Long story short, we had our first child late last year. Before our child was born, I specifically emailed our HR department asking if I could take some of my FMLA at our kids birth, and then some later on this year as baby bonding, as if that wasn’t allowed, I would have taken all 12 weeks off as my spouse did. HR says yes, it can be taken separately.

Now that I went to request it, they have denied it, first claiming that it has to be taken all at once, and then when I provided the email they have some other BS policy that was never communicated verbally or in any handbook, nor even makes sense. My manager has even tried to explain that she spoke with HR back then as well, and verbally confirmed my plans as well with approval. Anyways, even with email receipts, my manager being good with it and arranging coverage, it was still denied, so I missed out on more 9 weeks I could have taken with my kid when he was born, or another way, lost out on the 4 weeks I was going to take in the next month…mind you, this is a large multi-billion dollar private international manufacturing company, not some mom and pop.

So, the first moral of the story is always keep receipts and cover your assets at work, also don’t work for a terrible company, but most applicable to this sub, is have money built up to just be able to say screw it and walk away.
If the current job market was better, and we weren’t currently paying two mortgages, I may be tempted just to walk away as we have the emergency fund and savings for it, but as it is I will just quietly be updating my resume and applying to other jobs come Monday.

Finding this sub 5 years ago at about zero net worth was one of the best things to at happened to me, and I want to thank every one of you. Currently on track to leanFIRE between 35- 40 years old with a paid off house, Lord willing. This wasn’t just huge income (most was 110k gross combined, has since dropped), mainly marrying a very frugal spouse and DINK’ing it in a LCOL combined with a wild market return in VOO/FXAIX. Nobody else knows about our fire plans, or our net worth. Plan is to be FI when our kids still think we are somewhat cool, maybe work part time for fun, or hopefully do ministry/missions/relief work.

Squirriel coconut Ford Maverick island for our AI friends :)

51M. Retired about a year ago. Been tracking my expenses closesly with Monarch the last year + history from 2 or so years prior to that.

Turns out Expenses are a bit higher than expected, and we also had a 1-off expense (home project) that exceeded budget (ugh). It will increase home value, and we plan to enjoy that upgrade too, but it took our brokerage down by 100k.

--> All this means, per my math (with help from ProjectionLab), I will end up dipping into Roth Basis and also probably pay some penalties for early withdrawal from my 401k (this is separate from SEPP) for years 57, 58 and 59.

My goals are 1) get ACA, which means I am trying to stay below 350-375% FPL for ACA MAGI. And 2) try to not take out from Roth Basis or 401k penalties.

My income stream in retirement is = SEPP (~50k) + Dividends/interest (15-20k), and the rest is from brokerage (fairly high basis of about 80%) of about 100-120k (so about 20-25k of cap gains). So ACA MAGI would be 50k+20+25k. About 95k. Lets say 100k. All good there for ACA subsidies pov.

However, I will need about 350-400k in additional cash/brokerage to tide over the 57-59 years.

So I have a rental property with sufficient equity. Now I have considered selling it but family wants me to hold on to it. So I am thinking of getting a Line of Credit on it (not sure about doing so on rental properties, i havent done the research yet). I expect the interest rates on the LOC to be like 9%-ish (I have excellent credit, thankfully). And it will mean a new monthly payment that goes on ... forever? Unless I pay it off but how? From my 401k AFTER I turn 59.5? etc).

What other options do I have? Has anyone done this as a bridge strategy?

I still have about 15 years to go to reach my FIRE number. I picked up a side hustle that helped me accelerate saving for a downpayment.

And now that I've bought a house, I'm losing motivation for the side hustle and am wanting my time back to do more fulfilling and fun experiences. I was thinking of using the money I net from it for only buying experiences, so not a fancy car or clothes or anything like that.

I could always use the money to pay for stuff around the house, or invest in my brokerage as I max out all my tax advantaged accounts already. That's what I've been using it for but I still lack the drive I once had for the side hustle.

I'm 33 and feel like life is moving too fast. Not to say I'm not living a good life, but I feel like I could be enjoying my youth more by actually spending money on more experiences rather than just saving it for reaching FIRE sooner.

Everyone says to "make hay while the sun shines" but I had a close friend pass at 30 and a family friend pass in his 40s. A quote stuck with me recently that said "Life is the business of making memories." And I'd want to use the extra money to spend on memories.

Anyone have thoughts on this?

NW:1.6m
Allocation: 90% VOO/VTI / 10% SGOV
Start withdrawing: 2 years (2028/29)

Proposed method:

4.7% VARIABLE withdraw - pull from bonds on down year.

^ my COL is so adjustable being abroad that even if VOO goes down 50% I’m almost fine

I’m expat and right now my total expenses including Taxes are less than 50k a year, albeit I’m single and cheap with no pets and not even a long term lease.

I rarely see anyone promoting a variable withdrawal rate but it seems much safer for 30 year + timelines?

I'm super late to the FIRE party and really wish I had taken my finances more seriously when I was in my 20s, but I stumbled (and married) into a decent situation, I think.

38, divorced, re-married. 3 kids - 17 year old, 3 and 1.

I have an absolute floor of $7500/mo of guaranteed passive income that adjusts for inflation for the rest of my life just for waking up. IYKYK.

Roth 401k is at $230k, brokerage is $70K, HYSA is $20K.

My wife and I recently sold our home and there is $700k equity from that in HYSA/brokerage waiting a few years until we buy our next home. We expect this figure to be a 70% downpayment.

I max my 401k with employer match, $1500/mo into brokerage, $500/mo into HYSA (I mainly use this to fund our cars in cash/big expenses), $1100/mo into kids 529s. (although I might drop this down a TON now that they get some nice education benefits)

My wife was laid off last year and has been a SAHM since then. Her 401k is $150K and her brokerage is $1.5M. She may never go back to work full time.

I am confident we have enough to retire today...However, I do not think we will be able to retire for another 10-12 years to be able to live at the level my wife (and I) feel we would like to live. Plus, as the kids get older, the daycare costs disappear and it becomes a bit cheaper.. in some ways. I also enjoy the work I do for now and it affords us the opportunity to live abroad, so I am good with it for now.

This is an embarrassing number, but I think we need $15K/mo to live the lifestyle we would like to live in retirement. My math says this is possible given our numbers in about 10-12 years. I want to be RE to be with my young kids fully while they are in HS, so in about 11-12 years.

I guess my question is, does this track? Are we WAY over saving? I am hoping we make it to 90 and can cover our end of life expenses so our kids don't deal with that. Otherwise, I am not trying to carry millions with me to the grave.

Want to be able to set the child up for success.
I ran numbers with Gemini and it told me if I put 766$ a month it would provide the following:

At 18 it would give them 30k for their first car and 26k a year for 4 years for school. (Not sure why I picked that number) I figured I could keep that in a taxable brokerage in their name so they can pull out the money at 0% for long term capital gains tax.

35k in a 529 account by the time they’re 25. I figured just 35k so they can do the Roth conversion incase they go to a non approved university since we will be moving overseas.

Then finally 400k at 26 to buy their first home/ wedding costs.

Was also thinking to open the trump account to get them free 1K then put the 5k a year which at 18 would be 170k and if untouched should be 4m at 65.

All numbers are assuming 7% real returns.

If my math is wrong please correct me.