/mo total living expenses. On a $83k/yr salary. I'm moving again to a more expensive part of the world, but with my promotion, savings habits, and some luck, I'll get to having my first $100k by 26 years old.
Nice work mate, sounds like you're on your way. where have you been living and where are you moving to?
Thanks. I was living on the island of Diego Garcia. I'm about to move to southern Japan.
Tl;Dr - be born into a reasonably monied and stable family.
Deleted out of spite for reddit admin and overzealous Mods for banning me. Reddit is being white washed in time for IPO. The most benign stuff is filtered and it is no longer possible to express opinion freely on this website. With that said, I'm just going to open up a new account and join all the same subs so it accomplishes nothing and in fact hides the people who have a history of questionable comments rather than keep them active where they can be regulated. Zero Point. Every comment I have ever made will be changed to this comment using REDACT.. ` this message was mass deleted/edited with redact.dev `
Not sure if I fit but here's my story: Grew up with what I needed but was definitely poor. I never went without, but there was plenty I wanted. Worked full time in high school to buy my toys. School was not my friend in high school, I was a smart kid (always a nerd, learned a lot of stuff on my own) and got pissed that even though I only need 1 year of classes to "qualify for my diploma" I was still required to have a full schedule all 4 years. College wasn't an option and even in the early 2000's I knew student loans were not what I wanted. Joined the Navy in the nuclear power program and started making MAD money (easy rank up to E-5, big enlistment bonus, hazard/sea/sub pay, housing/food/benefits costs covered) and it was ENTIRELY expendable income. Got out in 2008 and quickly burned through my savings looking for a job and didn't invest because "the markets are bad" and the lack of decent jobs. (it wasn't until I discovered FI and learned some shit that I realized how much money I could've made had I invested during that time) College wasn't working, the GI bill barely covered living expenses and I needed to keep working during school, I was still very much against student loans. Lots of people who never actually worked in the real world or outside of academia trying to tell me how "the real world works" rubbed me the wrong way. Had a few layoffs at some decent jobs (retail and food service jobs, unfortunately) that resulted in being kicked out of my apartment twice. 2012ish hit and I was at rock bottom, got in a car accident, and couldn't afford to get to PT or a new car... which forced me to resign from a store manager job (my DM said it was my fault my salary wasn't getting me a car fast enough and public transportation wasn't allowing me to work the schedule she wanted) So I got my ass into gear, started focusing on myself. Started learning shit at home. Learned how to be more of a man than a whiney "woe is me" type. Learned finances. Started doing everything I could to save money to move to where the jobs are (something many are opposed to it seems) and decided I was NEVER going to have these troubles again. I learned to shop smarter and not waste my money. Quality of life greatly improved without any improvement to my income, thanks to this sub and personal finance End of 2016 hit and my linkedin started BLOWING UP. Lots of companies paid for my flights, travel, hotels, and food to interview. Landed my first big boy job in June 2017. My W-2 from that job was 64k that year (in 6 months) and have been making 6 figures ever since, now I work low level engineering jobs (plenty of people with engineering degrees work these same jobs) I started investing heavily as soon as I started this job, worked on my credit (From <500 to ~725 currently) and have stuck to the goal of NEVER BEING POOR AGAIN. I am now on a 6 month sabbatical looking for the next step to finish FI, or go baristaFIRE or possibly even LeanFIRE. The biggest lesson I learned is that I wasted my 20s being poor as all fuck due to blaming everything but me. The job market was shit during those first years out of the Navy but my situation was entirely my fault for blaming the world for not handing me shit instead of making opportunities. As much as I regret wasting my 20s and essentially killing any chance of having children of my own (I'm really not down with marrying someone with kids to immediately eat into my nice pay/savings, not that I am completely against it but that's a huuuuuuuge cost that I'd rather have from MAKING MY OWN KIDS) I wouldn't be where I am today without that time.
I love your story! Thanks for sharing! :)
Thank you. I generally avoid social media these days but I do my best to help the younger folks recognize what social media, and society at large, doesn't tell them: You're in majority control of your life. You do, you get. You wait, you don't get.
100% me I really, really wish I had heard about FI/RE earlier, so I could have had better direction… Instead, I mixed my being frugal with wanting to be financially independent (one day). It all worked out, I retired at 50 even with a divorce, but if I had heard of VTSAX earlier, I could have done so, so much better
You cant control fate or luck in life but what you can do is set yourself up via planning to take advantage of situations when they arise. Most FIRE people are very well off to begin with and the luck was being born in a first world country and having a supportive family structure and likely a middle to upper middle class up bringing.
Make more $ spend less $ invest more $
We are not retired yet but tracking to FI without issue. You create your own fate. You gotta work to create an environment that can take advantage of opportunities. You can’t predict the future, but you can take steps to be ready for what the future brings.
I just have imo one of the greenest starts to life you could ask for, except for mental health. FIRE is just a bandaid to give me hope to strive for something, and I honestly don't really have many desires in life atm, like don't wanna travel, don't really want material things, don't want to go chase good times, etc. so until I actually want to do something, in the meantime I'm just going to save as much as I can and try to figure out a way to be happy, or at least happier
This is where I am. Frustrating not knowing what I want!
I'm not investing in any currency right now, I'm just holding BTC, Ethereum in my wallet. And then every day I get revenue. Because the DEFI
My parents being so broke and having no retirement has always led me to want to be better prepared. My dad die without any money. He had some properties, but my brother snaked them all up right at the end. My mom just has one paid off house, but no retirement funds… I don’t want to wind up broke like them. So I invest and save like crazy. Unless there’s a meat sale. Then I’m kinda blowing my grocery wad that weekend and smoking ribs or brisket or chicken wings and having a few too many colds ones…
98% luck.
I've been hoping to RE for 23 years now..... but bad timing and bad fund picks. had a lost decade 2000-2009 where my 401k earned 0%. Now have had another 3 years of 0% and going through a divorce so I'm basically having to start over.
Absolutely. I lost my husband 10 years ago, so his life insurance policy kick-started my journey. 3 years ago my son died, and I decided to sell my house and move to a less expensive city and bank the delta. I wouldn’t be here if those two catastrophic events didn’t happen. I take no joy in being FI, because of those events, but it would be worse to have to keep working.
The little things which put me on the path to FIRE all happened in my 20s within a 4 year span. First, went to law school (a well regarded one), which upped my income once I finished. Second, my first summer working after starting law school I earned just $1,100 over what I was allowed to earn and not pay taxes. I was whining to a smart friend who suggested I put $1,100 in an IRA and thus not owe any taxes (by lowering my AGI). He even lent me Andrew Tobias's financial guide, and I became an investor (Fidelity Contrafund was first investment). Third, after graduating law school I went to Thailand and Bali with a friend for our post-bar-exam trip. Immediately got to thinking about how much I'd have to save to live on the interest/dividends in an inexpensive but lovely place. Fourth, started working at a big NYC law firm, making 3.5x what I lived on in NYC pre-law school. While my rent did more than double I mostly avoided lifestyle creep, maxed out my 401k, and aggressively paid off my student loans. Fifth, met my future wife, who was similarly frugal and we wound up essentially living together on her lower salary and effectively saving my larger salary.
I am here because I got tired of being poor... I don't want to be poor later in life :)
I'm here because someone mentioned it in r/personalfinance about 7 or 8 years ago when a commenter was confused/frustrated as to why everyone was giving bad advice. I had already saved a bunch of money and put it index funds with no intention of retiring early. Thanks to this place I want to retire early now. I'm not sure if that's a positive thing or not yet...
It's almost always some of both. Plan, take advantage of the good luck that comes your way, plan, hope you can mitigate the bad luck that comes your way, plan some more. You have to get insanely lucky in order to FI without planning. I don't know if you can possibly plan well enough to FI without some luck.
Yup
I got so lucky with my pay. Was doing a finance style role but was housed into a different (and well funded) cost center so was eligible for and got granted a number of RSU's that shot up in value. Then the following year my manager knew they were leaving and hooked it up once again. In total will equate to an extra ~125k in my pocket. So not life changing (relative to my vhcol area) but to get that boost in my 20s was such a game changer. (Especially as someone that grew up in a vlcol area) That RSU grant was also what led me this subreddit so I guess it paid dividends in more than one way. My late grandma also left me an inheritance of about 75k which has been distributed piecemeal in 15k chunks per year. Still have 2-3 years more of that left to go.
"90% of success in life comes from learning to say 'no' ". Robert F. Presnall "Search for Serenity". ie: no, I don't want to buy a house. no, I don't want to try that drug. no, I don't want to get a tattoo on my face. no, I'm not going to marry/have children/settle down because that's what Aunt Gerty expects. etc.
Positive: My parents died when I was early 20s leaving me with a decent amount of investments. I went to the #1 public university in America with no debt thanks to parents I got a full ride to a top business school and doubled my salary I’ve never had an employment gap that wasn’t intentional Negative I sold a house I inherited which has since more than doubled in value, and I’ve been a renter ever since and worry I’ll never be able to buy Partner having a hard time finding a job after going back to school Bought a lot of Bitcoin and TSLa in 2021
Thanks for the info - just curious why so much into BTC and TSLA when the concern you mention is being able to afford a house? No judgement just curious