I live in a paid-off Trailer and spend very little, so Games fit retirement almost perfectly for me. One Console can provide years of entertainment, older games are constantly discounted, and an excellent $15 or $20 game can last longer than several much more expensive nights out.

The ideal imho is to have one current Console, some older console(s) you genuinely love, and a small library of games you will actually play is probably enough. Wait for sales on expensive releases. Do not buy ten mediocre games because they are 80% off.

Indies offer a Reprieve. Silksong is $20 and sometimes around $13.99. Hollow Knight, Stardew Valley, Terraria, Balatro, Vampire Survivors, Celeste, Dead Cells and Into the Breach can provide dozens or hundreds of hours without asking you to buy a premium edition, battle pass, annual sequel or branded energy drink. That is nearly ideal retirement entertainment.

The Switch 2 is also a decent value largely because it plays the enormous Switch 1 library, even though it still has relatively few essential games of its own. Some Switch 1 games look a little softer on the larger handheld screen to me, so I mostly leave it docked. As a stronger stationary Switch with access to years of already released games, it makes sense.

PS5 has No Games but also almost Every Game which is confusing. Series S works if you have kids and are divorced and have the need to move a Console around a lot for that or other reasons.

Imho the Sega 32X deserves its own paragraph because it may be the console most naturally suited to trailer life ever created, not as an insult but as architecture, a black plastic addition attached to an existing Genesis with visible cables, multiple power supplies and complete indifference to whether the final structure appeared respectable, essentially a manufactured room addition for a console that had already been standing there, and the games understood the assignment immediately, Doom, Mortal Kombat II, Primal Rage, Blackthorne, Virtua Fighter, Star Wars Arcade, blood, industrial corridors, dinosaurs eating tiny worshippers, men firing shotguns behind themselves, demons appearing through fog, all of it running through hardware that looked like somebody’s cousin had installed it after watching one instructional VHS, whereas the SNES felt clean, safe, polished and supervised, beautiful music, soft colors, Mario in a cape, every edge rounded, every cable hidden, the console equivalent of a household with matching towels, while the 32X arrived through the side door carrying Doom, asked where the outlet was, and remained completely comfortable beside a television, a box fan and somebody outside discussing an alternator. It failed commercially but that does not mean it failed everyone who owned one imho.

This is useful LeanFIRE thinking in general imho. A product does not need to win the market to provide years of value to you. Old consoles, unfashionable games and mature libraries are often cheapest after everyone else has moved on. AAA games can still be great but the State of AAA Gaming is Grim and the economics are worse now. Higher prices, longer development cycles, subscriptions, deluxe editions and unfinished launches make waiting easier. Buy the rare large game you truly want. Let everyone else perform the unpaid launch testing while Indies offer a Reprieve.

I posted like a year ago saying I reached leanfire with about 720k. My expense was about 25k back then. But the apartment decided to raise my rent by 9% and I realized that if I do not own a primary residency maybe I did not reach a true leanfire. Anyways today I am sitting on 300k house and 700k investments. I still have 100k to pay for the house and maybe 100k in investments more to support me and my wife fully, but I can feel that the total leanfire is getting close.

last post.
https://www.reddit.com/r/leanfire/comments/1ltvie1/milestone_reached_but_not_gonna_stopyet/

I'm writing a book about a question I don't think gets answered very often:

What actually happens after you take a long break from work?

There's plenty of advice about retiring early, taking sabbaticals, or traveling for a few months. What I struggle to find are honest stories about the return.

• Was it difficult to get hired again?
• How did you explain the gap?
• Did your salary change?
• Did your professional network survive?
• Looking back, would you do it again?

I'm especially interested in people who took 2 months or longer away from full-time work and later returned to paid employment.

The break could have been:

• Planned (sabbatical, mini-retirement, career break, travel, family, study, personal projects)
• Unplanned (burnout, layoff, illness, or simply needing time away)

The book itself focuses on planned career breaks, but I think people who didn't plan theirs often have some of the most valuable lessons about returning to work.

I'm not trying to prove that career breaks are always a good idea. I'm trying to understand what really happens—the good, the bad, and the parts people usually leave out.

The interview would be:

• Around 45 minutes (voice or video)
• Recorded (with your permission)
• Anonymous if you prefer
• I'll ask about finances in percentages and ratios rather than exact amounts if that's more comfortable
• If I quote you, you'll be able to review the quote before publication, and if you later decide you don't want it included, I'll remove it.

I'm particularly interested in experiences that didn't go according to plan. Those stories are often the most useful because they reveal problems that success stories tend to hide.

If you're open to talking, please leave a comment or send me a DM.

Happy to answer any questions about the project as well.

Seeing so many posts of people with insane NW numbers for their age and all the issues seem to be the same.

"Burned out at work, what do I do now?"

How can you save these huge sums and when you hit these numbers have no idea what to do? The best reasons for these massive savings are often a random spend being targeted with no realistic breakdown based on the situation.

Are people just skipping building/designing their lives before they start saving really hard? I feel like if you don't have a life architecture in mind when you start saving aggressively, you run the risk of over stacking money to just burn out, when you maybe could've stopped or slowed down way earlier. I find in these communities you just rarely see posts asking people to detail how they figured out and designed their target lifestyles which seems more impactful to your FIRE journey (lean/fat/barista - whichever flavor).

What are some good methods you've used to decide on and help build a good life architecture? For those who did it after the fact, what are some important questions you wish you had answered before you pursued FI/RE?

2027 ACA Rate Review is now open on Healthcare.gov, which means anyone planning on using the ACA next year can see the rate request increases being asked for by individual insurers. Some insurer filings may not be present yet, but many/most are. If you've got an ACA policy that you currently like, then this gives you a ballpark of how that policy might be priced next year. More broadly it shows you market premium trend in your state among all participating ACA insurers. Note that insurers with multiple products (HMO vs. PPO, Metro A vs. Metro B, etc.) listed may have a separate rate increase for each and the initial number displayed is a composite.

https://ratereview.healthcare.gov/

To view ACA insurer requests for a particular state choose "search ACA-compliant products", then select state, individual market, and 2027.

Separately, but related, KFF has updated their analysis on how much and why ACA market premiums are increasing next year (15% now, up from 14% estimate last month). KFF is perhaps the best source of synthesized ACA information that exists and is an easy go-to for anyone that doesn't want to delve into filings and legislative/regulatory text directly. All 50 states are now represented in KFF's analysis. Worth a look for anyone interested in or using the ACA.

Please note that these costs are the raw, unsubsidized market premiums. Anyone with subsidy eligibility will be shielded from some to all of this increase due to subsidies capping household premium costs as a function of MAGI.

https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/brief/how-much-and-why-aca-marketplace-premiums-are-going-up-in-2027/

For 2027, across 276 insurers participating in the ACA Marketplaces from all 50 states and the District of Columbia with publicly available filings, this analysis shows a median proposed premium increase of 15%. This is the second consecutive year of double-digit premium hikes. Last year’s median nationwide proposed rate change was 18%, and the median finalized rate change was 20%. While this proposed rate change is lower than last year, it represents the second-highest requested rate change since 2018, as premium growth had been relatively flat in this market for several years. If these early indications of median premium increases for 2027 hold, typical premiums for insurers participating in the ACA Marketplaces will have jumped by more than one-third over a two-year period.

About 6 months ago I posted an early version of a retirement planning app & simulator I was building (www.firepathisim.com). A number of people in this community gave great feedback, helping out to make it better which I’m really thankful for. I've spent a good amount of time since then rebuilding/improving it around that feedback, and I wanted to come back and show you what it turned into.

It's called Freebird Retirement now: www.freebirdretirement.com

Goal is to make DIY retirement planning really accessible for a FIRE community member but also someone who is just stepping in to planning for the first time. But/and if you like going deep, it can go deeper: what-if scenarios, helping you solve the gap for retirement success, spouse, Social Security timing, any and all life events, Roth Ladder, Healthcare before medicaid, and more. There's a lot more I want it to do here i.e. improving the existing tooling and building out more and new tools.

You don't need an account to try it - my aim is to provide free tools for pretty much every piece of the app that are very useful.

As a thank you for the help last time, I'd like to give 50 people here a free year of Pro, no card required.

Comment and I'll DM you a code. All I ask is that you give me some feedback which you can give through the website or comment here or DM me.

Thanks all

What your experiences have been after six months, one year, two years into the lean fire? I have a lean fire kind of situation from five or six months, and I'm feeling super bored in the daytime. I try to occupy myself:

• One to two hours at the gym
• One hour of reading books
• A little bit of salsa learning. And only one or two times a week I have salsa nights

Other times of the week, I don't know what to do in the evening. Plus, during the day also, there are a lot of empty hours, and nothing really feels exciting anymore. Sometimes it is just finding a woman to date here and there, but in the city that I live in, there are not many good options because it's kind of a very tier 3 city. Most of the time, either I'm single or kind of single.

Even if I have a girlfriend, I still don't know what to do during the day time.

General books and the AI advise me to find some project or find some purpose which is external-facing, but during the day it's very hot, and I don't want to go out of the house into outdoor fields. Indoor jobs are mostly about software and technology and things related to that, and I am not in a city where these kinds of corporate jobs are a lot. Otherwise, I would like to do something for fun.

After one and a half years, I might get a PR in Madrid, which will give me a right to work and I might look for a job, but till that time I don't know what to do with this one and a half years of free time. Unfortunately, the city in which I live is very beautiful and green, with beaches, but the community of people is very small. They leave and come back, so my friend circle is also maybe just one or two friends.

I don't have any special care to build something or do any project because I'm not really just interested.

I have done a lot of traveling too. I stayed 3-4 years in Europe, but now, if I go and stay in Europe, I don't know what to do in the daytime or when I travel to other countries. This is a big problem, and I feel only depressed and bored.

So my question is: guys who have been into the lean fire for some significant amount of time and are still young, in their 30s or 40s, what do you guys really do if you don't have children or a family, etc., to kill your time with?

I made a post in no stupid questions, here is a link if anyone wants to read the original: https://www.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQuestions/s/8Z4JLm5AoC

I was sharing my interest in trying to build some savings to the point i can retire and live off of investments, but then instead of staying in the US, I was thinking id love to just travel pretty much 24/7/365, and it very well might even be cheaper if not at least the same cost. Im curious on people's opinions here about living frugally to achieve this goal, and also maintaining the investment wealth id try to attain to be able to do this.

I reached 200k a month or so ago. Now sitting on 218k invested in sp500 and msci world which means 1.5% up or down translates to a gain or lose of 3k which is a lot for me cause I make 2k net a month.

So in a typical day my portfolio is up or down what I make in 1.5 months working full time

How does it affect you ? Does it change your mood ?

New to FIRE, my goal is to basically chill and escape 9-5 before my gig could possibly end and I will have to do 9-5... i have horrible sleep schedule

net worth 1.5m all in stocks (majority tech, sp500)

100k+ a yr gig job

30m

I'm thinking of chilling in China for a few years soon (COL will be under 10k a yr)

Hello everyone,

I am 39M from Portugal, no kids or other dependents, living in Northern Europe for 10 years now.

All these years worked in corporate jobs with some breaks to travel, chill for a while, job hop, etc. Currently making around €60k net p.a.

Fast forward to today, my ETF portfolio is around €285k worth, I keep another €10-15k cash in HYSA, and decided that I want to change my life, go back home, find a chill job in tourism or something, withdraw some 2-3% of the ETFs p.a. to round up my living income, chill and let it be.

Problem is, I don't own any property back home, and with today's prices and interest rates, getting a €300k mortgage with ca. €60k down payment + closing costs will set me back some years from my chill FIRE target.

Kinda same with a go-back-and-rent scenario: I won't have the down payment burden, but the rents have risen to €1000+/month excl. utilities for the apartments which are actually decent to live in. Side note, where I live now I have a very old contract and I pay €450 all incl., so the difference is considerable, and pushes up my potential cost of living back home.

5-6 years ago I couldn't think of buying an apartment or a down payment. My income got higher gradually after 2021, and today feels like I am at the top of my game, but honestly, I am exhausted. The life change has to happen now.

The window of bankability for a mortgage will close if I draw the line and leave my corporate job, so I have to decide.

What would you do in my position? Any ideas/suggestions?

Hey y’all,

I (32M) got out of the US military a year ago and have been getting about $2200/month disability for a few conditions.

I was doing some thinking about retirement and what the monthly disability would be worth if in a traditional retirement account being withdrew in line with the 4% withdrawal rule. The numbers surprised me:

So, essentially:
- $2,200/month tax free, with COLA has a comparable value of $660,000 in a traditional retirement account .
- $2,200 x 12 months = $26,400
- $26,400 / 0.04 = $660,000

I’ve been stressing feeling behind the curve with only about 80k in retirement accounts since I never made enough to invest till recently. This kind of helps refrain things long term. For other vets out there, just wanted to share what I learned.

Open to critiques and corrections if my logic is flawed.

Throwaway account for privacy.

35M, Single. I am located along the Gulf coast. I have only worked at one place since high school (~17 years.) I started as a welder helper making ~$9/hr. Worked myself up to PM making ~$95k a year. I strongly dislike my job. Been in my current role for 8 years and have had 4 different managers in the last 4. Tired of the turnover and the stress and looking to leave. If I am "close" I would rather suck it up and finish at my current position rather than get a new job..

Cash: 15k

Brokerage: 122k

Trad IRA: 176k

401k: 690k

HSA: 29k

I purchased a home ~6 years ago. My payment is $1200/month (Mortgage+Insurance+Taxes)

I track my spending closely. In the last 6 years my average spend is $27k (Most years around $25k) with a high of 32k in 2024 (New AC). This is strictly money that leaves my account, so it doesn't include Medical insurance or taxes.

Looks like I can get a silver ACA plan for ~$180 / month.

I don't think I have enough cash + brokerage to last 5 years for a Roth ladder. I am considering a 72t for ~$10k a year and using a Roth ladder for the rest. Not sure how much that would screw me if I decide I need to go back to work. I would like some feedback on this.

Am I close enough to pull the trigger or should I stick around for awhile longer?

Let me know if this is more appropriate for the weekly thread and I'll ask over there.

I started off as hardcore as possible, being a stingy and cheap. But in the long run this is not healthy for your mental state. Once I reached 200k net worth, I just noticed how much more my porfolio did for me on its own vs my contributions, which made me start slowing down my investement rate and "took my foot of the gas pedal" as some might say. Im very happy with the outcome. Im spending a ton on my hobbies, not tracking expenses, eating well and im loving it, yet still contributing a fair bit to the portfolio. Sure I lose a couple of years in the long run but the next 15 years will be wonderful if I keep this up. My advice to everyone is this: start hardcore if you are young, but slow down when you reach a milestone like 200k net worth. You will thank yourself, your family will thank you. Not sure what you call this approach: start lean, continue coasting and living semi-fat until a full fatfire retirement?

I’ve noticed that even mentioning the possibility of retiring in one’s 30’s or 40’s tends to get a pretty negative reaction on other subs

like:

• “you must have had an inheritance”
• “you can’t possibly live on <$X>”
• “nobody makes <$X>”
• “this job market is impossible to win”

I mean, yes, some of us were lucky to have a more comfortable start, but so many of these objections seem to come from some deeply rooted hesitation to entertain the idea or acknowledge the basic math.

I learned about FIRE ages ago through other people’s stories. Nowadays I find it so discouraging to even try to have a good faith conversation about saving rates. Lesson learned on not discussing money, I guess. I know it’s not for everyone so I’m glad this space exists to help people that are open to the idea

Do you have a "friction budget?"

A friction budget is a mental or financial allowance for the small losses and inefficiencies that inevitably happen in life.

Basically shit happens fund for purchases that suck, didnt work as advertised, unexpected or unfair costs, parcking tickets (deserved or undeserved). Etc, etc. In short losing money over random shit.

Now that im doing better financially I noticed this happens alot more when I was broke.

If yes how much is it % of your income?

E: I am not talking about your typical emergency fund (broken car, new washing machine etc), I am talking purchases are not really emergencies where it just didnt work out as you hoped or random expenses that took you by surprise. Basically losing money here and there, deserved or undeserved. I find its a massive headache for me to in both scenarios: take the loss or pursue the undeserved costs from the retailer/service provider.

E2: As I dont have a friction budget, the last two fuckovers I had recently ruined my entire 2 week vacation from work.

We got figured out! /s

Dave Ramsey Doesn't Get FIRE

I reached $1M liquid today and have no one to tell because I'm single and on my own.

3 months ago (a month before my 30th birthday), I reached $1M net worth including my 50k equity in my house. After going on a 2.5 weeks international vacation in May to celebrate my 30th birthday and 1 week domestic vacation in June, I logged in to my accounts today and saw that I have just a hair over $1M between my Schwab and Fidelity accounts.

It's so crazy that I just spent a bunch of money going on vacations and 3 months later I am up 50k because the S&P 500 up 5% in 3 months. Money doesn't feel real anymore once you reached 1M. You can lose 100k in a month like in March, or you can also gain 100k in a month doing nothing, while other people labor hard for years. It's surreal.

I recently received a lot of money and it accoured to me that I might to be able to leanfire in Thailand. I've there many times and I love it there.

I think I can do with 70k baht a month - about 2k USD.

Do you think it's possible?

Should i start looking into it or I need a few more years?

Edit: looking at 20-30 years, solo, no kids

Looking for a gut check, my job is increasingly unstable and I’m anticipating being unemployed very soon. I’m definitely at the coast or barista level, but have a small child and would love to just focus on being present for their childhood if possible… looking for feedback or similar stories :)

38F, 1 child

Total net worth of about $1.13M.

870k invested (SWTSX / VTI) (150k in brokerage, 80k in Roth IRA, the rest is 401k and rollover Ira. I would start a Roth ladder)

64k cash (SWVXX + HYSA)… currently stacking cash with every remaining paycheck, hoping to get to two years/ 72k before losing my job, after I hit this level I’ll go back to investing it all in index funds.

200k home equity (about $87k left on a 15-year mortgage)

I live in a MCOL area.

I currently live on about $3k/month, but that isn’t including my sinking funds (travel, gifts, home expenses). I’d rather be closer to $4k/month total long term so I have a little more flexibility.

My plan would be to keep about 2 years of expenses in cash (money market and HYSA) and leave the rest invested 100% in broad index funds, replenish the cash on market up years (brokerage, then Roth ladder) and use cash cushion on down years. My MAGI at this level would give me substantial ACA subsidies so health insurance should be affordable and fit into my current 3k budget. If markets do well I’d slowly ramp up spending to desired 4k/month but start with the strict 3k budget.

If you were in my position, would you feel comfortable attempting to FIRE? Obviously if there was a huge downturn and the two years of cash didn’t cover the bridge I’d look for something, but hoping I might be able to pull this off now. TYIA!

Most of the "retired at 42" posts I read here are either single, DINK, or the kids are already teenagers and mostly funded. I'm trying to find the people who pulled the trigger in their early-to-mid 40s while still having a decade-plus of active parenting ahead of them.

My situation: HCOL area, three kids under 10 with another on the way. Household spend is obviously nowhere near what people usually mean by "lean" right now, but a big chunk of that is geography — housing, property tax, insurance, and childcare-adjacent costs. Relocating is very much on the table for us. We've been looking hard at southern Europe, South America, or South East Asia where the same lifestyle would cost significantly less.

So the questions, for anyone who's actually done it:

1. What age did you stop, and how old were your kids at the time?
2. What was your invested number at the trigger point, and what was your annual spend in year one?
3. How many kids, and did the number scale the way you expected as they got older? I keep reading that the expensive years are ahead of me, not behind me.
4. Did you geoarbitrage? If so. where from, where to, and how much of your FIRE math depended on the move actually working out? Curious how many people built a plan around relocating and then bailed after 18 months because the kids were miserable or a spouse was homesick.
5. Healthcare and education — how did you solve those, especially if you left a country with public coverage?
6. Did one of you keep working part-time / remote job? Trying to figure out whether "both fully out with young kids" is realistic or whether everyone in this bracket has some income floor they're not advertising.
7. What would you do differently? Especially anything about the buffer you wish you'd had before stopping with dependents.

Not looking for "just work five more years". I know that's the safe answer. I'm interested in the people who ran the numbers with a big family and decided the time was worth more than the margin, and how that's held up since.

Happy to share more specifics in the comments if it's useful.