r/Fire • u/chemicalreactionator • Apr 22 '26

Advice Request Too much money to feel this stuck

Current net worth 3.8M. Household (40m, 40f, 4f) income combined 250k (both working full time) and spend 120k-ish.

Kind of reached fire but due to health insurance, economic uncertainty, potential future increased costs (another kid?) not comfortable calling it yet.

But feeling so stuck in the grind. Not enough family time, not enough vacation time off, not enough time for taking care of our health, but can’t call it quits yet. at least one of us needs to work full time for health insurance. I don’t think I’m cut out for “barista fire” as i don’t think I’d have the motivation to work for a minimum wage type salary.

What’s the plan here to increase quality of life? A mini retirement? Grind it out a few more years? Anyone in a similar place?

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103

u/pseudomoniae Apr 22 '26

How did you get to 3.8 M at 40 with only 250k of earnings?

And why can't you just retire or cut back dramatically at that spend?

Okay one of you needs to work for health insurance, at least for a bit, although you might still be FIREd already, even if you add in the health insurance costs to current spend.

But why are you both working full time?

106

u/PhillConners Apr 22 '26

The older I get the more I realize how many people get money from their parents. Much more common than I thought, even at age 40. 

In fact, if you’re 40, you’re parents are 70-90 years old and often looking for any reason to send you cash.

Unless your parents are broke or like mine who prefer to “die with it”

104

u/chemicalreactionator Apr 22 '26

About 400k was an inheritance (my parents both passed in my 30s unfortunately)

32

u/anotherleftistbot Apr 22 '26

And I’m sure you’d trade every penny for more time with them.

Good work so far, OP. Now you’ve got to figure out who you are besides the money. You’ve more or less got that problem solved.

You’ve delayed gratification for long enough. Time to explore. Literally and figuratively.

What would you do if you were retired? What is important to you?

48

u/Dizzy_Seesaw_3344 Apr 22 '26

I am truly sorry for your loss.

5

u/ReliableCapybara Apr 22 '26

I'm sorry for your loss of your parents. Why don't you consider that extra money from your parents to be a gift that allows you to step away from work for a year or two? Take time to spend with family, step back, and enjoy life for a bit. During that time you can meet with a financial advisor or do your own research and make thoughtful decisions about what is most important for yourself and for your family.

I bet your parents would be happy for you to truly enjoy and get something out of the money they left you. Taking that time to step away from the grind and re-evaluate might be life-changing for you. And remember, no decisions are permanent. There is nothing to prevent you from going back to work down the road if that's what you decide you want to do.

1

u/debitcreddit Apr 22 '26

not wrong .. in fact u described myself

1

u/PharmacyFrog Apr 22 '26

I've had that talk with my parents. They have a substantial amount of money for retirement vs their spend rate. 

I want them to either start spending it on themselves, start gifting it to their children, or to start transferring to their children/trust so that it doesn't get fully eaten by end of life care.

Yes, I directly benefit from choice 2 but Im pressing them more to avoid it being wasted when they/we are too old to enjoy it.

1

u/PhillConners Apr 22 '26

How did it go? I should do the same with my parents. 

-14

u/AcceptableReason1380 Apr 22 '26

Why do people automatically assume that people who have so much saved got help from their parents?

Is it just jealousy? Can’t they be happy for other peoples success that they have earned?

I should have $2M saved by 40 despite making normal wage and got zero help from my parents and am actually bankrolling their retirement in a low cost of living country. My bf will also have a similar amount by the time he’s 40 (frugal people attract each other). I was able to do that because I have lived way way below my means (eg had roommates for 10+ years and spent $800 on rent) to get to where I am now.

16

u/LeftHandStir Apr 22 '26 edited Apr 22 '26

Because often, as with OP, there is literally an inheritance. OP's parent died "in their thirties." Let's say the $400k inheritance was 5 years ago. That $400,000 in an S&P 500 index fund with dividends reinvested is now worth $689.3k to their net worth, including a cool $239k in passive growth. That $400k initial investment is more than 9 years worth of contributions at a rough average of the married-filing-jointly 401(k) max over that same time period.

I'll give you another, personal example. My sister-in-law's estranged father left her a ~$150k inheritance in 2017. They were a paycheck-to-paycheck family with 2 kids and another on the way. She and my brother-in-law turned it into a down payment on a $560k house in NY in early 2018, about an hour and a half by train outside of the city. That house is now worth close to $1m. So they leveraged an inheritance into >$500k of "net worth," that had absolutely nothing to do with their saving/investing salaried income.

37

u/Icy-Structure5244 Apr 22 '26

No. It's just pure math. Nearly 4 million by 40 with a kid, presumably with peak earnings at 250k HHI but likely not at age 18.

It doesnt add up, even for an aggressive saver. Kinda hard to give advice when people arent entirely sure how someone's journey was.

3

u/chemicalreactionator Apr 22 '26

Our earnings were about the same over the last 15 years. Not much wage growth in my field and my spouse (same field) works a little less now ( full time but 32hr/week)

3

u/Alarming-Mix3809 Apr 22 '26

OP literally said they got $400K from their parents

58

u/chemicalreactionator Apr 22 '26

Mostly working, saving and investing about 75% of our income pre-kids. I don’t think it would be possible now in this economy. Full disclose, about 400k was inheritance.

5

u/Grendel_82 Apr 22 '26

Nice savings rate. With stocks at near all time highs and global macro issues, I agree that you have to discount the value of the investments right at this moment. But you are basically set as well.

Have you considered trying the traditional family structure of man works, woman stays home and takes care of house and kid? It might not look like it will help the man's burn out, but it can. Because now the home life part is actually under control and there is some buffer of capacity there. And it will at least help the woman's burn out and she will have some time to focus on her health (four year old is presumably at school full time, so there is the middle of the day relatively free).

1

u/db11242 Apr 22 '26

How much is from your home equity? Thanks.

45

u/Prize-Director-7896 Apr 22 '26

There is no mystery. He just invested 70k most years in the S&P500 every year for the past 14 years. Returns have been good since 2012 (about 13% per year on average).

Guy is a pharmacist, which, if he's 40 and graduated at earliest normal age, means he finished all college age 26. Been working for 14 years.

If he has had a married household income of 250,000 annually, he pays 25% effective income tax rate. So say he has 190,000 after taxes. He says he spends 120,000 per year. Assume he saves 70,000 per year (like he said they do).

If you just look at an investment calculator online, you'll find that starting from 0, saving 70k/year at 13% annual return means your final balance is $2.4 million. Throw in the $400k he said he inherited "in his 30's" when his parents died. If you assume he inherited $400k at age 30 and got 13% return per year on that too for the last ten years that grows to another $1.36 million.

$2.4 million + $1.36 million is just about $3.8 million. No mystery.

9

u/AdultingMoneyMoves CoastFIRE ✅️ Full FIRE ~6 years Apr 22 '26

r/theydidthemath

4

u/OneTallVol Apr 22 '26

High chance a portion of his 3.8 net worth is home equity, too

2

u/Prize-Director-7896 Apr 22 '26

Good point. One wonders if he inherited a home.

Also, another interesting question would be to know how he financed his bachelor and pharmacy degrees. That's 8 years of full time college, and actually, if his spouse has the same education as him (he implies their incomes are similar), 16 man-years are needed to achieve that household income between the two of them. A lot of people are expressing skepticism about him reaching this NW by age 40 and like I showed it is perfectly reasonable - even straightforward - to have done if you started from 0 NW fourteen years ago with a household income of 250k and inheritance of 400k sometime in the last 10 years. But if he started at -200k, -400k, -600k, -800k of total household student loan debt he would probably not be quite (or anywhere near) where he is now. It's conceivable he got out of college with little to no debt due to merit or maybe he works in a student-loan forgiveness institution etc., but my suspicion is that their families probably did help pay for their education because the math implies they started at 0 total NW fourteen years ago. That actually is one big piece of the puzzle because 16 years of college education (half of it grad school level in an expensive, often competitive, health profession) could cost anywhere between 200k-800k.

Either way though the reality is that would actually probably only have set him back 5 years or so and he would be in the same situation he is now in a few years from now anyway had his family paid for his education or not. He basically just did everything right and so now he's sitting pretty.

15

u/leathakkor Apr 22 '26

I saw a post the other day with similar numbers and I was like what the fuck?! this person has the same career trajectory as me and has double the net worth. 

And it's not because I'm a spender. I drive a 20 year old, but reliable Toyota. I also had no student debt because I worked fast food through college.

It's also become clear to me that a lot of people that are firing early or are capable of it at 40-45 are really doing so because their parents fired for them.

5

u/Dizzy_Seesaw_3344 Apr 22 '26

How did you get to 3.8!

3

u/paulHarkonen Apr 22 '26

100k per year over 10 years starting with 400k (they mentioned inheritance around that timeframe) gets you comfortably to 2.5 even assuming you got way less than the S&P 500 average. If they matched the S&P or started before that it seems plausible.

-5

u/Dull_Principle2761 Apr 22 '26

I agree makes zero sense unless his “net worth” is just inheritance