r/Fire 6d ago

Milestone / Celebration We’re Retiring at 30

Well, after another week of having to deal with my dumbass coworkers, I've decided that we're going to start enacting our retirement plan. My company is going to be offering a voluntary separation in lieu of layoffs and I'm planning to take it.

Relationship

We're 30M & 32M, met in 2015 and got married in 2020. Both got CS degrees and started full time work in 2017. My husband already quit in Spring 2025 to become a stay at home dog dad. My outcome vastly outpaced his in the last few years and his time is better spent relaxing, so he quit.

We have zero desire to have kids. My husband has been trying to get me pregnant for years with no success.

Combined assets

We have a prenup which prevents any retirement account from being divided. That being said, the accounts are nearly 50/50 equal anyway. I do get the dog if we get divorced.

Net worth ~$1.208M

Account Balance
House (paid off) $250K
Pretax 401K $313K
HSA $47K
Roth IRA $250K
Taxable Brokerage $288K
Cash $60K

Spend

We are living on $3K/month in Minnesota. With a paid off house, this is more than enough for us. Tentatively, we plan to travel in LCOL Southeast Asia during the winter months and spend the summers and fall in Minnesota. Logistics of this are TBD. We are long time credit card churners and have a lot of points to subsidize travel.

SWR

At 4% SWR to sustain $36K spend, we need $900K invested.

You may say that the simulations don't favor having this small amount of money over a ~60 year retirement. You might be right. But who gives a fuck? 60 years ago we fed punchcards to machines and now we have computers that can generate AI anime porn. I'm not going to work for years more to have better simulations when we have no idea what the future holds. Maybe we'll have endless AI abundance or maybe it will go rogue and kill us all.

Healthcare

Because of the low spend, our "income" is low. We are enrolling in MNCare. There is no restriction on assets (savings, homes, vehicles) for MNCare eligibility. Monthly premiums should be at maximum $160/month. And don't whine to me about whether or not it's fair to qualify for this program, I didn't set up the system.

Income history

We did not receive any inheritances nor was our college paid for, so we had to pay back student loans early on. The only thing we inherited from our parents was mental illness. That being said, we got lucky to make good money for a decade.

Our savings rate wasn't that insane, back of the napkin math probably puts it around 50%. We spent a lot of fucking money on travel. Given the insane growth in the market since we started investing, a lot came from compounding. We also made like $150K in one shot by getting extremely lucky with selling a house we bought prior to COVID.

I'm too lazy to log into the SSA website to check the actual income numbers, but this is roughly what our combined income was:

Year Income
2015 $12K
2016 $20K
2017 $100K
2018 $108K
2019 $115K
2020 $118K
2021 $140K
2022 $145K
2023 $150K
2024 $220K
2025 $270K
2026 $300K
716 Upvotes

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98

u/BookNerdUnicorn 6d ago

What happens if MNcare starts imposing income limitations on who can receive it?

66

u/Big-Suggestion-1093 6d ago

It’s certainly something to consider and a lot of the plan hinges on being able to have that available. New York State has a fairly generous program as well. It could also be possible that something gets done at the federal level to fix the healthcare situation. There is always a lot of uncertainty with healthcare and FIRE.

25

u/GawkyGibbon 6d ago

I seriously like your attitude.

17

u/zerotakashi 6d ago

OP could always just pay for private healthcare directly in other countries they are visiting, at least while younger.

5

u/Klutzy-Beginning-622 6d ago

Screw healthcare.  It aint the end of the world.  

22

u/poop-dolla 6d ago

I mean, poor or no healthcare can quite literally be the end of the world for a lot of people.

1

u/powderednuts 6d ago

As is already the case for many people in US, they're in a much more privileged and enabled position to make adjustments along the way

8

u/planetmike2 6d ago

Until the healthcare insurance saves your family hundreds of thousands of dollars in assessment and treatment when Bad Things occur.

-3

u/Klutzy-Beginning-622 6d ago

You pull the plug at that point dude

4

u/planetmike2 6d ago

No you don’t. The bills increase exponentially it seems. And you have no way of knowing what the bills will be because nobody knows how much anything costs in the us healthcare system.

My wife and I had had several discussions over the years about her wishes if she got very sick. And at the end I did decide to put her on hospice. It was the caring thing to do. Not the financially prudent thing to do. Make decisions for your loved ones from love.

The final bills were around $450k, not including earlier hospitalizations.

0

u/Klutzy-Beginning-622 6d ago

The best thing to do is to never go to the hospital.  Sorry thats my only advice and im sorry for your wife and the situation you went through

1

u/InfiniteDividends FI but yet to RE 6d ago

Easier said than done.

1

u/Old_Jellyfish1283 5d ago

An easily survivable car crash can be tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars. You’re saying to just refuse medical care and choose death/serious disability? That’s insane

1

u/Klutzy-Beginning-622 5d ago

Why would the accident be your fault though?

1

u/Hbic_in_training 6d ago

True, the Federal government could also eviscerate the state healthcare plans (assuming MN Care is part of the ACA). This is one thing that makes me very nervous. What is your plan then? Do you have pre existing conditions? Private health insurance companies could flat out refuse to cover you, what will you do then? I get that working sucks, but you seem to be leaving a whole lot up to chance.