Your yearly average income while pursuing F.I.R.E?

[NgineER]

Didn’t start working until 32 after finishing grad school. Played around before then (except for grad school) and didn’t have much to show for it.
Started working in R&D for a big company and averaged $106 for the five years there 2007-2012. Next big MC product development job I’ve averaged $133 for the last nine years. I was just promoted (staying in the same role) and my salary is now 2x my starting salary 14 years ago.
Since DW retirement to stay home with kids nine years ago we have been putting away 50% of my salary. We want to spend more than 50% of my salary, so not quite done yet.

Rental property incomes have us at FI now at our desired spend level, but no security blanket so I will work a couple of years still.

 

[bobbyr]

I never was 'pursuing' FIRE until three months before when I was first told of my involuntary departure. I was just saving and investing for the previous 35 years because "that's what you do".

same here

 

[Winemaker]

IMO two things stand out on this thread:

The large number of people who RE'd making under $100K (congrats!) and the number of people who have no idea how much they were making pre-ER.

To get granular on the OP's question, I never was 'pursuing' FIRE until three months before when I was first told of my involuntary departure. I was just saving and investing for the previous 35 years because "that's what you do".

+1

 

[Gumby]

We have always saved and invested, but had different reasons for doing so at different times in our lives. In the early days of our marriage, we saved and invested because that just seemed a smart thing to do. Then, we both decided to return to school, so we saved for that. Finally, in our 30's, we started to save and invest for retirement.

 

[brett]

I tell DW that I was very lucky.

DW tells me that I was not....it was just a lot of hard work, travel, long hours, and some relo.

The reality is that I was fortunate...I never noticed any of that. I was too busy enjoying my job, the challenges, my colleagues, the industry, and our customers/clients.

Perhaps it was good luck. It paid the bills and then some. And then they paid to take an early retirement. It was all good.

 

[steveark]

My income ranged from$18K to $430K. Average income isn't very pertinent unless you adjust it for inflation.

 

[ArmchairMillionaire23]

I'm still working on the "Retire Early" part. I averaged around $50K per year for the last decade. DW averaged around $15K.
Hoping to be done in a little over 3 years when I'm 54.

 

[Perryinva]

same here

Yup. I learned of FIRE maybe 5 years before I retired. All it really did was give me a lot of tools to verify that I was on track. I WISH I HAD heard of it sooner, but didn’t. Many mistakes could have been avoided. I wasn’t as concerned about it because I always assumed I would work to age 65 for my full pension and make sure I had enough saved. The last 5 years saw my portfolio and salary rise faster than I ever thought, and I realized that by 61, my pension was already higher than I had planned and if I stayed 4 more years I wasn’t really going to live any better as I had settled in to my lifestyle. Really just more money to be left to heirs. 39 years of greater than max FICA salary, the last salaried year was highest & something over $200k. More than half of those years over $100k. First engineering job was $21,500/yr. Take home now in retirement is way more than any years net pay, after subtracting FICA, Medicare, Taxes, Insurances, and Savings. We could easily live on just pensions and SS. We will be working it to keep below the first IRMMA level, and that is plenty for me. I won’t know until I am 72 if RMDs will drive us over. Hopefully IRMMA Levels keep rising so it won’t be an annoyance.

 

[corn18]

20 years in the military I made $1,837,928 in today's dollars (average $91,896 / year).

13 years at megacorp I made $8,156,177 in today's dollars (average $627,398).

I had a lot of fun doing both. Retired this past Mar @ 55. Life is good.

 

[Exwallstguy]

Started off making about 40k, average over 21 year career was maybe 475-500k, last 5 years Ave about 900k. RE last year.

 

[sroby2020]

In reflection, I really wasn't pursuing FIRE, but it happened anyway.

 

[PointBreeze]

My average yearly indexed earnings for the 30 years I was saving for FIRE was $110,000. I was fortunate to sort of fall into a computer science degree in the late 80's, and that together with a previously unhelpful graduate degree in the liberal arts set me up for a career in technology management.


The other helpful thing was having a dad who taught and modeled LBYM.

 

[WestUniversity]

Including annual bonuses I topped out at about $150K

 

[street]

Some very high income earners. To average over 100K a year is great! If I would have averaged over 100K a year for 35 years I could have retired really early. Lucky I inherited the frugal genes.

 

[RISP]

If I would have averaged over 100K a year for 35 years I could have retired really early.

How can you retire really early if you work 35 years?

 

[ArmchairMillionaire23]

How can you retire really early if you work 35 years?

18+35=53. If you average 100K for 35 years then you could leave at 53.
53 counts as early in my book. Some of my coworkers plan on working for 50+ years.

 

[RobbieB]

I worked 36, long enough.

And that doesn't count the dishwashing jobs, the labor jobs and the lawn cutting jobs I had before school or the "summer jobs" I had on summer break.

Pops told me if I wanted to drive the family car, I had to pay the increase in insurance and the gas.

 

[RetiredHappy]

I worked 31 years but only paid into SS for 18 years as the prior years were outside of the US. I contributed maximum amount to SS for most of the years, so much so that my PIA is much higher than half of my husband's PIA and he hit maximum for most of the 35 years which counted. After COLA next year, his SS is pretty close to $48K a year (he started collecting SS at 70) while mine is going to be about $20K at 62.

 

[street]

18+35=53. If you average 100K for 35 years then you could leave at 53.
53 counts as early in my book. Some of my coworkers plan on working for 50+ years.

Exactly right. I actually was in the trade at 17 but went to college and when I finished I then spent 35 with the same company. I had 35 with them at the age of 57.