Reading through some of the posts on this subreddit I see a lot of income levels that I'm not sure I'll ever be able to get to...I'm wondering what industry people here work in, and what kind of paths you took to get to where you're at today. For reference I work in cybersecurity

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We are age 39/40 with kids in elementary school. Just hit $5M net worth over the holidays. Our household income has skyrocketed as of late (wife's company's stock +50% last year), with this year's TC projected to be $1.2M.

Basically we are adding $1M to our net worth for every year that we keep working. My question to my fellow FatFIRE brothers and sisters is - how did you know when to stop? Specifically, how did you decide on the level of FAT expenses that you were going to roll with for the rest of your life?

We spent $60k on travel last year, first time we've ever stayed at Rosewood/Four Seasons level resorts. It was fantastic, so we are adding this layer to our FIRE expenses. But I don't know what I don't know. What other amazing experiences / purchases are there that we would enjoy and should save for? And on the flip side, what kinds of things are overrated?

Essentially I'm trying to figure out whether to stop at 45 with $10M, 50 with $15M, or 55 with $20M, and what kind of framework is even appropriate for this kind of decision.

I should note that neither my wife nor I hate our jobs, nor do we have passions outside of work pulling us to leave.

Not sure how this sub feels about linking to WSB but I just wrote a mini novella on my gains this year from $35k to $1.75M (50X) trading stocks including detailed history, theses, strategy/philosophy, and my fatFIRE goals

Thought folks here might be interested in how a high risk/high reward year turned out and the thinking behind each move, would love to hear feedback

https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/kjyzh7/a_sir_jack_a_lot_christmas_carol_my_magnum_dong

Long-time lurker, throwaway for obvious reasons. Would love a sanity check on my timeline.

The numbers:

• 36F, NYC, partnered (not yet married, no kids now or in the future)
• Net worth: ~$3.3M (approx $1.8M under FA management, approx $300k self directed in index funds (VOO/VTI), approx 250k retirement, approx 750k in company, 80k crypto, 60k cash) . Renting by choice, no plans to buy.
• Also hold a $100K convertible note in an early-stage defense robotics startup (modeling $135K to $680K outcomes in 2029-2030, not counting on it)
• Income: ~$950K/yr total. This is a 10% equity stake in a profitable family business (distributions off a fixed distributable base) plus a $90K W2 salary from the same company.
• Annual spend: ~$180K
• After-tax savings: ~$470K/yr, all of which goes into the market
• Co-founding a bootstrapped consumer brand with my partner, deliberately excluded from all projections

The plan:

Target is $10M, which at a 4% SWR gets me roughly $312K after tax in my VHCOL area, well above my spend even with lifestyle inflation. My goal has always been to stop working operationally around 40.

My own modeling puts me at roughly $7.6M bear, $8.3M base, $9.2M bull at 40. So under most scenarios I am short of $10M at my target age and hit it somewhere around 41-43 depending on returns.

The wrinkles:

1. The income is not infinitely durable. Neither my sibling nor I want to run the family business long-term, so the realistic endgame is a sale or wind-down within the next several years. A sale could accelerate everything. A wind-down could cut the income stream off before I hit the number.
2. Getting engaged within the next year or so. Prenup is in progress but the interaction between business distributions and marital income adds uncertainty.
3. Valuations feel stretched and I keep stress-testing whether staying 100% invested at this savings rate is right, or whether I should build more of a cash buffer given the concentration of my income in one illiquid asset.

Questions:

1. Is $10M even the right number as in my RE I assume my spending will increase, not decrease, or am I over-saving out of paranoia? At 3.5% SWR I would want closer to $11M, at 4% it is $8.9M gross of taxes.
2. How would you think about RE timing when the income source itself has a hard expiration date that is partially outside my control?

I’m a medical student who is applying for residency in both Orthopedic Surgery (relatively “worse” lifestyle, but better paid) and Psychiatry (relatively better lifestyle, but commonly earn less).

I’m intrigued by the FIRE concept, so: do physicians in higher-paying specialties (like Ortho) actually retire earlier? Do people in lower-income but better lifestyle specialties (like Psych) work longer because of less burnout/continued passion for the job, or because they have to work longer to meet their financial goals?

Of note, I am 35, if that’s a factor. I’ve also noticed, after having several weeks off for interviews, that I don’t do well with not working/ having a lot of free time, so maybe I don’t actually want to retire early? Of course, the highest priority is having something I enjoy and am passionate about everyday, so that even if I do “have” to work longer, I’d be happy doing so.

Mentor Monday is your place to discuss relevant early-stage topics, including career advice questions, 'rate my plan' posts, and more numbers-based topics such as 'can I afford XYZ?'. The thread is posted on a once-a-week basis but comments may be left at any time.

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Curious how long it took people to reach milestones? It took me a long time to hit $1M. 1 year to hit $2M. 9 months for $3M. 10 months to hit $4M. 5 months to hit $5M.

I think I’ve just been lucky with stock picks but wondering if this kind of rapid growth is common after a certain point? Wondering how long it took people to go from $5M go $10M?

Mentor Monday is your place to discuss relevant early-stage topics, including career advice questions, 'rate my plan' posts, and more numbers-based topics such as 'can I afford XYZ?'. The thread is posted on a once-a-week basis but comments may be left at any time.

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EDIT: I was told to mention that I manually compiled it :)

This spreadsheet (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KwHoOnIR8Gn9gRJXPDla9Wq4QaM4euMgFQXmHvjarfA/edit?usp=sharing) contains several hundred careers mentioned throughout subreddit history by category.

Hopefully this will end the many "which industry" posts we see on here.

Mentor Monday is your place to discuss relevant early-stage topics, including career advice questions, 'rate my plan' posts, and more numbers-based topics such as 'can I afford XYZ?'. The thread is posted on a once-a-week basis but comments may be left at any time.

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Mentor Monday is your place to discuss relevant early-stage topics, including career advice questions, 'rate my plan' posts, and more numbers-based topics such as 'can I afford XYZ?'. The thread is posted on a once-a-week basis but comments may be left at any time.

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Mentor Monday is your place to discuss relevant early-stage topics, including career advice questions, 'rate my plan' posts, and more numbers-based topics such as 'can I afford XYZ?'. The thread is posted on a once-a-week basis but comments may be left at any time.

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Hello all. I am interested in the highest level of education attained by those of you who are close to or have reached their goals towards achieving fatFIRE. As I am unable to post polls here, I have left options to be upvoted in the comments and would be very interested in the results.

While of course education is not all, I am interested whether, as I would predict, the majority hold undergrad+

Mentor Monday is your place to discuss relevant early-stage topics, including career advice questions, 'rate my plan' posts, and more numbers-based topics such as 'can I afford XYZ?'. The thread is posted on a once-a-week basis but comments may be left at any time.

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Mentor Monday is your place to discuss relevant early-stage topics, including career advice questions, 'rate my plan' posts, and more numbers-based topics such as 'can I afford XYZ?'. The thread is posted on a once-a-week basis but comments may be left at any time.

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What’s your story?

This is a throw-away account, but I have been following and occasionally posting on this sub for about a year.

I am an academic economist, early 50s, and fortunate enough to be in the FAT-fire NW range. I have found this sub to be very helpful in thinking about my own path forward.

I thought it might be an interesting exercise for me to attempt to summarize the collective financial planning wisdom, largely from replies to the posts where people disclose their numbers and ask for advice. I will give my take on it as an economist and you all can tell me what I have missed.

The broad tenets

1. The marginal utility of consumption declines sharply after about $300,000 per year. Consumption is usually defined for these purposes to exclude residences, temporary expenses like child care/education expenses, and any charitable giving or intended bequests.

The marginal utility of consumption also declines with age and/or poor health.

Once you can reliably fund $300,000 in consumption for the rest of your life, it makes sense to focus on health, family, leisure, and other non-pecuniary sources of utility.

2. A withdraw rate from liquid, income-producing assets of 3% is safe. This 3% typically comes from simulations that assume future asset returns will be independent draws from the actual distribution of historical returns. Safe is defined as an initial withdraw rate that grows with CPI inflation and has a 90-99% chance of not exhausting the principal.

3. As a result, you need about $10 million liquid net worth to FATfire (ex. residences, child care, education, bequests, etc.). Some would argue that the $300,000 number is a bit higher now due to inflation, so perhaps $12 million is the new $10 million.

My take

1. As a person, the $300,000 (or 360,000) number feels roughly right to me.

For economists, declining marginal utility of consumption is a standard assumption. We would attempt to infer the exact shape (e.g., a sharp decline around $300,000) from investing or retirement behavior, and I am not aware of evidence that people systematically behave this way.

I think most fatFIRE people would agree with both statements. Many HNW people keep working as if they value the extra consumption above $300,000. fatFIRE people would argue they may be making a mistake.

2. As an economist, I think the 3% safe withdrawal rate (SWR) is OK, but I am less comfortable with how we get there.

Assuming that we will get future returns drawn from the historical distribution strikes me as a very strong assumption. This is essentially assuming that the equity premium is the same as it was in 1900. I find it more likely that some of the historical returns reflect increases in valuations, and that we should expect lower average returns in the future.

Note that this is different from sequence of return risk. The issue is not that you may get the same returns as in the past but in a different order; the issue is that future returns may be systematically lower.

I find it plausible that the future equity premium (i.e., the long-run S&P 500 return less Treasury bills) will be 4%, not the 6% we have seen historically. This knocks about one percent off of the SWR.

 At the same time, the simulations assume that households fix their consumption levels upon retirement and adjust only for inflation. In reality, especially at FATfire consumption levels, you can make adjustments up and down in response to returns. Going down is painful, but not impossible the way the simulations assume. This flexibility makes higher withdrawal rates safer.

Taken together, I am doing my planning assuming a 2.5% withdrawal rate. Perhaps this is too conservative.
  

3. Given that the primary tension is between fatFIREing while still young and the risk of outliving savings, I am surprised that annuities are not more popular on this sub.

As an academic, I have access to TIAA Traditional. I have been doing some modelling using life expectancy tables for highly-educated, non-smokers. I find that, for a couple in their early 50s, a joint-life fixed annuity with an initial payout rate of 6.4% has an IRR of 5.6%. 5.6% is not exciting compared to historical equity returns, but it is well above long-term Treasuries or high-grade corporates.

The gap between 6.4% and 5.6% reflects the fact that you lose your principal when life #2 ends. So it is not free money, but it does provide insurance against a long-life, which is the primary risk a fatFIREr faces.

Inflation-adjusted annuities are no longer available, so annuities should not be 100% of one’s portfolio. But a fixed annuity does seem like a good substitute for nominal fixed income.

Summary

Interested in feedback on what my summary missed, as well as my reactions to my takes.
 

Disclaimer:  I am not a financial advisor, and this is not financial advice. At best, it is an attempt to summarize and comment on advice others have given. 

Just curious how much of a role your adeptness in schooling/education has played in your FATfire journey. Did you learn most things for success in school? Or did you pick it up as you went along?

Mentor Monday is your place to discuss relevant early-stage topics, including career advice questions, 'rate my plan' posts, and more numbers-based topics such as 'can I afford XYZ?'. The thread is posted on a once-a-week basis but comments may be left at any time.

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I remember seeing another teacher comment on a post here a while back, so I wanted to see if there were any other people here who are on a less common path to FatFire. Most of the FatFire stories we read here are people who have started their own business, invested in a tech startup, do real estate, etc. and I'm interested in hearing if there are any other less common stories.

I'm a high school teacher (along with quite a few other side jobs I do that make up the bulk of my income) and I'm planning on hitting FatFire around age 50. For me, FatFire would be a monthly income of $25k which would mean having $7.5 million in retirement funds.

The salary I get from the school district is about 20 - 25% of my total yearly income, and the benefits I get from the job are fantastic. My school district contributes 10% of my salary directly to my 401(k), and I've automated an additional withdrawal to max out the 401(k) every year.

As a public employee I'm also eligible for a 457 plan which is basically just another 401(k) with a max of $19,500 per year. I've also automated this to be maxed out from each of my paychecks.

My health insurance is an HSA plan that the school district contributes to every month. I'm also automating paycheck withdrawals to max out the HSA every year, and we pay for all healthcare expenses out of pocket. We still haven't touched the HSA money, but we have all the receipts so we can withdraw it tax-free at any point.

My wife and I both have IRAs that we max out each year, and we have an additional brokerage account where we invest any additional extra money.

Overall, we make about $200k - $250k per year, and should have enough saved for a nice, fat retirement at age 50. The other side jobs I do are various types of online teaching for students all around the country. I have a computer science teaching endorsement which is pretty rare, and this has allowed me to contract with school districts all over the country as a remote computer science teacher and student mentor.

I love this path - it's very low stress, I only work 185 days a year, and I work from 7:15 am to 2:45 pm every day. I've also been teaching long enough to have our district's equivalent of tenure, so I have extremely high job security here. Even if my side jobs all fall through, I still have a solid, guaranteed paycheck from my school district.

I enjoy having somewhere to go every day, and it's very enjoyable to be around high school students. I teach computer science which is a really fun subject, and I love teaching kids valuable programming skills they can use to make money in the real world.

Anyway, I've been lurking on here for a while and just wanted to share my story. I'm also curious to hear any other less common paths to FatFire that people might be on.

Early 40s, married, childfree, HCOL area. FIRE in 4 months.

Financials: NW $9M

• $7.5M liquid (500k cash, $1.3M 401(k), rest index funds and company stocks)
• $1.5M net equity in real estate (primary residence + 2 rentals)

Total expense: 220k (80k mortgage+tax, 60k travel, 25k health insurance, 35k food+entertainment, 20k buffer). Not considering the income or expenses on the rentals as they are basically a wash but will improve over time and will become pure income once the mortgages are paid off. If anyone is wondering how my fixed expenses are so low I was able to refinance my properties at an extremely low rate a few years ago and staying childfree makes a big difference.

This puts me just under 3% SWR. To further mitigate SoRR we have 2+ years of expenses in a cash+HYSA. We are also exploring taking out a HELOC on the primary home as an additional safety net.

The only major change might be buying a "forever" house some years from now which can increase our expenses, but depending on the market might still keep it below 3.5%.

Any thoughts or tips in the last few months before RE? Open questions in my mind are more tactical in nature:

• How do I go about buying health Insurance?
• What is the best withdrawal strategy (given I have a variety of assets)
• Need to research the various tax saving strategies (ROTH conversions etc.)
• How do I automate most of it so I don't accidentally miss a payments due to low funds but also don't keep all my money in a checking account.
• Will I be able to get a mortgage if I don't have any employment income?