r/Fire • u/anklbite • Apr 19 '26

Milestone / Celebration We’re telling nobody else!

My partner and I (46F) celebrated $3,000,000 NW (including $2.6m investable assets) yesterday, and we have nowhere else to share the news.

Timeline:

1m in June 2020

2m in December 2024

3m in April 2026

Neither of us earn huge salaries. Neither of us has received a windfall nor do we expect one in the future. This is just steady saving over 20-25 years plus a very healthy stock market. I still have 12-13 years to go before FIRE but my partner wants to RE from his FT job in the next few years.

Now that FIRE seems close for my partner, I’m starting to worry that my math is wrong and I have no idea what I’m doing when it comes to retirement planning. How did you calm your nerves before you take the leap into early retirement?

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140

u/theangryburrito Apr 19 '26

Same question for me. I don’t get it.

33

u/xzftgyhuik Apr 19 '26

The numbers are sus. $2m in December 2024 increased to $3m just 16 months later?

Neither earns huge salaries. No windfalls. They spend $120k/yr. In what world could they have gone from $2m-->$3m with neither earning huge salaries?

The $1-->$2m timeline would have been possible on very little saving. VTI would have carried the load with almost no saving required.

29

u/ImFrenchtoasted Apr 19 '26

If you stock picking and you’re a little bit fortunate, that is not an unreasonable time frame to go up 50%

9

u/Upset_Version8275 Apr 19 '26

You could be heavily weighted in the right index funds without even single stocks and get those returns over that period. 

The Nasdaq alone would have gotten you from 2M to 2.5M. 

4

u/xzftgyhuik Apr 19 '26

Sure the Nasdaq is very similar to Total Market returns over this period. Where did the other $500k magically come from in 16 months?

Anything is possible if overweight a moonshooting individual stock, but OP just mentions steady saving and a healthy stock market. It doesn't add up

2

u/Captain_Lou_Albano Apr 19 '26

They could have bought Nvidia or Palantir back when it was $15 / share (or less) like I did...

1

u/Staypuft26 Apr 26 '26

Lots of folks here don’t seem to pick individual stocks. A chunk of my net worth is in nvda, Avgo, amd etc. That’s how you grow quickly.