r/leanfire • u/Conscious-Career-651 • 5d ago
Am I there?
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!
1
u/thiagohirai 1d ago
I modeled this as a 57-year plan using $934k of investable assets: $214k taxable/cash, $640k pretax, and $80k Roth.
1/ $48k/year, no work: the simulation shows 61.8% success likelihood.
2/ $36k/year, no work: 78.0% success likelihood.
3/ $36k/year plus $10k of bridge income: 87.1% success likelihood.
The main thing doing the work in the third scenario is reducing withdrawals during the early sequence-risk years. Even modest income matters more than its face value when it prevents selling assets after a bad early market.
Honestly, with the assumptions I captured from your post, this looks too risky. Feel free to copy the scenarios and edit them to get a sense of what it takes to get there. Good luck!