Put less in my 401K?

[Sunset]

OP - Didn't see you mention you have an outside Roth account. If you don't have one, open one NOW and put $100 in it.

Roth's have a 5 year rule so starting any Roth starts the clock even if you do nothing else with it, but have other Roths opened later.

Really you should contribute to Roth if going to retire early.

 

[RetireBy90]

I think advice often provided here your goal should be to provide for even taxable income in retirement. For some that means converting or contributing to Roth today so you (or surviving spouse) don't hit higher brackets when RMDs kick in. I started tracking balance of my IRA after paying taxes on my traditional IRA and that convinced me to convert more. I viewed the tax that would be due as an outstanding obligation that I needed to minimize.
There is a whole lot of things that can impact your deferred tax obligation. If you spend $250K in medical expenses in retirement (Fidelity's projection of expenses) then you can avoid taxes all together on that if you itemize on your taxes, there is the hit of surviving spouse being taxed at single rate and taxes can be avoided with QCDs. Lots to take into account when trying to minimize your tax obligation.

 

[pjigar]

This an age old balancing act. There are so many variables that you will have to do your own projections and analysis. The questions for your analysis:
How much is going to be your spending in retirement?
How much of that "can" comes from "non-taxable savings"? Account for cost basis vs taxable gains.
Which tax bracket would you be at your RMD age? Should you do traditional IRA to Roth IRA conversions between FIRE age and RMD age? Upto which tax bracket?
How are you going to fund tax payment of the IRA conversions?
Which tax bracket that will put you in retirement?
How that will impact your ACA subsidies?
Is it worth paying extra tax (if you are jumping a tax bracket for IRA conversions) AND lost ACA subsidies? If not, the change the answers above and redo the analysis!

All of these answers needs to be projected (inflation/return adjusted) for the day you stop earning your main income. Which makes the analysis quite hazy. If you want to keep it simple then try to equalize Roth (Roth IRA and Roth 401k), after-tax (brokerage/rental) and pre-tax (Traditional IRA/401k) buckets while you are working. This would give you options to course correct if any of the projections are off from the analysis above.

PS: A lot of this analysis is not linear nor written in stone. I break down my analysis in five distinct periods each having a separate strategy/amount for IRA conversions: Time between now and FIRE (How can I contribute (Roth/pre-tax/after-tax) to set the stage for rest of the periods?), Time between FIRE and Medicare age (Account for ACA subsidies), Time between Medicare age and SS age (No need to worry about ACA subsidies), Time between SS and RMD age (Account for SS income), Time after RMD. I have a spreadsheet for this analysis but that is very custom to my needs.