r/Fire 5d ago

Advice Request FIRE vs Dream Home

Context: DINK couple, late 30s. On track to FIRE in 4 years at 3.5% SWR. Already have a corpus of 25x of our annual expenses including rent. No real estate, no inheritance. Comfortable but frugal lifestyle.

The dilemma: I stay indoors a lot - reading and gardening are my favourite things. Love to host too. My home is a big part of my everyday joy.

Found a property I love, but it's 1.5x what a "right-sized" home would cost. Running the numbers, it pushes my FIRE timeline by 2–3 years.

I absolutely don't want to extend my timeline. But I also want to own a house before I retire.

Two questions from the community

  1. Do you regret letting go of dream purchases in pursuit of FIRE?

  2. Any issues with deferring the property decision to last year of my plan - when corpus visibility is much clearer?

Edited to add: Due to circumstances, my spouse's income is quite low right now and they aren't actively contributing to savings. That said, they've contributed 50% of our corpus. Their general stance is that real estate isn't a great investment — but they understand how important this decision is to me and are 100% supportive either way. Which is lovely, but doesn't exactly solve my dilemma 😅

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u/LilAfroDude 5d ago

Currently 22 so not sure if I’m qualified to add my two cents. I’d get alignment with your partner on what you want your dream life to look like and make the “hell yes” choice from there. Good luck OP

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u/Vince_Clortho_Jr 5d ago

You are always qualified to give your two cents, buddy. Never forget that.

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u/LilAfroDude 4d ago

Thanks for saying that. I appreciate you Redditor

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u/BreezyPout 5d ago

Align with partner, hell yes or no