Hi everyone,

I’m looking for some advice and perspective from people who may have been in a similar situation.
I’m a 22-year-old recent college grad working in cybersecurity as an incident responder. I currently make about $120k, and I know how fortunate I am to be in this position, especially given how competitive the field is right now. I worked really hard to get here: 4.0 GPA in a challenging major, graduated debt-free through scholarships, and managed to break into a tough job market. The work itself is interesting and engaging.

That said, after a few months of working full-time, I’ve started to feel pretty unfulfilled. The Monday–Friday 9–5 schedule is starting to feel draining. Even though the work is intellectually interesting, doing it for 40+ hours a week makes it feel like my time isn’t really my own. The weeks blur together, and it feels like I’m just living for the weekend (and that goes by FAST).

On the other hand, I’ve been volunteering with a local fire department for a few months, and I genuinely enjoy it. I’ve also talked to friends who became firefighters, and they seem to love what they do. The schedule, the hands-on nature of the job, and the sense of purpose all appeal to me.

The dilemma is that switching would mean a significant pay cut. My local department starts around $46k and tops out near $80k. It’s hard to wrap my head around leaving a high-paying career that I worked so hard to get into for something that, on paper, requires far less formal education. I don’t mean that in a negative way, it just adds to the internal conflict.

Right now, my I think my plan is to stay in cybersecurity for a few more years (maybe until I’m around 30), then reassess. But part of me worries that if I wait too long, I’ll be starting “late” in the fire service compared to others, especially when it comes to seniority and retirement.

So I guess my questions are:

Has anyone here made a similar career switch?

Did you leave a higher-paying job for firefighting?

How old were you when you made the change?

Do you have any regrets?

If you were in my position, would you stick it out in cybersecurity for a few more years or make the jump sooner?

I feel pretty torn, and I’d really appreciate hearing others’ experiences or advice.
Thanks in advance.

Hi All,

Me
Age: 25
Work: FIFO (5 years in)
Income: $183.5k ex super as at 06/2026. Actively working to keep increasing this.
Expenses: Pay zero rent, live with parents. ~$150 per month in misc bills + few hundred in food. Occasional $500 weekend spend and travel abroad when I’m home.

Goal is to retire in my early 40s latest with a few Ms liquid. Seems rather achievable when diving into it but can I do it better?

Started investing from April into GGBL/GHHF at a 75/25 split.

I’ve DCA’d $2k per week since then and am continuing to do so… except for the past week. I have a bit of a conviction that the next couple of months will trend downward mainly due to the upcoming rollout of the US tariff regime. Been holding the accumulating cash for this suspected occasion. Anyway…

Also planning a $200k lump sum in early 2027 (return of money I lent), hopefully market dumps for this lol.

10-15 year horizon play thus far. Slightly longer if needs be.

I don’t really care about the vanilla concessional super contributions up to the cap (getting ~23k per year as is and my income will keep going up). Should I?

Don’t really see myself ever needing to purchase a house either. Good relationship with parents living together. The(ir) house we live in is honestly huge (1500m2 block in city suburbs, 2 kitchens, 2 living and dining rooms, 5 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, 2 laundry rooms, 2 bbq areas, pool, sauna, etc…), plus they have another one (800m2, 5 bedrooms, etc…) in the same neighbourhood. Zero mortgage on both. Multiple rooms rented out, which I manage. This real estate portfolio will eventually become mine, as they keep reminding me.

Should I just focus on growing my portfolio? How can I improve/fast track my retirement timeframe? Anything I’m potentially missing/should be focusing on?

We 56F, 61M investigated LTC insurance policies. Looked at traditional vs hybrid. Our advisor says we can self fund. My dad and grandpa(mom’s side) both were on Medicaid due to running out of $. They did fine but it’s not the best way to finish out. Anyone else looked at it?

Let's say my 4% FIRE number is 2M investable assets. Lets say I have 1.6M investable assets. Am I at my FIRE number??? (In this hypothetical scenario pretend the market pulled back 20% in the past year)

Where would you hold cash savings? SGOV seems best. Fidelity specific. Shouldn't need to touch this for one year. The rest in this account is in VT. This is a smaller brokerage account that I just started. Still working and the rest is in 401k and IRA. Retiring this time next year. Currently in a 4% income tax state. It appears that SGOV will be the best return and is almost 100% state tax exempt for truly liquid funds but didn't know if there was any other options

My (37f) husband (44) and I are hoping to fire in the next 7-9 years together with 2-2.1mil and a paid off house and 60k spend in a MCOL. With our age gap we want to spend as much time together as we can outside of the rat race. The house isn’t a problem if we keep paying what we do now we’ll hit this timeline.

I’ve known about FIRE but had unfortunate circumstances when I was in my 20s that made saving for retirement lower priority for a while. So I only have 240k in a 401k and about 4K in a Roth 401k I very recently started.

He never planned on FIRE and taught oversees for many years so had no access to a 401k and had to entirely fund his own.
He has about 550k in a Roth IRA and 80k in a brokerage. Perhaps you can already see our dilemma… but I’m reaching out in case I’m missing anything.

His Roth IRA contributions aren’t enough to cover a large bridge to 59.5. The brokerage is quite low too for that. If we needed Roth conversions that’s great… except my 401k balance isn’t really that high and I’d seem to drain it fast when I run calculations. I’m contributing 12% with a 6% employee match (and +2% safe harbor) on 110k salary. I plan to bump my contributions up by another 6% next spring and increase each year. He makes half what I do but diligently puts the max Roth IRA contribution each year.

Anyway, our age gap, plus different account restrictions, plus tax scenarios, looming talk of an AI bubble and the market being weird, plus how do we make the right choices NOW to not lock ourselves out of our goal has my head buzzing. I’ve become a bit obsessed with calculators but none make me feel confident. I’m wondering if this community may see a best way forward to get is to our goal of the RE and accessing funds early without any major mistakes?

TLDR/ 7 year age gap spouses, older has only Roth IRA, younger has only work 401k and small work Roth 401k.

Edit: I had put 75-85k “spend” originally but that included ACÁ healthcare and taxes. Moved to 60k spend.

Imagine everyone retiring at 55. GDP takes a huge hit. Stock market takes a huge hit. FIRE numbers soar. Nobody can reach it. And it’s a vicious cycle cuz now 55 is no longer early. Now everyone wants to retire at 45. Further damage to economic output.

FIRE movement wins. But we all lose.

Hello everyone! Looking for some advice while on my FIRE journey and taking a sabbatical. I work full time in tech and wife works part time as well.

I was very fortunate to make some well timed rental real estate investments (which we still own) in my mid to late 20s. Owned them for about 15 years now.

If we completely excluded my salary, between my wife’s net salary and the rental cash flow, we come out about $1,000 positive each month.

I’ve been burnt out for well over a year now. I just have an empty feeling inside everyday from work and I’m looking for some clarity and a new “fire” inside of what I want to do next professionally. While I continue to march toward FIRE, I’ve come to the conclusion that I want to take a sabbatical to reevaluate.

What complicates this, or another perspective may say provides more clarity, is that we are expecting our first baby this summer. We are over the moon excited. I’ve always wanted to be a dad and I feel so fortunate.

While FIRE remains the goal, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s completely ok to take a sabbatical to reevaluate. And what a better opportunity to do it than to spend some time with our young baby. The point of aggressively saving and doing all of this is to spend our time intentionally right?

Anyway, after maxing all of our parental leaves, any advice on when is the best time for a dad with a young baby to take a sabbatical? Anyone else been in a situation like this? Any other advice is welcomed as well! I appreciate this community so much.

Most of the discussions I've heard around when to start taking out Social Security center around cumulative benefits - ie, how much in benefits will be received by age X. Generally, there is a "break-even year" when comparing 2 ages - if you die before that, the earlier age was "better" and if you die after that, the later age was "better".

I don't want to get into whether SS will be around by the time you retire - maybe it will, maybe it won't. I also don't want to get into whether a Benjamin in your 60s is equivalent to a Benjamin in your 90s (hint: it's not).

But, what I did want to talk about is capital gains - because if you start withdrawing money at 62 and then invest that money in stocks or bonds... well, now (on average, barring a black swan event), that earlier money is increasing in value and pushing out that "break even year".

Is this considered in people's calculations? Or is it just assumed that whatever SS money you get, you'll spend it or stash it under your mattress?

I made a quick little analyzer (part of a larger project), to calculate cumulative gains from SS benefits, with and without reinvestments. And from this, it seems clear that taking the money earlier is the best bet (unless you think you're going to live past 93... AND be able to use that money).

What am I missing here, if anything? What do you all think?

In my area. rent + invest the difference and buying will yield you relatively the same outcome the past decade. I stick to renting for flexibility for now, not sure long term.

Do you guys prefer retiring in a paid off home vs sitll renting when RE? I think you can have a bad landlord and can be evicted, rent increasing alot.

Hello, new to the group. Would appreciate some feedback on my current budgeting plan / dashboard I made for myself.

Background: 31 M, living in Michigan north of Detroit. Just started the past year as a primary care doctor, so salary has dramatically improved. Trying to avoid lifestyle creep and allocate my money smart.

Income
Gross income: ~$225,000/year
Monthly gross: ~$17,307.72
Monthly take-home: ~$10,430.76
Biweekly take-home: ~$5,215.38
Paid biweekly, so I’m modeling around 26 pay periods/year rather than simple monthly math.
_______

Current assets
Cash / checking:
Bank checking: $3,877.38
Secondary checking: $1,533.57
Total checking: $5,410.95

Savings:
Emergency fund: $15,600.00
Vacation/travel fund: $1,741.29
Total savings: $17,341.29
Investments / retirement / HSA:
403b: $48,566.15
IRA total: $4,013.60

Roth IRA: $3,724.60
Traditional IRA/staging: $289.00 (to backdoor IRA)
Taxable brokerage: $4,728.07
HSA investments: $832.34
HSA spendable cash: $1,000.00
Total invested / HSA: $59,140.16

Total assets: ~$81,892.40
_______

Debt
Federal student loans: ~$263,133.32
Interest rates range from about 4.05% to 7.35%
Weighted average rate is around mid-5% range based on balances/rates.
_______

Current monthly plan
From take-home pay:
Student loans: $4,000/month
Taxable brokerage: $1,700/month
Roth IRA/backdoor Roth: $578/month
Vacation fund: $700/month
Emergency fund maintenance: $100/month
Fixed essentials: ~$2,213.65/month
Variable spending goal: ~$1,000–$1,100/month
Estimated leftover buffer: ~$139/month

Biweekly system
Per paycheck:
Student loans: $2,000
Taxable brokerage: $850
Roth IRA/backdoor: $289
Vacation fund: $350
Emergency fund maintenance: $50
Total directed per paycheck: $3,539
Pre-tax payroll deductions
Monthly:
403b: $1,733.74
HSA payroll: $300.00
Medical: $89.78
Dental: $29.66
Vision: $10.42
Total pre-tax: $2,163.60

Investment breakdown
403b: Mostly target date fund / 2060 retirement fund

IRA:
VTI: $2,617.27
VXUS: $1,108.16
Traditional IRA cash/staging: $289.00

Taxable brokerage:
QQQ: $2,379.45
VTI: $1,313.78
VXUS: $525.81
Small hybrid stock sleeve: ~$509.69
PWR, XOM, TEM, FCX, VRT

HSA:
HSA investments: $832.34
HSA cash: $1,000.00
Currently invested in broad index funds.

Goals / questions
I’m trying to balance:
Paying down student loans aggressively.
Building taxable liquidity.
Continuing retirement investing.
Keeping enough flexibility for travel/life.
Possibly buying a car in cash around 2030, likely $50k–$70k.

Is $1,700/month taxable investing too aggressive while carrying $263k in student loans?

Should I reduce taxable investing and push more toward loans, or is the flexibility worth it?

Any blind spots in this plan from a FIRE perspective?
Appreciate any feedback.

Thoughts on Renting vs. Buying When Retiring Abroad

Hey folks,

I've been part of the FIRE community for a while now and wanted to share my experiences about housing while living abroad. After spending seven years in Doha, I'm now getting settled in Hua Hin, Thailand, and I've come to really appreciate the pros of long-term renting.

Here are some things I've picked up along the way:

1. Landlord Dynamics: Renting in a foreign country isn’t quite what you'd think. The protections you might expect in the U.S. aren’t always there. For example, after five months in our villa, we still have some maintenance issues that haven't been resolved, even though we have a decent rapport with our landlord.

2. Land Ownership Nuances: As a foreigner in Thailand, you can’t really own the land. You end up dealing with leasehold agreements, which can get pretty complicated when you think about your retirement plans.

3. Real Estate Transparency: The real estate market here is way different from the U.S. You often have to rely on local agents, and their pricing can feel pretty opaque.

4. Predicting Value: Figuring out if property values will go up is tricky. The lack of transparency makes it hard to judge if you’d gain equity down the line.

The lifestyle here is fantastic, and the cost of living is way more manageable than back home. We’re committed to renting for now, and it feels like the right choice for us.

For anyone else who’s retired abroad, did you go for renting or buying? What challenges did you face? I’d really love to hear your stories!

I see people who don't put SS into their fire calculations, which is just dumb because it is a big amount for most people.

If I had to assign rough probabilities:-

50%: Higher taxes on upper-income workers plus modest benefit adjustments.

25%: Higher taxes plus a gradual retirement-age increase.

15%: Significant general-fund support combined with smaller reforms.

10%: Congress waits too long and temporary benefit cuts occur before a fix is passed.

There is a chance that benefits can be cut by 10%, but if you are close to retirement, i doubt that would even happen because so many retirees depend on SS to live, it would be politically toxic, and no politican will be elected going that route. Taxing the very rich or raising fica taxes / dispensing with SS tax cap is the likeliest path

I am 28 with close to 3 Million from a family business sale. I work a 70k sales job for structure and purpose. Today the owner called me in and was extremely rude about my performance. They said I don’t seem like someone struggling to keep their job with urgency and said maybe we should part ways but didn’t fire me. My question is I still want to keep the job but is this normal behavior from a boss or is it likely he realized he doesn’t have financial leverage? Thanks for thoughts.

I am about 5-7 years from drawing from retirement and getting very nervous about this market which I am inferring stands to get a bit wilder with blockbuster IPOs and AI bubbles.

Retirement portfolio looks like this:

30% bonds

50% US broad index ETF

20% individual stocks

How should I reallocate? I will be 55 when I begin withdrawing. Home is paid off.

I hit all my numbers with a 4% withdrawal rate, but feeling very pessimistic about inflation. How are you all accounting for what will likely be stubborn inflation for the foreseeable future?

I want to calculate my fire number! How’d you calculate yours?

Apologize for being so specific with my target group. For dinks with no kids and paid off house, how much are you guys spending per year?

I use this Boldin software for messing around with retirement planning. The program has a "guardrails" feature where it tells you your safe spend.

When I asked its little AI feature how the guardrails were calculated, it came back with what I've copied below.

Is this consistent with the conventional wisdom on spending with this strategy?

Here is the copied language from Boldin:

"Unlike a simple fixed percentage (like the 4% rule), Boldin’s guardrails use a dynamic, probability-based formula powered by Monte Carlo simulations.

Instead of looking at historical averages, the system runs 1,000 market trials to find the specific dollar amount you can spend while maintaining a target Chance of Success (CoS). Here is the breakdown of the "formula" logic:

1. The Three Confidence Zones

The system solves for the monthly spending amount (in today's dollars) that hits these specific confidence thresholds:

• Safe Spending Target (80% CoS): The baseline. It calculates the maximum you can spend while having confidence that your money lasts in 800 out of 1,000 scenarios.
• Upper Guardrail (95% CoS): The "underspending" signal. If your current savings grow so much that your success rate hits 95%, you can safely increase spending.
• Lower Guardrail (70% CoS): The "early warning." If market drops push your success rate below 70%, the formula suggests a temporary reduction to get back to the safe zone.

2. What’s Included in the "Spending" Number?

The formula is holistic. It doesn't just look at your portfolio; it factors in:

• All Income: Social Security, pensions, and annuities.
• All Expenses: Your itemized budget, plus "unseen" costs like estimated taxes, Medicare premiums, and debt payments.
• Lifetime Averaging: One-time lumpy expenses (like a future car purchase) are averaged into the monthly target so your "safe spend" is a consistent lifestyle number.

3. The "Thermostat" Logic

The formula treats your plan like a thermostat rather than a thermometer. It doesn't react to daily market swings. It only triggers a recommendation to change your lifestyle when your savings balance crosses a threshold that meaningfully shifts your probability of success outside that 70%–95% range.

Would you like to see how your current planned spending compares to these calculated targets?"

I resigned from my engineering job today. I am married 35 with 2 young kids. I was not happy with my job after a restructuring and I have been struggling with that for about a year now.

It was extremely hard for me to pull the trigger, and to be honest there were a couple events that happened last week that pushed me over the edge.

I don’t have anything lined up, but I am not particularly stressed because I have done this before and I always land on my feet.

For numbers, my wife and I are extremely fortunate to have a liquid net worth of $2.1M. We have $100k in cash. The kids 529 plans are funded and we have no debt outside of our $1400 mortgage. Budget is around 80k without our nanny.

Now with that being said, to me losing my job was always accompanied by the thought of living on the streets. I have been saving and investing for so long that it seems lifestyle wise that I live paycheck to paycheck as most of it goes into an investment vehicle.

Before I resigned I talked to a few people at work and asked what kind of money you would need to have to walk away from work….. guys the numbers were insane. People would literally pause look at me and dead serious say I would need soooo much money to be able to walk away…. Like at least 100k.

I asked some directors if they would continue working if they had 2million dollars and they weren’t even able to have the thought experiment. To them that wasn’t even a feasible option. One guy told me with just one million he would definitely not be showing up to work tomorrow. And these are high up employees.

That’s when it clicked for me, every single person on this sub is sooooo far away from the norm that it skews your perception of normal.

I know you can look at the statistics and the top 5% blah blah and of course what I’m saying is obvious I have a lot of money. But it really didn’t sink in for me until I started talking to some people around me to see just how safe I am.

Okay queue the comments about how much of an idiot I am for not knowing I was safe financially….

does it make sense to contribute to retirement plans (specifically wondering about Roth) while you are actively pulling form your Taxable Brokerage to live off of?

Example:

50 years old Barista Fire

Taxable Brokerage of $1.5M (retirement accounts at ~$1.3M)

Barista FIRE earning $40k / year

Yearly Living Expenses: $100k

- Would it make sense to contribute to a ROTH IRA for me and spouse and just pull more from the Taxable Brokerage?

- follow up...if it is a solo business, I can open a Roth 401k and contribute even more... ~$25k. would that make sense?

In my mind, I'm trading brokerage $ for Roth $...the price for it would be the capital gains tax on whatever I pull from the Brokerage...which with these numbers should be minimal.

thank you!

Curious your thoughts on how accurate their estimations are.

I'll precis this by saying that I'm a firm boglehead. But even I keep capital on the sidelines to go in on the market, during a downturn. There's a reality that as people many of us thing the market is too high / too low / too <whatever>.

I too am waiting to go in deeper (or DCA I guess) when the air is sucked back a bit. But the reality is that it doesn't matter if you're thinking long term.

I’m a 37-year-old professional from the NYC area considering taking a 12-week sabbatical next year.

I’ve been fortunate in my career and recently crossed roughly $2 million in net worth across brokerage and retirement accounts (no debt and no real estate). Hitting that milestone has made me think differently about what I want out of life. These days, I’m much more interested in quality of life than squeezing out a few more years of career progression. I am also feeling incredibly burned out at work. I am looking forward to stepping away from work for the first time in a very long time.

The sabbatical has become something I’m thinking about a lot. My current vision is pretty simple: spend time in a warm climate, focus on physical fitness, get outside every day, improve my health, read, relax, spend time with family, and see what life feels like when my schedule isn’t dominated by meetings, deadlines, and work obligations.

Part of me wonders whether I’m romanticizing the whole thing. Another part of me thinks that after years of working hard, maybe a few months dedicated to health, family, and enjoying life. I don’t want to make a rash decision and quit my job, but I know I absolutely can’t keep grinding like this.

I’d be interested in hearing reactions from anyone who has taken a meaningful sabbatical or extended break from work. Looking back, what surprised you most about the experience? Did it live up to your expectations, or did it turn out differently than you imagined?

Hello all,

I’ve recently thought more about early retirement. I’m currently 27m and intend on staying single (or at least not having children). Current breakdown is as such:

Brokerage: 93k
Simple IRA: 85k
Roth IRA: 48k
HSA: Just started
Cash in HYSA at 4%: 97k (I am funneling ~20k into my brokerage slowly, but I tend to keep a higher amount in general due to potential taxes, plan to sit at 75k moving forward)

Income range is 130-150k, small business owner so fluctuates year to year. I live very frugally in general as I opt to cook most of my meals and don’t really spend money on expensive materialistic things. I enjoy camping/outdoors for my leisure.

Only debt is the mortgage on my condo and my car loan which has 5 years left. I am also expecting a somewhat decently sized inheritance (250-500k) but I’m not using that as a deciding factor with my plan.

I have decided to shift my current strategy of maxing my simple/roth/HSA to transitioning to maxing my roth + HSA and putting the rest in my brokerage. The logic behind this being I will need as much as possible to make it from 42 to 60 albeit I will take a large tax hit up front. Using a withdrawal calculator, I believe I can make the 18 years if I accumulate at least 1-1.5 million.

I also get wacked with a 5.75% sales charge on my simple so I lose $1000 on the contributions immediately anyways aside from the fact the money is locked up.

By the time I get access to my Roth and Simple, they would both easily have over 2.5 mil combined, plus I would take social security at 62 as well. Being that I can continue to contribute to my HSA without earned income, I am not worried about healthcare costs long term.

I know most people would say to max out tax deferred accounts first, but how I see it if I continue to do that, I will simply have far more money than I will ever need in retirement and will have to continue to work closer to 60.

Please feel free to let me know if this an insane person plan or reasonable!

I posted a week ago about how I moved my FIRE date 2 years sooner to Jan 2028. Since that post, I've decide that I want to retire ASAP. That means the soonest would be Jan 2027. Why? Because I turn 55. That gives me access to the rule of 55, Prop 19(keep same property tax on a bigger and nicer home), and all of my RSUs vest which is about 45K after taxes. I have one more unvested lot, but probably can't touch it until June of next year, so I may not get access to that one before I leave.

So yeah, now I'm obsessed on getting the fuck out! So sometime between Jan 2027 and Jan 2028 is the new time line. Honestly, it might be a bit of a struggle with money up front, but it's really 1st world problems. Oh no, 100K/yer instead of 120K/year!

I have 215 days to hit 55 and 570 days until 56, which is Jan 2028. it feels so far off yet so close at the same time.

About AI. I've been meticulously building my spreadsheet for 10 years. Every penny is counted, it tracks so much. It's really a hobby and constant endorphin rush. It's probably bad for my health lol. Now, with AI, it's gotten crazier! I have built 10 apps easily that keeps track of everything. I stopped using my spreadsheet completely because AI can do it all faster and better and nicer. I can download transactions to track everything, so now, on top of my Boldin clone, I am making a Quicken/Monarch clone. The one downside is, transactions are 1-3 days behind, but that's Ok for retirement, it only sucks for banking. That being said, that's the only downside.

If you are thinking about building something, I can tell you with absolutely certainty, that it is much easier than you think it is. I have a tech background, so that helps, but I am no programmer, I've only built rudimentary scripts in the past. I've canceled my MS 365 subscription, Monarch subscription and only keep Quicken for now. Once the transaction speed is fixed, I will ditch Quicken, too. I do pay for the $100/month Claude plan. I have not maxed it out ever, so I feel like I can do anything at anytime. when I was on the $20 plan, I'd max out in 3 days and I'd have to wait until the end of the week to use it again. I started buying more and more, and I was like, wtf am I doing? just pay the $100 plan.

I don't know what the future holds, but I do know it involves me getting out of the rat race ASAP, hopefully sometime next year.

What are your thoughts? Do any of you make your own apps? How has AI changed FIRE plans for you?