Share your FIRE Milestones - 2013- 2020

[scrinch]

Checked my IRA after a big up day in the stock market. Total was 1812 plus a few zeroes. Not a round number, but a memorable one.

[tmob]

Recently got back from a 7 month deployment. Surpassed the 100k mark in savings while gone. Really excited about the milestone. I am 32 and DW is 29. We are looking to be FI by the time I turn 40 with the option to ER. Still haven't pegged a hard ER number as our finish line.

[nash031]

Quote:

Originally Posted by tmob Recently got back from a 7 month deployment. Surpassed the 100k mark in savings while gone. Really excited about the milestone. I am 32 and DW is 29. We are looking to be FI by the time I turn 40 with the option to ER. Still haven't pegged a hard ER number as our finish line.

Sounds similar - hit FI at DOD retirement time, hope to RE then, but finding that taxable account stash size may hold me back from that!

[FIREd]

Passed the 40x annual expenses mark earlier this week. Sounds too good to be true.

[Huston55]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hamachi Nothing special, it's just a nice round number to hit. Right now I'm 41 and will likely FIRE at age 45 even if I'm still well short of the goal. I realize it's a ton of money, but somehow I've allowed lifestyle creep to enter our world where, including taxes, we spend maybe $225k/year. When you take the home equity out of the current net worth, it ends up being a 3.2% withdrawl rate if we were living off investments right now, and personally, I feel the stock market is overvalued and more likely to go sideways for a few years than up so even with a lot of money FIRE is not a total no-brainer unless spending is under control which, clearly, it's not in my household.

Good Yellow Tail can be expensive. You could try discount sushi night to cut back on expenses.

[Huston55]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gumby I rolled over a nice round number today. Well, it's probably more oval shaped now.

Ya mon!

[Huston55]

Quote:

Originally Posted by tmob Recently got back from a 7 month deployment. Surpassed the 100k mark in savings while gone. Really excited about the milestone. I am 32 and DW is 29. We are looking to be FI by the time I turn 40 with the option to ER. Still haven't pegged a hard ER number as our finish line.

First of all...Thank you for your Service!

I see from your posting history that you've already met Nords and read his book; good on ya, lots of good advice there. I'm also an AF Reservist (Retired, Grey Zone) and anxious to turn 60...did I just say that? It's a nice little warm fuzzy blanky to know I'm eligible for a Reserve retirement. I wish you luck brother.

[hiker88]

Investments at Vanguard reached Flagship level today ($1M). FIRE date getting closer.

[Hexanova]

It's been a good 6 months for us. Sold one of my websites for $57K. House refinanced at 3.25%, will be paid off in 5 years. All debt gone. Total assets are up about $200K and we are bumping up against $1.5 million in assest (which is ahead of my schedule).

On track to retire at 53 or 54.

Not bad for a kid who grew up without a pot to piss in, from a broken home, living in tiny trailer with 2 siblings, raised by a working mom who could only afford McDonalds once a week as treat to eat out. My childhood taught me a lot: to not repeat it!!

[RobLJ]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Apex1 You got me curious now so I went and checked..... since age 28, I have doubled at ages 29, 30.5, 31.5, 34, 37.5. The next double should be around 42/43 ish (i'm 38 now). Unfortunately, doubling time is stretching out longer and longer as the injected savings shrink relative to the increasingly large pot size.

The milestones for me occured much earlier than I had estimated, although we're lucky that both of us were able to work and both kids pulled down big jobs after college.

I doubled from 1999 to 2004, and 2008, and early 2013.
We paid off the house this month by using cash that was receiving .02% interest.
We reached the retirement/taxable balance last year that I had calculated we needed to retire, but I was calculating based on SS and 66, so we hit it 10 years earlier than I had estimated. Barring a big crash, we can do it in 2 years, and semi-retiring and DW working, we could do it now.
I now plan to semi-retire summer after next (I can work halftime for 40% of current salary, on a yearly renewable basis), DW about five years later.
I see a lot of younger folks posting--stick to your plan, save every paycheck, avoid excessive debt. It happens a lot quicker than you can believe. Staying in one house for 23 years helped us a lot in building net worth.

[scrinch]

Today's quarterly update shows we passed the paid-off-house plus 40x expected expenses threshold. Can I get DW to agree to join the Class of 2014? She doesn't really want to think about it...she just wants to keep beavering away. :/

[Retire44]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hexanova Not bad for a kid who grew up without a pot to piss in, from a broken home, living in tiny trailer with 2 siblings, raised by a working mom who could only afford McDonalds once a week as treat to eat out. My childhood taught me a lot: to not repeat it!!

That's awesome Hexanova! Keep it rolling! Curious on the website you sold, was it a domain name or an actual website?

[RenoJay]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hexanova It's been a good 6 months for us. Sold one of my websites for $57K. House refinanced at 3.25%, will be paid off in 5 years. All debt gone. Total assets are up about $200K and we are bumping up against $1.5 million in assest (which is ahead of my schedule). On track to retire at 53 or 54. Not bad for a kid who grew up without a pot to piss in, from a broken home, living in tiny trailer with 2 siblings, raised by a working mom who could only afford McDonalds once a week as treat to eat out. My childhood taught me a lot: to not repeat it!!

You rock! Good for you!!

[cinman2000]

Net worth at an all time high of 2.3 mil. I think 2.5 is the magic number. 15 months or less to go!

[Sesq]

Finally "made" 10K+ in the market in a day (12k as it turns out).

Not much of a milestone since its just a response to the political theater, and its not like my accounts are at all time highs (though not far). Still, neat to see on the google spreadsheet.

[RetiredAndFree]

Passed the 4.5 mill mark recently, up some 600K from when we retired two years ago at 49 and 55. That does not include the value of our home, because we have no plans to downsize currently, nor to take out a reverse mortgage. If we include the equity in our home, we're at 5.2 mill.

We're living on a withdrawal rate of about 2.75% currently, which should help our portfolio continue to grow robustly. We'll edge that withdrawal rate upward when the first one of us reaches SS and Medicare age, then again when the second one does.

[Tyrobi]

This month our retirement investment portfolio 401k+Roth reaches over $200k for the first time! Including the house's equity, the net worth is $320k.

I'm 34 and my wife is 32 (SAHM). I still need another 15 years to reach FI. The industry that I work is very cyclic so I don't know when is the next downturn (already experience 3 times in my working career). I hope the good time continues rolling. Anyway, this community keeps me motivated and focus on my ultimate FIRE goal.

[bltkmt]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RetiredAndFree We're living on a withdrawal rate of about 2.75% currently, which should help our portfolio continue to grow robustly. We'll edge that withdrawal rate upward when the first one of us reaches SS and Medicare age, then again when the second one does.

Congrats on your milestone - I would like to be at your level some day!

One question about the quote above - why would you increase the w/d rate upon reaching SS age? Wouldn't that be a time to decrease it, as you will be collecting SS?

[RetiredAndFree]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bltkmt Congrats on your milestone - I would like to be at your level some day! One question about the quote above - why would you increase the w/d rate upon reaching SS age? Wouldn't that be a time to decrease it, as you will be collecting SS?

I understand what you're asking, but at some point we need to feel free to enjoy what we've accumulated, which is why we'd edge it upward upon reaching age 65, even with the addition of SS and Medicare. Technically, at a current 2.75% withdrawal rate, we're under-withdrawing per every portfolio longevity formula I've run, but we're not comfortably enough with what lies ahead, financially and politically speaking, to increase it for the time being.

Ironically, this is exactly how we achieved FIRE - we lived substantially below our means for a long, long time, and then reaped the rewards.

[bltkmt]

Got it...thanks for the clarity.