How did you FIRE?

[gooddog]

-Got 2 degrees that were in need..and one that wasn't.
-Worked for the government, have pensions from federal and state.
-Wife worked for the government, has a pension.
-Bought several properties cash after the real estate bust - just sold the last of them.
-Some lucky/educated guesses with stocks.
-Owned vacation rental, commercial rentals, and regular rentals.

Basically, working 40+ hours a week in regular gig and working on real estate the rest of the time.

 

[samcat]

We are still working a bit out of our house as bookkeepers but feel like we are FIRE'd. I've gone from working more than full time to almost being able to get all my work done in a couple hours first thing in the morning. I used to go to a baseball game and have 20 work emails by the end of the game. Now I have one or two.

What we did was

- are/were self employed - we are able to take tax deductions that employed people cannot
- definitely lived below our means
- kept track of every penny we spent - since 1992!
- kept our cars for a long time - our cars are from 2008 and 2010
- paid off our house as soon as possible - we paid off our house in 17 years ten years ago.
- lived in our house for almost 28 years - it costs money to move
- chose expense categories that are important to us - we like to eat out and travel - we skipped lots of other expenses like new cars, massages, etc., so we could spend on what was important to us.
- avoided trying to keep up with the Jones - we live in a wealthy area and it would be easy to get sucked into the spend mentality
- married someone with similar saving/spending habits

 

[Koolau]

Staff level scientist, never made a ton of money though decent salary. Saved early, saved often, made lots of investing mistakes - but learned. Don't turn over your money to someone else (a planner or sales person) do it yourself through low-cost mutual funds, etc. LBYM is important in order to be able to save. YMMV

 

[BubbaChris]

I am happy to step forward and volunteer we often did the wrong things. Neither of us had good role models or mentors on financial things. At one point we bought a house with twice the square footage of our perfectly comfortable one. We spent years with our after-tax investment account barely growing because we were thoroughly enjoying our best earning years. My career was unstable, I only held two jobs for longer than 5 years. And when I tried self-employment, it barely covered my car payments.

So I attribute our FIRE status to luck, spunk, and sticking with some good choices. The first was setting a big hairy goal of buying a condo as a single person. A realtor friend of my father took me out looking and I was brought back to reality with what I might be able to buy with my then-current resources. So I bought a softcover book on finances based on Ben Franklin’s wisdom and picked up a some nuggets I put into practice. I tracked every penny I spent and within weeks converted to brown-bag lunches. The lunch habit stuck for more years than not.

Another big lucky nugget came after DW and I were starting to plan our future together. We believed the rumors Social Security would be insolvent by the time we retired. Since we assumed we’d have to self-fund retirement, we built some good habits for tax-deferred saving and making sure a big chunk of any raises went towards that purpose. We also used most bonuses or other windfalls to pay extra principle towards our mortgage.

Anytime my employment came to an unexpected pause, we’d reverse engineer our budget and figure out how much runway our savings provided. Those (too frequent) exercises planted some seeds for LBYM. We also lucked out by staying in the too-big home for 17-years without treating it like an ATM as was trendy right before the Great Recession.

So what really led us to FIRE last year?
A) Moving to a LCOL area 10 years ago, and becoming 100% debt-free in the process.
B) Sticking with our savings/investing plans so time, DCA, and compounding did the heavy lifting.
C) Time things so an 11-year Bull Market changed our status to Coast FI long before I learned anything about FIRE.
D) Having someone on an RV forum share about ACA premium tax credits. That solved the riddle on how to manage healthcare before Medicare.
E) Receive a modest inheritance that will pay for the first five or so years of RE while our investments (hopefully) compound.

I think I'm spending more energy on the non-financial side right now because we didn't plan for this (and I've always stayed the course during down markets). We're embracing the opportunity and grateful to be in this phase of life.

Best regards,
Chris

 

[HarryHawk]

I never planned to FIRE, it just more or less happened on its own. I worked most of my adult life making decent but not great money. I've been married for going on 50 years (never really can remember the actual dates) and had one son. Family and I have always lived what most would consider a frugal life, but always had EVERYTHING we needed, and the vast majority of what we wanted. My wife took off several years to raise my son, but also worked most of the time. We paid for my son's education thru Medical School and an MS in Education.

IN 2008 I got laid off from my job, I was 58. My wife continued to work for a couple years after I was laid off, I started a small in home part time business. We have done great since we both ended up leaving full time work. We Volunteer at several non-profits and find the work very rewarding. Getting ready to move into a CCRC in a small town on the shores of Lake Michigan. Looking forward to it.

I consider my life to date the classic American dream. It has exceeded all my expectations. I am truly blessed.

 

[old medic]

I was wondering how people that consider themselves FIRE'd *did* it.
1. Traditional professional careers: medicine, law, engineering, computer science, etc.
2. Everything else - mostly I am thinking of self-started businesses, e.g. owned tire store, print shop, etc.

Mostly pure luck, and 90% option 1. Its amazing, never believed I would be retired at 58, since we have done more wrong than right. At one point we almost lost our house we worked so hard to build due to debt. Married and family very young (17/22) 2nd child 3 years later. Worked at everything I could, DW stayed home... remember bringing home just $168 a week, family of 4, rented house and car payment. Fell into becoming a Paramedic as a volunteer, that became a 35 year career. pay was better, but not by much. Many times work days with a friend tree service, nights at EMS. DW got into Juvenal justice, again as a volunteer that became her career. Didn't start a 401K till around 20 years ago, and saved very little. Luck struck again with the sale of our home, and finding these 2 on the cheap.

I wish we would have started saving more and earlier. Even saving less earlier would have helped. Borrowing less, used CC to cover when I got injured, out of work 3 months, Both main jobs and my shop at home, and the DW lost her Temp job a month later... leading to almost filing Bankrupt and loosing our home.

 

[jollystomper]

To the OP - I took thew path in you #1 option - professional career (IT), 39 years at the same Megacorp. Lucky to have a job that (a) most times felt like a hobby and (b) over time grew to pay me ridiculously well.

Beyond that, marrying my DW who had the same financial outlook as I did, getting serious about LBYM in our early 30s, and getting more serious about retirement planning after Megacorp cut (and I almost lost) my future pension benefits in the late 90s.

Really did not think strongly about FIRE until Megacorp started laying off folks in the lat 2000s, and I started looking at "what would I do if that happened", knowing full well my age and salary were potential strikes against me. Started doing serious analysis in 2009 when I became eligible to retire, using many resources (including this site, which I found in 2012).

It came down to figuring out what type of lifestyle I wanted for DW and I in retirement, and balancing building up my retirement income sources (pension, savings, investments, SS) with time.

I could have done better if I had started maxing out my retirement contributions (401K and traditional IRA, was not eligible for Roth while working) earlier in my career. Also, we chose to foot the bill for our kids education to allow them to graduate without loan burdens. That was about $400K, but we still lucked out in being able to save during those peak expense years.

 

[PERSonalTime]

I worked for a county and stayed until I:
1. Pd off mortgage
2. Maxed out 457k for 10 yrs
3. Converted low pension option to high pension option (best 22k check I ever wrote after paying an extra 2k month × 3 yrs)
4. Left when takehome = monthly pension check
5. Seasonal work elsewhere for 5 yrs & continued stuffing my Roth
I now live off my pension, save my SSA, and have no plans re: RMD

+1 [emoji16]

 

[VungTau]

In 1996 made a decision to move to China for an interesting sounding job. Figured I would stay 2-3 years, left 17 years later...


Most of that time my rent, kids school, cars and lots of other expenses were all paid for by the company. What a life as an expat! It wasn't that I was a great saver or earned a super high salary - I just had nothing to spend it on and no free time to party it or fritter it away. I just threw it all in the stock market (in the US of course) and kept running 24 x 7 to try to keep my head above water in the crazy China market that was changing faster than most of us could keep up with.



In 2014, after being laid off for the second time due to M&A transactions, I said enough of China and by then my investments had paid off handsomely. I looked at finding a new career, thought about doing something on my own but finally decided to "retire". I never really had that FIRE moment, I just just eased into it...

 

[Markola]

The way I did it was, first of all, deciding in my 20s that I wanted it. Then it became, “OK how?” Few others seem to give it any thought until their late 50s.

 

[Retch The Grate]

Not RE yet, and no longer FI thanks to buying a house so we will see.
1) came from a well off family so I got to graduate from college without debt
2) started reading the Motley Fool retire early board in 1995 when Intercst and Dory and whatnot were active and got inspired in my early 20s to work towards FIRE.
3) was doing what I love (making video games) rather than what I could get paid the best to do, so while I saved and invested, it was clearly going to be a slow process and I saved and invested for that.
4) like some other people here, assumed SS would be going away so I targeted enough to be ok if it did.
5) Mostly avoided expensive tastes and purchases for ~25 years.
6) have derailed things with the aforementioned house purchase, but am ok with the tradeoff so far (and could always sell and go back to being FI if I wanted to).
7) on track for retiring somewhere between 3-20 years from now depending on if I want to RE and on how well my investments perform. FI was always my goal, and it has served me well in enjoying my career, video games are notoriously unstable and that has not been stressful for me because I've had the resources to weather downturns for most of my career (had one bout of dependency on my SO after I spent all my liquid capital co-founding a game studio that ultimately failed in the early 2000s)

 

[TheWizard]

Ok, I'll play.
I started employment in 1973 as an engineer with a company that had a mandatory 5% contribution from my salary from day one to a 403(b) with TIAA-CREF, now just TIAA.
They "matched" that with a 10% of salary employer contribution.

I also had access to an ELECTIVE contribution to a supplemental retirement account which I eventually maxed out at around $18k per year. The max is now around $25k per year.

I was married from around the start of employment and with retirement funding in decent shape starting at age 23, I/we didn't really attempt to save to the max beyond tax-deferred. We only bought new cars from 1975 onward, but we kept them for many years.

Somewhere in my 30s, I decided the magical age of 56 would be a good target to retire, so I adjusted my DC retirement plan projections to that age.

Sadly, in my mid 40s, my now ex-wife decided to jump ship, so that was an upheaval. Financial assets were split 50/50, no alimony, so that was fair. But it took me a while (years) to get my financial confidence back on track.

So I didn't retire at 56, but my work was generally interesting, not total drudgery. I did finally retire in March, 2013, annuitizing a decent chunk of my four-decade accumulation with TIAA. With market performance since then, I now have significant excess income most months, so I probably could have pulled the plug a few years earlier.
But I'm not really complaining...

 

[523HRR]

Corporate Finance for mega corp. LBYM. Out at 49, now 59. DB exec pensions. Living on deferred comp payouts for now.

 

[Unpaintedhuffhines]

Scraped by until I got a job that paid very, very well. Adjusted my lifestyle slightly but definitely not to the new salary level. Saved, invested and got lucky along the way.

Now where is that ripcord I need to pull to get off this damn hamster wheel?

 

[BubbaChris]

Now where is that ripcord I need to pull to get off this damn hamster wheel?

It’s an amazing feeling when you realize you already own that ripcord and decide to give it a yank.

Best regards,
Chris

 

[Koolau]

The way I did it was, first of all, deciding in my 20s that I wanted it. Then it became, “OK how?” Few others seem to give it any thought until their late 50s.

I envy you your clarity at such an early age. I never really thought about early retirement until I was in my late 30s - and it was because I realized my life was not my own and my desires were not considered at megacorp. Having said that, I always LBYM and a good saver (not a good investor.)

Once I decided that FIRE was what I wanted, I went after it with a vengeance. Sorry it took me so long to know what I wanted. YMMV

 

[NW-Bound]

I belong in the 1st group, but I believe the most important thing was I practiced LBYM. Having a good pay does nothing for you if you spend it all.

I would do a lot better if I knew more about investing, and not kept so much in safe but low-yield instruments when I was younger.

I think the thought of ER must have crossed my mind several times in my working life, but it was not serious enough for me to look further into it or to figure out what it would take.

It was only in my mid-40s when my business ventures with friends failed that I needed to make a choice. I could either go back to a megacorp which at that point felt like going back to a prison. Or I could hang out doing contracting work and to accept the risk of irregular pay. And after working for no pay for a couple of years while helping to save our startups, irregular pay was a heck of a lot better than no pay. I decided to "lie flat".

And after a while of part-time contracting work, I made enough money from my investment that I did not need the pay which came attached with too much hassle. And I also figured out that my living expenses would go way down when the children graduated from college and flew the coop, plus the home mortage was paid off.

I then graduated to "let it rot". That was that.

Not much planning ahead. I just went with the flow.


For an explanation of "lying flat" and "let it rot", see a concurrent thread where I describe these phenomena happening in China.

It's here: https://www.early-retirement.org/fo...ung-chinese-go-into-er-let-it-rot-114265.html.