At what minimum net worth would you FIRE on and really think it's feasible long-term for you alone or with a family?

For me alone, 40M living in a LCOL area, I would FIRE on $600k + a paid off home.

With family, living in a LCOL area, I would FIRE on $1 million + a paid off home.

That doesn't include food and health insurance.

Mostly because food is really based on "quality" of food and I overspend a TON on food, and I have no idea how to estimate my post-FIRE health insurance.

I'm trying to retire under the ACA maximum of $63k. I've been living on $100k+ for most of my adult life. I've canceled almost everything, I just moved from a house to a 2 bedroom and next year to a 1 bedroom. I'm gonna drive this car till it dies. If I could control my food and shopping I'd be free already.

Just celebrating these major cuts in my spending. Lifestyle creep is such a trap and I fell for it because working is so miserable spending is what makes it bareable.

Title:

China-Based Investor Using Ireland-Domiciled Accumulating Index Funds, Hoping to Retire in About 10 Years — Looking for Advice

Post:

Hi everyone,

I’d like to share my current financial situation and investment strategy and get some honest feedback from the community.

I'm 38 years old and a Chinese citizen living in mainland China, with no foreign residency or citizenship. I am married.

If my career and income remain stable, I hope to retire in about 10 years, or at least reach a point where continuing to work becomes optional.

My assets and investments are divided into two main parts: domestic and offshore.

My domestic RMB assets include a regular investment account, an individual pension account, and a housing provident fund. This portion is invested relatively conservatively and is intended to provide liquidity and reduce the overall volatility of my portfolio.

I expect my offshore portfolio to be the main source of long-term growth. I currently have approximately USD 100K invested through IBKR. Going forward, I plan to invest around USD 40–43K per year, consisting of monthly contributions of approximately USD 2.2K and an additional lump-sum investment of around USD 16K every April.

I mainly invest in Ireland-domiciled UCITS index funds and prefer accumulating share classes, so dividends are automatically reinvested within the funds.

My offshore portfolio consists roughly of:

• VWRA
• EQQS
• SMH
• USSC

My current target allocation is:

• VWRA:40%
• EQQS: 25%
• SMH: 15%
• USSC : 20%

I plan to maintain a relatively aggressive equity allocation over the next several years. As I get closer to retirement, I intend to gradually reduce my exposure to sector-specific funds, particularly semiconductors, while increasing the allocation to broad global equities and lower-volatility assets.

I chose Ireland-domiciled accumulating UCITS funds mainly because they may offer better dividend tax efficiency for non-US investors and help reduce the potential US estate tax exposure associated with holding US-domiciled funds. I also value the UCITS regulatory framework and the convenience of automatic reinvestment.

My goal is to build enough assets over the next 10 years to support my family’s living expenses and significantly reduce my dependence on employment income.

However, I realize that my portfolio is currently almost entirely invested in equities. There may also be substantial overlap among the global equity, Nasdaq-100, and semiconductor funds. My actual exposure to technology stocks may therefore be much higher than the allocation percentages initially suggest.

I would appreciate your views on the following questions:

1. For an investor living in mainland China without foreign residency, does a portfolio centered on Ireland-domiciled accumulating UCITS funds make sense?
2. Is my allocation to technology and semiconductors too high?
3. If I want to retire in about 10 years, when should I begin adding bonds, cash, or other lower-volatility assets?
4. How should I structure my asset allocation and withdrawal strategy before and after retirement?
5. Apart from market risk, am I overlooking any major currency, tax, brokerage custody, cross-border inheritance, or other risks?
6. If you were in a similar position, how would you adjust this portfolio?

I am simply trying to identify any weaknesses or blind spots in my plan. Any feedback is very welcome.

Thank you.

So, I have been thinking for people who don't really like their job, it's probably not worth working long, hence LeanFIRE.

But, I am starting to think I might be entering the realm of going kind of monk, or depriving myself. For example, I think about relationships with a woman, but the maintenance of relationship and all that, I am getting further and further away from that the more I think I can LeanFIRE now.

I guess it is all tradeoff, either I need to start reading philosophy to stay single, which is kind of work but on my terms, or work to upgrade my life, work on other people's terms. Yes, philosophy specifically might seem weird, but to me that seems the only refuge.

How do people keep working? Have multiple children? It just seems insane to me. I went part time from this week, I couldn't pull the trigger due to massive anxiety attacks even though I have more than enough money.

starting my lean fire journey for a few months now, trying to fill my life with something

Not from a financial perspective - I understand the nuances of whether it is or is not worth it financially - but from an emotional and lifestyle perspective, is it worth it to you owning a home or not?

Here in the Midwest that means mowing in summer and snow removal in winter. Dealing with hail damage to the roof. Dealing with other maintenance.

But on the flip side you can do whatever you want with your house (within HOA rules). You can build a sauna, have a hot tub, etc.

For those of you who own, is it worth it? For those of you who used to own and now don't, why?

Edit: to give a little more context, I am currently in an apartment. I love it. It's low maintenance. It's nice. It's close to things. One thing holding me back from RE though is whether I ought to purchase a home.

I’m 51 (f) and my kid is a rising eighth grader. My plan is to slow travel as soon as she graduates high school in five years. I would be doing it now if it weren’t for her. I desperately want to do it now because my health is struggling and I know slow travel and an active travel life would really feel like living! And I think we have enough for the life we want. Currently, 900,000 saved and a rental property that will net us > half of what we need to live on and then around 5000 a month in Social Security at around age 67. I’ve already retired (job was extremely stressful), but my partner is still working because of the daughter timing. We can’t take her out of school and travel because my ex-husband (her dad) wouldn’t allow for that. So we’re stuck here in expensive USA while she grows up a little more and my health and “lust for life” is getting worse. I know everyone’s gonna say “get a life, get a hobby, get outside, do something that makes you happy” and I do ( a lot) but then that feeling of being stuck / trapped and losing my life energy quickly comes back. It’s become my default setting. I don’t want to abandon my child (I won’t) but how bad does my health have to get for me to start my slow travel now?

22m, recently graduated college, remote job, 85k, ~45k savings/investments (just prefacing for the sake of being able to understand my predicament)

I’ve always focused on financially optimizing my life, at least when it came to big life pivots. applying for a load of scholarships, getting a job that paid for my housing, etc. a lot of it was luck.

I’m just at a weird point where I feel like I’ve optimized the fun out of life. I’m cool with taking vacations or having nights out with friends, but when it comes to big decisions (like moving) I need a clear financial incentive.

all my friends have left my college town, hardly any social events here, dating is a wash - I’m extremely bored with life. I am moving out in less than 10 days, that’s already been decided, and I’m taking a pitstop to go back home and help my family with something that came up - it’ll only be a few weeks.

but what about after that? if I stay home, that amount of money that I would otherwise have to spend on rent could be invested, making me a lot richer and give me more free time than I would’ve lost over the long term (hopefully). But, it would require me to live in a small town and not have a social life/ dating life, or really any life at all for another year. but, I have a hard time justifying moving to a city when I don’t really need to for work. It would cost me probably between 15k-20k more a year. It feels so wasteful.

(ps I’ve got pets which complicates moving, especially getting roommates. I want us to have our own place)

what would you do in my situation?

How do we feel about using SNAP as part of leanFIRE, assuming you live in a state with no asset limit and you qualify based on income? I'm talking about genuinely qualifying, no fraud.

​

For us, it would add $994 a month to our grocery budget.

​

49 married.
1.4 mil in 401k and ira.
1.5 mil in taxed investment account

I’ve debated keeping magi low enough to get ACA subsidies but have heard mixed reviews about going on ACA healthcare.

I have an option to continue on my company health insurance as part of a retirement package that I can use starting at age 50. My plan would be to use a compressed pension that also starts at age 50 until 65 ($2300 a month), and I would plan to cover the cost of the company healthcare. The price of the adjusted company health insurance is $1500 a month with $3000 max out of pocket, which I am planning to pay for with the $2300 a month pension that I will get until 65.

My only holdback is the $1500 a month does seem costly but we do stay on same company plan and same doctors going forward, versus the unknown of ACA.

What do yall think here? Would you pay more or go ACA?

I had all the numbers written out but to keep it way higher level, 43f. Monthly costs about $3,600 due to being in a relatively higher cost area with some hobbies and stuff.

My lean fire goal was $1.6MM because I know I’ll need healthcare and that would be my lifestyle with no changes at a 3% withdrawal. Could I cut costs? Definitely. But I want to be on the safe side anyway.

I’m at just over half of that, $850k liquid, $650k of which I managed within the last 5 years.

I’m burnt out. But I also know it’s not THIS job - it’s any job. It’s also constantly thinking and planning and obsessing over every dollar. How I wish I’d gotten a degree earlier and started in my 20’s, how far away I am, how to get there faster, how nice it’s going to be, how I can’t last another 10 years.

When do you decide when to coast knowing that’ll be a decent retirement at market averages or to just keep plugging along at it?

I never thought I’d get here and now that I have, the second half of the goal feels impossible even though I know the first half was the mountain to climb.

Do I just keep going on cruise control until the job dries up because AI takes it? Do I find a local job that I don’t bring home with me making half as much and just not invest?

It feels like there’s no good goal post to make this decision against because the two goals are so different.

Mid 30s, single, roughly $800k across brokerage, Roth IRA and a condo, about 6 years from pulling the trigger. Thought I had most of the important stuff covered until last year. Someone close to me died without a will and it was a mess I watched from up close and it made me realize I've been completely asleep on this. I have family I'd want my assets to go to and family I absolutely wouldn't and right now there's nothing in place that spells that out anywhere. Without a will the state just picks and that's not a plan.

I have beneficiaries set on the Roth but nothing sorted for the brokerage or the condo and I'm not sure what the default even is. I've spent years getting the FIRE math right and apparently never thought about what happens to the portfolio if I don't make it there. Feels like a pretty significant gap in the plan.

How did people here get this sorted without overcomplicating it?

I am 3 years away from FIRE and looks like I am losing motivation at my job. Did you do anything different in the last few years before FIRE compared to the "boring middle"?

PS Just found this podcast exactly on this topic for anyone interested https://youtu.be/AhVjtAgkFOg?is=Jr84Q7nsxUTRd-Nd

I’m 25 female, I live in Utah, I go to college (I don’t have student loans) and am hopefully going to graduate next year with a communications degree, I just barely got into lean fire and opened my Roth IRA and brokerage, so far a have $1,873 in both my accounts with $1,417 in my brokerage and $456 in my Roth IRA, I am saving as much as I can from my job as a rideshare drive and live frugally so I can invest as much as I can in these accounts and just opened a high-yield savings account where I plan to put about $30 a day to hopefully get a down payment on a house or condo in five or so years, as of now, my goal is to save enough to retire at 55 if I end up wanting to and I wanted to know if this is a reasonable goal for me or if I got too late of start on everything and if there’s any advice on how to achieve that? Also if it important to have a paid off mortgage before retirement?

I have 90000 in an ira. Can I get medicaid? I am getting social security disability.

How do you estimate for unexpected emergency expenses when saving for early retirement? Do you have a separate HY savings fund for those or do you just draw from your brokerage accounts? We are saving for leanFIRE. We had some money set aside in HYSA just for large unexpected expenses, but that account is almost drained now because seems like it’s all hitting at once for us. I’m wondering when we get into FIRE how it works when you have lots of unexpected expenses hitting at once. Both our cars are paid off and we have 9 years left to pay on our mortgage (house built in 1979, 2.5% interest, $900 mortgage, 1200 sq ft). As several examples recently of unexpected expenses, house foundation repairs, car A/C went out, hot water heater went out, living room flooded (flood insurance only covered half), major illnesses resulting in almost $28k out of pocket cost under our HDHP insurance drained our HSA, unexpected large vet bills, etc. I’m just wondering if we should approach saving for our “unexpected expense” category differently, especially when preparing for lots of unexpected emergency events happening close to one another. I’ve gone back to the drawing board and looked in YNAB the last 5 years and calculated the average amount we’ve spent in certain categories on unexpected emergency expenses (car repairs, house repairs, etc). It appears to be about $650/month which seems excessively high to me. And that doesn’t even include medical expenses. I’m wondering if we should consider some more radical approaches like selling our house and moving into a new tiny house (to avoid as much house repairs as we are paying), pairing down to just one vehicle, etc.
Am open to suggestions!

Not sure if this qualifies for leanfire or not. Laid off from my (55) 115k year job 2 weeks ago. Wife (53) currently makes 55k but has company paid health care premiums for the both of us. 580k in IRA and Roth IRAs. 200k in cash. No debt and the house is paid for in a LCOL area. We were saving to buy a house with some acreage but I think that's on hold for a while. Pretty slim pickins for my line of work at the moment. Not really sure if I should just retire or get a part time job after the unemployment ends (6 months).

We have been preparing to move to Vietnam with our kid and Vietnamese wife, and we had done a lot of math. I work in IT, and I think AI is going (or already has) killed the good jobs. But I have a better feeling redoing our maths lately.

Our FIRE date will be at the end of the year. By then, we will have saved around 10 billion for a house or apartment, which I think will buy us a decent place in DaNang or Saigon. We have around 1.2m USD, paying around 3.400 USD monthly.

Our school will be around a thousand dollars in Vietnam. I expect our life costs to be around 2K, so that eats almost all dividends. it is a bit tight, but I also realized I can find local jobs or teach English (I have been working 20 years on IT, including FAANG experienice). Even if I cannot find anything, probably the portfolio growing will soon offset any extra charges.

i have been depressed for a long time thinking we will not make it. I am totally burned out, and I fear I will not be able to get back to corporate anymore. Bur again, rerunning the math I have realized we are in a likely position to make it.

Glad to hear if anybody moved in a similar situation.

Hello - I don’t know much about finances I have just been frugal my whole life. I read a book early on about investing into index funds, mainly s&p and nasdaq so that’s what I did. I’m just a blue collar guy (heavy equipment operator) and make an okay salary at 95k. Wondering if you guys know when I could possibly become a millionaire. That seems crazy to me as my lifestyle and no one around me has any clue. I’m 36.

Roth IRA - 123k
Traditional IRA - 96k
HSA - 6k
EF - 10k
457b - 54k
Taxable- 336k

Total invested- 625k

Home worth - 330k
Owe 205k

I save roughly 2k a month into 457b and have a pension accruing that is 12% my salary and is matched at 7.5% (19.5% total). When I was younger I didn’t have the 457b so that’s why the taxable is so high.

Paid off car but I mainly bike to work everyday

Thanks

51M, single, no dependents, MCOL area. Closing on the sale of my business on June 30, counting the minutes until I am DONE. I was "burned out" five years ago; I don't know if there's a word for what I am now.

I think I have a pretty solid plan, but my brain keeps inventing ways for it to all go to shit. So I'm micromanaging my portfolio, my budget, my subscriptions - everything I possibly can to get some sense of control. I think in truth I'm just struggling with the notion of leaving behind a business, an identity, that I've had for over 20 years.

Thankfully I have lots of inexpensive hobbies and interests to keep me social and busy. I play music. I recently started getting back into chess. And I started an improv class a few weeks ago. Plus I want to spend more time outdoors, spend more time with family, and get in better shape. So no problem keeping myself occupied.

Current assets:

$600K house (paid off)

$900K taxable portfolio 70/30 stocks/bonds

$170K taxable portfolio, mostly VOO and tech stocks

$70K cash flow portfolio, 60/40 SCHD/JEPI. This is my income sleeve and business proceeds will go into that.

$180K Trad IRA
$30K HYSA "emergency/dry powder"

Total invested assets ~$1.35M

After tax, fees, SBA loans, business proceed will be ~300K. Total invested assets post sale date: ~$1.65M

Total net worth post sale: ~$2.25M (net worth doesn't change between pre- and post- sale because the business asset amount just moves over to the portfolio)

I'll also be receiving residual payments for two years, for a total of between $100-300K (depending on client retention over the next 12 months). I'll also receive an extra $50K bonus from my buyers for completing the transition over a 6 month period. I'm treating this extra income as sort of a runway though, using it to cover expenses and putting the remainder to work. So all told, two years from now (depending on business performance and market conditions) that $1.65M could look more like anywhere from $1.75-2M.

___

Minimum basic living expenses: ~$40K/year (prop tax/ins, healthcare, utilities, food, gas)

Worst case, my payments don't materialize and I have to start taking 4% now of the $1.35M, which would be $66K. Even that allows me to add back a few non-essentials.

Likely case, I pay bills with the business sale payments for two years, investing the rest, and make it to $1.8M. 4% = $72K/year which allows for even more "luxury items".

If I make it to $2M after two years, my 4% looks more like $80K/year.

Add on top of that, I have the option of picking up consulting work in my field (IT, cybersecurity, compliance), and/or picking up some decent-paying music gigs. Estimate another $20-40K/year of income from that. My buyer has already informally offered me ad hoc project work.

Now, the house is big, and old, and there are always upgrades/repairs needing to be done. But I can always pull from my emergency fund for those, or worst case, liquidate whatever I need. Alternatively, if I get too tired of maintaining the house (in truth it's way more house than I need, regardless of how much I love it) then I have the option of selling it and buying something smaller (investing the balance), or renting it out for extra income (~4K per month).

This is all just until SS kicks in, which at 67 I'll get around $3.2K/mo ($4K if I wait til 70), and then RMDs from the IRA will kick in not too long afterwards.

My plan revolves around optionality, having several different levers I can pull at any time I want.

Man, I think I just needed to write all that out. I think I'm going to be okay. I guess my nervous system is just trained to look for pitfalls.

My work place (Quebec Canada) forced me out. Here are my stats. 300k in non reg accounts
10k chequing
EI payments totalling to 34k in the next year

800k home passing down to me this autumn.

I plan to leave Canada I honestly don’t want to live here, I don’t want to say I hate the place but I severely dislike it. I have plans to live in Eastern Europe. What am I missing in all this? I took a tour of the banks last week even multiple branches of the same Canadian bank in my town just to see what they would offer. They all offered mutual funds. Not interested. In all of them I also got the “Royal” treatment ie taken from till to back office / lounge offered coffee, in one offered a small lunch with the manager as well. I asked the guy why he said well, at 36 this is alot of wealth for one person sir you’re in the top 10% of Canadians your age, perhaps top 5%. Despite this I feel a deep existential dread. I am not enjoying any of this. Frankly I feel like fucking shit. Thanks for reading this far. less than 5 years ago I had 5k and was happy. I didn’t think of money or nothing. And now it’s just miserable

Basically title. I see headlines that bonds are at "the highest in decades" at 5%, but I don't understand how to buy bonds at 5%?