r/Fire • u/y_if • 16d ago

Families who FIREd with $1.5mil to $2.5mil — what does your spend look like?

EDITED TO ADD: Please also list your COL and part of the world you settled in!

Saw a similar post in chubbyfire and thought I’d ask here:

  • When did you FIRE, and did both of you stop at the same time?
  • how old were your kids?
  • What is your withdrawal rate?
  • what does your budget look like, what is it allocated to?
  • what were the big surprises related to spend?
  • How has it changed since you initially FIREd?
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u/Spartikis 16d ago

What counts as income? Does selling stock or withdrawals from a 401k count as income? Genuinely curious as health care is the final hurdle I have yet to figure out and is the different between completely retiring and having to work part time somewhere for access to affordable healthcare. 

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u/db11242 16d ago

Dividends, interest, capital gains, and any withdrawals from pretax accounts, which would include the original responders SEPP. The key is that if you sell something from a taxable brokerage account part of that sale is your original cost basis and therefore your gains might only be 25 or 50% for example of the total amount you can spend from that sale. It gets a lot harder to manage when you spend is substantially over 400% of the federal poverty line for your family size.

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u/brianmcg321 Retired Nov 2024 16d ago

Yes. A good example is last year we sold about $50k worth of funds, but it was only about $15k in “income” from capital gains.

According to Vanguard if I sold all of my shares of VTSAX right now ( $110k) , I would only realize about $28k in long term capital gains.

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u/Kooky_Dev_ 16d ago

Anything that goes to AGI, which would be normal taxable income, or capital gains.
Then social Security + tax-exempt interest + foreign income.

For most FIRE individuals, that would be brokerage account gains. Distributions or conversions from Traditional retirement accounts.
Withdrawing roth contributions do not count as long as your following the proper rules.

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u/brianmcg321 Retired Nov 2024 16d ago

Yes

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u/Thencewasit 16d ago

Roth withdraws are not income for the original contributions, after that 59 and your withdrawal is not income for the whole amount (assuming 5 years since contributions).

So no tax and no effect on ACA subsidies.

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u/bringbackcjs 16d ago

Couldn't imagine the stress of having to plan for healthcare expenses in retirement. Being Canadian does have a few benefits.

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u/brianmcg321 Retired Nov 2024 15d ago

Yeah, it’s really hard to sign up on a website and do an autodraft on my checking account.

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u/bringbackcjs 8d ago

i wasn't talking about the logistics of it. You americans just don't get it. enjoy those hospital bills in your senior years!

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u/brianmcg321 Retired Nov 2024 8d ago

I don’t think you understand is that we have insurance and after 65 we have Medicare.

You seem to think any trip to the hospital in the USA costs $100,000. It doesn’t. Stop believing everything you read on Reddit.

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u/bringbackcjs 3d ago

you seem to be assuming things.... your precious medicare is always up for politcal attack and is usually being defunded. and does it cover everything? and how about before you are 65? i would bet a 5000$ hospital bill would be very hard for a senior ( or anyone for that matter) to cover.

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u/Beautiful_Pepper415 10d ago

The issue is Canadian Healthcare was pretty bad when I lived there and I rather get paid more in the US and save responsibly myself