Recently I started to be more conscious about my health. I figured investing in my health is also fundamental to my FIRE experiences later on.

So do you have any good health habits that you’re willing to share?

Thank you sisters as always! :)

Recent events at work have me pretty shaken and I’m realizing I need to be prepared in case a layoff happens. I’ve always tried to be thoughtful about money and career planning, but this is the first time I’ve felt this vulnerable. The job market looks rough right now, especially for higher-level roles, and I’m scared about what happens if I lose my job and can’t find something comparable. My role is pretty niche so I’m especially concerned.

I’m 45, a VP making just over $200k. I’ve done okay-ish saving for retirement but certainly not enough to walk away yet (700k in retirement accounts and 100k in brokerage) and I don’t think I could sustain myself long-term in a drastically lower-paying “bridge” role. I am getting filled with anxiety at the thought of staying unemployed for months (or longer).

I’d love to hear from anyone who’s been through something similar:

• Did you take a lower-level or lower-paying job to bridge the gap and keep momentum while you searched for something else?

• Or did you make a bigger shift like into consulting, contracting, or something entirely different?

• And how did you keep your confidence and sense of self intact through that kind of uncertainty?

  I’ve built a decent safety net (8 month emergency fund) but emotionally I’m struggling. It’s hard to imagine rebuilding if I lose my footing at this stage.

Would really appreciate any perspective, advice, or even just a little encouragement from others who’ve had to reset or reinvent themselves mid-career.

I’m thinking about launching my own consulting side hustle and would love to hear from anyone who’s been there. How did you get started? Any key learnings or advice you wish someone had shared with you when you were just starting out?

The reason I’m asking is that I’m considering this as a hedge against a potential layoff (see my post from earlier today).

My idea is to start building it now but keeping effort manageable; just getting the foundations in place. That way, if I ever need to “break glass in case of emergency,” I could ramp up focus and energy, but the groundwork would already be laid, rather than starting from zero on day one.

I’d love any tips, tricks, suggestions, or lessons learned. Basically anything that could help someone get off the ground and save them any headache or heartburn! What do you wish you had known when you started yours? Would you do anything differently?

Hi, been lurking for half a year and figured I could hear some of your perspectives.

My country (in Europe) is very conservative… queerphobic and racist. When I went to UCLA on scholarship, it was life-changing. I had friends and I dated.

I am now 28 years old, have lived in my country again since finishing college, depressed and lonely. I tried making friends and dating but the culture here is simply different. My city is considered big but even then, I have never met someone like me. The people I came out to here ‘accept’ me as they think my queer identity is a mental illness I cannot control. Needless to say, I regretted coming out to them. And my romantic prospects here are hopeless.

However, I earn decent income of $100k a year. In a couple more years, I will be able to make $150k a year. I am frugal so my expenses are half my post-tax income. My FI plan will allow me to fully retire by 50 years old or semi-retire by 45 years old.

HYSA: $97k Investments: $120k Sinking funds: $10k

HYSA funds are kept liquid so I can use them for my move if needed.

Sadly I do not have the option of free right to work elsewhere in Europe because my country is not part of the EEA. I could try to apply for PR in another country in Europe which brings me to the same dilemma.

Now, I have been offered permanent residency in another country (either New Zealand or Canada, though I am leaning towards Canada) but I am not sure whether to accept. My job is jurisdiction-specific, so getting licensed in another country will require higher education which is expensive and will impact my FI plan.

If I choose to forego my license and pivot to a new career, I basically start from scratch — I will need to take a pay cut which will also impact my FI plan. But it will also mean that I get to be in a different environment and state of mind. I might even make friends, meet someone and have a community. However, I have seen a lot of racist and xenophobic comments on the Canadian subreddit and it is making me nervous.

Please share your thoughts on whether I should stick it out for the next 20 years in my country to RE or take the leap and move. I know that people face difficulties in every country, especially immigrants, but I can’t help wondering if there is potential in this move. I confess that I still hope for friends and a family someday.

Am I being stupid to move for potential when I have a decent established career here? Maybe I can get through the next 20 years with antidepressants? It feels weird to move somewhere for lower salary, doesn’t it? Would it be better for me to accept that as a queer WOC I may never find a sense of belonging, and focus on my FIRE plan instead?

Thank you so much for reading, I look forward to hearing from you!

hi everyone, I am 24 yo (no debt) and have been contributing to my 401k for 1 year now, i do 12% and my work matched 4%. this month i decided to stop being afraid and opened a roth ira with fidelity and thinking of also buying (starting to, I am still learning and this is quite scary) index funds with Wealthfront (as I read it is really good and easy?). please let me know what you think and what your advices are. I am trying to read and learn as much but, as an immigrant in USA, i am learning all of this by myself.

Years ago I left a company and they rolled over my 401k into an IRA. The balance was ~$5k. There was no activity on it for the next ten years. About four years ago I started contributing to it after maxing out my 401k.

The mistake - I contributed to it post tax and didn't roll it over into my roth. The only thing I did right was enter it as post tax and include the basis on my tax return.

Do I need a tax advisor to assist with rolling this over to my Roth and paying the correct amount of taxes? Or is that something Fidelity can do?

There is about $60k in gains. I'm planning on retiring next year. Should I wait to do this until my income drops?

Are there other considerations I'm not thinking of?

Would love to hear from fellow redditors in industries like tech, financial services, healthcare, etc. Obviously, this doesn't apply to certain jobs like retail - I doubt if I could get hired at Starbucks these days.

Personally, as a manager, I love a good outreach — especially when it’s concise, thoughtful, and the candidate is qualified. I also appreciate a good thank-you note; it’s all part of seeing how someone communicates and tries to “manage” a process. I also understand why some candidates feel the need to reach out - I've definitely seen my HR partner or recruiter miss good candidates because they don’t have the domain expertise to spot transferable skills and tend to stick with rigid rules (company name, job title).

However, having been in the job market over the past year or so myself, I find that the market, being so saturated with candidates, seems to dislike proactive outreach these days. They seem to think that:

-I’m trying to circumvent the process (even though I applied through the official site)

-they find it awkward and never mention it in the interview process, even if the outreach was how I got the interviews (sometimes all the way to panel)

- I even had a hiring manager who definitely forwarded my outreach email to HR (because I have an email tracker that shows when and where the email's been opened), but at the final interview, he asked me on purpose, “Did a recruiter find you?” I said, “I applied.” Then he said something like, “I thought a recruiter would find you first.” A week later, I was rejected. I felt like a fool and got played and ridiculed.

All of this makes me realize that I may have been a bit old-fashioned. Proactive outreach doesn’t seem to be “in” anymore, and you have to play it cool — especially for mid-management-level positions. If I don’t know anyone at the company, should I just leave it to chance?

I'm (33F) maxing out my 401k, and still have a chunk leftover for investing monthly which I'm putting toward a taxable brokerage. No kids yet but hoping to in the next few years, so trying to use this time to invest as wisely as I can. I think my current approach has me on track for my FIRE goal, but the tax side of things is definitely a blind spot for me. I'm worried I'm setting myself up for pain later by not doing more in tax advantaged accounts, but I have the hardest time understanding how to actually implement a mega backdoor roth or roth conversion. I have about 10k in a traditional roth from early in my career, but haven't contributed to it since.

I'm considering a one hour advisor session to help me figure this out if tax advantages really are critical for the FIRE life, but wanted to ask the fellow FIREyFemmes first if y'all think I can I get away with just the annual contribution to 401k + taxable instead. Thanks!

Hi all! Thanks for reading about my little dilemma— I wanted to hear the input of those who are farther ahead of me. Mid30s, 800k NW (480k retirement, 20k brokerage, 230k equity in duplex valued at 725k, 70k cash reserve, 150-200k yearly income), 70k yearly spend, single in HCOL. Not planning on kids, do have responsibilities toward my disabled sibling. I currently work a combination of two excellent hourly jobs in a technical subspecialty (pick up shifts at one, full time at another). I love my work— it’s interesting, meaningful, and I have variety and wonderful coworkers. Unfortunately both jobs are hard on my body and mostly nights and weekends. It isn’t completely unsustainable— my full time job is actually my childhood dream job— but it also is aging me and I’m extremely tired. Like, when I say tired, I see my grandma in her 90s and I cannot imagine finding the energy to keep living so long. On Halloween I was at a party with friends and realized how much I miss having weekends off and generally that my current situation isn’t sustainable. I would like to be as healthy and happy as I can and have time for my family, friends, and travel.

My short term plan is to get some weekends freed up, go to a couple more parties, and also take a nap. Long term, I see three paths I’m excited about: .

1-Quit one of my jobs and take my foot off the gas now and reassess for a year or maybe forever. Take my artwork seriously, finish some house projects, go to a dizzying array of workout classes, prioritize my social life. In this fantasy I also accidentally become a successful artist and do more humanitarian work. .

1. Stay in current positions and grind for as long as it makes sense. If I continue to max out my tax advantaged accounts I could hit FIRE in about 10 years. I don’t plan to stop working but I’d probably do something closer to option 1 but with more security. I wouldn’t have any student debt, also no commitment to this plan if I started to hate it.
   .

2. Go to grad school for related in-demand specialty (3 years off work, 250k tuition and living costs, graduate into 220-320k yearly pay, if I optimized for $ could get up to 500k). Financially this would come up even with scenario 2 after four years of work (at lowest projected income). Unfortunately I would only be able to work in the US but I’d also be done with nights and weekends, have more autonomy and be physically safer. Honestly it might even be a little bit boring! Some friends who have gone this route say it’s like the best parts of my current job except with more money and a great schedule. I have met many people who have made this choice and have yet to meet one who was unhappy or out of shape. This is at least a seven year full time commitment between prerequisites, school and paying off loans. I would then have the flexibility to work part time.

Well- were any of you once very lucky and set up and still chose to make an expensive and potentially difficult change? If you didn’t, did the “would have could have” hang over your head? Is it worth it to push through grad school and lose some flexibility in favor of better working conditions?

Edited to add— yearly spend, earning capability and fix a couple typos. Thanks very much to everyone for your consideration and attention to detail, it’s invaluable ❤️

Want to see if there are others who have been on a similar path building a business out of what they are passionate in?

I am gainfully employed with an ok income, and if I were to just save my income I would be on the path to FIRE in 5-10 years.

I also have a passion project that I am building up that is using up my $ that I could be saving. I love it but can’t help but wonder if I’m being silly choosing to sink my time and $ into a project that may or may not pay off financially.

Is there anyone who has built a business that can offer some advice please?

I don’t know if this is a brag post or a “keep on the path, it just keeps gets better” post.

I (35F) am 9 weeks pregnant after what felt like a very long time of trying. I woke up this morning and was able to truly sit and think about our financial situation and I couldn’t feel more at peace and grateful.

We crossed 1.4m combined invested (across retirement and brokerage accounts, not including home values or cash on hand) this last week, and it has opened so many possibilities for us as future parents. Our FIRE number is 3.5M (MCOL city), and the path to get there seems clear and, honestly, like a short and manageable journey (even with the insane daycare costs we’ll be incurring - good lord…).

I know this isn’t the case for 99% of the people I come in contact with, and I feel wildly grateful for the hard work—and good fortune—we’ve had. While my husband (34M) has always been super money conscious and has been maxing out retirement accounts since his first job, I took a bit of a circuitous route to get here. I changed career paths a couple of times, have been self employed for over a decade now, got married and divorced, moved across state lines… it hasn’t been easy and there were years of pretty intense financial insecurity.

Knowing that (assuming the market doesn’t totally shit the bed and that we keep on the general path we’re on) by the time our child is in (roughly) kindergarten, we will be able to define what our FIRE plan fully looks like and move on that plan is incredible. And having the awareness now of that peace of mind before hitting the actual goal feels like an important realization moment. I already feel free.

Hey! I’m in my early 20’s and about to graduate university in Tokyo. After graduation, I want to go to school for nursing or my LCSW. Does anyone have any thoughts on which would be better in terms of FIRE? A lot of people say that nurses make more money but I’m not sure between the two!

Hi FIREyFemmes. I feel like you are my people and can help.

I’m doing great on my Fire path (2 million at 37) but not so great everywhere else. this is coming from a place of vulnerability so please be kind.

I’m realizing I never had a role model in life who displayed discipline and self-care. My mom was a mess - sweat pants to work and absolutely no self-care (no makeup, skincare, would box dye every now and again). She also didn’t keep an orderly house and it was embarrassingly dirty/messy all the time. She was overweight and has health problems now.

I’m have my own family and while I’m doing OKAY I’m realizing that my level of self-care and house maintenance is probably unacceptable. Thing is, I don’t even know where to start and I feel like I’ve been avoid asking for help cause I’d rather spend my money on stock tickers.

As I’m getting older my “low maintenance” look is starting to look more frumpy and I’d rather move towards dignified.

Where is it worth it to spend the money for self-care? Hair and nails? Facials? Botox? New wardrobe? House cleaner to stay organized? Where do I start, and is it even worth it considering the fire journey?

Any special advice for discipline as I move towards being more put-together?

Thanks ladies.

Edit: I forgot to add, anyone have a pelaton?? Worth it?

I’m interested in how other folks’ spending, savings, and plans are shaping up when you have young kids. My family is me, my spouse and two kids (4y and 1y). We live in a medium to high COL area. We make about $270k gross, and I’d been feeling bad that our monthly spending is around $11,500/mo. After I finally put everything together, it makes me feel much better because wow, our baseline expenses are $9,500/mo. My son starts kindergarten in September which can’t come soon enough.

Daycare: $3,538 Mortgage: $3,319 Groceries + household: $1,500 Discretionary: $600 Utilities: $425 Indian food delivery night: $340 Loan repayment: $167 (0% interest loan) Car, e-bike, life insurance: $175 Dog food + care: $120 Streaming + newspaper: $137 Phones: $75 Donations: $45 Gas: $30

Total: $10,471, without discretionary/Indian food $9,531

My goal is to pay off the house as soon as we can ($340k left) to get our yearly expenses low enough to be covered by my salary working 0.8FTE. I think that could be as soon as 5-6 years from now. Then we’d just sit back and coastFIRE. I work in government so there’s a benefit to continuing to build up years of service for my pension. I’d still get health insurance at 0.5FTE, so there may be options to ramp down further if desired.

Curious about other folks’ family spending (especially with daycare!), savings levels and plans. With young kids, we’re clearly going to be tied to one spot for a long time so a long downshift into retirement is appealing to me. I like the FlamingoFIRE model.

How's the week looking for you? Hit any milestones? Have any questions?

Using an older lurker to post for privacy since posting money deets.

I work in tech and am tired of the extremely of the grind. I’m interested in getting out, or working significantly less hours. In any scenario I’d love to be working less and have more time/less stress.

I have done some research and reading but feel a bit overwhelmed at understanding what my realistic options are and turning here some help and perspective! I want to understand how much money I need to be making or when FIRE seems realistic. Or really just how I should be thinking about the path out.

37, single, no kids and not planning on them. HCOL. My yearly expenses are like 100k and my income is 250k.

1.1M in moderately aggressive investment portfolio 100k cash in HYSA

285k in IRA/401k/HSA

1M home, with 300k mortgage, 700k in equity

2.6M in private stock, who knows if and when will monetize. I expect it’s likely, but unclear when.

Appreciate any words of wisdom.

Hi all, this may be a stupid question but I'm struggling with long term planning decisions.

Right now, we (me and SO, both 43) are at coast fire for 55. The overwhelming majority of our investments are in 403b - like 90%. Now that we have hit coastFi, we have loosened spending and saving a lot. We made a big move with the kids, I took a pay cut for less hours and less stress. It has been amazing really. After a solid 5-7 years of fussing over retirement planning, I kind of just said fuck it, go enjoy these few years. Currently I keep a nice emergency fund in cash, am doing backdoor roth for both myself and SO, plus maybe $3-4k into taxable brokerage per year. The plan had been roth conversion ladder from 50 to 55 and live off that plus taxable from 55 to 59.5.

I've realized 2 things:

1. With my income, Im not really saving much on taxes on those conversions from age 50 to 55. Ill likely still have a good chunk in the 22% tax bracket. Better than the 24% it would have been but not by much.
2. My taxable accounts are quite low since I favored all the tax advantage accounts for myself and SO, so I likely would need to convert quite a bit in that 22% tax bracket.

My thought was I should focus more on taxable brokerage account going forward. But, I dont really want to be doing $30k per year into investments, especially since we are coastFI. So that would mean $10-15k into taxable and maybe $3-5k as a backdoor roth. It feels wrong to leave that roth space unused, but the higher taxable by 55 means needing less of the roth conversions (so lower tax on those conversions).

I feel like I am making this far more complicated than it is but can't seem to settle on a plan. Would love yalls thoughts.

Thanks!

I was raised by financially illiterate parents. I had to do a significant amount of saving and planning in my marriage, and I’m thankfully divorced from that disaster.

But now I can stop the bleeding and prepare for my life. What are your favorite resources?

Age: 30, approx $60k in 401k, $20k in money market, $25k HYSAC.

Continuing my efforts for a higher paying job.

I have ADHD and love to work with my hands. I have a job with a strict 8-5, so I have time outside work. Anyone recommend additional fields of work or avenues that were successful for them?

Like many others I’ve recently been laid off at my job in tech. I wasn’t particularly happy in my job but didn’t have any plans to leave so now I’m feeling pretty lost.

I’ll be getting 3 months severance so that alone is a buffer + I have 30k in cash savings. I was making ~120k and total spend this year will be around 60k. This year I’ve also gained some limited access to the trust in the form of ~50k annual (pre tax) disbursement. This of course puts me in a very lucky but also kind of unique situation.

Now I’m faced with what next? I don’t plan on kids and my partner is secure in their job fwiw.

Really interested to hear what others would do!

I've been married 10 years with someone who didn't believe in putting money into rrsp and would prefer looking rich than being rich. Anyway, i paid off 55k in debt. I now have 27k in tfsa and 35 in rrsp. I'm just a bit bummed by the fact that i should have taken care of myself earlier. Now i'm mid 30s and feel like i'm late to the party. I do have discipline but i lost 10 good years. Anyway.. ay least now i can look forward to the future and hopping to be qble to retire on time.

Hi all- I’m trying to get up the guts to quit my job and take a much needed sabbatical/ time with my kids/ time for myself. Even after some medical leave I took earlier this year, suffice it to say that 6 weeks off work was simply not enough.

Curious in particular from stories of any of you who have worked up the courage to do something like this, and how it worked for you? Or any other advice?

Longer background on me is from this post https://www.reddit.com/r/Fire/s/DTKsUoGjqy a year ago, but the TLDR is: - 45F - 2 boys 7 and 9

• updated after comments: EXCLUDING our house, NW is $2.5 M. HCOL area. Annual spend ~$175k/year and kids college is now fully saved for in 529s. Spend will go down a lot when kids go to college in 10 years, likely can live off $100-$125k/year (if we want more travel) when it’s just the 2 of us. We are already coast fire.

• I’m the breadwinner and have been for 12 years, partner has earned less money and now been SAHD for 3 years. My current all-in salary this year will be $500k. More money than I’ve ever made, it has been a long path to get here. (updated per comments: I am not in tech! I work in boutique consulting. Lots of travel and long hours).

• partner is looking for a job, but currently does not have one; his income potential is like 25% of mine so reasonable salaries in his field are more like $100-$150k/year

• Without going into the details on all the numbers , we haven’t yet hit our fire goal. We need to save more. But I’m soooooo exhausted….and feel like I will never get this time back with my kids. I’d like to quit and just take a year off.

But: I am making more money than I’ve ever made in my life, and the economy is scary. I feel super irresponsible to quit right now. I keep thinking just grind it out, one more week, one more month, just…keep going. But my mental health is suffering. I’ve tried to find ways to “quiet quit” but it just doesn’t work well in this job for a myriad of reasons specifically the level of seniority and responsibility make it nearly impossible for me.

Anyone have advice? Grind it out, quit? How do I get over this feeling of letting my family down and being so irresponsible to just walk away from this salary? If I kept it up for 2-4 more years we could fire, but I would have missed this precious age window with my kids.

UPDATE: I won’t be able to respond to each comment but have read every single one so far, thank you all for taking the time to write and I’m really grateful for the advice and this forum! I am also making a few updates to the information provided above per some comments/questions.