Wondering if there is anyone on here that has retired early (FIRE Movement)

[Lowg08]

I took some good advice from my dad when I started working at 18. Started with my 401k now putting 17% a week in. My projected retirement is at 55. Working on passive income to supplement once I walk away from power work. I’m 40 now. Been doing power work since 18. Invest and keep you debt low.

 

[Gutshot007]

What if you have a high income though and that 70 percent you save still leaves you with more then enough to hunt and fish as much as you want? We also never eat out but don’t skimp on food and cook some homemade meals that stretch a long ways.

I still enjoy everything I love to do in life. Do I need the 2023 duramax lifted truck? Plus the $80,000 boat and toy hauler (very common around here) No I don’t. I instead save those monthly expenses


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Couldnt agree with you more on the duramax ,boats and toys . Your talking to a guy who drives a 99 suburban with no car payments . Maybe i'm out of the loop but i bet VERY few 20 somethings make a enough to invest 70% and still live . Another thing about FIRE philosophy that contradicts classic investing is the use of Time to grow and compound . Trying to make hay in 10-15years enough to retire would take some higher risk investing

 

[WKR]

And I want to add, im currently a union Carpenter with a good pension and annuity retirement plan, started when I was 24 so If I wanted to I could keep going with the union and retire with full pension at 54-55. But thats not good enough for me. For 1, I can't see being someone's employee for that long, and 2 I want to be in control of my future. Thats why I formed a business, got a contractors license, and have my plan to retire by 45. There is more risk doing what I'm doing but its a risk I'm willing to take.

 

[ScottRK]

how you handled health insurance

Covered by the union health plan still .

I pay a premium each month, and about the most I’d pay out of pocket for total bills then would be around $4,000 in a year then 100% covered.I could’ve had lower ins. payments if I’d have worked another 2 years to make 35 years but that didn’t make sense. I’ve had a lot of fun these 2 years.

 

[cuerro viejo]

I completely understand what you're saying.

Main point of this thread was getting to financial independence/retirement as early as possible.

Tying money up in a Roth isn't the play for that. I'll add some long-winded details below to help guys that might be following along willing to entertain both approaches:

For a young investor that same $6,500, or a couple years worth of it in an expensive market, could be used to get into a 3.5% down FHA loan on an owner-occupied 4-plex (or duplex, or triplex, or sfr where you rent the rooms, doesn't matter). Legally required to live there for a year, during that time you'd be getting paid to live there and increasing your net earnings and reducing your DTI.

Now you have more income freed up to buy a) a nicer place to live b) qualify for more investment properties c) stick more money into other investment vehicles. This stuff snowballs fast because of leverage...I know, that's a dirty word for some.

The same advantages of a Roth exist in real estate. Each property is a mini-bank that you can take tax-free withdrawals from (within reason). A bank will lend up to 80% LTV on just about any piece of real estate in the country that isn't a POS. Run your worst case scenario numbers for potential corrections, stick to them, cash out that tax free money and go buy more. Don't use it to buy a truck, boat, etc. early on.

If you have enough principal in your Roth, it'll replenish itself after a withdrawal...when you're 60. Cool.

If you have a good equity position in a property, your tenants will replenish that position post re-fi. Any equity pulled is still tax free money because it's either a loan or line of credit....but now you can double dip on depreciation, claim real estate professional status, a whole slew of write-offs etc. that do not exist in the world of Roth IRAs.

Most folks will/should eventually pay a handful of properties off in-full as a security blanket, but aggressive growth is ALWAYS done with leverage. Whether that's bank money, other people's money, etc.

The tax rules are there to be taken advantage of, and if a fella was focused on speed...the trajectory through various types of real estate investing is exponentially faster than playing the long game.

When you take into account the fact that there is an estimated 4 MILLION unit shortage in housing in this country TODAY...you can see the opportunity for what it is...and there is a reason institutional money (hedge funds, family offices etc) are scooping resi. at unprecedented rates...

I don't believe that real estate is the holy grail for financial independence because I'm in real estate, I'm in real estate because I know it's the holy grail for financial independence. Big difference.

I'll leave that as my last contribution to this thread, if it helps one guy hunt more and spend more time with his family...worth the 5 minutes it took to type it up.

And if any of you know of any RV or mobile home parks in a red state that may be for sale...hit me up, and I'll make sure you're paid a handsome bird dog fee.

yelp lots of options out side of Roth IRA, max funded index universal life is a better long term tax free vehicle. Assuming you arent looking for diversity outside the market.

Roth IRA and the backdoor arent exactly bad vehicles just very capped vehicles, and thats assumes you dont fall with in the exclusions.

Im a big believer in real estate but i do it with Farm land and now crop share or lease out.

Not to down play 401k’s, IRA etc but if someone is looking for residual income well before those tax deferred investments pass their penalty phases so you can retire earlier, one needs to think outside the box more.

 

[NRA4LIFE]

I just drove my 21 YO pickup once again today. I still love it. Drive 'em until they die, especially if you can do even remedial work on them. Everything to save even a bit of money will help in your retirement. I split a half cord of free wood today to help heat the house this winter. This is what you can take advantage of in retirement.

 

[Dos Perros]

How does handicapping yourself with a Roth fit into the FIRE strategy that this entire thread is based on?

Pretty sure that it's objectively true that tying your returns up in Roth jail til age 59.5 is the antithesis of setting yourself up with accessible and renewable cash-flow to serve as retirement income...

That isn't my opinion. You can't touch the returns til almost 60, while countless alternatives exist where you can...

I have a Roth, it's a remnant of my first 2 years in the work force. I wish I could cash the last little bit of earnings out and throw it directly into another down-payment...but unless I decide to pay the penalty+tax on it, it would literally be stuck in jail for another 30 years growing at the speed of smell lol

If this thread was titled, "Has anyone retired at age 60?"...then hell yeah bro, Roth it up!

Are you being intentionally obtuse?

Have you considered that one might choose to fund different time phases of their retirement with different assets or variable cash flows, independent of what age one might retire? And one might appreciate the upside of incrementally less tax burden with the flexibility of early withdraws if you need it?

I'm not going to argue further with you on this, do what you want, but I will call it out when someone is stating something that is factually incorrect.

 

[Mt Al]

Have really enjoyed reading these posts.
Late 50s now and plan is to move to 1/2 time in a few years. I love what I do for work, get to work with great people, exercise creativity, work for good customers. I worked for a few companies in the outdoor industry early in my career, almost zero benefits for retirement and health in my early earning years. I go back and do the math on what my retirement fund would look like if I had discipline on a 401K back then - hind sight is 20/20. My way of begging/screaming from the pulpit to be disciplined on investing, reduce monthly expenses, don't buy things to impress people who aren't worth even considering.

We have house debt, no car payments, no expensive boat - so we're not pissing it down the drain. We keep our vehicles running as long as possible. The cost of depreciation, insurance and licensing for newer vehicles is insane.

Good luck everyone!

 

[signing off]

Most of the general population doesn't want to see retirement or FIRE. As long as they can make the monthly payments fit, sign me up. Lol
I'm cut from different cloth. While working a factory job, we played with tax withholding every year at bonus time. Common folk would turn off withholding to have EVERY PENNY POSSIBLE in hand. Vacations, cars, stuff.

I left the tax alone and then put 401k deduction on MAX. Compound interest is making my bonus much bigger than theirs.

 

[Rock-o]

I've been very fortunate and "retired" at about 44. It can be boring - I need more friends in my situation.

 

[Nykki]

I was 50 when I semi retired from wrenching on heavy equipment. Took two years off and started my pilot car business and worked when I wanted to. Retired for good at the end of last year at 66. Working on a D6 dozer in trade for demo and dirt work at the house. I can't stand to not have something to do. Wife retired in 04 at 51 after thirty years with the State.

 

[manitou1]

Retirement isn't what it's cracked up to be. Most folks that retire around where I live get bored in a year and are looking for work. Work as long as you can would be my recommendation.

Yup. I retired at 60 and now volunteer with five different entities. Got bored.

 

[DuckDogDr]

I’m 38, realistically probably won’t be able to retire until appropriate age. All my hobbies are expensive.
But I day dream about retiring at 45 … I’ve managed to pay off $30k this year and on tract to pay off another $8k by Christmas and still do my hobbies .

I’ve got a big expense coming up with an entire interior house remodel problems just now showing up after tornado damage was “repaired” 2 years ago. Sheet rock is falling in every room.

After that I’m putting 50% of income away and going to see where I’m at when I’m 45

 

[Coldtrail]

I'm probably among the exceptions, but I do see a few on here that share my philosophy,. I see most retirees seeking to live a more lavish lifestyle retired than they did working, they want a new truck, boat, house, utv etc. trying to buy their way into happiness. I walked out the door at 50 and spent most of the years leading up to that paying off everthing I had, since then I have been living like I did at 18 and just as happy. I drive an old truck and an old dirt bike, still use guns and gear from 30yrs ago, am in the woods daily "just because", and work is easy to find when you need a financial bump to pay for something.

I consider myself a lucky SOB that I have so many hobbies that I run out of hours in the day to do fun stuff, I'm not rolling in money but for me time was the most important gain I was looking for. I'm the guy in dirty worn out clothes and dirty old truck that you see rolling through town but im smiling.
You can make money whenever you want....but time is another story.

 

[roymunson]

Health Insurance is the tough nut to crack for me. Small business owners can make a good income, but I'm not big enough to hide my high risk medical issues in a giant health care plan. I've got up to 15k out of pocket for deductibles and premiums of up to $15k+.

Who woulda though, an online money talk woulda brought out so many opinions.

Our next question is "Mono or cup n core"
That should be more unifying.

 

[5MilesBack]

I've never heard of the FIRE movement.....until now. I "work" every day, but have not been "employed" for quite some time. There's always work to do, always something that needs attention or fixing......and that doesn't even include all the hobbies and volunteer stuff. It's easy to stay busy.

I started saving and investing early on.....at 12. I learned from my dad a long time ago that you "never spend principal......unless it's on an investment". That way, you never run out of money. We travel, we eat out a LOT, I have a lot of hobbies, and we've put two girls through college with one more to go, using 529's and Coverdell Educational IRA's.

But to get to that point, you have to start putting money away early, or play some real catch-up later on in your career. From the time I started working, I have never been of the mindset of having to rely on social security......even a little bit. In fact, I researched for ways to decline it altogether so I could invest that same money on my own......to no avail. At this point, if or when I decide to take it, it will just be gravy and used to pay for our socialized healthcare at 65.

 

[cnelk]

I'll play

I retired from a state job 3 yrs/2 months ago at 56.
I didnt have to retire. Wanted to. Place was going woke.

I put my 25 years in, bought 5 years of Social Security to get 30 years of service into my state pension.

My house is not payed off, but owe very little and interest rate is 2.25% - Damn near free money

I get a stipend each month towards my health care.

I had a goal to start my own carpentry / handyman part-time business and that has been a perfect supplement to staying busy, and having extra $$$ to buy land in Wyoming and build a cabin in the past year.
That alone has doubled in value.

I'll take what's left in my SS at 62, since I didnt pay into SS for 25 years, its not a major source of income and it wont matter to wait.


Everyone is different. What works for one, may not work for others.

 

[rayporter]

i retired in 03 at 51. i saved all my life to be able to retire and never regretted it. not for one second.

i was debt free in 89. that helped.

i had plenty of stuff and hobbies to keep me busy so it never understood those that got bored.
still dont.


go if you can and dont look back.

 

[Wrench]

When covid hit and our governor proclaimed that tenants need not pay rent amd eviction was almost impossible....we bailed. The $$ wasn't worth the stress. I can spin up a few rifles a month for the same dough and less stress.

 

[PNW bow hunter]

Fun thread

***long post below, but can show a good example of why people treat their money differently***

As long as I can remember, I always had a goal of retiring at 45.

When I have a goal, I set the long term goal, and short term goals along the way so I actually accomplish the long term goal. If I set a goal for 10-20 years from now, I plan monthly actions to ensure I achieve the long term goal.

My end goal was to own 4-5 rental properties by 45.

I bought my first home in 2001 at age 20. Immediately after the place I worked for ram into some huge money issues, and I no longer got bonuses, just the low hourly wage.It was a real struggle, had to have 3 roommates just to cover mortgage,utilities, and barely scrape by. Life was hell for 3 years, working 70 hour weeks to just pay the bills.
By late 2006 I had gotten financially stable again and saved a little money up. That house also had a lot of equity in it. A buddy and I bought 3 properties. We moved manufactured homes to them, renovated the homes, and developed the lots. We sold the first one before it was even done to a woman that saw us working our tails off every night after work and on the weekends. The idea was to take the profits on selling these 3 properties to use for a down payment on a rental house.

The same thing happened on the second home. The economy really became shakey, and the banks really kept throwing new curve balls, finally got paid.

I used my profit for a down payment on a house, and paid off a high interest hard money loan on the remaining lot we had bought to develope.

2 weeks later the entire economy collapsed. I couldn’t develop the last lot and sell it, my first house would not sell, and I had a new mortgage payment o. The second house. Uh oh!

I put both homes for rent, whichever one didn’t get rented first I would live in.

The tenants stayed about 2 years. It was lots of repairs, lots of late rent, ect. I bought it on contract from the previous owner. When the tenants moved out I contacted him to see if he wanted to buy it back from me for the balance owed. Accepted the offer. I was mentally completely finished with this property. I lost my $10k down payment, and 3 years of monthly payments.
I finally sold the 3rd property that was originally going to be developed in 2014

It was finally worth what I paid, so I lost property tax, interest, hoa fees, real estate fees and closing costs and interest on original loans. Up to this day my buddy that I partnered with in those three properties still never paid me back his half of the loss $15k.

So at this point in my life each time I had made a big financial decision in my life, something really bad out of my control happened.

In 2012 I bought a new home to live in. I had saved enuff money again for the down payment on that. I sold my first house I bought in 2001 right after that, I used all the money from that sale to buy an investment property right by where I lived.

That investment property was a pretty good loser for the first 3 years. It took almost 4 months to get it rented out, then the renter left after only 8 months. It took about 2 months to get it rented again. That renter last a little over a year. Finally the 3 rd renter is Awsome and is still there.

After all these experiences I’m pretty cautious getting over leveraged. When it works out it’s great, when it doesn’t it’s not so great.

Sometimes the things that make it not so great are out of your control.

I now hope for the best, but plan for the worst when making financial decisions

I consider the losses like taking a college course. I learned from each one.

My 45 year old retirement goal when I was a kid got pushed back 3-5 years, and the plan has a lot more diversification than the original plan of just rentals.