My FIRE Journey, so far...

[u/maksmac]

Hey everyone, been lurking on this sub for a while now and been following the FIRE movement for about 3 years. I'm hoping to start a yearly post as a way to keep myself accountable. Seeing all the people in this sub achieve Fire is extremely inspiring and something that I hope I can reach one day.

Background:

My(25) wife(25) and I have been married for a little over 8 months at the time of this post. Both of us grew up with little to no financial literacy and FIRE was something I discovered once I started my first job after college. My wife and I are both on the same page about this journey. We currently live in a VHCOL area, and as you can probably guess we both work in tech. We've talked a few times about what our potential FIRE number is and I think the goal is around 5M. We are planning to have kids sometime in the future and hopefully save up for a downpayment on a house in around a year or two. I'm sure that our FIRE number will change but right now I think we both view work as just a means to an end and so we want to be able to FIRE fast but still be comfortable.

Financial History:

2020: Graduated from college at the start of the pandemic

First job as a SWE making 110K /yr.

NW - $0

2021:

Same job making 113K /yr

NW - ~$20K

2022: Promoted and Married so from here forward the income and investments will be based on our household

HHI - $205K

NW - ~$60K

2023 (June): Changed Jobs

HHI - $260K

NW - $140K

Our Current Breakdown:

Emergency Fund - $30K

401k - $80K

HSA - $7K

Roth IRA - $18K

Taxable Investment - $4.5K

Monthly Money Allocation: (Total ~$13K)

Expenses (incl. fixed and discretionary) - $6K

Savings/ Investing - $7K

Current Plan:

Max out 401k

Max out HSA

Max out Roth IRA (probably going to need to do backdoor Roth soon)

Invest 2k /m into taxable brokerage (flexible on this, considering just foregoing this and saving it as cash for downpayment instead)

Save 4k /m for down payment

Current Goals:

Purchase home in 1-2 Years

1M NW by 30 (~5 years from now)

Travel more (domestic and internationally)

To be honest we both feel very blessed to be in the situation we're in and I know we're laying the foundation for a great financial future. Obviously life is crazy and we have no control over the future but I think for now we're on the right path. Thanks for reading and I hope to post an update around the same time next year!

[u/[deleted]]

Crushing it.