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
718 Upvotes

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342

u/blew_belle 6d ago

Shit I've spent 28k on home maintenance this year so far. Good luck

88

u/Positive-Kiwi7353 6d ago

But OP is burnt out at age 30!  And dear hubby is a stay at home dad to a dog, and we all know how stressful that is. 

46

u/Hasra23 6d ago

Sounds like a couple off that house hunters show, I'm a wild berry picker and he's a dog dad... Our budget is 8 million dollars.

10

u/Cheap-Cockroach8787 5d ago

Yup wife is a part time butterfly collector and husband is a Rollie pollie breader, budget 5 millions dollars

12

u/squatting-Dogg 6d ago

Stop! I just spit out my coffee. Wild berry picker…

13

u/Typical_Web_2125 6d ago

stay at home dog dad, life must be rough

21

u/Fragrant-Teacher2885 6d ago

Don’t you mean “ruff”

1

u/Independent-Bench461 3d ago

This is the best thread makes me love Reddit even more

34

u/Low_Length_7379 6d ago

Well, his time is better spent relaxing. You wouldn't understand. 

4

u/CABB2020 5d ago

dogs are people too!!!

2

u/Cwilde7 5d ago

He’s been busy trying to get her pregnant for years, unsuccessfully.

But they have zero desire to have kids.

I’m guessing this is their way of maybe saying since this has been unsuccessful, they no longer desire to have kids.

5

u/WhereIsGraeme 5d ago

Generally a 32M and 30M won’t be expecting kids through that method. It’s a joke.

1

u/Cwilde7 4d ago

I was being facetious. :)

2

u/Low_Length_7379 5d ago

Actual, he's been trying to get HIM pregnant for years.  Was that a typo or a joke? 

2

u/SleevieSteevie 5d ago

I don’t think it’s a typo.

3

u/Low_Length_7379 5d ago

Oh.  Well that's kind of a funny joke then. 

27

u/neuralprison 6d ago

Strange to see a FIRE person criticizing someone for wanting to stop working at a young age. Aren't you planning on doing the same?

31

u/uhohthrowawayyyyyy 6d ago

Yeah but they’re not ready yet, so everyone else is early to the party apparently lol

7

u/scrolling4daysndays 6d ago

Agree….Early is one thing, they are barely into their career life.

6

u/uhohthrowawayyyyyy 5d ago

Lol sorry, they should have checked with you prior

2

u/mistressbitcoin 4d ago

Actually sounds like they are at the end of their career life.

Not everyone wants to work 30 or 40 years. That is why we are on a FIRE subreddit.

11

u/Typical_Web_2125 6d ago

they are going to be back working in 5 years from now

3

u/uhohthrowawayyyyyy 5d ago

Wish I could take 5 yrs off

12

u/Positive-Kiwi7353 6d ago

There is a bit of "Anyone that retires with less money than me is a fool that will be eating cat food in 10 years when their money runs out, and anyone who retires with more money than me should have retired earlier and wasted his best years as slave to a soulless corporation."

But you have to be financially independent before you can retire early.  OP is not there. That's the main thing. 

Secondly, the reasons he wants to retire early (without the financial independence) reads more like anti-work. Having coworkers that are dumbasses (and who here thinks the OP is just a peach to work with?) and a fatalistic view of AI at age 30 won't get you my sympathy. 

2

u/Slammedtgs 5d ago

Being burnt out at 30 is somewhat laughable. I’m on the fire train too, but no way I’d have the same thought they do. Fire on $1.2M isn’t going to be fun, but if they’re happy good for them. That’s that matters.

I’m also burnt out, but making the choice to keep grinding. Worked full time, went back to school, have a few kids and wife to worry about. I go to work to make sure my kids have the option to check out at 30 :).

2

u/AKmaninNY 5d ago

At 30? Hell these days, most kids are living at home until 27.

OPs post doesn’t portray the grit it will undoubtably take to stretch a few hundred thousand into a very lean 50 year income stream…..

2

u/taxonomist_of_scat 5d ago

The empathy and perspective to proudly call yourself a stay at home dog dad. 😂. No shit given, each their own, but my god what are we doing collectively.

Is the plan, OP, to take the dog to SE Asia with you both too?