The Milestones of FI

**Update 7/17: The Milestones of FI is now a featured episode of the ChooseFI podcast! We elaborate on the content of this article, and discuss a few additional milestones as well. Check it out here.**

When my wife and I first discovered the financial independence community, we were beyond excited. We binged through the Mr. Money Mustache blog together, implementing all the changes he recommended as quickly as possible. We read every FI book we could get our hands on. We began carefully tracking our expenses, and optimized everything we could think of. We were, to put it simply, obsessed. After a few short months, our course correction was complete, and for the first time in our lives, we were speeding in the right direction to achieve true financial freedom.

And then… there was a bit of a lull. The cruise control was set, and so the excitement faded. “What do we do now?” I remember thinking to myself. I continued reading and absorbing as much information on financial independence as I could, but the big stuff was already taken care of. By the end of the year, I could feel my inner ten-year-old impatiently asking “Are we there yet!? Are we there yet!?”

It took another year or two before I truly understood that financial independence is actually a journey, not a destination. This then begs the question, “Where exactly am I on this journey?” It can take a decade or two to reach FI, so it’s important to occasionally zoom out and know where you are, so you can keep motivated and stay on course. Seeing the big picture also allows you to confidently pause your journey when ‘life happens’ without feeling like you’re moving backwards or giving up. So, I began searching the FI community to see if others had written more about this idea.

Jonathan and Brad, who I met at Camp Mustache earlier this year, have an excellent podcast episode about the ‘Pilars of FI’, which gives a blueprint for how to systematically progress on your FI journey. JD Roth and Joshua Sheets, who I also met at Camp Mustache, wrote great articles on the various ‘Stages of FI’ over at Money Boss and Radical Personal Finance. This concept is powerful, because it reinforces that financial independence is more than a simple destination, which is usually a surprise to those new to the FI community. Matt over at the Distilled Dollar discusses the ‘Phases of FI’, which frames financial independence as an ever-changing lifestyle.

So we have the ‘stages’, ‘phases’, and ‘pillars’ of financial independence, which tell us both where we're headed and how to get there. But how do we know where we are right now? What are the most common milestones we all cross on this journey, and when do we reach them? To answer these questions, you’ll need to first figure out your FI number.

What’s Your Number?

Mr. Money Mustache has an excellent post explaining how to easily calculate your annual spending. If you’re serious about making it to FI, you really need to know your specific expenses. For example, my wife and I are aiming towards annual spending of about $25,000.00 (we’re not quite there yet, but each year we carefully track our expenses and make budget improvements that get us a bit closer to that number). If our expenses seems small, keep in mind it assumes a paid off house, and absolutely zero dollars per year spent on interest.

To calculate your number, simply multiply your annual expenses by 25. For us, that’s $25,000.00 * 25 = $625,000.00. This number represents the total portfolio value needed to passively cover all annual expenses, forever, assuming the 4% rule inferred from the Trinity study. Note that this number is NOT the same as net worth: it doesn’t include the value of a primary residence, or other non-income generating assets.

I like to think of it like this: I need to save $625,000.00 to purchase a magic money making machine that will print me $25,000.00 checks, once per year, every year, forever. The laws of thermodynamics may forbid perpetual motion machines, but luckily there’s no law of finance that prevents perpetual money machines!

There’s only one catch: This magic money printing machine, which costs $625,000.00 to build, cannot be purchased on credit. It’s cash-only, I’m afraid! This means that your journey to FI might take a little while. If you have a 50% savings rate, for example, it will take you ten to fifteen years to reach your number. To help keep you motivated on your journey, let’s discuss the milestones of FI you’ll pass along the way.

FU Money

The first significant milestone on your journey to FI is saving up your FU Money. As we discussed in our previous post, FU Money is the cash you need on hand to feel confident enough to walk away from your employer for a year or two, should the need arise. The specific dollar amount you need will depend on your expenses and risk tolerance. For the wife and I, it was around 10% of our FI number, or roughly $60,000.00. FU money is different than your typical emergency fund, which you might already have. An emergency fund is designed to cover your most essential bills for three to six months in case of emergency. It's usually liquid, either in a checking, savings, or money market account.

FU money, in contrast, is a much more luxurious concept. You'll want to save enough to cover one or two years of regular (not just essential) expenses. This money doesn’t have to be as liquid as an emergency fund- it can be a percentage of your investment portfolio of stocks, bonds, or real estate, for example. With this milestone completed, you can walk away from your employer whenever necessary, because you'll have at least a year or two saved up to find another job, at your leisure. The confidence this brings is what makes FU money so powerful.

We actually had FU money saved up at the very start of our FI journey in 2014. Even with our previously outrageous six figure annual expenses, the wife and I thankfully still contributed to our 401Ks, giving us this FI jump-start.

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Take a look at the chart I created above (you can click it for a full size version). Here, I've plotted portfolio value (in multiples of annual expenses) on the vertical axis, and time (relatively speaking, of course) on the horizontal. This chart is idealized, and assumes continuously smooth market growth, which of course isn't realistic. Your journey will be much bumpier… but will average out the same in the end. The idea here is to see a rough map of the journey to FI, and where the milestones lie along the way.

Half FI

When you save up half your FI number, a celebration is in order: You're now ‘half FI’! For the wife and I, this milestone was $312,500.00, which we passed in April of 2016. Because savings growth isn't linear, the time it takes you to save up this first 50% is noticeably longer than the time it takes you to save the next 50%. You've actually completed significantly more than half of your journey!

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Click for full size

Half FI is also a meaningful milestone for working couples like my wife and I: assuming an even split in your expenses, it’s the point in which your better (and luckier!) half is completely FI. This should give you significant peace of mind, and is the perfect motivation to try new things: perhaps take a new job, go back to school, take a sabbatical, or even reduce your workweek! Buckle your seat belt, though, because the next milestone will be here before you know it.

Lean FI

Lean FI is what my wife and I call the point where you can passively cover all your essential expenses, perpetually. Think food, shelter, and bills. This leaves off all the discretionary frills such as travel, eating out at restaurants, Netflix, etc. It wouldn’t be a super fun lifestyle, but you technically could quit work right now and survive forever. I like to think of Lean FI as an emergency fund that can cover infinitely many months of essential expenses.

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Click for full size

The wife and I analyzed our expenses and found that over 30% were discretionary, meaning our Lean FI number is about 70% of our full FI number, or $437,500.00. We just crossed this milestone a few months ago, in February 2017!

Lean FI is a huge milestone*: all your essentials are covered, and you're literally working for the gravy. Don’t like your job? Quit! You have all the time in the world to find a new one that suits you, assuming you live a lean lifestyle during the downtime. Whether you go back to work or not, you and your family can rest easy knowing you'll have food on the table and a roof over your heads for the rest of your lives! This is a great time to start ramping up a side hustle and ramping down full time employment, so you can gradually transition into your awesome FI lifestyle.

You might notice something exciting happen if you track your money close enough around this milestone. For the first time, your dollars could be working harder than you! This crossover point is surreal: I was shocked the first month our portfolio gains were larger than the earned income from our wages. I kept double and triple checking the accounts because I couldn't believe it! This doesn’t happen every month, of course, because the market doesn't always go up. But when it does, it’s quite exciting.

Flex FI

The next milestone along the way is what I like to call flexible FI, or ‘Flex FI’. This milestone comes when you’ve saved 20 times your annual expenses. The idea is that at this milestone, you could potentially pull the early retirement trigger if you're flexible with your annual spending! For those of you with side hustles or a large percentage of discretionary spending in your annual budgets, this is the perfect time to be bold and quit the day to day grind. Starting an annual draw here is equivalent to following a 5% safe withdrawal rate, which, according to the Trinity study, has an 82% chance of success, even if you are completely inflexible with your withdrawals.

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Click for full size

Indeed, the 4% rule is overly conservative most of the time. In fact, if you study the tables, you’ll see that over 50% of sample portfolios end up with over twice the desired principal in the end. Which means that half the time, you have more money than you need, and could have safely pulled more than 4%. According to J.L. Collins:

“The authors of the study suggest you can withdraw up to 7% as long as you remain alert and flexible. That is, if the market takes a huge dive, cut back on your withdrawals and spending until it recovers.”

The Flex FI milestone, therefore, highlights an important concept: you can retire early BEFORE reaching the traditional FI milestone. As Mr. Money Mustache has alluded to a few times on his blog, the RE component of FIRE is dependent more on your personal risk tolerance and financial flexibility than it is on any specific number in your accounts. This should bring you an added sense of confidence and control when planning your early retirement. As long as you watch your portfolio carefully over the years, there’s not much to fear. Your worst case scenario, after all, is everyone else’s every day scenario: you go back to work.

The wife and I may exercise this option if a 20% ‘market adjustment’ strikes right as we're getting ready to pull the early retirement trigger, which is looking more and more likely. We'll need to have $25,000.00 x 20 = $500,000.00 invested in our portfolio in order to reach this milestone, which we are on track to accomplish this summer!

Get ready: The next milestone is the big one, and it’s coming up fast!

Financial Independence

You made it! You’ve reached financial independence. You’ve saved up 25 times your annual expenses, and with a little flexibility**, you can safely draw 4% on your portfolio, forever!

On Monday morning, if you decide to go to work, it's completely optional. You don’t need the money. You've finally attained the elusive ‘enough’ mentioned at length in ‘Your Money or Your Life’. What do you do now? Anything you want! Keep working if you like your job. Or retire early, whenever the mood strikes. Maybe work part-time on a favorite side hustle, or start working unpaid volunteer work. Whatever is meaningful to you, that’s what you should spend your time doing!

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Click for full size

Your journey isn’t over though – far from it! Financial independence is just another milestone along the way. If you decide to keep working, your dollars are going to keep working too, earning more money faster than you can spend it. But if you decide to quit, your dollars will still keep working so you don’t have to!

The wife and I need to save up $25,000.00 x 25 = $625,000.00 in our investment portfolio to reach this milestone. At our current pace, we're expecting to cross this major milestone somewhere in the first quarter of 2018! If the markets make a 20% ‘correction’, as I suspect they might, this could push us back a few months, but as we discussed earlier, the Flex FI milestone is still there for us to fall back on.

Our plan right now is a bit of a hybrid: I’m planning on diving into early retirement as soon as we reach our FI number, while the wife is interested in a more gradual transition, reducing her hours and wading slowly into the early retirement waters. With this approach, we’ll be well positioned to weather any upcoming recession, saving up a nice safety cushion along the way.

Remember that this milestone is inherently tied to the 4% rule. In our post ‘How Long Will You Work’, I discuss how this rule came to be, and why it’s a great starting place for your FI planning. But some people might want to save up more of a safety margin, particularly those who don’t have side hustles or are less flexible in their annual spending. For those of you, the next FI milestone is just around the corner.

FAT FI

When you save up 30 times your annual expenses, you’ve reached what I like to call ‘FAT FI'. For those with very low risk tolerances, Fat FI provides a comfortable 3.33% safe withdrawal rate, which is, according to J.L. Collins, “as near a sure bet as anything in this life can be.” This milestone is essentially 120% of the financial independence number you’d calculate based upon the 4% rule.

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Click for full size

To achieve this milestone, the wife and I would have to save up $25,000.00 x 30 = $750,000.00 in our investment portfolio. If we both continued earning at our current pace, and the markets remained somewhat stable, we would need to add on an extra year of work past FI to cross this milestone.

While some people may value the reduced risk, I’m not very happy with my career, so I’ll be pulling the early retirement trigger far before FAT FI. With side hustles in place, I’m sure our savings will one day cross the 30x expenses line, but I'm not going to sit around in a cubicle and wait for it!

Summary

The milestones above are just some of the many you’ll encounter on your journey to financial independence. For the wife and I, these are the landmarks on the trail that keep us motivated and on course. They allow us to look back at where we’ve been, and look forward to our next achievement. Each time we cross a new milestone, we pick up a bottle of Aldi champagne and celebrate being that much closer to our goals!

These financial landmarks make it clear that FI itself isn’t a specific number in your bank account, but rather just another milestone on your financial journey. With this in mind, retiring early can be decoupled from financial independence, and executed at any of the milestones in the second half of the the journey.

For example, you could retire when you reach the lean FI milestone, if you're willing to cut out discretionary spending. This could be a great choice if you don’t like your day job and want to focus on starting a side hustle, for example. Or, if you like your work, you could push early retirement back a few milestones and enjoy more gravy on your financial potatoes. Perhaps you'll take a break from work at the flex FI milestone, then go back part-time doing something fun a few years later. The choice is yours, and the possibilities are endless.

Over in the sidebar, I’ve added a countdown to our financial independence date, currently only 7 months away! This isn’t necessarily the date we’ll stop working- it’s just a best guess of when we’ll hit 25x our annual expenses in our passive investment portfolio. Of course, this is a moving target, so I’ll correct it from time to time as needed, and post updates here on the blog when I do.

I hope sharing these financial milestones keeps you motivated on your journey. Before you know it, you’ll be crossing them off at breakneck speed- just remember to slow down and smell the roses every once and a while. The journey is more important than the destination.

Where are you on your journey?

 

*Note that, in our chart, that the lean and flex FI milestones are pretty close together. This may look a bit different for you, depending on what percentage of your annual spending is discretionary. While flex FI will always line up with 20x your annual spending, the lean FI milestone may vary a bit on your financial map.

**Actually, you don’t need that much flexibility when following the 4% rule. You know that 96% success rate everyone quotes? That assumes a 50/50 stock bond split. Increase your allocation of stocks to a more reasonable 75%, and the success rate hits 100%. Check out the tables in the Trinity study, or pg. 213 of The Simple Path to Wealth for details.


Interested in starting your own Financial 180? You've come to the right place. The math is easy: create a gap between what you earn, and what you spend. If you can save half your income, your working career will only be around a decade long! Want to shorten it even more? Read on to see exactly what expenses the wife and I cut from month to month. Track your progress against the milestones of FI, and gradually build up your own savings snowball. Check out the books and links in our resources section and jump-start your journey to FI. The you ten years from now will be glad you did! Ready? Start here.

Published by

Joel

Blogging about our dramatic financial turnaround as we approach Financial Independence!



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96 thoughts on “The Milestones of FI”

    1. That IS a huge milestone! PC is persistent, too- they still leave me a voicemail every month.

      There’s so many more I wanted to include… This article only scratches the surface. My goal was to give some these major milestones names, to help show FI as a spectrum instead of single number.

      1. After the first voice mail, I e-mailed my “advisor” and stated I was only interested in using PC for the aggregating tool. They still try to upsell me on the actual website, but I don’t care about that.

        He stopped calling.

  1. I think your descriptions of the milestones highlights a really important mental piece of the puzzle in working towards FI which is the abundance attitude (rather than a scarcity mindset). MMM is great at that, too. The scarcity trap that I fall into sometimes is thinking: ugh I still need to save XX thousand dollars, and I better not lose my job or it’ll push back my FI date. While the abundance view is what you illustrate: hit half FIRE? hit lean Fire? You’ve already got so much flexibility and freedom at this point and you’ve given yourself so many options, it’s a cause for celebration!

    Definitely a lesson I keep relearning while on this journey!

    1. This is a great way of looking at things.

      So many people think of FI as a binary state: “$999,999 – Oh no- I’m not FI yet. I have none of the benefits FI brings. $1,000,000 – Hooray! I am FI! Now I have all the power!” :-p

      It’s not a step function. Every milestone on the journey gives you that much more control, opening up more and more doors to transition into just the life you want.

  2. Ha, we love the time axis, well done! We’re crossing Flex FI and plan to move into Fat FI over the next few years. This satisfies our conservative nature and will give us the ultimate flexibility we may need (healthcare), want (travel), or desire (giving back). We’re also not planning on side hustle income, but that would provide a significant layer of cushion to not draw down and conserve the portfolio.

    1. So exciting that you guys are already at Flex FI – congratulations! It does sound like FAT FI is the right fit for you two… just make sure you don’t wait until that milestone to start living like you’re FI!

  3. Excellent summary and I appreciate the phases, stages and pillars to a high degree. I’m amazed how you are targeting to keep your annual expenses to $25K. I’ve been tracking my expenses for last 18 years and $25K is my core spend which does not include health insurance. The FAT FI sounds more fun, and since I enjoy my current job 80% of the time, this is my target. I have my count down run on an iPhone App and has become my zero G escape velocity date. I look forward to follow your progress.
    BTW, I referenced your “Power of FU Money” in one of my recent blogs. The x-ray image is nearly as awesome as the video clip.

    1. Thanks for linking to the blog! Quite envious that you enjoy your job the majority of the time… I’ve switched jobs numerous times, but I’m in a career I just don’t enjoy at all. Money’s good though, so I’m slogging through for now.

  4. I’m somewhere in that long period in the middle, which feels like a slog, so these milestones are helpful! I feel like FI is still so far away that I’m not yet sure what our ideal life will look like at that point and therefore what our actual FI number is. This is a good reminder, though, that every step along the way brings more and more freedom!

    1. The wait between FU money and half FI is a long one… I should have added a few more milestones there! Becoming debt free and Quarter FI are two significant ones that come to mind.

      Once you get your expenses down, it’s ok to use the annual expenses in your working years as an estimate of your expenses in FI. It usually ends up providing you with a nice safety buffer, because expenses tend to go down when you quit the 9 to 5!

  5. Hi Joel,
    I am starting on the FI journey myself and binge reading all the wonderful blogs out there. Loved reading this post of yours.

    I never thought about milestones. I guess this is something I need to factor into my framework.

  6. I heard this today on the ChooseFI podcast.

    Such great original content and adding more value to FI community, rather than the same old.

    Great thinking, great post, well done mate.

    1. Thanks Tom! I was inspired by JD Roth and Joshua Sheets when they discussed their ‘stages’ of FI, but I wanted something more tangible. Clear markers that I could recognize as I passed by. With 3, 4, and 5 % SWR rates already popular in the community, I decided to just align them up on a graph in terms of multiples of annual expenses. I’m pleased with how well this turned out!

  7. Too bad the machine can’t be purchased with a credit card. I would have the cash in the bank, buy the machine with my credit card, pay the statement in full and get the reward points. I’d imagine $625,000 can get you quite a bit of points 🙂

    1. I always pay my credit cards off in full every month to avoid interest payments… might be tough to do with a bill that large! 😉

  8. This was exactly what I needed to find today, thanks so much for your incredible thoughts on where FI is. I’m currently faced with a difficult dilemma and have been “chopping” my FI# down until it seemed achievable. Coincidentally, your milestones were basically exactly where I had placed mine, but I’ve been feeling anxious about ending my 11 year “career” with my company. However, your concept today has solidified my FI date, and I’m very thankful for that!

    1. Thanks Russell! I think this concept is powerful, because the benefits of FI are gained on a smooth continuum, not at a specific dollar amount. If you take a break from work for a year or two, or take a lower paying job for a few years, you do not go backwards. You don’t lose the benefits you’ve gained along the way! To me this is an important thing to remember to keep a good work-life balance during the working years.

  9. Hey great milestones you outlined below, I play the same game with the wife. We all must celebrate the little wins in life to make things fun. For me I will work until I can allocate a buffer to cover future inflation above expenses. Reason being 25K today is not the same as 25K in 20 years. If the principle doesn’t grow due to the annual withdrawals of 4%, you are stuck with that annual income for life. So FAT FI or a hybrid of that, is a must in my book to account for the increase in prices.

    1. Having an extra buffer is a great idea in general, but you don’t need one to cover the issue of inflation. Inflation is baked in to the 4% rule. Trinity study numbers all take into account inflation for this purpose. Assuming at least 50% stocks in your portfolio, you are already covered!

  10. Great post Joel, I enjoyed reading about the lean FI vs. Fat FI etc. just recently I completed the FU money checkpoint and I have to agree that it is a huge confidence boost. Knowing that if things at work get bad that I don’t HAVE to be there short term is nice.

    I look forward to reading your other posts!

  11. Great breakdown. My family is currently in Lean FI. We have found that the rainbows and butterflies feeling associated with the milestones is fleeting (basically done when the champagne headaches wears off) and not what keeps us motivated to continue on the FI path (as we thought it would be). Chalk it up to hedonic adaptation.

    What we have found is that our confidence has risen with each milestone. Confidence in multiple aspects of life – interacting with employers and employees, getting involved in the church and community, using the power of no, etc. These benefits are the best party of the FU money phase and beyond. Don’t want to do it? Don’t have to!

    1. Thanks! Even though the second half of the journey went nearly twice as fast for us, we’ve still spent the last year in “are we there yet” mode as well. I keep telling myself to enjoy the journey, but the closer we get it seems the less patience we have! 🙂

  12. Great framework! I really like that the milestones you have included also work for international FI.
    We might have to adjust the calculation for each milestone a bit because of tax rules (wealth tax can be a real portfolio drag), but it is so psychologically satisfying to be able to cross some milestones on the way to FI (and fat FI:)

  13. Great article!! This has re-invigorated my focus to keep on the FI journey, I’m updating all of my spreadsheets with these milestones to add some fun along the way to FI (or hopefully Fat FI!).

  14. I fully agree with this article, it made me realize I am 1/3 FI, on my way to half FI hopefully in the next 1/2 years. I would just add the first 100k, it’s definitely an exciting milestone!

  15. Hey I just discovered your blog while listening to your interview on ChooseFI. Love your stuff and plan to binge read through a bunch of these posts. One tentative suggestion not related to anything FI…please come up with a pseudonym for your wife. Or at least consider using “my” when referring to her instead of “the.” Many women cringe when they hear that, and I’m sure you don’t want to turn off your female readers. I know men usually mean no harm, but it can come across as objectifying and demeaning. Just a friendly heads up!

    1. Hey Elizabeth, thanks for the feedback. Here on the blog, I’ve always referred to her as ‘The Wife’, with a capital definite article, as in ‘The Boss’ or ‘The One and Only’, or ‘The Godfather’. It was never intended to be demeaning, and she approves of the alias. We discuss this in more detail in our interview together here: https://fi180.com/2018/04/12/interview-with-the-wife/

  16. Great post and congrats on your FI journey so far! I really like the graphs you used in this article and think it would be really inspiring to create one for our journey also. Would you be willing to share how you created it or share a copy of it? Regards!

    1. Hey Brian, if you click a graph, a larger, high-quality version should open up in a new window. From there you can manipulate it however you like. If you want to create your own, you can do so in Excel. I believe I assumed 8% growth rate and constant contributions to keep the math simple. Enjoy!

  17. Really enjoyed reading this article. As I was reading along I was doing the calculations with my own figures as I went. Apparently I’m at FlexFI.
    My aim is for FatFI before I pull the pin. Being single, I don’t have the safety net of another potential income to fall back on if times turn tough, so I figure the extra year or two of working before I retire will be worth it for the peace of mind. Fortunately, I still enjoy teaching!

    1. If you’re at FlexFI now, the remainder of the journey will go by quickly! Glad to hear you enjoy teaching. Maybe you’ll consider going down to part-time, doing substitute work, or something similar now that you don’t need as much money? I think easing off the W2 income is a great transition strategy. Good luck and congrats on your progress so far.

  18. I also found you through a ChooseFI podcast. Your definition of the pillars of FI resonate with me the most. I’m using them to create a simple visual to put on the wall, to serve as a reminder to celebrate my achievement of Half FI and as motivation to get to the next levels. Thanks for all you do.

    1. Glad the milestones are helping keep you motivated! Great idea putting visuals up on the wall, a great way to remind you of your goals every time you see it. Good luck on your journey, let us know when you reach Half FI!

  19. Hi Joel! Awesome info, thank you! New to FI, totally obsessed, got here through ChooseFI podcast. You mentioned that FU money doesn’t have to be liquid, but what if emergency happens? Am I selling my stocks, or would you recommend to have a separate emergency fund that is more liquid?
    Huge thanks!!! Just subscribed to your blog, you got yourself a new fan! 🙂

      1. Just saw your comments – glad you found the emergency fund episode! The wife and I do have a separate savings account with a few thousand dollars in it, just in case, but it’s really a personal preference how much, if any, to keep liquid… I should probably write a whole article on going through the motions on drawing from, and (more importantly) replenishing, the emergency fund. Hope you are enjoying the blog!

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  21. Good write up and summary of the FI community thinking. Similarly to you, I used to spend a tonne before becoming a self taught believer of being FI. I don’t know exactly but my spending used to hover between 100-150k a year. I inherently already spent on amazing experiences like socialising, traveling, sports, spending time with my family (I was a SINK), but it wasn’t very focused and I had a tonne of discretionary spend on ‘stuff’. Frugality was and still is a mostly unknown word in my vocabulary. At 34 I took a break from corporate life and focused on real estate investing my savings to create a passive income stream and completely rewired my brain to learn how to live focused on what I love doing, within an available budget, and saving for income generating assets. Then I discovered FIRE – a community of likeminded people – love it.

  22. I freaking love this, and can’t wait to make my own milestones. We’re just two years into our FI journey and haven’t felt any burnout, but I can already tell this is a great way to help keep it at bay. It’s not just growing your net worth, it’s gaining more and more comfort.

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  28. I realized a few months ago when I stumbled into the FIRE community that I have FI covered at the 4% and 3.33% withdrawal rates. Given the doomsday predictions of low yields/dividends/secular bear market/etc., I am now going for Paranoid FI of saving 50x annual expenses for a 2% withdrawal rate. Looks like a year more of the corporate grind. Wish me luck. 🙂

  29. Long time reader, first time poster.

    Our FI journey is going well but am struggling with the exact amount needed for FI. In the past 5 years, our average spending has been around 20k per year (and this is with purchasing a new car – I know, terrible mistake). So, I was originally aiming for 500k for full FI, but have been wondering how the sporadic large-expenses are factored in. For example, we will need to eventually replace the roof in our house, car replacement, furnace/ac replacement, etc. Also, the dreaded healthcare costs (although my plan is to get healthcare subsidies on the ACA).

    I am thinking of adding a 20% bonus to my number and call it a day. We are actually sitting right around 520k right now, so a few more years is my goal (can save roughly 60k per year).

    How does anyone accurately project some of these very long-term large expenses? Just my 2 cents.

    1. Hey Chris, we’ve handled this by factoring in a few extra line items to our FI budget, such as home maintenance, auto maintenance, and miscellaneous. We anticipate a few hundred dollars a month for the unexpected, so this is already baked in to our FI budget. It’s just an estimate; most months we’ll pull zero for this item, but other months, we pull a few thousand for something like an AC unit. Because you don’t want to pull too much too fast right at the start of FI, it can be good to prepare for something like a new roof or similar before you pull the trigger, and set aside an initial cash buffer. Hope this makes helps!

      1. Hello Joel, that makes perfect sense! We are doing the Roth Ladder and will need a bunch of cash anyway for the first few years to start this (which is separate money from the core portfolio). We could potentially use some of this case in case of an unexpected expense. I am thinking of creating an estimated annualized cost for each of these line items and then adding it to the budget. We have lived in the same house for 7 years with hardly any expenses for maintenance but wanted to factor it in. From my understanding, the first few years of FI are a major determining factor in the success of a portfolio. It is interesting to me that our FI number is very similar to what you have described in this post (around 25k with paid off house). Thanks for the reply!

  30. Love this community and so glad I’ve begun investing to becoming Financially independent. Personally I’m not looking to ‘retire’ per say, just want that freedom to work when I want and work on some sort of passion project instead of a job that isn’t enjoyable.

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