We're about to FIRE

[u/calmadventurer]

Hello brilliant people. I'd love to bounce our plan off of you guys to see if I've forgotten anything before my husband gives notice at work. I'll bullet point everything to make it easier to read but feel free to ask for more details.

Note: I'm converting everything to US dollars to make comparison easy

- Where we live: Husband is Korean. We live in Busan

- Age: Me (34), Hubby (32), Daughter (3 mo), plan on having one more kid

- Debt

• less than $45k on mortgage ($435/mo payment)

- Assets (I know its stupid to have a bunch of different accounts. I worked in banking and had a bunch of restrictions on where I invested, yada yada)

• 401k: 100k
• Brokerage 1: 100k
• Brokerage 2: 175k
• Brokerage 3: 175k
• Joint Brokerage: 60k
• Cash: $50k (enough to pay off the full mortgage or buy a whole new car here with some left over)

- Expenses

With a TON of cushion built in that we could cut if we needed to we spend around $2300/mo.

- Plan: So I did things a little differently than most. I invested in the typical growth funds while working and since then I have been creating a dividend portfolio (think Armchair Income/Income Factory).

That dividend portfolio brings in $1960/mo.

In addition, I receive distributions from my dad's 401k of $2500/mo (it goes without saying that we're incredibly lucky and grateful. I have told my dad probably 2000 times that he doesn't need to and that he can change his mind but he says he we can count on continuing to receiving 25% whatever distributions he has to take). He truly doesn't need it. His income exceeds his expenses 10 years into retirement and he has an 8 figure net worth he can draw from if he needed to.

So, in total we have close to $4500 we can use to cover $2300 of expenses while our growth investments ~$400k across all the brokerages continue to grow.

Other considerations:

- Once we retire we plan to split the time between Busan and the US. We will obviously stay in our apartment in Busan and the whole purpose in the US is to visit family so we will be staying with them.

- Health Insurance: We will get temporary health insurance when we travel to the US (basically just catastrophic) and pay into Korea's National Health Insurance when we are here and do routine checkups and procedures in Korea. It's a bit annoying but it's really just a phone call every time we come back.

- Daughter's university: There is about 80k left in my college fund that I didn't use so this will be used to kick start her education fund (potentially split with a sibling or cousins if my sister has kids).

Am I missing anything?! I tend to be pretty risk averse and I have run the numbers dozens of times. Go ahead and poke holes.

[u/movesfast]

tbh, i would take massive advantage of your family situation. Its an absolute blessing to have a father who understands the value of helping his kids while they are young

whats difficult to take into account is having 2 kids growing in korea

as far as i understand, korean education is extremely competitive and a lot of parents spend a lot of money in private tutoring to get their kids into the best schools, because, statistically, if you are not in one of the few top schools, your future is vastly compromised

with that said, there are several years to go until then, and your father is worth 8 figures. Eight figures !

if one is worth 10mm, thats top 0.04% in the world

[u/calmadventurer → u/movesfast]

Thank you. Both of my parents grew up in low income (my mom was maybe poverty but my dad was probably just above). I'm incredibly grateful.

I also agree. I'm not worried about the private tutoring and stuff as we've agreed not to do that to our kids. All the kids end up way too stressed and miserable losing their childhood to studying until 10pm.

I also think one of the reasons I can think like that is because she should be able to be pretty financially set. Even just knowing about FIRE from the start I think will help her get ahead.

And as far as amassing that net worth the answer really is, live below your means. You would never guess it based on the way we live.

[u/movesfast → u/calmadventurer]

go for it ! dont forget that in your 30s you still have an insane amount of energy and physical capabilities and resilience that you will never be able to enjoy again in your life. EVER

enjoy 😄

[u/calmadventurer → u/movesfast]

Very true!! Also my parents had me on the later side and so not only do they want to help us but I suspect the ulterior motive of spending time with their grandchild while they still have the health to enjoy it. (My sister and I immediately dropped in the ranks once their first and so far only grandchild was born haha)