Financial Independence Weekly “Help Me FIRE!” thread. Post your detailed information for highly specific advice. - February 03, 2020

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• Weekly “Help Me FIRE!” thread. Post your detailed information for highly specific advice. - February 03, 2020
• Daily FI discussion thread - February 03, 2020
• Art to tech FIRE in 12 years
• Weekly FI Monday Milestone thread - February 03, 2020
• KPIs of Life
• Rebalancing spreadsheets by Brock Stamper
• Best Post FIRE careers

Weekly “Help Me FIRE!” thread. Post your detailed information for highly specific advice. - February 03, 2020 Posted: 02 Feb 2020 10:10 PM PST Need help applying broader FIRE principles to your own situation? We're here for you! Post your detailed personal "case study" and ask as many questions as you like, or help others who've done the same. Not sure if your questions pertain? Post them anyway…you might be surprised. It'll be helpful to use our suggested format. Simply copy/paste/fill in/etc. But since everybody's situation is different, feel free to tailor your layout to your needs. -Introduce yourself -Age / Industry / Location -General goals -Target FIRE Age / Amount / Withdrawal Rate / Location -Educational background and plans -Career situation and plans -Current and future income breakdown, including one-time events -Budget breakdown -Asset breakdown, including home, cars, etc. -Debt breakdown -Health concerns -Family: current situation / future plans / special needs / elderly parents -Other info -Questions? submitted by /u/AutoModerator [link] [comments]

Daily FI discussion thread - February 03, 2020 Posted: 03 Feb 2020 12:10 AM PST Please use this thread to have discussions which you don't feel warrant a new post to the sub. While the Rules for posting questions on the basics of personal finance/investing topics are relaxed a little bit here, the rules against memes/spam/self-promotion/excessive rudeness/politics still apply! Have a look at the FAQ for this subreddit before posting to see if your question is frequently asked. Since this post does tend to get busy, consider sorting the comments by "new" (instead of "best" or "top") to see the newest posts. submitted by /u/AutoModerator [link] [comments]

Art to tech FIRE in 12 years Posted: 03 Feb 2020 08:24 AM PST Well folks. I find myself suddenly financially independent. The run-up in stocks this past year and a lucky liquidation event has allowed me to hit my number faster than I thought was possible. Thank you to everyone in this sub for helping and inspiring me over the years. I've lurked here for long enough and I want to share my story for FIREees(?) of the future. ______ THE JOURNEY TO FIRE Link to graph I can't figure out how to upload ​ 2008 — EARNINGS: $5,000. NET WORTH: -$20,000. Let's start from rock bottom. I taught traditional art classes and worked odd jobs for less than minimum wage. Luckily my parents paid for most of my education. 2009 — EARNINGS: $6,000. NET WORTH: -$19,000. My first internship! I was pumped even though it was drudge work the full time folks didn't want to do. 2010 — EARNINGS: $8,000. NET WORTH: -$17,000. I freelanced and it crushed my soul. I made two dollars an hour for mostly terrible clients. One called at 2am to yell at me and I wasn't sorry when his company shut down. 2011 — EARNINGS: $12,000. NET WORTH: -$14,000. My first real art job! Sadly only for the summer. I also freelanced but couldn't line up any jobs for the next year. I realized I hated depending on art for money. 2012 — EARNINGS: $31,000. NET WORTH: -$1,000. After hundreds of applications to "creative" jobs, a tech startup hired me (my only job offer). Flush with cash, I treated my family to dinner, bought some fancy art books, and paid off most of my student loans. Then I got laid off. 2013 — EARNINGS: $62,000. NET WORTH: $20,000. After intense hustling, I landed a job via my old manager visiting an agency that referred me to a startup (so bizarre). My dad told me to save in my 401k so I maxed it out and continued to do so every year. 2014 — EARNINGS: $88,000. NET WORTH: $65,000. I worked like crazy and got a raise and a bonus! I saved all my money in the bank until a friend told me about investing. Work felt tedious so I applied to grad school for art. 2015 — EARNINGS: $93,000. NET WORTH: $115,000. I rejected art school to work in consulting. The work was impactful and creative but also toxic and demanding. After my first vacation I didn't want to go back. I learned about FIRE through wistful googling. 2016 — EARNINGS: $95,000. NET WORTH: $175,000. I read about investing and realized I was doing it wrong. I maxed out my IRA and HSA, and made my portfolio all index funds. Work got worse: 70+ hour weeks and a manager who made me feel like the worst creative on the planet. 2017 — EARNINGS: $230,000. NET WORTH: $604,000. I got married and we combined finances! They had ~$200k savings + $100k salary. I successfully negotiated for a job that paid $150k. 2018 — EARNINGS: $262,000. NET WORTH: $667,000. My new manager rocked and I never worked more than 40 hours a week. Unfortunately the year ended with a bad health event that rocked me. 2019 — EARNINGS: $282,000. NET WORTH: $1,055,000. I accepted an offer from a huge tech company for a stupidly high salary of $250k. It took 8 months of interviewing and negotiation. 2020 — EXPECTED EARNINGS: $420,000. CURRENT NET WORTH: $1,203,000. We had a baby! It's been immensely satisfying seeing my child grow every day. I was shocked find out my stocks at an old employer become worth a lot. I didn't count them in prior years. We'll make a disgusting amount of money this year. Counting my lucky stars. ______ RANDOM REFLECTIONS I've been very lucky. I grew up as a poor immigrant and everything I have now feels so fancy. My relatives overseas are still farmers and use outhouses. They work hard for very little and their kids are their retirement. This would have been me if my parents didn't dare to dream bigger. The skill that transferred over from art was getting joy from the creative process. Even in the most terrible of jobs the hours would fly by when I had an interesting challenge to focus on. I'm really looking forward to creating non-digital things and learning how to use my hands again. If I could tell my younger self anything it would be: don't let your job define you. I thought I failed as an artist, I beat myself up for not succeeding in consulting. No! My job is a tool to get to where I want to be. I see colleagues and friends stressing out and bending over backwards to be better employees, and I am thankful I don't need to do this. Throughout my career I invested in myself. I developed niche skills in a huge growing market. I asked for payment in classes and education when salary was low. The setbacks I thought were terrible at the time helped me get ahead. If I wasn't so bad at making money as an artist, I wouldn't have gone into tech. The consulting job that burned me pushed me to discover FIRE (ba-dum ching). Overall, our budget has held steady at ~$45k with inflation over the past few years even with luxuries like eating out when we feel like and traveling around the world. FIRE mentality has helped me zero in on what I value the most. When I think about dollars buying freedom, suddenly all the stuff and experiences others want me to buy feel like a burden and distraction. ______ GOING FORWARD I plan to work another year to reduce sequence of return risk. If things hold steady I should be at 3.25% withdrawal rate. My mom asked me why I don't work for even longer. Well at that amount of money I have a WAY higher chance of dying than my money running out. I can't buy more life with more money. You can't put a price on spending time with your kid, exploring a beautiful new city, eating a home cooked meal with loved ones. I still work on art projects as a hobby (or at least I did before baby) and I want to do more once I quit my corporate job. They've made a few thousand each year so I suppose that's my insurance in case the market crashes or health costs blow up. More importantly, it's something that I love to do and adds joy to the world. My rough plan: Optimize our last year of earning. Fill up the 401k, HSA, tIRA for me and my partner and get that sweet matching bonus + tax deduction. Enjoy big company benefits like massage chairs and free food. Get medical and dental things out of the way. Get TWO pairs of new glasses because I'm petty. Go on COBRA which buys me 1.5 years to figure out how to insure my family Maintain $45k annual expenses and cut during leaner years. It wouldn't be too hard to get down to ~$37k if we stopped traveling internationally and cooked more. For withdrawal, set dividends to not reinvest. Take the rest of expenses from the taxable funds on quarterly basis Convert company stocks to index funds and convert 401k -> traditional IRA and build a Roth Ladder. Do this as fast as possible without incurring taxes. Make a YOLO purchase of a fancy professional camera, the kind I dreamed about owning as an art student. Secondhand of course, I'm not fatFIRE :P We'll likely move out of our VHCOL area, hang with parents for a bit, then... travel around the world, build our own house, start a company? We don't know yet. It's a lot harder figuring out what to do with your life than what to do with your money. At least there are somewhat objective answers for the second. Luckily we'll have plenty of time for soul searching. ______ If you're still there thanks for reading through this giant wall of text. I hope it's helpful. There's probably something that I'm missing or wrong about so I'm eager to hear what you think. TLDR; artist turned techie retiring back to art, still working out the details. submitted by /u/artist_FIRE [link] [comments]

Weekly FI Monday Milestone thread - February 03, 2020 Posted: 03 Feb 2020 12:10 AM PST Please use this thread to post your milestones, humblebrags and status updates which you don't feel warrant a new post to the sub. While the Rules for posting questions on the basics of personal finance/investing topics are relaxed a little bit here, the rules against memes/spam/self-promotion/excessive rudeness/politics still apply! Since this post does tend to get busy, consider sorting the comments by "new" (instead of "best" or "top") to see the newest posts. submitted by /u/AutoModerator [link] [comments]

KPIs of Life Posted: 03 Feb 2020 06:27 AM PST In the FIRE community we get used to measuring certain metrics (e.g. swr, nw). NW in particular, is what we start binding our identities to as our work-identity recedes. The following article made me think about things that I'm not measuring today, but that ultimately are more important to bind my identity to than the easily countable. https://hbr.org/2010/07/how-will-you-measure-your-life What are your metrics for living a good life? Any suggestions welcome. I wonder if applying my analytical and tracking skills to different metrics will get me as focused on what's important as I have been on my portfolios, dividends, and spending. submitted by /u/firechoice85 [link] [comments]

Rebalancing spreadsheets by Brock Stamper Posted: 03 Feb 2020 03:54 PM PST I've been looking at this YouTuber's rebalancing spreadsheet tutorial (https://www.youtube.com/user/brockstamper/videos?disable_polymer=1) and wondering if anyone has been able to download his documents in the past? I've signed up for the newsletter so I can get the downloads, but they never came through now several days later. I would make my own, but his are much more intricate and developed than I would be able to make on my own. I've started following the WCI's portfolio-rebalancing tutorial but again, the end result is not nearly as functional as this YouTuber's. Furthermore, I've looked at many other downloads available online and everything I've come across is either too bare or much too complex. If you have one of your own that you think is up to par, I'd love to see it! Thank you in advance! (Sorry if you already saw my post on r/personalfinance, I realized this community is much bigger) submitted by /u/Schnittty [link] [comments]

Best Post FIRE careers Posted: 03 Feb 2020 10:31 AM PST Just wondering what this subs thoughts are on your dream post FIRE careers/jobs. I'm thinking of jobs that you do purely for the enjoyment/fulfillment without concern for compensation. It would also need to have a relatively low entry point in terms of degrees/qualifications needed, no professional degrees required. Any recommendations for myself would also be appreciated. I plan to be FI within 10 years at about 40 yo. I am currently a gov employee with a BS in electrical engineering. I would enjoy low stress/ low responsibility, but still able to have an impact on people's lives. Some of my thoughts are: High school sports coach/ guidance counselor Life coach submitted by /u/RexMorganDO [link] [comments]

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