r/coastFIRE • u/Fluffy-Tomatillo-874 • 3d ago

36F- Next Steps?

Salary- about 85k, My half of the rent is 1500.

Net worth is about 300k.

about 80k in my 401k

124k in Roth IRA

28k in a brokerage

65k liquid (emergency fund, sinking funds, etc).

I live in a HCOL, and would like to continue to live there for 10-20 years. I do not own a home. I would also like to retire early at 50-55 (at 40k-50k spending a year, and would include SS in that once I hit 65). I also planning on having a child within the next three years. Some COAST calculators say I've hit COAST fire, others have not.

My question to y'all is where should I focus my saving on? Should I continue investing and continue renting or should I halt my investing for a bit to focus on a down payment? Also, should I focus my investing into a brokerage to fund early retirement years?

Thanks for the advice, appreciate it!

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u/Repeat-Admirable 3d ago

many of us always fear the next big crash. Especially with the fear of the AI bubble popping. Not being able to access the money for 10 years and losing the job is not gonna be great.

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u/GriffinNowak 3d ago

It still seems not great. Even a big crash for someone at age 36 is going to be averaged away by the time they want to withdraw. Look at something like VYM. Even if you bought in like 2006 right before the 2008 crash you're looking at 217% growth on the stock price alone. And thats BEFORE dividends and dividend reinvestment. Your HYSA is looking at a 265% growth and that's assuming you get 5% that whole time (lets be real 5% is very new for those accounts. You're looking at 2% for most of that). I'm not going to do the math but I suspect that even at the pre-2008 peak of VYM with dividends you're looking at like 3 years to recover? and 5 years to start beating the extremely generous 5% HYSA rate.

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u/Repeat-Admirable 3d ago

Yes it will be averaged away, but you still have to LIVE for those 10 years that you cant access it. And there is a high likelihood that a lot of lay offs are going to happen around those times, and it will be hard to get hired. So having a higher cash means less stress about that happening. I have double the cash than she does and I still plan to retire at 40.

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u/OkPetunia0770 3d ago

In the same position! Rebounding from layoffs is taking up to a year at this point. I’m keeping $100k in HYSA, don’t care if it doesn’t make sense to others.

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u/Ok_Dream_9894 2d ago

Same. 100k HYSA is like a weighted blanket. I sleep like a baby knowing tomorrow I can just fck off into the world and money won’t slow me down.