Hey Everybody. Somewhat new to this forum, but have been kicking around the FIRE concept the past few years. Something struck a nerve when a close family friend died 6 months after retiring at age 63. It made me question things...
About me: Married 35 y/o with 3 kids (11,9,5). Wife is SHM, but we’ve been talking about having her work part-time starting this fall while kids are in school to accelerate our plan (hopefully adds another $500/month after taxes).
Why do I want FIRE:
Grew up without very much money, and have been in debt my entire adult life. I love my job, but want to do other things in life.
Balance Sheet
Income:
$125K as Software Developer
401K: I add $20K/year with my contribution (min % up to match), employer match and employer ‘pension’ payment.
Assets:
401K: $270K
Pension: $20K (grows at 30 year rate [2%?]). Can cash it out when I leave company…
House: $210K
Bank account: $5K
Liabilities:
Mortgage: $150K
Student Loans: $36K
No Car Payments!
My Initial Though Process:
I was looking over my budget and removed all debt payments(which should be gone when I’m retired: Student Loans, Mortgage[P+I], Life Insurance] it comes to around $40K/year. I added a little bit extra and rounded it to $48K (4K/month). I probably could be fine with $36K/year, but why not live a little.
If I use the 4% SWR, I need $1.2M in investable assets to ‘retire’.
If I work until Age 60 and fund my 401K and fully fund a Roth IRA($11K/year) I’ll have:
401K: $1.8M
Roth: $520K
Total: $2.3M (In Todays $) (all assumptions are using 0.05% after inflation yearly growth rate)
From my standpoint this is very inefficient to continue working after I have $1.2M (plus some safety net).
After looking into FIRE I realized I can have access to my 401K money earlier than 59 1/2 if I do a Roth IRA Ladder. So I looked at it from the other side. What’s the minimum amount of time I need to obtain $1.2M in assets? This isn’t technically correct because it all can’t be in 401K. I will need some Taxable $ to sustain us until Roth IRA ladder is 5 years deep.
If I just fund 401K and Roth IRA I will hit $1.2M in 2032 when I’m 51.
My Current Game Plan is this:
Questions:
About me: Married 35 y/o with 3 kids (11,9,5). Wife is SHM, but we’ve been talking about having her work part-time starting this fall while kids are in school to accelerate our plan (hopefully adds another $500/month after taxes).
Why do I want FIRE:
Grew up without very much money, and have been in debt my entire adult life. I love my job, but want to do other things in life.
Balance Sheet
Income:
$125K as Software Developer
401K: I add $20K/year with my contribution (min % up to match), employer match and employer ‘pension’ payment.
Assets:
401K: $270K
Pension: $20K (grows at 30 year rate [2%?]). Can cash it out when I leave company…
House: $210K
Bank account: $5K
Liabilities:
Mortgage: $150K
Student Loans: $36K
No Car Payments!
My Initial Though Process:
I was looking over my budget and removed all debt payments(which should be gone when I’m retired: Student Loans, Mortgage[P+I], Life Insurance] it comes to around $40K/year. I added a little bit extra and rounded it to $48K (4K/month). I probably could be fine with $36K/year, but why not live a little.
If I use the 4% SWR, I need $1.2M in investable assets to ‘retire’.
If I work until Age 60 and fund my 401K and fully fund a Roth IRA($11K/year) I’ll have:
401K: $1.8M
Roth: $520K
Total: $2.3M (In Todays $) (all assumptions are using 0.05% after inflation yearly growth rate)
From my standpoint this is very inefficient to continue working after I have $1.2M (plus some safety net).
After looking into FIRE I realized I can have access to my 401K money earlier than 59 1/2 if I do a Roth IRA Ladder. So I looked at it from the other side. What’s the minimum amount of time I need to obtain $1.2M in assets? This isn’t technically correct because it all can’t be in 401K. I will need some Taxable $ to sustain us until Roth IRA ladder is 5 years deep.
If I just fund 401K and Roth IRA I will hit $1.2M in 2032 when I’m 51.
My Current Game Plan is this:
- Work full-time the next 11 1/2 years (until 2029)
401K balance at end: $788K
Roth balance at end: $175K ($121K in contributions)
Debt free, House paid for, 3 months Emergency Fund
*Need to save $197K ($150K + $35K + $12K)
*Think it works out to an extra $530 above my current Mortgage and Student Loan payment.
Fund some College for kids
$800/month split between kids will give them $35K when college age - Work part-time the next 3 years(2029-2031) (just cover expenses and let investments grow a little more), while starting Roth IRA Ladder @$48K/year
- Retire in 2032 @51 (Will have 29/30 Social Security years)
*Live off Roth IRA Ladder
*Continue Roth IRA Transfers
*Hopefully won't need SS payments
Questions:
- Is $750K really enough money to do a $48K/year Roth IRA Ladder for 20-25 years?
*Excel PV function tells me it is: ‘=PV(0.04, 25, 48000)’ - It’s hard to run this scenario in FireCalc. Does anyone have any advice? I run a close scenario as best I can and it comes up with 100% success rate. I’ll try backing down the years and see if I can takes years off while staying above 96%
- What investment allocation should I be looking at in my 401K? Currently I think it's like this (Invested in funds with pretty low fees):
* 50% US Stock (mix of all categories: growth, income, value, small, medium, large-cap, tech)
* 35% Foreign Stocks
* 10% Emerging Markets
* 5% Aggressive Bonds - Big unknown is kids college. Will definitely steer them to start at a cheaper 2 year school and transfer out. Looking to relocate to a state with much better public college system. My wife loves UVA (In-State tuition is only $15K!). I’m not a huge fan of the current private education system. I went into a lot of debt and didn’t get much financial help/advice from my parents. One line of thought I had is to retire as soon as possible to try and maximize financial aid, don’t know how realistic that is(son graduates highschool in 6 years) or if it would amount to much savings since I'd be transferring $48K/year.