Race to 2024 - please join :)

S&P just cracked 5,000! That was one of my milestones. My next milestone is $1.5mil invested. The S&P will have to go up about another 2% for that to happen.

I don't think I can possibly make it to August. My new goal is July 1st or July 5th. But of course we'll have to see what the bank account looks like after the annual bonuses in June. It's taking most of my willpower to not do anything rash.

One month later and I have $1.5mil invested! Now to just build cash reserves to fund living for the latter half of the year. Then find a PT job this Winter. I'm still planning for 5 years of semi-FIRE and full FIRE by 2030.

I just got back from my first ever visit to Cabo. I had a great time doing not much at all, but got antsy at the end of the week. I figured I'd be energized to power out a few weeks, but one day back and I feel the same old dread about the morning commute. I-5 had a couple accidents yesterday, so it took almost 2hours to get home last night.

Next week should be a monster pay week: Regular paycheck + quarterly dividends + Megacorps makes their annual contribution to the corporate retirement account. Likely around $15k total. Peanuts compared to many on this forum, but huge for me (and most people).
 
One month later and I have $1.5mil invested! Now to just build cash reserves to fund living for the latter half of the year. Then find a PT job this Winter. I'm still planning for 5 years of semi-FIRE and full FIRE by 2030.

I just got back from my first ever visit to Cabo. I had a great time doing not much at all, but got antsy at the end of the week. I figured I'd be energized to power out a few weeks, but one day back and I feel the same old dread about the morning commute. I-5 had a couple accidents yesterday, so it took almost 2hours to get home last night.

Next week should be a monster pay week: Regular paycheck + quarterly dividends + Megacorps makes their annual contribution to the corporate retirement account. Likely around $15k total. Peanuts compared to many on this forum, but huge for me (and most people).


Sounds like a fun time in Cabo but yes that is the thing about the grind... vacations just seem to dwindle to a memory within hours of starting the grind back up.


Congrats on the big pay week! I will take that 1 week total any day of the week! LOL


Our bonus pays out in early April. Which is why we planned a late May retirement. As this week ends its 12 more weeks to FIRE. :dance:
 
Hello fellow 2024 FIRE-ees!

I have been salivating for early retirement for almost a decade now. I am hoping to flip the switch at the end of this year unless I succumb to OMY. Anyway, how does this look:

I will be 48 when I retire at the end of the year. DH retired at 61 right before Covid hit in 2020. We have a nearly 18 year age gap and have been together almost 21 years.

Husbands SS @ age 70 in late 2028: $33,000/yr after 25% haircut (just in case)
My reduced SS @ age 62 in mid 2038: ~$19,000/yr after 25% haircut
My pension @ age 60 in mid 2036: $27,000/yr with NO COLA
Combined net worth ~$3 million, of which $2,620,000 are spendable assets
$1,500,000 in IRAs, 457b, and 403b. I can access my large 457b without penalty
$655,000 in Roth IRAs, 403b, and HSA’s (we have been doing Roth conversions)
$465,000 in taxable brokerages, savings, etc.
$310,000 in real estate (2 houses right now, selling one and putting the money into rehabbing the other house that will be our home)
No debt, no kids

Last year we spent $65,000 including taxes and insurance, and have been spending between $50,000 and $80,000 for several years now. The $80,000 year included a new $15,000 sewer line and $5,000 in vet bills (we no longer have pets). We spend about $8,000/yr on health insurance and expenses, and I know that will go up when I retire. We will spend more money some years on large purchases (new car, roof, emergencies, etc.), and less other years. We would like to comfortably spend $80,000/yr as well as self insure future LTC expenses. I think we are doing well enough for me to retire, and I am starting to worry more about running out of good time with my 65 year old husband versus running out of money.

I input our numbers into FIREcalc plus 5 years of additional LTC expenses of $110,000/yr and also added in $40,000/yr of vehicle purchases the next 3 years. FIREcalc says we can spend $112,000/year. We also have a meeting with a financial advisor next week to review our numbers.

I feel like I am ready to financially become a snowbird. I am not sure if I am professionally and emotionally ready for it yet. Time has been flying by the past 8 years though, and I really feel we are missing out on the go-go years because of my career. Can I FIRE in 9.5 months?
 
Your totals tell me the answer is yes. But the devil is in the details. How much of your retirement accounts are in your name? Because you are 48 you should probably look at you and your husbands retirement accounts based on age they can accessed without penalty. Then figure out if the ones that can be accessed will give you enough income to make it from 48 until "your" accounts are accessible. Have you figured healthcare into your budget? That could be a big spend from now until DH hits 65 and then the time between then and you hit 65.


Let us know what your finance advisor says. That would be interesting.
 
10 more weeks..... had discussions with HR today. Retirement letter with intent to retire at the end of May has now been filed.


:popcorn:
 
10 more weeks..... had discussions with HR today. Retirement letter with intent to retire at the end of May has now been filed.


:popcorn:

Wonderful!

I'm still a full 2.5months away from tendering my resignation. I've decided July 5th will be my termination date. Full pay for a final short week would be too irrational to pass up. Plus, my nut is still quite a bit smaller than many on this site. I can definitely use the final week of corporate pay.
 
congrats to both of you.
My gig is a bit different. Nobody does what I do here, and I am OK with taking care of thier needs through the end of the year. I'm counting Mondays to that first pension check and only coming in as needed.
9 more to go!

I decided to move it up to April 1. One Less Month (OLM). :)
 
It is :)
My last day of work is Tuesday, until they need me on a job. It looks like a 2~3 week break to start.
 
Not headed to full ER, but I submitted my paperwork to transition to RPT (3 days/week or 24 hrs/week) as an initial move.

How fast I head to full ER will likely be determined based on if my bosses bungle the transition to my successor. I've trained this person for the last few years to be ready to step into my role and we have a great relationship. And, yet my bosses seems to want to entertain other options.
 
That is very encouraging to see that we already have some 2024 graduates here :dance: Kudos to all who made that race to 2024 :clap::clap::clap:

Q1 2016 - 31.8% of our target, have a lot of heavy lifting to do in order to get ready for 2024 FIRE
Q2 2016 - 32.9% (+1.1%) of the target NW, very encouraged by the progress, looking forward to join 2 comma club this year.
Q3 2016 - 34.2% (+1.3%) of target, and finally joined two comma club
Q4 2016 - 35.6% (+1.4%) so far so good
Q1 2017 - 37.7% (+2.1%) big news - payed off house and have zero debt now. Markets have been hot during Q1 - that helped a lot
Q2 2017 - 39.6% (+1.9%) chugging along, hoping to cross 40% by end of July
Q3 2017 - 41.6% (+2.0%) - yey! looking forward to the midpoint of the race
Q4 2017 - 43.9% (+2.3%) that was blockbuster year, hope to have more of those going forward !!!
Q1 2018 - 44.9% (+1.0%) not bad
Q2 2018 - 46.5% (+1.6%) nice quarter!
Q3 2018 - 49.7% (+3.2%) looking forward to cross half-way mark this year!
Q4 2018 - 47.1% (-2.6%) terrible December killed that quarter, still positive for the year though
Q1 2019 - 51.1% (+4.0%) yey!!! Finally crossed half way mark
Q2 2019 - 53.2% (+2.1%) have exactly 5 years to go according to original plan
Q3 2019 - 55.0% (+1.8%) still racing
Q4 2019 - 57.9% (+2.9%) for the full 2019 our NW went up by 10.8% of the target and we beat year end estimate by $112k
Q1 2020 - 52.8% (-5.1%) At this point we are just happy to have our paychecks and that we both can work from home.
Q2 2020 - 59.6% (+6.8%) thankful for Q2 market gains and also believe we will see one more leg down before full recovery to February highs.
Q3 2020 - 63.7% (+4.1%) this year is shaping up to be interesting
Q4 2020 - 67.6% (+3.9%) crossed $2M mark on out NW, not complaining at all
Q1 2021 - 70.0% (+2.4%) nice small milestone!
Q2 2021 - 73.9% (+3.9%)
Q3 2021 - 74.4% (+0.5%) green for the quarter - that what counts
Q4 2021 - 78.7% (+4.3%) six years of racing here
Q1 2022 - 77.2% (-1.5%) slightly down, will see how it will go this year ...
Q2 2022 - 70.4% (-6.8%) rough quarter and we are back to Q1 2021
Q3 2022 - 68.2% (-2.2%) not as bad as was previous Q, but still red. To be fair it is not all that bad as we can buy cheap now*
Q4 2022 - 72.1% (+3.9%) finally some gains, but stull red for the year. Looking forward leave those red quarters behind in 2023 !!!
Q1 2023 - 75.8% (+3.7%) slowly recovering from the 2022 losses, looks like OMY is in books for us - class of 2025 or even 2026 if inflation will continue to bite.
Q2 2023 - 80.4% (+4.7%) we hit all time high at $2,413k, still behind but slowly closing those gaps between current state and 2 target lines.
Q3 2023- 79.3% (-1.1%) down again, looks like 2024 FIRE will not materialize, oh well, OMY - here we go, Exit 2025 here
Q4 2023 - 86% (+6.8%) we hit all time high at $2,581k, still behind but moving in the right direction. Due to inflation we are changing original target of $3M total NW to $3M excluding RE and as of today new FIRE date looks like end of 2025 or first half of 2026.

Q1 2024 - 91.6% (+5.6%) we hit all time high this quarter again at $2,748k and still might make original target by end of the year. :cool: But as now target moved to $3M without RE - our tentative FIRE date moved to End 2025-Mid 2026.
 
Net Worth Excluding Real Estate and Personal Property
06/20/2017 - $1,205k
10/02/2017 - $1,273k - Nice little quarter, I would say.
1/1/2018 - $1,354k - Still headed in the right direction. Let's see what 2018 has to offer.
4/1/2018 - $1,398k - Smaller increase this quarter as the market hasn't helped. Luckily my contributions more than made up for the lack of market returns.
07/02/2018 - $1,461k - Q2 was similar story to Q1. Moving in the right direction though.
10/01/2018 - $1,537k
01/01/2019 - $1,328k - Ouch, what a terrible December
04/01/2019 - $1,520k - Q1 got back much of what Q4 lost!
07/01/2019 - $1,576k - Nice quarter and a new high. Still chugging along.
10/01/2019 - $1,594k - While I'm way up from January. I'm not that far up from same period prior year. But, I'll keep piling it in and hope the market helps me along the way.
01/01/2020 - $1,729 - Excellent Q4 for 2019, which more than made up for Q4 2018. Here's hoping 2020 brings more of the same.
04/01/2020 - $1,453k - Wow, the last 3 weeks have been brutal. Down $276k from last quarter and $67k from last year!
07/01/2020 - $1,763k - Amazing that this market has been so resilient and I am grateful for it. However, I am still expecting a W recovery, at best. All the money that was lost in Q2 is gone forever, unemployment is still extremely high and our deficits are out of control. You all may have even seen in a different thread that I have recently purchased October SPY puts with the thought that once Q2 earnings are realized and valuations are proven to be out of whack, we'll have a retest.
10/01/2020 - $1,948k - Well, those SPY puts haven't worked out so well. Finally closed them out at a loss a few weeks back. Anyway, another good, yet mystifying quarter. I did a separate thread where I celebrated eclipsing $2M. That lasted for about 2 days and I still haven't gotten back. Hopefully for the year end update I'll make it. Considering where my portfolio was on March 23, this update is really remarkable.
01/01/2021 - $2,194k - What an absolute mess of a year. While very thankful for how my portfolio performed, it is completely illogical. While the rest of the world was burning down, stocks marched higher. I'm fearful that 2021 takes it all back. That being said, I hope I am once again wrong, as doing so seems to be very profitable... And, I wish you all a very Happy New Year and Cheers to (fingers crossed) life getting back to normal
04/02/2021 - $2,422k - Was travelling yesterday so missed the 4/1 balance. Up nearly $1M from one year ago....freaking amazing. Being so close to my number, $3M, I'm wondering if I should start to adjust my allocation to a more conservative approach. Current I'm something like 83/8/9. On the one hand, it's what got me here so if it ain't broke don't fix it, on the other hand, I don't want to see it go away in a correction. I'm young enough that I could continue to w*rk for a couple more years if needed, but I don't really want to. Also, now seems like the worst time to buy bonds. No clue what to do. Anyway, hope you all had a nice quarter, as well
07/05/2021 - $2,704k - Another amazing quarter. Of course owning NVDA has helped. Still worried about a pull back. Being so close to my number with still some years left has me nervous, not wanting to give it all back.
10/01/2021 - $2,672k - It was a rough last few weeks. High for the Q was actually $2,792.
01/01/2022 - $2,985k Really nice year; even hit the $3M mark a couple times in the last few months. Just bought a vacation home, so about $100k of this is now gone per Dec 28th, but being so close to the end of the year, I just left it in to keep 2021 clean. Original goal was $3M; with inflation I'm thinking I might need to up that to $3.5M or $4M
04/01/2022 - $2,899k Rough quarter plus I removed some funds for the vacation home I mentioned last quarter. But, Q1 finished better than it looked like it was going to a few weeks ago. So, cheers to that. Here's hoping for a better Q2.
07/01/2022 - $2,409k Very rough quarter. Basically back to where I was April of 2021. Here's hoping for a better second half
10/01/2022 - $2,294k Still going the wrong direction. Considering inflation, war in Europe, etc, etc. we may be in for a long recession. No worries. We've been through this before in '01/'02 and '08/'09 so we can get through it again.
01/01/2023 - $2,502k Got some of what we've lost back. Here's looking at a more profitable 2023. Happy New Year, everyone!
04/01/2023 - $2,906k Nice Q1! Still below all-time high, but working our way back there. Also, still reviewing wether I need to up our target number and wether to adjust our AA to a more conservative approach. Getting too close to the end to have the sequence of return risk that we went through in 2022.
07/01/2023 - $3,213k This is our first quarter that has ended over the $3M mark, all thanks to NVDA. Finally for the first time in 13 years had to sell some as it was becoming way too large a % of our portfolio
10/03/2023 - $3,132k Slightly down this quarter. Would be up quite a bit more had I not sold the NVDA, but no looking back, it was too risky of a % of our NW considering where we are in this journey. Also, nothing wrong with getting over 5% on a huge chunk of cash!
01/01/2024 - $3,453k Really nice run at the end of the year and this is with nearly $900k in money market! We have exceeded our original target ($3M), but have increased it to $4M recently due to inflation. Also, as mentioned in other posts, to line up with DD's high school graduation 06/25 and one final bonus 03/26, I'm targeting a 4/26 exit date. One other big factor is when our company will go public. I have a large portion of stock that is basically illiquid until we go public. It's too much to walk away from, but signs seem to point to this year, so we'll see.

04/01/2024 - $3,695k Another decent quarter and still sitting on a ton of cash. :dance:
 
That is very encouraging to see that we already have some 2024 graduates here :dance: Kudos to all who made that race to 2024 :clap::clap::clap:



Q1 2024 - 91.6% (+5.6%) we hit all time high this quarter again at $2,748k and still might make original target by end of the year. :cool: But as now target moved to $3M without RE - our tentative FIRE date moved to End 2025-Mid 2026.

Congrats, Exit. Nice quarter and nice to keep hitting all time highs!
 
$2.30M invested assets - on target for 2030 - age 55 for unfettered access to 401k and RSU/options. I'll take a quarter like this!
| % of Target|
|investments and cash| investments plus RE cash flow
2017 Q4|42.4|50.0
2018 Q1|41.1|53.0
2018 Q2|42.9|60.4
2018 Q3|42.1|66.6
2018 Q4|38.8|62.4
2019 Q1|44.0|68.5
2019 Q2|45.3|71.3
2019 Q3|42.8|68.8
2019 Q4|46.3|74.2
2020 Q1|40.0|77.6
2020 Q2|42.3|80.5
2020 Q3|43.7|83.5
2020 Q4|47.9|92.0
2021 Q1|50.7|94.9
2021 Q2|53.5|105.9
2021 Q3|53.2|107.2
2021 Q4|56.4|112.7
2022 Q1|54.3|104.2
2022 Q2|53.5|105.9
2022 Q3|49.8|98.2
2022 Q4|54.6|100.7
2023 Q1|58.3|108.6
2023 Q2|62.4|114.5
2023 Q3|60.7|113.3
2023 Q4|71.0|122.9
2024 Q1|78.6|130.4

Working on the multi legged stool. Targeting to have taxable brokerage account/Cash/Stock Options, traditional IRA and Roth IRA have about the same weighting upon FIRE.

| | |Networth Breakdown %| |
|t-IRA|Roth IRA|Taxable/Cash|RE Equity|Home Equity
2020 Q4|30|32|2|29|7
2021 Q1|30|32|3|28|7
2021 Q2|29|32|3|28|8
2021 Q3|29|31|3|29|8
2021 Q4|29|31|3|30|7
2022 Q1|29|31|3|30|7
2022 Q2|25|27|10|26|12
2022 Q3|25|26|10|27|13
2022 Q4|25|26|12|25|12
2023 Q1|25|27|12|25|11
2023 Q2|26|28|10|25|11
2023 Q3|26|27|9|26|11
2023 Q4|27|29|11|23|10
2024 Q1|27|30|12|22|9
 
That is very encouraging to see that we already have some 2024 graduates here :dance: Kudos to all who made that race to 2024 :clap::clap::clap:



Q1 2024 - 91.6% (+5.6%) we hit all time high this quarter again at $2,748k and still might make original target by end of the year. :cool: But as now target moved to $3M without RE - our tentative FIRE date moved to End 2025-Mid 2026.

Congratulations - must feel good to be so close to 100%!
 
04/01/2024 - $3,695k Another decent quarter and still sitting on a ton of cash. :dance:

Congratulations on solid Q1!!! I admire your ability to produce gains in the range of $250-300k per quarter regularly. Do you add a lot? or it is just market gains? My biggest Q was $203K and I thought I made a killing, your numbers are more than killing, it is magic :cool:
 
Working on the multi legged stool. Targeting to have taxable brokerage account/Cash/Stock Options, traditional IRA and Roth IRA have about the same weighting upon FIRE.

Every quarter I am looking forward for your post about multi legged stool, I even started to track my % by following group: Tax free (Roth), Tax deferred (401k+ traditional), Contingent (HSAs), Taxable (cash, bonds, brokerage), and I do not include RE. So what I realized - I have 50%+ of all in tax deferred. How do you balance between Roth's and Traditional? It seems that for you those 2 are very close to each other, do you use Roth 401k? I just can not bring myself to start paying more taxes if I go for Roth 401k.
 
Every quarter I am looking forward for your post about multi legged stool, I even started to track my % by following group: Tax free (Roth), Tax deferred (401k+ traditional), Contingent (HSAs), Taxable (cash, bonds, brokerage), and I do not include RE. So what I realized - I have 50%+ of all in tax deferred. How do you balance between Roth's and Traditional? It seems that for you those 2 are very close to each other, do you use Roth 401k? I just can not bring myself to start paying more taxes if I go for Roth 401k.

Thanks!

I don't pay more taxes, but max out my pretax and on top of that do after tax contributions to tax free accounts rather than investing in brokerage accounts. This has made me feel retirement account rich but accessible money poor. Not really accessible money poor since I could pull out all the Roth contributions tax and penalty free, but I feel like I can't touch it due to it being in a coveted never ever taxed again account. Our brokerage is finally starting to get big enough, but we will likely buy a cabin or STR property and we'll be poor again.

My wife cleverly converted her old 401k into Roth when we were poor in grad school, so that helped early on with having more tax free starting our careers.

I'll be 50 next year, so that will change things a little, but the first day of the year we did a non-deductible contribution to an IRA for the DW and myself and rolled over into a Roth IRA the following day.

I also contribute the max (9% of salary) to my after-tax 401k at my employer, which I every month roll over into a roth IRA. This way DW and I contribute just shy of $33k to Roths annually.

I do, as I said earlier, max out my pretax 401k which with match is just shy of 40k. It looks like despite the larger traditional contribution I will never catch up in the pretax accounts due to the power of compounding.
 
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I'll be 50 next year, so that will change things a little, but the first day of the year we did a non-deductible contribution to an IRA for the DW and myself and rolled over into a Roth IRA the following day.

Understood, we do that also every year for a long time already, backdoor Roth.

I also contribute the max (9% of salary) to my after-tax 401k at my employer, which I every month roll over into a roth IRA. This way DW and I contribute just shy of $33k to Roths annually.

That is part!!! that I was missing on, your numbers make total sense now, but unfortunately neither of us have after-tax option in 401k, so no luck here. :(

I do, as I said earlier, max out my pretax 401k which with match is just shy of 40k.

Similar, we do the same and being over 50 we also max out both catch ups, so our pretax with match for 2022 was $66k and for 2023 $54k (I was subject for HCE cap, that should be lifted for 2024.) So we have big impact from those contributions that we can not match anywhere else.

It looks like despite the larger traditional contribution I will never catch up in the pretax accounts due to the power of compounding.

That is my experience also, but for us it is Roth and taxable buckets that can not catch up, looks like we will retire with 50%+ our assets in pretax and need to plan for aggressive conversions.

Thanks for all your explanations :)
 
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