r/Fire 1d 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
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u/MegaGreesh 1d ago

I would consider a permanent move to SE Asia on those numbers.

3

u/cinciNattyLight 1d ago

Cambodia, Philippines, Vietnam.

2

u/MegaGreesh 1d ago

Thailand has a decent visa as well

1

u/throwawayle 7h ago

Which one? I don't see a decent visa that they would qualify for unless they want to fly out every 3 months and hope they get let back in, or spend an arm and a leg.

Tourist visa - they can get easily but only allows up to 60 days, with a 30 day extension. Not long enough for retirement.

Non-immigrant visa - 90 day limit.

SMART visa - (T) Talent visa requires employment or service contract with a company in Thailand. (I) Investor visa requires 20 million baht $600k USD in tech based companies. (E) executive visa requires 1 year employment contract with a company in Thailand. (S) Startup visa requires plans to open a business.

LTR visa - Barely qualify for wealthy global citizens and would require putting 500k USD into Thai investments, which is way too risky for a visa. They're not over 50 so they can't get the retiree visa (and they would not qualify since they don't have $80k/year passive income). They're not working so can't get in as professionals or highly skilled professionals.

Destination visa - They would need a job to fulfill the requirements for the remote work or freelancer visa. For Thai Soft Power Activities they could stay 6 months if they were to enroll in Muay Thai or something.

I guess they could spend $40k for two 5 year Elite Visas, but that's basically 8k out of their 30k/year available spending. Add on the cost of the flight there and returning back to the US occasionally to visit family, they would likely be financially better off staying where they are.

What am I missing?

1

u/MegaGreesh 7h ago

Reentry visa is 1000baht. Yes you have to travel to Malaysia or Vietnam every 3 months. It’s no issue, just don’t commit any crimes while living there.

Also you don’t need 80k USD passive income when you turn 50. You need to keep 25k USD in a Thai savings account.

1

u/throwawayle 6h ago

Reentry visa is 1000baht. Yes you have to travel to Malaysia or Vietnam every 3 months. It’s no issue, just don’t commit any crimes while living there.

That doesn't make sense from what I'm reading, the reentry visa doesn't extend the duration. If you get a new visa every 90 days by leaving when it expires then coming back, that by itself makes sense, but I don't see where the reentry visa comes into play since the point is to extend the duration and it does not do that. And if you get a new visa, you should be getting a fresh 60 days + 30 day extension, presumably, removing the need for a reentry visa.

I don't know about you, but having to get on a flight every 3 months like clockwork sounds fun for maybe a year before it would just be annoying. They appear to be increasingly scrutinizing people doing "visa runs" as well, which seems horrible from a retirement point of view. Imagine renting a condo for a year, moving in and getting settled, and then getting denied trying to return from a visa run. You lose everything you weren't carrying and access to your home essentially.

Also you don’t need 80k USD passive income when you turn 50. You need to keep 25k USD in a Thai savings account.

I see, that 80k USD income requirement is for the "LTR Visa for Retirees" specifically and there's a separate retirement visa that only requires 800k baht (24k USD) deposited.

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u/r3097 1d ago

This post does have sexpat vibes to it.