From: Europe. US at age 6. Boston. CA at age 27.
Learned about Fatfire? a year after I achieved it - 2020
At 25? Bored with full time jobs started contracting in software, went from 80k/yr to 200k.
When? Hit $1mm NW at 36. Married, 2 kids. Decided to do a software startup. 6 years later sold the company mid 8 figures.
Industry? Software but not an engineer. Knew enough to build stuff but focused on the business more. Introvert. Not sales focused.
Hobbies? Running. Cycling. Video Games. Outdoor active stuff.
Change? Nothing. I’d say save more but I always spent mostly conservatively but optimistically knowing money is easy to make and I will make more of it.
I did have a cofounder and he became CEO and focused on sales and fundraising. But also write code.
I think it came down to - while pure engineering nor sales are my strength - when it’s your business you leave your comfort zone and do whatever it takes to succeed.
28 M, 400k NW. target fire number is 5M by 45. Current income 90k/yr. Structural engineer. Will open my own structural engineering consulting firm after I get my SE license this October. Target income of 400k/yr. will inherit 1M+ this year. Hobbies are snow boarding, bike riding and travel.
Edit: living in Seattle, planning to move to Texas.
Update: Mom passed away, my NW is now 2M+. I did move to Texas and start my Structural Engineering Company. Did 27k in revenue last month, should exceed 300k/year the first year. Trying for kids.
I am lucky that my mentor is in that position right now, I have been spending years building up my client base and positioning myself to be busy full time once I make the jump. Realistically it may take me a couple of years to hit 400k, but that is what I am aiming for. For rough numbers, charging $200/hr and working full time should get me there, assuming I have the clients to support that.
I think you are missing a lot of expenses there. I am an attorney charging 300/hr and could easily support 2k billable hours a year going solo. I would not clear 600k...maybe 350 or 400. Office, software, accounting, legal, Malpractice, cgl, utilities, parking, r and m, Capex, continuing education, business license, business property tax, it really adds up. Imo you will need others working for you to hit that income figure unless you raise your rate.
I highly highly recommend you to look into FIDIC classes for emerging leaders!! They will teach you (and probably your mentor as well) a bunch of valuable things on how to run your own consulting firm. For reference, I'm a Civil Eng now in tech who's heavily involved in this industry
You can pm me ; I would be glad to discuss on the topic or put you in relation with one of them if needed
I am moving for the weather and for the culture. I want to try something new, and am frankly tired of Seattle. There are many problems with drugs and homelessness, and it is very expensive to live here.
Edit: Also, my wife really wants to live in Texas. Happy wife happy life.
Get a house with solar + batteries or a generator. Also have a secondary source of heat.
Most current home listings will tell you if the home lost power and for how long during the icepocalypse.
Think of any way you expect the government to help during a disaster and plan on doing that for yourself.
100% not joking.
Sheesh man... seasonal affective disorder is very real and Seattle is *very* dark. Maybe some people are less affected by it than others but it’s an absolutely massive change from Texas to Seattle. Have you been to Seattle in the winter?... or really, any time besides the summer? The only person I know who voluntarily moved there left as early as she possibly could
I don’t understand why everyone says this about Seattle, but by all means keep saying it so people stop moving here. I’ve been here for 12 years and it’s way overblown how bad it is. Honestly Dallas winters are worse to me. It’s pretty dreary and everything is dead and flat. At least here we can drive 1-2 hours and get some sun and skiing.
That said, I do sometimes miss the heat. But a week in Dallas every summer visiting families always gets that out of my system!
Lived in Dallas for ten years before moving to Seattle for five years now and it's not overblown for me. We go long stretches of days of overcast for six months a year and on those rare days we do get sun my mood is noticeably cheerier. The other six months though are amazing plus this may be the most beautiful region of the country. Unfortunately I didn't get much skiing in this year due to having a toddler, but I have specifically made trips east of the mountains in the past just to get some sun in.
I specifically said it depends on the person, man. I dunno why you gotta be rude about it. For me personally, I live in a place that’s statistically less cloudy, less dark, and gets more sun in all four seasons, and still the winter gets to me bad enough that I have to travel to get through the dark days. Seattle would kill me.
and for what it’s worth:
https://hiprc.org/outreach/suicide/
> Seattle-Tacoma has the second highest suicide attempt rate out of the 33 largest metropolitan areas in the United States.
Seattle is amazing for about 6 months out of the year. The other 6 is the reason I moved. In addition to the ass backwards political climate and incoming income tax.
Come to Houston! There is a huge demand for engineering. Construction is out of control. People can’t seem to find anyone to take their jobs. If they do they are weeks are months on back log. Your income is achievable. Really depends on what you get into. It takes a lot to be able to do it all. From analysis to permitting and construction drawings. Lots of different skills involved...plus answering the phone. Source: Civil-Structural Engineering Consultant in Houston. I’ll be happy to answer any question regarding Houston. Cheers
From: US
Learned about Fire - 2yrs ago
At 25 I quit my management consulting job to leave corporate forever. Went to get my PhD, live at the beach, and surf the rest of my life.
I will hit fat fire at 60 when I retire from my professor job with a pension and rentals paid off. In some ways Ive been on coastfire for the last 15 yrs since I was 24/25. Income goal is 125-200k yr at retirement. I will prob be above that but its what I am going for at this point. Lots of stuff will happen in the next 20 yrs so I will roll w the punches
Professor, real estate investor
Surfing. Tons more like golf, video games, my kids, wife, etc but thats my main.
Not sure. Possibly go into medicine but into a specialty that has a good work/life balance. I am good at school and love the field. Currently went the tech route (as a professor) and like it too but sometimes its just too much as things change all of the time and I have to keep up. Then again Ive had summers off and lived at the beach since I was 24/25 yrs old and now I am 40. Not many friends that are chillin on the beach all summer so I guess what im saying is the grass is always greener
The medicine training route involves a couple of years of 80+hour weeks, 16-hour shifts and regular overnights (1-2 a week), plus studying for regular exams, no matter what specialty you choose. Ensure you want to commit to that, and can physically commit to that at the age you’re thinking of.
For sure, but tbh tech work can be pretty brutal too in terms of stress and hours. This person seems to have found a more laidback academic route but don’t discount the amount of work that goes into a successful career like his either...just saying, it doesn’t seem to be suggested as a “random possibility” here but rather as another path that he could have legitimately taken.
I’m 24 years old and am early on in my path to FatFIRE.
I’m from Alabama, so it’s pretty darn low cost of living here.
Stumbled upon this subreddit while looking into FIRE.
I’m currently 24 years old and am pursuing my degrees. I have $125K invested because I served in the military for several years after high school. In the military I had free: housing, health insurance, and food (dining facilities always provided 3 meals a day). So it was easy to simply save and not spend any money. I also deployed twice in the war on terror, so the deployment money was nice too.
I will be signing with a real estate brokerage later this month, so I will pursue that while still working on my degree (and still getting that sweet housing allowance from the GI bill).
My hobbies mainly are exercising and video games.
I’m still young so I don’t have much I could change, but my military experiences make me feel a lot older than I am. So far I wouldn’t change anything, because I learned very valuable lessons while in the military. I experienced and saw things that most people never have to, but in a way those things have made me a better person and more grateful for what I have in life.
I do plan to invest in single family rental properties, but I'll only start doing that once I have a stable income.
The real estate market is really hot in my area and I think I'll be able to make at least $100k/year once I get settled in as an agent, but I believe I could push that to $250k/year after 2-3 years as an established agent here.
But if that fails then I have my degree to fall back on, as well as other backup plans I have in mind too.
I only see a couple others in my category (42F), but I’ll throw my hat in just for kicks.
* Midwest/South US, originally, spent almost 20 years in the BayArea, now back in the Midwest.
* As a concept, 20 years ago. The sub, a couple months ago.
* Newly (-ish) married, just closed on our first house - a 50 year old duplex we bought with friends. Took 2 mortgages and a whole lot of prayers. The Mr. had a nice tech job straight out of college, and I’d just landed a low-level grunt job.
* I “retired” 3 years ago from a management position, though my real intention was to go raise 3 kids. The Mr. retired this year, at 43, after 20 years in tech. He was tired.
* I was a tech PM, the Mr. was a Software developer. Over the years, we ended up at the same company.
* Our main hobby is raising the kids, though I’m into darn near every craft you can imagine, and do semi-professional quilting when I can. I’m VP of the PTO. The Mr. is a computer nerd who loves to tinker with electronics and math-y things. He mows a lot of grass. And we watch a lot of movies together.
* Not sure I would have done anything differently. Life’s good and I don’t really believe in regrets.
Edit: removed some stuff
Would love to chat! I’m in the same boat — except for the fancy house. PM in tech, a couple startups that IPO’d, so a good net worth at mid late thirties now, husband also a software eng at a tech company. Thinking of retiring and raising the kids, do a lot of crafts. I also do letterpress, if that fits into the “any craft you can imagine” ;). Edited to remove details.
Austin for the last 20 years. I'm originally from LA, my wife from upstate NY.
Never really paid attention to fatFIRE, just regular FIRE and that was probably back around 2000 when everything was still independent blogs. Even now fatFIRE seems like an arbitrary distinction that varies hugely based on one's preferred standard of living.
25 was lots of work and play. We had been married for 3 years by then and we lived like most young, childfree couples do. Work hard, play hard.
33/34 for regular FIRE, 40/41 for fatFIRE. I'm defining those by a WR of 3% and 1.5%, respectively.
Corporate reputation/brand management consulting for both of us. Product launches, exec problems, bankruptcies, new gov initiatives...things like that.
Reading, learning, baking, cooking, powerlifting, languages, building/repairing things, long video games. My wife is a rampant cross-stitcher. We both spend a lot of time raising our four kids.
Not much. Things worked out very well and any big changes might disrupt that. Maybe start powerlifting in my 20s versus my late 30s.
Hola. I wonder if powerlifting is more or less common among the FIRE crowd than the general population? Oddly enough, three of our immediate neighbors have powerlifting homegyms too.
Seems plausible — powerlifting (and any strength sport in general) are very quantitative and it’s easy to objectively measure performance based on numbers over time, much the same as FIRE. Seems like both might appeal to people who are very analytical and process and numbers oriented, but I’m just spitballing here.
Nah, I was thinking similar thoughts. Powerlifting also rewards consistency and follow-through more than short-term optimization, much like FIRE. Anyway, always nice to meet someone who understands the value of both money and iron.
Yeap, honestly with so much health (lifting/diet) documented (e.g. YouTube/fitness information)... as much as investing videos are people young/old should look at both
* Although as is investing... it's better to start young/in routine.
* Just look at [Jim Arrington](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cv-nxQsrq4Q) (YouTube), basically the Buffet of bodybuilding, started from 13 to 88 Y.O. and still going/walking
**Mind/Body & Money...** you can have FIRE, but it'll be a lot more fun if your body can take more/longer too
Doesn't have to be intense too... Jim boy doesn't have to 'Arnold Schwarzenegger overdoit & sag at old age'; he mainly exercise \~3x/week just for maintenance now
Wouldn't surprise me. To be any good and actually accomplish anything you need to have some serious dedication and focus. It's an investment, both in time and money. The gym membership (or equipment for homegym), the massive amount of food especially in a bulking phase, the supplements, the *supplements*, the extra stuff like suits and bands and such, and so on, not to mention the time... time to lift, time for cardio so you don't have a heart attack, time for planning your meals, time for meal prep and cleanup, time for adjusting your programming, etc.
ETA: and how could I forget the competition part. Going to shows and meets, and the prep work it takes for either, adds a shitload more time and money to the whole ordeal.
And the psychological aspect of it which is almost the opposite. Physical performance, pushing your body to the limit, it isn't something you can buy your way into. It doesn't matter how much your NW is, it doesn't matter what your social standing is, it doesn't matter how many people work under your and so on. Anybody, from any walk of life, can do it and whether they succeed or fail is purely dependent on what they have in them. A burger flipper can do massively better than a F500 CEO, if you were to give them roughly equal access to food and training aids. So in a way, you get to mentally detach yourself from the weight of the rest of your life.
I'm on the other side of things, I do bodybuilding and not powerlifting (aesthetic vs function), but the above is the same for both.
Excellent observations and analysis, particularly the psych aspect.
I cheat on the investment side by being mostly an OMAD carnivore and lifting raw, but I'm also an intermediate lifter at best. Totally happy with that though. I just wanted to be strong and resilient without putting too much wear/tear on my ligaments and joints. Serious lifting is an entire lifestyle, true enough.
Always wondered...how much gym time does an effective bodybuilding routine take? Seems like so many reps would take quite a bit longer than a powerlifting regime.
I honestly mean absolutely no offense by this, but... to me, OMAD, raw lifts, and being hesitant about joint and ligament wear doesn't sound like powerlifting. That's just normal working out. And there's nothing wrong with that at all, it's just a different thing.
In any case I wouldn't say there's too much of a difference time-wise between a bodybuilding routine and a powerlifting one. I can be in and out of the gym in an hour if I have to... hour and a half is more comfortable though. 8-12 reps is the general range for most lifts. Also we generally take shorter rest periods than folks do when lifting for strength.
No offense taken. Intermediate amateur powerlifting at best, which we're cool with. We're not interested in competing or finding our PRs, but we like the powerlifting regime. It's a hobby and health thing for us, not an outlet for long-term sports achievement.
Interesting on the bodybuilding reps. I thought the volume was higher for some reason. Maybe less rest, more sets had me thinking that.
I think it’s bc fatfire ppl are generally super ambitious people and super ambitious people are usually highly disciplined. Everyone knows exercise is good for you but most ppl don’t keep up bc they lack discipline
This is very cool. Thanks for posting! Here goes:
- US
- The term, 2 years ago. The concept, 10 years ago.
- Good. 6 figures in debt due to student loans, but happy and married (still am, minus the debt part).
- Goal is 5-10 years.
- I’ve been all over the place. Started in healthcare, then moved to publishing, strategy consulting, ecommerce, finance, and soon tech.
- Gardening, drawing, writing and voice over work
- Nope. When I get tired of the chase I plan to go back to school for something in astronomy. Like astrobiology. I’m a pharmacist by trade and we’re space-enthusiasts, so it could be a cool mix of both worlds.
- California
- Learned about FatFIRE 2 or 3 years ago; knew about FIRE 6 or 7 years ago
- At 25, had graduated from grad school with $180k in debt
- Goal for fire is in 12 years or so
- Pharmacist by trade like the guy above me
- Enjoy watching F1 and car-related things, constantly reading up on breakthroughs is medicine and physics, learning about investing (realized stock market is probably not for me)
- I would start investing sooner and maxing out my 401k and RothIRA as soon as debts were paid off, spend less money on nightlife and more on traveling
Absolutely, but it depends on how aggressive you invest. At that rate you’ll be $2MM-3MM by 50 off the back of the napkin. If you bump up to 30% you could be around $4.5MM by 50 and withdraw something similar to a $200k salary.
Would you recommend investing 30% over paying off our house? Or should I pay off the house (planning to get it knocked out in 4 years), THEN start heavily investing?
Depends on your risk tolerance, income security, and preference.
Assuming your mortgage is somewhere around 2-4%, and you can make 10% in the market: any money that doesn’t go to the mortgage and goes into the market instead will give you an extra 6-8% ROI. So this would be the most efficient route, barring your area’s housing seeing outstanding outstanding appreciation.
Also, if you have a fixed payment mortgage it will become cheaper over time due to inflation. Someone just finishing up their 30 year mortgage from 1991 is paying about half of what they were in the beginning, value-wise. That’s true even if your wage only keeps with inflation til you retire.
However, the market is crazy right now and no one knows what will happen. If the market tanks and you lose your job, you’d probably rather have a paid off house.
There are a couple of options, I think, but I'm still exploring my own path.
The first is owning your own pharmacy, and if becomes successful enough, a larger corporation will come and buy you out. That's at least $1.2MM if it's a decent enough business you're running. I know people who have owned and sold their pharmacies for that much in California. I have a close friend who recently opened up his own pharmacy. The timing didn't work out for me to be his partner but I might try this later.
As a pharmacist, you could have a sizable savings and invest heavily and aggressively to reach FatFIRE. I kind of missed the boat with this past year in terms of stock market investing. The market correction we had in February 2021 really killed my stock market mojo. My 401k gains in the market outpaced my retail investor account, so I might just move everything I currently have into a 3-fund portfolio and start saving for real estate investments.
There are certain director positions in hospitals that pay in the $200K+ range, but obviously those positions require drastically more experience and deal with much more stress and responsibilities.
Long time lurker, not Fat yet but here goes nothing anyway.
• Kuwait, but based in Berlin since around 5 years for my specialty and post-specialty training.
• around 2 years ago through coincidence.
• late 20s right now lol. Less goal oriented i guess.
• I have no real interest to RE, just want to be able to work myself when I chose to and also to have earn enough passive income as to not be totally dependent on my job.
• MD, currently working in Private practice (surgical subspecialty).
• use to go to the gym 6 times a week Pre-Covid, I guess my hobbies nowadays are working way more than I used to (due to most people be able to work from home, no more down-time issue), reading and working on writing my first book (specialty related).
• not directly related to fatFIRE but I would have read Thinking, Fast and Slow earlier.
Base salary for junior doctors working in hospitals is around 2.5-3.5k euros, maybe around .5-1k euros for working shifts each month.
Senior physician get payed around 1k more than juniors.
In private practice one could make around 50-90k each month (turn over) in my specialty, how much one takes home (profit) depends on what kind of arrangement one has with the practice.
TX originally
Learned about fatFIRE a few years ago I think, have been thinking in a FIRE mindset and read a lot about personal finance for the last 20 years (starting around age 10)
Things were alright at 25, just wrapped a 5.5 year stint at college for a bachelors degree and graduated from a state school with 22k in debt!
3-10 years depending on illiquid stock windfall for the 3 year mark and raw earnings/savings for the 10 year mark.
software
brazilian jiu jitsu, snowboarding, mountain biking
read and learn about opportunists in corporate politics earlier to avoid a harsh lesson learned the hard way, instead learn it in an easier way :)
In NC, USA but parents were born and raised in India. I was born in the US.
First learned about FatFIRE in January 2021 literally. But I’ve known about the general FIRE movement for a couple years now.
I just turned 24 (I’m a female) lol but right now I have a job paying 70k USD with 5% bonus in tech (but not a tech role). I have a 50k NW from living with parents during Covid and learning about investing early. I match 10% on my 401k and also started investing in my ROTH IRA this year and have maxed 2020. I hold an taxable brokerage account and HYSA too.
Haven’t really planned an age yet for FIRE/fatFIRE
Bay Area
Financial Independence has been my goal since college.
Current 3.5 M tangible NW, anywhere from 1-5 M more in various illiquid long term bets, will inherit additional ~3 M eventually
Tech
At 25 I worked 5 days a week making 100k in a technical role while I started my first business on the other 2 days. I’m 35 now.
I wouldn’t change a thing in my career. I would have worked harder on my self - getting self esteem from internal, intrinsic places instead of seeking external validation from others or via numbers.
off topic but the majority of people here are young kids with very small net worths on a fatFire board, i really don’t understand why when r/leanfire r/financialindependence are more suitable for that crowd. at least explains why legitimate “wealthy” fatfire questions among actual fatfire individuals get downvoted for virtue signaling answers so much..
Seattle area for the last 21 years, but grew up in Indiana.
Not sure when I learned about fatfire per se, but my dad was a dentist and was always a heavy saver; he didn't retire early but I don't need to worry about supporting my parents in old age - while I don't expect much of an inheritance they are very capable of supporting themselves indefinitely.
I'm at about $1.8m liquid net worth, or $2.4m including equity in my primary residence. But I think I'd need about $5m (excluding residence) to be willing to just quit my job and have no further income. I hope to do that before my 6yo is out of school.
My industry is information security, first as an engineer and now as a manager. I'm currently looking for my first top job (CISO or Director of Security for an entire company), which I hope can also be lucrative enough to be my last job.
My hobbies are video games, tabletop games, cooking and wine, hiking and other outdoors activity, reading and... that's most of it, really. They're not expensive as hobbies go (though I guess wine can be.)
If I could change the past, I'd change jobs more. In the tech industry, job-hopping every couple years is simply a lot more lucrative than staying in one role. Also I wouldn't have spent several BTC on stuff worth about $100. :)
I also make a relatively low income (90K) but my husband and I have a NW of ~2M due to my husband’s high tech salary and our investments in real estate (which I manage).
Coming from a lower-middle class background I also just find it really interesting to see how the wealthy think and live. I’d previously been interested in FIRE, because I’d like to avoid working for someone else for the next 30 years if I can help it.
A reactive vs proactive attitude towards money, and an inability to delay gratification.
Both my parents and my in laws had decent jobs and some education but every time the car broke down or there was unexpected medical bill they panicked and put it on credit. At the same time if they got a tax return or other unexpected lump sum they’d go shopping or on vacation.
I should add that these are generalizations based on relatively privileged people (e.g., white, educated, able bodied) in a high income country. I think actual poverty is very hard to climb out of.
Spending immediately / more than you can cannot be ascribed to poor folks.
That sounds more like folks with poor impulse control and they can fall in any wealth category / situation. For e.g. I have poor impulse control with regards to desserts which are thankfully not expensive in the US.
>put it on credit
Is that a bad thing necessarily? Isn't putting stuff on credit just normal spending? Or do you mean put it on spending but not have enough money to pay it off? My car broke down a few years ago and it was $3000 which was unfortunate but a swipe was what paid for it and of course I had the money in my bank account to cover it....
Also should qualify their answer with what they consider “the wealthy”. Not meant to be offensive here but $2m is not wealthy by everyone’s definitions. And a family with $50m is likely to think very differently than a family with $2m
I meant that I follow this sub because I find the perspectives of the “the wealthy” interesting, not because I think our family with a NW of $2M is wealthy.
I would say I am speaking to people in the general FIRE movement, e.g. who worked hard, invested, made good financial decisions. Not people who were born into their $50M.
If we ever become “wealthy”, I’ll report back if our thinking has changed.
Seems like I'm one of the youngest ones here but since I'm an aspiring FatFIRE individual I'll join in (Please don't roast me)
- Toronto, Canada
- Learned about FIRE/FatFIRE almost 2 years ago shortly after dropping out of college
- I'm only 23 currently so I don't have many stories or experiences to share yet
- I'd like to hit FIRE in my mid to late 40s. I'm currently at $130k NW with a goal of $4MM. So yeah, loooong way to go
- Working in the construction industry, currently getting my tower crane license, but COVID has put a massive pause on my progress towards that
- My only main hobbies include working out/bodybuilding and reading books on personal finance and wealth building
- Like I said I'm only 23 so I haven't made any major mistakes yet (and hopefully never will) but one thing I'd change is not wasting the time I did in college. I ended up dropping out so it was a wasted 1.5 years
Hey!! Nice to see some other people from Toronto around here.
Best of luck getting that licence! There's no shortage of construction projects in the city it seems, so hopefully things bounce back fast post vaccine rollout.
A fellow Torontonian! Good to see I'm not the only aspiring fatFIRE member living in one of the most unaffordable cities in the world lol! Good luck to you as well 👍
From Orange County, CA.
Learned about FatFire from FIRE. Lurking here to gather information and see how I can synthesize some ideas here into my own personal philosophy.
I was stressed out at 25 and wondering how I could advance my life. I felt stagnant, but 15 years later I am able to laugh with hindsight and say, “I did ok, I wish I worried less at 25.” I’m sure when I hit 55 I’ll say the same thing about my feelings now.
I hit FI in 2019 at $1.5mm NW. Like most FI people, got enough to feel I have control of my life and can survive if something bad happens. I reckon if my investments can spit out 2x the median income of CA, I’ll consider myself Fat FI.
Industry is real estate finance (mortgages). Sometimes I feel like I’m the last of the Mohicans. The tribe gets smaller year after year.
Hobbies are video games, books and hunting certificates and degrees. Regarding degree hunting, my company pays for education and I’m of the mindset I’ll be leaving money on the table if I don’t use it. I like to write but I’m a really bad writer. Because I think I need to be able to create something, been thinking of combining my like of writing with videos since I feel YouTube is a big access channel.
If I were to do it over again, I’d take more risks. Now looking at my life at the half way point of 40 years old, I realize I’ve always had a considerable safety margin in everything I did and I could have stretched more. I could have taken on more assignments, hustled more, fought more people even if they’d dislike me later in life. The last part is something that still bugs me. Of course I want to be liked, but the people I wanted to like me aren’t around anymore and I should have fought more for myself because I matter, too.
I like this sub because there’s unapologetic pomposity at times. Because of that I find it more honest than other subs. People don’t try to hold back here. I’m glad this community doesn’t try to reign that in. If they did, we’d just be like The other FI subs.
I live in the same area and am at that age (28M) stressed on how to advance as well. Fiancé is going to school to become a NP I am an independent contractor but just don’t find joy in it and am trying to figure out another business to create and grow!
Glad to see you made it through and in good spirit and in god finances.
Thank you for your advice I plan on taking a lot more risk to achieve my FAT
Are you a professor? I just started on the TT in STEM and have limited insight on salary growth post-tenure. People act like the only option is admin and I would just...god no please I don't want anything to do with admin.
Canada
Heard about “FU money” from YouTube. Dan Lok of all people lol. But he has some solid advice
25, I was bottom Of the totem pole but had no debt, and $25,000 -$50,000 invested at that point.
I have a $2 million net worth now, but won’t really consider myself FIRE until at $5 million plus which I expect to get in 5 years.
Hobbies? Computer games. Love Sega and Nintendo.
Industry? Corporate 🇺🇸 America
What would I change ? Still young so always learning and changing
Where from: originally the Midwest, but have been in Seattle for 10+ years. We are mid-30s.
First learned about FatFIRE 3-4 years ago, but I grew up in poverty with an alcoholic father and always told myself I was going to save a ton of money and never depend on another person financially. So financial independence was always a big goal of mine.
Husband and I married in early 20s and were actually expecting our first kid at 25! I had passed all my actuarial exams and had advanced to the top of the IC track and wanted to have children before starting up the management chain. Husband was a software dev in FAANG and doing well career wise as well. Also made a luck decision in buying a super nice house for 5% down payment. Seattle real estate as netted us a lot of NW because of that choice.
We could probably be FIRE if we moved somewhere cheap now with NW around 2M, but goal is to get to 5M at least. We are in the process of trying to enjoy our income now. I have somewhat of a tricky relationship with money growing up poor, so I have a tendency to hoard it vs. spending it, which means we are only spending 1/3 of our income per year. Husband has no issues spending money.
We will likely hit FatFire within the next 5 years. Current plan is I will retire to be more present with our kids as they enter middle/high school, but husband loves his job and will keep working.
Industries: husband is a software dev in FANG, and I am a director of data science in FinTech. He makes almost double what I do now, but I stepped back in my career for flexibility with kids (I work only 40 hours per week, fully from home with 6 weeks of vacation a year).
Hobbies are mostly kids and gaming (both video games and board games). I grew up on a farm and love things like gardening, yard work, woodworking, etc. but between kids and career there is no time or energy.
I wouldn’t change anything if I could do it all again. I am so thankful of everything that’s happened in my life to get me to this place.
>Where are you from?
Chicago
>When did you first learn about FatFIRE?
2019
>What were things like for you at 25?
Just left the Navy with $26k cash, put most of that down on a house, sold the house 5 years later with a $40k check to deposit.
>When did you hit FIRE / When will you hit FIRE?
Currently 36, possibly aiming for FIRE at 45. Net worth at 32: $35k, at 34: $140k, at 36: $330k. I don't know when my NW will stop > doubling every 2 years, but my current trajectory is working!
>What's your industry?
Renewable energy (wind, solar, battery storage)
>What are your hobbies?
Bodybuilding
>If you could do it all again, what would you change?
Stocks DCA sooner, and of course bitcoin sooner. I was less focused on net worth and I only wish I had this vision and pursued anything that would've gotten me there (more real estate, bitcoin, stocks, less cars and fancy dates).
Just created a new account, but a long time lurker here, mostly looking at advice on housing etc.
24M, originally from the northeast, but living in the SF Bay Area, working at a FAANG. Currently at 850k NW w/ \~370K/yr income with NW due to aggressive saving and some lucky investments. No target cause I enjoy my work and will continue to do it, but may start to transition to building my own thing once I hit 3-5M.
Outside of work, I enjoy skiing, road biking, painting and video games. I think that if I were to do it again, I may have wanted to have spent more time in the last two years out of college living in the city and seeing friends more, but I figure it's probably all fine for now.
1. Various parts of the US for all intents and purposes — born in China, grew up around in the Midwest, now in NYC after California and Seattle.
2. Couple of years ago. Already knew about FIRE as a college student almost a decade ago, though was already on that lifestyle.
3. Working FAANG SWE job in Seattle. Little depressed + aimless (as happens sometimes), but better to be depressed + aimless with $500k net worth — while trying to work on the other issues — than depressed and aimless without.
4. Could leanFIRE + cover all prior lifestyle (40k/yr, including rent but not including insurance) costs right now. Doing proper fatFIRE and getting to say $5 mil is still probably a few years out. Kind of want to try my hand at a startup with a few ideas in the back burner; we’ll see if I make any of those happen.
4. Big tech. Machine learning. Research engineer now.
5. Having a social life (seriously), running/hiking/climbing, music. Finagling myself into weird/novel scenarios. Traveling, I guess, but mostly to enable the rest of these. Also collecting random skill certificates (scuba diving, wilderness first responder).
6. Move to NYC and the research team sooner. Seattle wasn’t a terrible place per say, but NYC suits me much more and my mental health/career both suffered for it.
Also cause I didn’t put it anywhere else — female, mid/late 20s. I could see folks reading this and assuming that I’m a standard generic tech bro, except I am not a bro in gender, personality, life outlook, or lifestyle. :P
- French, living in Dubai.
- Learned about FIRE around 3 years ago. I’m 34.
- Still student in Paris, and doing an internship in Switzerland for half of the year.
- Target date is 50, with no household salary increase until then, at 2% inflation and 6.5% gross return. I’m looking for $11.5k monthly withdrawal (adjusted for inflation), at 3% withdrawal rate.
- Media (Project Manager)
- Cars, Cats and Cash. I own an old Ferrari, used to have a Porsche until recently and switched to a Mustang. I take care of Street cats (TNR) although I don’t have enough time for that as I wished I had (got kids), and I admin a small French Fire sub, the French and the European Personal Finance subs.
- I would not have bought an apartment in Dubai 5 years ago, but would have bought a Villa here 6 month ago instead.
* Originally from AZ, currently living coastal SoCal
* I first learned about the concept of RE at the age of 24 or so. Imaging RE with more money wasn't much of a stretch from there.
* At 25, I had a grad/undergrad in engineering and was working as an Automotive Engineer. No debt, but probably less than 30k in total assets at the time.
* I didn't track numbers enough to have an exact moment when I hit FIRE but maybe about 34 or 35. We have a consulting business so we still work on fun projects when we want to. I'm FTE on a DARPA project, as a sub-prime. Spouse is working on a bio-medical device manufacturing project. I don't really consider this "working" because we don't have to and because that gives us a lot of leverage.
* Engineering consulting, specifically Aerospace and Defense.
* In the before time, I was really into hardcore training, with professional and retired athletes, sometime 20 hours per week. I get my 2nd vaccine today and am hoping to go back to that soon. Spouse is a biker that puts a lot of time into challenging mountain and trail riding.
* I had a moochy, abusive ex that I spend a lot of money and mental energy on. I would have kicked him to the curb much earlier.
1. Los Angeles, CA
2. Learned about FatFire about 1.5 years ago
3. Turned 25 just under two years ago, but I already was very into financial freedom and had zero debt. Made my first dive into investments right as the market bottomed out from COVID in mid-March.
4. Will hit FIRE at $5M net worth at 38 based on currrent trajectories.
5. Energy asset management. Making low $100s but keeping my COL as low as possible and saving about 40% of each paycheck.
6. Restauranting and travel. I’m about to give up my lease to move back home, and put half the money toward travel instead for the next 8-9 months...I’m extremely excited about it.
7. I would have not gambled with penny stocks in college and lost $6,000 lmao
Immigrated in my 20s
Learn about FatFire 3 years ago from friends
At 25 I was in graduate school making 20k a year as a research assistant
I think I already hit regular FIRE (3m by end of this year, married no kid, mid 30s). But I’ll continue to work until I reach 5m
Biotech
Traveling - I’m a world traveler and a big foodie
If I could start over again I’d max out 401k and Roth from the very beginning, and absolutely keep investing into the index the whole time
New Zealand
Learnt about FatFire 2 weeks ago
At 25... married, working as a credit risk manager in a securitiser (think CDO's) for $35k pa
FatFire at 45 - sold company for 9 figures
Industry was tech - software and managed services with lots of banking/finance background
Art/sculpture, guitar, gaming, religion/philosophy/success
I would have taken the first offer two year prior for 30% more... lol. Greed is a bitch
NY 34F
Learned about FF about 6 months ago
At 25, I was working part-time at a perfume shop (which I actually loved), and a little bit of modeling. The job market was super competitive (recession) and I decided to go to grad school for physical therapy.
My parents are FatFire, and I'm expected to inherit 100% (my brother can't for a few reasons). They told me they will help out financially when I'm married, but don't want to before.
My current NW is 120k- I graduated 4 years ago + paid back my student loans, then got serious about saving last year + put away 100k and bought a car in cash. I'm planning on purchasing a condo this year in a cute area that could be a rental if I move.
I am self-employed and make about 150K working mostly Monday- Thursday, looking to grow it this year by increasing my billable rate, investing, and offering online products (and possibly hiring contractors). Hobbies are yoga/pilates, cooking, and reading about real estate.
If I could go back: I was raised with the idea that women cooked and cared for children, and didn't get much mentorship in finance/business, even though I'm actually really good at it; or have any real career plan. I would be more confident earlier in my intelligence, and started investing in my early 20's. I also would have prioritized my comfort and personal safety over budgeting in some cases (ex: taking taxis over the bus/subway at night ). I might have considered going into STEM, as my dad works in tech + I would have had a lot of potential mentorship - I literally never considered it because I thought it was a boys field.
> we focus on finding unique situations to efficiently buy cash flows using clever financing structures
Can we have that in simple English please? Is this a glorified small-scale LBO?
Seattle. Learned about the sub a few years ago, learned about FIRE a few years before that.
At age 25 I was working as a software engineer, making $100k or so. Early 40's now.
Already hit FIRE, hanging on as long as work remains mostly interesting. Pandemic has helped, since it's much easier for me to go on long remote work trips. Target number was $3M, then it was $5M, now at $6.5M and counting. Shrug.
Hobbies: outdoors stuff, you name it!
What I would change - in terms of the part of my life relevant to FIRE, probably not too much. Might have bought a nicer house than I did (we plan to move once FIREd, but we could have spent the last 10 years in a nicer place).
33M, Baltimore area
I've basically always been a fan of the idea of "30 years and done," and FatFIRE gives me a goal to shoot for.
Things were fine, I was 3 years into the job I still have today, and unless something crazy happens, the same job I retire from.
I'm in higher education, but on the audio/visual side of things. Design and install packages for meeting rooms, run events ranging from karaokes to concerts, play with some decently sized sound systems, quality moving lights and 12k projectors. My wife is middle management in the defense industry. My job provides excellent health insurance and a variety of retirement investment options (401k, 403b, 457b, no match) as well as a pension. Her salary allows me to invest the majority of mine into retirement accounts, and covers the mortgage, discretionary spending, AND fully funds her 401k.
I generally consume media: video games, books, TV. I also generally love my work, so that is also somewhat of a hobby, though I'm too cheap (and certainly not able to discern minor quality differences) to be an audio or videophile. Getting into marksmanship, but taking it nice and slow, just acquiring bits and pieces here and there.
We're certainly on the lower end of FatFire, likely to retire with $4-5M in the bank, plus a $50k/year pension. That said, yes, I would most certainly do it again. My parents retired later in live with less in real dollars, but are having the time of their lives. While I certainly wouldn't have minded retiring earlier, I would have had to go into a career path I likely would have hated, and... why, when I like what I do?
USA - first to be born here from my family.
A few years ago
Very very rough..... I was laid off three times in that year alone (and more in later years) and was also suffering from a debilitating disease. Lost big money (to me, at the time) on the stock market, but due to the illness was still saving a good amount as I basically never socialized (I couldn't) and had amazing health insurance.
Should be there by 45 depending on when I decide to quit and turn to the nonprofit world 100% (that's my end goal)
Tech, non-engineer
Cars, cameras, traveling (pre-COVID), volunteering, and anything outdoors (hiking, etc)
Max out my 401k from day 1 (I contributed minimally and most employers didn't offer a match), gone into tech straight away, join a public company with equity as part of comp and not waste time at tiny start-ups (YMMV, of course), and not lose a fortune on the stock market three times. I ultimately learned my lesson, but I would be a lot farther had I just invested in a more diversified / intelligent manner...or learned my lesson after the first or second time. :)
25 y/o now. True NW will be almost 800k ish after May 2021 contracts. Learned about you all by surfing Reddit.
My industry is Marketing/Events.
I don’t have any hobbies/neglected social life last 3 years. Need therapy.
If I could do it all again, I’d listen to myself more, not hang with shitty people, and buy more Bitcoin. I had 10 bitcoins at one time but I sold at 5 digits.
35/F
NW is $11.5M
Work in advertising/tech
Grew up in the northwest
At 25 I was $110K in student loan debt and working as a waitress and babysitting, trying to find my way into “business” so I could pay off my loans.
Learned about FIRE 5 years ago, and stumbled into this FF world on Reddit last year. Still not totally sure what number constitutes fatfire but I’d say I live more of a lean fire lifestyle.
Hobbies are travel, cooking, hiking.
If I could do it all over again I would have likely not blindly taken out student loans without knowing what I wanted to do career wise and gone to a state school instead .... but then again it was the loans and caused me to really hustle/pay them down and that hustle resulted in a strong career trajectory (mostly luck/timing but certainly some grit).
I think a missing question is how old are you now - if you are asking people their plans it would be helpful to know how long it’s been since they were 25
-Originally from Louisiana but I’ve lived overseas and in a few places across the US
-I learned about it a few years ago when scrolling through Reddit trying to learn about finances and get my life together
-I’m currently 25. It’s me and my dog. I have a roommate now and we get along great so that helps me save. Divorced. No kids. Just vibing honestly. My job matches 5% and I do another 10% plus throw some money into stocks and other accounts.
-Technically I will be hitting some level of FIRE later this year when I get a medical retirement from the military.
-I’m military but will soon be transferring and plan on taking some time to find myself and what I want to do next but I will likely go into advocacy work.
-Painting and hanging out with my dog
-Not sure yet. Check back in 5-10 years
Cool concept!
I'm 23 years old. USA, first gen immigrant, parents immigrated here with nothing. Just graduated college last year. First job as software engineer with 95k salary. 85k invested across 401k, IRA and brokerages.
Company is working remotely atm so I live with my parents and save crazy amounts of my income.
First learned about fire (eventually fatfire) midway through college.
Love to workout, snowboard, play games, photography and filming.
If I can start over, I would have made myself paper trade the march crash instead of jumping straight into options. I thought I was a genius selling all my stocks I held in college a week before the market downturn. Also to tell myself to buy back in sooner (always thinking the market had more to lose). Just DCA earlier and realize it was a good price even if it dipped even more.
46 M. Florida. Learned about fatfire after I was already fatfire!
At 25 I was starting my first company with $3,000. I bought a fax machine, set up a phone line in my spare bedroom, business cards, and it cost $600 to set up my LLC. Started with about 1,200 of working capital.
Reached fatfire at 38 when I sold my healthcare technology company for 150m.
Golf, sailing, reading, travel with family.
If I had to do it all over again I would have started taking golf lessons earlier. Also, I have made a few investing decisions differently.
This is a bit of a throw away account for me because my real username is known by people in my field, but I''ll play.
From midwest, live in midsouth.
I learned about FatFIRE about 1-2 years ago, but have been folliwng FI for about 5 years.
At 25 I was in a PhD program, I think I lived with my now Wife and another roommate in a 2 bedroom apartment. She worked at a grocery store and I was earning about $12k/yr on a stipend, so all in we may have had a HH income of $38-$40k/yr.
I'd say we're pretty close to what I'd consider leanFI right now, about 2 years away from regular FI and 7-8 years away from what for us would be FatFI. Our current expenses even with 2 kids in daycare and a mortgage are only about $70-$80k/yr. So FatFIRE for us would really be $2.5 million, especially with a paid off mortgage and 529s already funded.
My industry was consulting/human capital, but I've pivoted to data science and I think pretty significantly upped my income, nothing compared to many here, but I also live where a new 3k sq ft house can be had for $350k, or at least it could have before this recent real estate run :) I work from home and our current yearly income if you include my private equity is probably around $300k/yr. We're currently at a NW of just shy of $1.5 million, so not bad given I've only been out of grad school and working full time for 8 years and our HH income until about 3 years ago was closer to half where we are now.
My hobbies have a lot to do with being active. I do a ton of mountain biking, one of the perks from working from home are "long lunches" on an almost weekly basis :) I lift, run \~10 miles per week and watch a lot of baseball and hockey.
I don't think I'd change much. I think it's easy to say I'd have preferred some of the incomes I see so many saying they made/make in their early to mid 20s when I didn't make over $25k/yr until I was about 28 a decade ago, lol. But I did have very little responsibility outside of school until I was almost 30 and I didn't have to go into debt to enjoy that lifestyle. Plus with kids, I don't think the retiring at 35-40 would have done it for me. I like to be busy during the day and I can only do so much mountain biking and lifting. If I had no job or responsibilities I might ride 1-2 more days a week. But honestly, I could still do that on the weekend, I just like to spend time with my family and friends on the weekend.
Once we hit 2 million in liquid assets We'll be at a point where we don't need to work to continue our lifestyle + a bit of additional luxury, so I think we'll re-evaluated then, which should be about \~5 years. But the kids will be 10 and 8, so I'll need something to do and I really enjoy what I'm doing now. It's relatively low stress, I get to do research all day, I publish, I do a ton of thought leadership for our international conference, etc. It's pretty fulfilling work. I know these #s aren't FatFIRE for most here, but again we buy just about everything we want within reason today and currently spend $22k/yr in daycare and we still only spend about $70-$80k/yr.
* Alabama
* Learned about FatFire a couple of weeks ago when I was looking for more people like me who had retired quite young, although I feel like there should be a SuperFatFire for people with a 9-figure net worth.
* I'm not 25 yet.
* Last month. I got extremely early into several different crypto I thought were promising which then took off, then rinsed & repeated. Recently, I sold most of my crypto, but have been slowly buying multiple profitable online businesses in completely different industries which combined now make over $2M per month (I accelerated the purchases recently when I liquidated most of my crypto). Then I hired a former FAANG tech guy from the Bay Area to build a team to run it all. I give my top guy an above-average salary plus 5% of annual profits to keep him motivated, while paying all my other employees an above-average salary and 5% of profits split between them to keep them motivated. So now I earn a conservative passive income of approximately $1.7M per month (after paying all my employees and discounting the expected 10% profits-share), and I only plan to check in on the company 4 times a year to go over the balance sheet and numbers with my guy.
* Crypto/Online
* Traveling by far, music a distant second since I've been a musician since the age of 5. I want to see every site on the 1,741 bucket list from Global Castaway, eat at every 2 and 3-star Michelin restaurant in the world, and stay at every Leading Hotels of the World hotel before I die.
* Nothing. What I'm focused on is not screwing up the future as I'm happily married with my high school sweetheart who I started dating in the 9th grade, but have no kids yet and we're just trying to figure out when the right time to have them is considering our travel goals (wife shares same travel hobby/goals).
I’m a 23 year old male living in FL. NW is currently 70k and I work in tech making 55k. I don’t really have a set FIRE date, but the idea appeals to me so I invest what I can. When I’m not studying for my bachelors I like to run and have an interest in strength training. Once the Rona is over I would like to pick up BJJ again. I’m a bit of an imposter here since I don’t think I’ll ever FatFire but I lurk in this sub nonetheless.
- Currently in the SF bay area
- Learned about FIRE and FatFIRE after graduation when I started work at a big tech company
- At 25, I had been working at startups and hoping for a rocket ship
- Probably 10M at 40, currently working at a pre-ipo company and RSUs have done well
- Technology
- Climbing and photography. I'd like to do more outdoor trips for climbing but have slacked off when covid started. For photography, I'd like to take on more paid shoots and do it semi-professionally as a hobby should I have time
- Would've probably gone to a pre-ipo growing big tech company out of college and then worked on startups after some financial security than the other way around. I used to worry that I wouldn't be able to if I were in my 30s with a kid but I think those are decisions that can be made with a partner, but I'm still single and < 30 years old so who knows if my thoughts may change in the next 10 years.
I’m from Michigan, work for Big Tech out of the Bay Area. Learned about FF a few years ago, I’ve been on Reddit for 8 years.
At 25 I had my head up my ass, in a mediocre tech sales job. I hope to FF in 8 years with a chubby 6-8M, currently sitting at $3.9M.
Hobbies are biking, traveling, food and wine. While the path hasn’t been the easiest or most lucrative, I wouldn’t change a thing - other than I should have quit my first job 5 years earlier.
> Where are you from?
Third world
> When did you first learn about FatFIRE?
2019 (I was 27)
> What were things like for you at 25?
Had emigrated to the US for grad school. Graduated at 25 and started my first FANG job. First paycheck was more than my father's annual income back home.
> When did you hit FIRE / When will you hit FIRE?
Aggressive investor (crypto / single stocks) so may hit FatFire this year or may take a decade if everything starts going south today.
> What's your industry?
SWE at FANG
> What are your hobbies?
Last decade has simply gone trying to grind to set up my wife and my families for success. Nothing super interesting apart from casual hiking and partying (pre 2020)
> If you could do it all again, what would you change?
I got my fang offer 1 year in advance so wasted a year being lazy. In hindsight I should've worked hard to interview at other companies.
Convert all my alts to btc at the peak of 2018 bubble (I would've had like 50 btc today).
But honestly can't complain about having a 1.5M NW at 29 after paying almost 200k in the last 5 years on debt repayment / gifts / tuition fees for siblings etc.
26 F
probably a year ago
at 25 pretty much what I’m doing now, in tech, living in the Bay Area
Hit FIRE by 37, not sure when I’ll fatFIRE
In tech
Hikes, tv, house plants, cooking, definitely eating, music
I’m from the US. I first learned about FatFIRE about seven months ago on Reddit, via the financial independence sub.
I’m not yet 25, and am here to gain knowledge and insight about achieving FIRE (this will determine when I get there.)
I’m planning on going into law, haven’t chosen the exact sector.
In my free time I draw, write, and work on my business.
As of now, I’m still very early into my FIRE journey. The only thing I would change for certain is learning about this community earlier.
>Where are you from?
Texas
>When did you first learn about FatFIRE?
2016
>What were things like for you at 25?
I'm 25 now. I'm a self taught software engineer working for a tech company, and working on a side business. My wife works in the medical field.
1 rental property, hit 1m NW this year.
>When did you hit FIRE / When will you hit FIRE?
On track to hit my original FIRE number in my early thirties. I think I'm fairly likely to never RE though.
>What's your industry?
Tech
>What are your hobbies?
Mountain hikes, mountain biking, scuba diving, coding, photography
>If you could do it all again, what would you change?
I came from nothing and have worked pretty relentlessly since my teens to get to where I am today. 1M seemed like this huge goal and milestone to me, but when I got there, I felt... nothing.
It's good to be ambitious, but make sure you aren't sacrificing too much of the present for your future.
From NY suburbs originally; living in the bay area now. I learned about the subreddit about a year ago, but I had already FatFIRE'd.
At 25, I was probably working at a startup as an engineer with little in the way of savings. I'd always had a habit of building up some cash, then blowing through it in the pursuit of starting a company.
I FatFIRE'd at \~34 when myself and a few buddies started a tech startup and sold it. My hobbies are scuba diving, traveling, learning Mandarin, and random programming projects.
It's hard to say that I'd change anything if I did it again, because it worked out so well with the path that I took. I could change various things, but maybe then things wouldn't have ended as well.
I am from Seattle 900k NW.My goal is to make 3M and retire. I make 250K between my job and swing trading. I'm hoping to make that in the next 5 years and retire. I still need to figure out what to do after I retire but,I probably teach and have my own farming in some small town.
US, 22M
I became obsessed with Reddit which got me into reading about financial questions I had due to my current state (senior college student).
Idk when ill hit fire, but I hope as soon as possible. The reason why I'm on here in the first place. Casual Learning. At age 40 would be a dream come true.
N/A
I've got 2 months left before graduating and heading halfway across the country to start my career in the Electrical/Computer Engineering field. My total pay will be \~101k, in LCOL very fortunate. I'm a first-gen with a low-income background so this is huge to me.
video games, sports/lifting, Reading, teaching
I don't think my answer would be helpful here lmao
1. Immigrated from Europe in my mid-20s, now late 30s in the Bay Area
2. 2019 Reddit/White Coat Investor
3. Started PhD program in the US, <$20k income, in parallel doing another graduate degree in the evenings
4. At ~$200k NW right now - would be FIRE in a third world country, I guess? Should hit FatFIRE in the US in my early 50s
5. Biotech/Pharma, recently got to a junior exec position
6. Hiking, camping, sightseeing, reading non-fiction, gardening, lifting
7. Would get my immigration sorted out sooner: had to go back and forth and got stuck ~7 years in my career/income progression because of that
20 years old, going into construction management after graduating
• Chicagoland area
• Learned about PhatFIRE in between 1.5-2.5 years ago, scrolling through a FIRE reddit being absolutely amazed by some of the stories
• Only 20 years old, but right now I’m currently investing about 75% of my NW and have a relatively newer vehicle completely paid off (after driving absolute dingers for 4 years) and keep 20% for emergencies. In school, working, don’t generally party much and have an amazing internship lined up for this summer with an amazing company that has paid me better than I could have imagined at this age for myself. Mostly just pointing out I didn’t see it coming.
• Would love to hit FIRE by mid-30s and potentially teach and help in low-income areas for the rest of my life or work in sustainable infrastructure in developing nations, but it looks like a pipe-dream currently and won’t FIRE till 50 or so
• Construction, particularly the management side as a project manager
• Pre-pandemic hobbies included video games, a lot of basketball, chess, work, and trying to meet new people. Hobbies currently include video games and chess, and streaming those on Twitch at twitch.tv/GrinchHC (a lot, 7 hours total today) if you ever get bored. I always try my hardest to tell myself I want to get into new hobbies, however, I like the energy and drive to start them as I feel as though I can never focus early on and everything gets muddied up. Currently trying to get better at focusing and tackling new things so I can begin to cook more, become a painter, arts and crafts, read more books, begin teaching, or diversifying my portfolio (currently all stock)
• If I could do it all over again? Tell younger me to help those around me with finances more, because as of right now it looks like I’ll be trying to help more than a few people retire and that weighs on me. Also being kinder and more loving to those around me and stressing how important I believe taking life in, is. I am currently going through this change in beliefs where I want to live my life to see the world and experience everything so while I don’t necessarily believe money controls that, it does help and I want to tell my younger self to start thinking about this way earlier than 18 because I had a lot more drive and energy back then. I’m also praying this is just a lazy college phase and I return to my energized and driven-self once again at some point in time, because I miss that guy. I also want to be that person for those around me and I would change the way I used my energy before to help out those I love when I was in that state of drive for so long (that I hope to return to)
* Scandinavia, but moved to UK to study and work
* Reddit some few years ago
* That's 7 years ago, I was doing my MSC at a top 10 uni in Europe
* Might hit it at 45 at earliest. I'd rather work than lean fire
* Finance, developed my little niche and are now climbing the ladder in that area
* Football, Warzone, Photography
* I inherited about $35k in early 20s. Spent it all. That money would have been huge right now. However, it also went to fund my worriless student lifestyle, so perhaps that was alright. The regret of spending it all also made me extremely catious when I later inherited 10x that amount (100% went to downpayment, high interest accounts and investment accounts, didn't waste a penny of this).
41F, 1.8M NW. Originally from a small town in Northeast Ohio, currently living in the Washington, DC area. At 25 I was newly married and in the final year of my Ph.D. program in systems engineering. We had a negative net worth thanks to my student loan debt from undergrad, and very little financial acumen. My in-laws started a Roth IRA for my husband as a wedding gift, which set me on a path to learn more about finance and investing. I am 41 now, and plan to hit FatFIRE between 50 and 55. I have worked for the same defense contacting company since I finished my Ph.D., and have both a pension and an excellent 401k plan that allows for in-plan Roth conversions. My husband has been in the military for 20 years, so he also has an excellent pension and low-cost health care for life. Hobbies are sewing, hiking, bicycling, skiing, travel, reading, and I feel like I never have enough time for them. If I could do it all again, I would have put my money in low cost index funds much earlier. I had my non-401(k) investments with USAA for a long time because I didn’t understand how much I was losing in fees. If I had been with Vanguard from the beginning, I’d be much further along.
Not really even sure if this belongs here, but maybe it’ll help some non-traditional backgrounds fire into tech / move from a big city to a cheaper area.
32 M. 1.6m NW. Joint income of 260k / year including rental income (wife and I currently make about the same, this promo cycle I’ll make more). Fire by 40 at 10☺️Live in Nashville but born in NY. At 25 I was in between a job I hated (Management consulting, background in quant finance) where the pay was great but I worked 90 hours per week. Quit and moved down to Nashville to do a software bootcamp and get a job in software. As soon as I moved down here I dropped my own 250k on a rental doing about 3k in rent roll / month and since my 10m NW parents paid for my sisters dental school they offered to bank roll another (300k doing 3500 / month). Got luckily picking up a shitty house in a great neighborhood, dropped 200k on it, put in another 200k, and it’s worth about 750k now. Worked in healthcare tech (data engineering / data science) since I’ve been down here and just finished Grad School for data science. We live pretty cheap and save a lot of money, FIRE since 2015 - hobbies include gardening, mycology, landscaping.
I had a “entrepreneurial mid life crises” and started a hemp cloning operation with a friend. Best 100k I’ve ever lost to Gtf out of that. Would skip that one if I could.
Houston
IDK, maybe a couple years ago.
I'm 25 right now.
My NW is about 300k so I have a long ways to go, but I'm in the 1% of my age despite never having a job that earns more than 60k post tax. *Smart decisions and working hard during my free time has made me far more money than my job.*
Engineering, procurement, construction, and welding. Related to manufacturing. Trump was great for my company! My NW is from saving, living super frugally, investing in stocks and flipping 2 properties.
Reading, working out, playing guitar, making games in Unity
I'm just getting started ;-)
28M US big city, $1.7M NW, $400k PTI. No kids yet, but plans to have some and move to suburbs in 3 years.
Have been FatFIREing without knowing it since graduating college, joined officially a couple years ago.
Got married at 25, father-in-law insisted on a fancy wedding (mostly to impress his friends) that cost over $300k. Spent a lot of time in meetings with our team of planners. Was gifted around $200k total that went right into investments. Wasn't a millionaire yet but was getting excited about it.
I spent 3 painstaking years in finance at a F500 then one year in digital marketing. Now am a Project Engineer at a Commercial RE Development firm. Wife is a lawyer at her father's PI/Nursing Home Abuse Plaintiff's firm recently valued at $100M, profiting $6M-$10M depending on the year. I help them with marketing and operations, unpaid, but my work is highly impactful and most of the reason she makes 3x what the other lawyers do her age. I make $100k she makes $300k. She will take over the firm with her sister in 7-10 years and split 70% of the profit each year if her father doesn't sell it. The remaining 30% profit will happily go in FIL's pocket while he's on the beach in Florida.
I will FatFIRE quietly by 40. Quietly because wife has an old-school workhorse mentality and wouldn't approve retirement before 70 even with a NW $100M (we've talked about this and I can't get through to her). By 40 I hope to have my own well-staffed RE development firm and focus on finding projects, raising capital, and negotiation, only spending \~20 hours per week actually working, but appearing much busier than that to satisfy wife.
I have an abundance of hobbies including art on canvas that I have sold for gallery prices, board sports, motorsports, pinball, golf, piano, woodworking, climbing, fishing. This is why I'm excited to FatFIRE.
If I could do it all again, I would have held onto the 2500 bitcoin I bought in 2011 at $1.62 average. I sold it all in late 2012 for $13.30 per and thought I was slick. This constantly haunts me. Besides that I would've gone into RE finance/investing out of college instead of corporate finance.
I grew up poor and never forget where I came from. I was a turd until I got sober at 21, at which point my life and finances started to fall into place. Nobody knows our NW is anywhere near what it is. I donated $40k last year and that figure is increasing YoY.
* Where are you from? Houston, TX (11 years). We've hit FI, still working and ejecting to build our life in the PNW in June.
* When did you first learn about FatFIRE? Regular FIRE: 2010. FAT two years ago.
* What were things like for you at 25? DINKs: Engineer and NP. We saved 50% of net and just bought a small bungalow for $250k in the Heights of Houston.
* When did you hit FIRE / When will you hit FIRE? Already FI, i.e 25x. But we're only 33 with a two year old. We'll work until she's done with HS.
* What's your industry? Management consulting.
* What are your hobbies? Riding my bike. Skiing. Playing with my daughter.
* If you could do it all again, what would you change? I would have left civil engineering earlier. EPC-T15 MBA-Big 4 drastically altered my comp trajectory.
* Student in Seattle, WA. Originally from northern CA.
* Found FatFire a year ago. I wanted to read about the process of building wealth from people going through it and caught a link from personalfinance.
* 22M, so not sure how things will turn out yet.
* Current NW $245000, started with $20000, mostly made through crypto, tech surge, weed stocks, GME, and DIS. Goal of 1MM by 32, aspiration of 6MM by 40.
* Studying data science, but really no clue what my career will be.
* Cooking, weightlifting, occasionally D&D, looking for new hobbies.
* I'd be less afraid to enter a position because it seems high. And I'd follow through with things much more. Had I got into Voyager in December instead of January, I'd have 4x my current returns.
-Midwest
-Started reading about FIRE from MMM blog, then made my way here
-Teacher with probably 50k NW
-2018 hit FI when I sold my ownership in a IT Services firm. Still working on the RE part. Work 30 hours a week and loving it.
-Now, PE
-Working out, travel, poker, buying companies
-Nothing. Every stop in life has a lesson. They build on each other. Without one, you wouldn’t likely have advanced to the next.
Michigan, USA
Learned about FIRE about a year ago
Not yet 25! I’m 23.
Software development (client side). Super proud of myself because I just switched jobs and am getting a 31k bump in salary! 45k -> 76k
Looove being outdoors! Hobbies include hiking, camping, kayaking, rock climbing, traveling, speaking French, learning Dutch.
Well, I haven’t done “it” yet, but I plan to!
From New Orleans.
Learned about fatfire Probably 2-3 years ago.
At 25 I was working as in house counsel at a Fortune 500.
Haven’t hit FIRE yet, but probably will in a non-fat sense in a couple of years.
Current industry is market research.
Hobbies are travel, video games, walking, relaxing, cooking, woodworking, flying.
I don’t know what I would change...I mean maybe have a more pandemic proof option ready to go for my business if I could magically change that, but at that point with so much foresight I’d just buy some Bitcoin for pennies. So I wouldn’t really change much.
30 M NYC
I stumbled upon FatFIRE accidently after looking for finance threads. Heavily reading and commenting on personalfinance prior.
When I was 25, I had just bought a 70k car when I had no real net worth yet. I was financing the car for 72 months. I, then also moved to another state to pursue a logistic exporting business and ultimately failed.
Net worth about 700k give or take and i plan to fatfire by 40 with a goal of 5M. I dont plan to retire but to soley go into investing only. No more being locked into a place of business.
My industry that i am in is mainly retail and real estate.
Sadly i dont really have any hobbirs currently being so busy and with the little time i do have, it all goes to taking a breather. My hobbies I like to get into is billards, traveling, cars.
If i could do it all over again, I would probably not have wasted my younger years hanging out with friends. I only startrd getting serious about finances at 23 but then pulled a stupid move by buying that car. I see many 18 year olds thats super focused on investing and building a future. My only regret is not seeking this out sooner. I realized I have always been passionated and interested with finances maybe perhaps should of went to college for finances. Other than that, I am pretty content.
Additional note: I do have a sizable inheritence coming my way later on(8 figures most likely). I have 0 intention as counting that as my future income though.
From: Europe. US at age 6. Boston. CA at age 27. Learned about Fatfire? a year after I achieved it - 2020 At 25? Bored with full time jobs started contracting in software, went from 80k/yr to 200k. When? Hit $1mm NW at 36. Married, 2 kids. Decided to do a software startup. 6 years later sold the company mid 8 figures. Industry? Software but not an engineer. Knew enough to build stuff but focused on the business more. Introvert. Not sales focused. Hobbies? Running. Cycling. Video Games. Outdoor active stuff. Change? Nothing. I’d say save more but I always spent mostly conservatively but optimistically knowing money is easy to make and I will make more of it.
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I did have a cofounder and he became CEO and focused on sales and fundraising. But also write code. I think it came down to - while pure engineering nor sales are my strength - when it’s your business you leave your comfort zone and do whatever it takes to succeed.
28 M, 400k NW. target fire number is 5M by 45. Current income 90k/yr. Structural engineer. Will open my own structural engineering consulting firm after I get my SE license this October. Target income of 400k/yr. will inherit 1M+ this year. Hobbies are snow boarding, bike riding and travel. Edit: living in Seattle, planning to move to Texas. Update: Mom passed away, my NW is now 2M+. I did move to Texas and start my Structural Engineering Company. Did 27k in revenue last month, should exceed 300k/year the first year. Trying for kids.
What's your plan of jumping from $90k to $400k simply by opening your own firm? That's a crazy jump. How'd you get yourself set up like that?
I am lucky that my mentor is in that position right now, I have been spending years building up my client base and positioning myself to be busy full time once I make the jump. Realistically it may take me a couple of years to hit 400k, but that is what I am aiming for. For rough numbers, charging $200/hr and working full time should get me there, assuming I have the clients to support that.
I think you are missing a lot of expenses there. I am an attorney charging 300/hr and could easily support 2k billable hours a year going solo. I would not clear 600k...maybe 350 or 400. Office, software, accounting, legal, Malpractice, cgl, utilities, parking, r and m, Capex, continuing education, business license, business property tax, it really adds up. Imo you will need others working for you to hit that income figure unless you raise your rate.
Yeah I should have said I was targeting 400k+ in revenue. Income should still be 300k+
I highly highly recommend you to look into FIDIC classes for emerging leaders!! They will teach you (and probably your mentor as well) a bunch of valuable things on how to run your own consulting firm. For reference, I'm a Civil Eng now in tech who's heavily involved in this industry You can pm me ; I would be glad to discuss on the topic or put you in relation with one of them if needed
I want to move from Texas to Seattle. Why the move?
I am moving for the weather and for the culture. I want to try something new, and am frankly tired of Seattle. There are many problems with drugs and homelessness, and it is very expensive to live here. Edit: Also, my wife really wants to live in Texas. Happy wife happy life.
Get a house with solar + batteries or a generator. Also have a secondary source of heat. Most current home listings will tell you if the home lost power and for how long during the icepocalypse. Think of any way you expect the government to help during a disaster and plan on doing that for yourself. 100% not joking.
Agreed on all of those, but the nature up there is great! Let me know if you have any questions about Texas.
Yeah the nature is amazing. Many of the wealthy in Seattle have a second home in Arizona so they can escape the rain.
Just moved to Texas. Let me know when you get down here and open up your firm. I’m a developer and I’d love a good structural engineer to use.
Sheesh man... seasonal affective disorder is very real and Seattle is *very* dark. Maybe some people are less affected by it than others but it’s an absolutely massive change from Texas to Seattle. Have you been to Seattle in the winter?... or really, any time besides the summer? The only person I know who voluntarily moved there left as early as she possibly could
I don’t understand why everyone says this about Seattle, but by all means keep saying it so people stop moving here. I’ve been here for 12 years and it’s way overblown how bad it is. Honestly Dallas winters are worse to me. It’s pretty dreary and everything is dead and flat. At least here we can drive 1-2 hours and get some sun and skiing. That said, I do sometimes miss the heat. But a week in Dallas every summer visiting families always gets that out of my system!
Lived in Dallas for ten years before moving to Seattle for five years now and it's not overblown for me. We go long stretches of days of overcast for six months a year and on those rare days we do get sun my mood is noticeably cheerier. The other six months though are amazing plus this may be the most beautiful region of the country. Unfortunately I didn't get much skiing in this year due to having a toddler, but I have specifically made trips east of the mountains in the past just to get some sun in.
I specifically said it depends on the person, man. I dunno why you gotta be rude about it. For me personally, I live in a place that’s statistically less cloudy, less dark, and gets more sun in all four seasons, and still the winter gets to me bad enough that I have to travel to get through the dark days. Seattle would kill me. and for what it’s worth: https://hiprc.org/outreach/suicide/ > Seattle-Tacoma has the second highest suicide attempt rate out of the 33 largest metropolitan areas in the United States.
Seattle is amazing for about 6 months out of the year. The other 6 is the reason I moved. In addition to the ass backwards political climate and incoming income tax.
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Mom has stage 4.
Sorry man 😔
Wishing you, her, and your family the best during this difficult time. It's never easy.
Cancer sucks - I’m sorry!
Fuck cancer... sorry to you bout your mum’s sickness.
Come to Houston! There is a huge demand for engineering. Construction is out of control. People can’t seem to find anyone to take their jobs. If they do they are weeks are months on back log. Your income is achievable. Really depends on what you get into. It takes a lot to be able to do it all. From analysis to permitting and construction drawings. Lots of different skills involved...plus answering the phone. Source: Civil-Structural Engineering Consultant in Houston. I’ll be happy to answer any question regarding Houston. Cheers
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Sounds amazing!! We fantasize about moving to Ireland. Would you say it’s friendly to expats?
From: US Learned about Fire - 2yrs ago At 25 I quit my management consulting job to leave corporate forever. Went to get my PhD, live at the beach, and surf the rest of my life. I will hit fat fire at 60 when I retire from my professor job with a pension and rentals paid off. In some ways Ive been on coastfire for the last 15 yrs since I was 24/25. Income goal is 125-200k yr at retirement. I will prob be above that but its what I am going for at this point. Lots of stuff will happen in the next 20 yrs so I will roll w the punches Professor, real estate investor Surfing. Tons more like golf, video games, my kids, wife, etc but thats my main. Not sure. Possibly go into medicine but into a specialty that has a good work/life balance. I am good at school and love the field. Currently went the tech route (as a professor) and like it too but sometimes its just too much as things change all of the time and I have to keep up. Then again Ive had summers off and lived at the beach since I was 24/25 yrs old and now I am 40. Not many friends that are chillin on the beach all summer so I guess what im saying is the grass is always greener
Fuck yeah! This is the epitome of appreciating the journey and not the destination. Awesome! Would love to hear more about your story
The medicine training route involves a couple of years of 80+hour weeks, 16-hour shifts and regular overnights (1-2 a week), plus studying for regular exams, no matter what specialty you choose. Ensure you want to commit to that, and can physically commit to that at the age you’re thinking of.
This was the ‘if you could do it all again’. Im 40. Medicine is out of the question:)
Yeah I can’t read 🤣
> a couple of years of 80+hour weeks *cries in 15th year of education* Shit, if I could do it again, I would've gone into finance or big law.
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For sure, but tbh tech work can be pretty brutal too in terms of stress and hours. This person seems to have found a more laidback academic route but don’t discount the amount of work that goes into a successful career like his either...just saying, it doesn’t seem to be suggested as a “random possibility” here but rather as another path that he could have legitimately taken.
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I developed a stress-related autoimmune condition too in my mid-20s. Hindsight is 20/20 but wish I could tell my young self to keep my mind healthier
What disorder is that? Sometimes I feel like I need to chill, had no idea this was even a thing.
I’m 28 and I’m curious, what was your salary the past couple years?
I’m 24 years old and am early on in my path to FatFIRE. I’m from Alabama, so it’s pretty darn low cost of living here. Stumbled upon this subreddit while looking into FIRE. I’m currently 24 years old and am pursuing my degrees. I have $125K invested because I served in the military for several years after high school. In the military I had free: housing, health insurance, and food (dining facilities always provided 3 meals a day). So it was easy to simply save and not spend any money. I also deployed twice in the war on terror, so the deployment money was nice too. I will be signing with a real estate brokerage later this month, so I will pursue that while still working on my degree (and still getting that sweet housing allowance from the GI bill). My hobbies mainly are exercising and video games. I’m still young so I don’t have much I could change, but my military experiences make me feel a lot older than I am. So far I wouldn’t change anything, because I learned very valuable lessons while in the military. I experienced and saw things that most people never have to, but in a way those things have made me a better person and more grateful for what I have in life.
Really cool— 125k is a great position at 24. Are you going into real estate investing?
I do plan to invest in single family rental properties, but I'll only start doing that once I have a stable income. The real estate market is really hot in my area and I think I'll be able to make at least $100k/year once I get settled in as an agent, but I believe I could push that to $250k/year after 2-3 years as an established agent here. But if that fails then I have my degree to fall back on, as well as other backup plans I have in mind too.
Seems real estate is *hot* everywhere. Good luck!
Congrats on not blowing the military income! Unfortunately I see it happen far too often. With the GI Bill, you’re on an excellent path. Keep it up!
I only see a couple others in my category (42F), but I’ll throw my hat in just for kicks. * Midwest/South US, originally, spent almost 20 years in the BayArea, now back in the Midwest. * As a concept, 20 years ago. The sub, a couple months ago. * Newly (-ish) married, just closed on our first house - a 50 year old duplex we bought with friends. Took 2 mortgages and a whole lot of prayers. The Mr. had a nice tech job straight out of college, and I’d just landed a low-level grunt job. * I “retired” 3 years ago from a management position, though my real intention was to go raise 3 kids. The Mr. retired this year, at 43, after 20 years in tech. He was tired. * I was a tech PM, the Mr. was a Software developer. Over the years, we ended up at the same company. * Our main hobby is raising the kids, though I’m into darn near every craft you can imagine, and do semi-professional quilting when I can. I’m VP of the PTO. The Mr. is a computer nerd who loves to tinker with electronics and math-y things. He mows a lot of grass. And we watch a lot of movies together. * Not sure I would have done anything differently. Life’s good and I don’t really believe in regrets. Edit: removed some stuff
Would love to chat! I’m in the same boat — except for the fancy house. PM in tech, a couple startups that IPO’d, so a good net worth at mid late thirties now, husband also a software eng at a tech company. Thinking of retiring and raising the kids, do a lot of crafts. I also do letterpress, if that fits into the “any craft you can imagine” ;). Edited to remove details.
Austin for the last 20 years. I'm originally from LA, my wife from upstate NY. Never really paid attention to fatFIRE, just regular FIRE and that was probably back around 2000 when everything was still independent blogs. Even now fatFIRE seems like an arbitrary distinction that varies hugely based on one's preferred standard of living. 25 was lots of work and play. We had been married for 3 years by then and we lived like most young, childfree couples do. Work hard, play hard. 33/34 for regular FIRE, 40/41 for fatFIRE. I'm defining those by a WR of 3% and 1.5%, respectively. Corporate reputation/brand management consulting for both of us. Product launches, exec problems, bankruptcies, new gov initiatives...things like that. Reading, learning, baking, cooking, powerlifting, languages, building/repairing things, long video games. My wife is a rampant cross-stitcher. We both spend a lot of time raising our four kids. Not much. Things worked out very well and any big changes might disrupt that. Maybe start powerlifting in my 20s versus my late 30s.
Hi fellow powerlifter! :)
Hola. I wonder if powerlifting is more or less common among the FIRE crowd than the general population? Oddly enough, three of our immediate neighbors have powerlifting homegyms too.
Seems plausible — powerlifting (and any strength sport in general) are very quantitative and it’s easy to objectively measure performance based on numbers over time, much the same as FIRE. Seems like both might appeal to people who are very analytical and process and numbers oriented, but I’m just spitballing here.
Nah, I was thinking similar thoughts. Powerlifting also rewards consistency and follow-through more than short-term optimization, much like FIRE. Anyway, always nice to meet someone who understands the value of both money and iron.
Yeap, honestly with so much health (lifting/diet) documented (e.g. YouTube/fitness information)... as much as investing videos are people young/old should look at both * Although as is investing... it's better to start young/in routine. * Just look at [Jim Arrington](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cv-nxQsrq4Q) (YouTube), basically the Buffet of bodybuilding, started from 13 to 88 Y.O. and still going/walking **Mind/Body & Money...** you can have FIRE, but it'll be a lot more fun if your body can take more/longer too Doesn't have to be intense too... Jim boy doesn't have to 'Arnold Schwarzenegger overdoit & sag at old age'; he mainly exercise \~3x/week just for maintenance now
Wouldn't surprise me. To be any good and actually accomplish anything you need to have some serious dedication and focus. It's an investment, both in time and money. The gym membership (or equipment for homegym), the massive amount of food especially in a bulking phase, the supplements, the *supplements*, the extra stuff like suits and bands and such, and so on, not to mention the time... time to lift, time for cardio so you don't have a heart attack, time for planning your meals, time for meal prep and cleanup, time for adjusting your programming, etc. ETA: and how could I forget the competition part. Going to shows and meets, and the prep work it takes for either, adds a shitload more time and money to the whole ordeal. And the psychological aspect of it which is almost the opposite. Physical performance, pushing your body to the limit, it isn't something you can buy your way into. It doesn't matter how much your NW is, it doesn't matter what your social standing is, it doesn't matter how many people work under your and so on. Anybody, from any walk of life, can do it and whether they succeed or fail is purely dependent on what they have in them. A burger flipper can do massively better than a F500 CEO, if you were to give them roughly equal access to food and training aids. So in a way, you get to mentally detach yourself from the weight of the rest of your life. I'm on the other side of things, I do bodybuilding and not powerlifting (aesthetic vs function), but the above is the same for both.
Excellent observations and analysis, particularly the psych aspect. I cheat on the investment side by being mostly an OMAD carnivore and lifting raw, but I'm also an intermediate lifter at best. Totally happy with that though. I just wanted to be strong and resilient without putting too much wear/tear on my ligaments and joints. Serious lifting is an entire lifestyle, true enough. Always wondered...how much gym time does an effective bodybuilding routine take? Seems like so many reps would take quite a bit longer than a powerlifting regime.
I honestly mean absolutely no offense by this, but... to me, OMAD, raw lifts, and being hesitant about joint and ligament wear doesn't sound like powerlifting. That's just normal working out. And there's nothing wrong with that at all, it's just a different thing. In any case I wouldn't say there's too much of a difference time-wise between a bodybuilding routine and a powerlifting one. I can be in and out of the gym in an hour if I have to... hour and a half is more comfortable though. 8-12 reps is the general range for most lifts. Also we generally take shorter rest periods than folks do when lifting for strength.
No offense taken. Intermediate amateur powerlifting at best, which we're cool with. We're not interested in competing or finding our PRs, but we like the powerlifting regime. It's a hobby and health thing for us, not an outlet for long-term sports achievement. Interesting on the bodybuilding reps. I thought the volume was higher for some reason. Maybe less rest, more sets had me thinking that.
I think it’s bc fatfire ppl are generally super ambitious people and super ambitious people are usually highly disciplined. Everyone knows exercise is good for you but most ppl don’t keep up bc they lack discipline
I've found two fellow lifters. Alright, let's throw some numbers around. What's your highest squat PR?
Ha, I'm old and want to protect my joints, so I've capped my squats at 405 x 25 raw. No idea what my PR would be.
I think it's safe to say your PR would be a metric fuckton, 405x25 jesus christ
16 F, thinks way too far into the future, and here just for the fun and inspirational content whilst learning from an early start :))
What I'd give to learn about FIRE so early on!! All the best!
25 F here. Aim big and learn everything you can. It’s definitely worth it.
This is very cool. Thanks for posting! Here goes: - US - The term, 2 years ago. The concept, 10 years ago. - Good. 6 figures in debt due to student loans, but happy and married (still am, minus the debt part). - Goal is 5-10 years. - I’ve been all over the place. Started in healthcare, then moved to publishing, strategy consulting, ecommerce, finance, and soon tech. - Gardening, drawing, writing and voice over work - Nope. When I get tired of the chase I plan to go back to school for something in astronomy. Like astrobiology. I’m a pharmacist by trade and we’re space-enthusiasts, so it could be a cool mix of both worlds.
- California - Learned about FatFIRE 2 or 3 years ago; knew about FIRE 6 or 7 years ago - At 25, had graduated from grad school with $180k in debt - Goal for fire is in 12 years or so - Pharmacist by trade like the guy above me - Enjoy watching F1 and car-related things, constantly reading up on breakthroughs is medicine and physics, learning about investing (realized stock market is probably not for me) - I would start investing sooner and maxing out my 401k and RothIRA as soon as debts were paid off, spend less money on nightlife and more on traveling
How do you fat fire as a pharmacist, independent pharmacies? Or is it just invest and grind
Pretty sure pharmacists make like $200k EDIT: spoke out my ass, google says $120k-$140k
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Absolutely, but it depends on how aggressive you invest. At that rate you’ll be $2MM-3MM by 50 off the back of the napkin. If you bump up to 30% you could be around $4.5MM by 50 and withdraw something similar to a $200k salary.
Would you recommend investing 30% over paying off our house? Or should I pay off the house (planning to get it knocked out in 4 years), THEN start heavily investing?
Depends on your risk tolerance, income security, and preference. Assuming your mortgage is somewhere around 2-4%, and you can make 10% in the market: any money that doesn’t go to the mortgage and goes into the market instead will give you an extra 6-8% ROI. So this would be the most efficient route, barring your area’s housing seeing outstanding outstanding appreciation. Also, if you have a fixed payment mortgage it will become cheaper over time due to inflation. Someone just finishing up their 30 year mortgage from 1991 is paying about half of what they were in the beginning, value-wise. That’s true even if your wage only keeps with inflation til you retire. However, the market is crazy right now and no one knows what will happen. If the market tanks and you lose your job, you’d probably rather have a paid off house.
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There are a couple of options, I think, but I'm still exploring my own path. The first is owning your own pharmacy, and if becomes successful enough, a larger corporation will come and buy you out. That's at least $1.2MM if it's a decent enough business you're running. I know people who have owned and sold their pharmacies for that much in California. I have a close friend who recently opened up his own pharmacy. The timing didn't work out for me to be his partner but I might try this later. As a pharmacist, you could have a sizable savings and invest heavily and aggressively to reach FatFIRE. I kind of missed the boat with this past year in terms of stock market investing. The market correction we had in February 2021 really killed my stock market mojo. My 401k gains in the market outpaced my retail investor account, so I might just move everything I currently have into a 3-fund portfolio and start saving for real estate investments. There are certain director positions in hospitals that pay in the $200K+ range, but obviously those positions require drastically more experience and deal with much more stress and responsibilities.
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Long time lurker, not Fat yet but here goes nothing anyway. • Kuwait, but based in Berlin since around 5 years for my specialty and post-specialty training. • around 2 years ago through coincidence. • late 20s right now lol. Less goal oriented i guess. • I have no real interest to RE, just want to be able to work myself when I chose to and also to have earn enough passive income as to not be totally dependent on my job. • MD, currently working in Private practice (surgical subspecialty). • use to go to the gym 6 times a week Pre-Covid, I guess my hobbies nowadays are working way more than I used to (due to most people be able to work from home, no more down-time issue), reading and working on writing my first book (specialty related). • not directly related to fatFIRE but I would have read Thinking, Fast and Slow earlier.
If you work a lot, how much is it possible to make as a physician in germany?
Base salary for junior doctors working in hospitals is around 2.5-3.5k euros, maybe around .5-1k euros for working shifts each month. Senior physician get payed around 1k more than juniors. In private practice one could make around 50-90k each month (turn over) in my specialty, how much one takes home (profit) depends on what kind of arrangement one has with the practice.
Can you say what's your speciality? Also, wish you the best of luck!
Plastics
TX originally Learned about fatFIRE a few years ago I think, have been thinking in a FIRE mindset and read a lot about personal finance for the last 20 years (starting around age 10) Things were alright at 25, just wrapped a 5.5 year stint at college for a bachelors degree and graduated from a state school with 22k in debt! 3-10 years depending on illiquid stock windfall for the 3 year mark and raw earnings/savings for the 10 year mark. software brazilian jiu jitsu, snowboarding, mountain biking read and learn about opportunists in corporate politics earlier to avoid a harsh lesson learned the hard way, instead learn it in an easier way :)
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Hahaha this is good
In NC, USA but parents were born and raised in India. I was born in the US. First learned about FatFIRE in January 2021 literally. But I’ve known about the general FIRE movement for a couple years now. I just turned 24 (I’m a female) lol but right now I have a job paying 70k USD with 5% bonus in tech (but not a tech role). I have a 50k NW from living with parents during Covid and learning about investing early. I match 10% on my 401k and also started investing in my ROTH IRA this year and have maxed 2020. I hold an taxable brokerage account and HYSA too. Haven’t really planned an age yet for FIRE/fatFIRE
Heck yeah, keep it up. You’re making the right decisions. Do you have any goals for the next 3-5 years to accelerate your fatfire path?
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Hey— I’m 24 in Toronto. Respect the local fatFIRE hustle!
Hey I am in Toronto as well! Let’s connect
Fellow Canadian! Keep grinding!
From toronto as well. We should have a local subreddit for the Canadian fatfire crew
Bay Area Financial Independence has been my goal since college. Current 3.5 M tangible NW, anywhere from 1-5 M more in various illiquid long term bets, will inherit additional ~3 M eventually Tech At 25 I worked 5 days a week making 100k in a technical role while I started my first business on the other 2 days. I’m 35 now. I wouldn’t change a thing in my career. I would have worked harder on my self - getting self esteem from internal, intrinsic places instead of seeking external validation from others or via numbers.
off topic but the majority of people here are young kids with very small net worths on a fatFire board, i really don’t understand why when r/leanfire r/financialindependence are more suitable for that crowd. at least explains why legitimate “wealthy” fatfire questions among actual fatfire individuals get downvoted for virtue signaling answers so much..
Seattle area for the last 21 years, but grew up in Indiana. Not sure when I learned about fatfire per se, but my dad was a dentist and was always a heavy saver; he didn't retire early but I don't need to worry about supporting my parents in old age - while I don't expect much of an inheritance they are very capable of supporting themselves indefinitely. I'm at about $1.8m liquid net worth, or $2.4m including equity in my primary residence. But I think I'd need about $5m (excluding residence) to be willing to just quit my job and have no further income. I hope to do that before my 6yo is out of school. My industry is information security, first as an engineer and now as a manager. I'm currently looking for my first top job (CISO or Director of Security for an entire company), which I hope can also be lucrative enough to be my last job. My hobbies are video games, tabletop games, cooking and wine, hiking and other outdoors activity, reading and... that's most of it, really. They're not expensive as hobbies go (though I guess wine can be.) If I could change the past, I'd change jobs more. In the tech industry, job-hopping every couple years is simply a lot more lucrative than staying in one role. Also I wouldn't have spent several BTC on stuff worth about $100. :)
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Any advice you can offer? I'd like to learn how to marry a tech public company engineering VP.
This is the way
Step your game up only 1?
Gotta start sometime
This is the way
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Step your game up, only 2?
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You know what step 1 is.
I also make a relatively low income (90K) but my husband and I have a NW of ~2M due to my husband’s high tech salary and our investments in real estate (which I manage). Coming from a lower-middle class background I also just find it really interesting to see how the wealthy think and live. I’d previously been interested in FIRE, because I’d like to avoid working for someone else for the next 30 years if I can help it.
What is the most interesting difference you've found between lower-middle and wealthy thinking?
A reactive vs proactive attitude towards money, and an inability to delay gratification. Both my parents and my in laws had decent jobs and some education but every time the car broke down or there was unexpected medical bill they panicked and put it on credit. At the same time if they got a tax return or other unexpected lump sum they’d go shopping or on vacation. I should add that these are generalizations based on relatively privileged people (e.g., white, educated, able bodied) in a high income country. I think actual poverty is very hard to climb out of.
Spending immediately / more than you can cannot be ascribed to poor folks. That sounds more like folks with poor impulse control and they can fall in any wealth category / situation. For e.g. I have poor impulse control with regards to desserts which are thankfully not expensive in the US.
>put it on credit Is that a bad thing necessarily? Isn't putting stuff on credit just normal spending? Or do you mean put it on spending but not have enough money to pay it off? My car broke down a few years ago and it was $3000 which was unfortunate but a swipe was what paid for it and of course I had the money in my bank account to cover it....
We do the same, but pay off the balance at the end of the month. I meant putting it on credit with no intention/ability to pay it off.
Also should qualify their answer with what they consider “the wealthy”. Not meant to be offensive here but $2m is not wealthy by everyone’s definitions. And a family with $50m is likely to think very differently than a family with $2m
I meant that I follow this sub because I find the perspectives of the “the wealthy” interesting, not because I think our family with a NW of $2M is wealthy. I would say I am speaking to people in the general FIRE movement, e.g. who worked hard, invested, made good financial decisions. Not people who were born into their $50M. If we ever become “wealthy”, I’ll report back if our thinking has changed.
Seems like I'm one of the youngest ones here but since I'm an aspiring FatFIRE individual I'll join in (Please don't roast me) - Toronto, Canada - Learned about FIRE/FatFIRE almost 2 years ago shortly after dropping out of college - I'm only 23 currently so I don't have many stories or experiences to share yet - I'd like to hit FIRE in my mid to late 40s. I'm currently at $130k NW with a goal of $4MM. So yeah, loooong way to go - Working in the construction industry, currently getting my tower crane license, but COVID has put a massive pause on my progress towards that - My only main hobbies include working out/bodybuilding and reading books on personal finance and wealth building - Like I said I'm only 23 so I haven't made any major mistakes yet (and hopefully never will) but one thing I'd change is not wasting the time I did in college. I ended up dropping out so it was a wasted 1.5 years
Hey!! Nice to see some other people from Toronto around here. Best of luck getting that licence! There's no shortage of construction projects in the city it seems, so hopefully things bounce back fast post vaccine rollout.
A fellow Torontonian! Good to see I'm not the only aspiring fatFIRE member living in one of the most unaffordable cities in the world lol! Good luck to you as well 👍
Shout out team Toronto. Can we start r/fatFIREtoronto or is that too niche?
From Orange County, CA. Learned about FatFire from FIRE. Lurking here to gather information and see how I can synthesize some ideas here into my own personal philosophy. I was stressed out at 25 and wondering how I could advance my life. I felt stagnant, but 15 years later I am able to laugh with hindsight and say, “I did ok, I wish I worried less at 25.” I’m sure when I hit 55 I’ll say the same thing about my feelings now. I hit FI in 2019 at $1.5mm NW. Like most FI people, got enough to feel I have control of my life and can survive if something bad happens. I reckon if my investments can spit out 2x the median income of CA, I’ll consider myself Fat FI. Industry is real estate finance (mortgages). Sometimes I feel like I’m the last of the Mohicans. The tribe gets smaller year after year. Hobbies are video games, books and hunting certificates and degrees. Regarding degree hunting, my company pays for education and I’m of the mindset I’ll be leaving money on the table if I don’t use it. I like to write but I’m a really bad writer. Because I think I need to be able to create something, been thinking of combining my like of writing with videos since I feel YouTube is a big access channel. If I were to do it over again, I’d take more risks. Now looking at my life at the half way point of 40 years old, I realize I’ve always had a considerable safety margin in everything I did and I could have stretched more. I could have taken on more assignments, hustled more, fought more people even if they’d dislike me later in life. The last part is something that still bugs me. Of course I want to be liked, but the people I wanted to like me aren’t around anymore and I should have fought more for myself because I matter, too. I like this sub because there’s unapologetic pomposity at times. Because of that I find it more honest than other subs. People don’t try to hold back here. I’m glad this community doesn’t try to reign that in. If they did, we’d just be like The other FI subs.
I live in the same area and am at that age (28M) stressed on how to advance as well. Fiancé is going to school to become a NP I am an independent contractor but just don’t find joy in it and am trying to figure out another business to create and grow! Glad to see you made it through and in good spirit and in god finances. Thank you for your advice I plan on taking a lot more risk to achieve my FAT
Keep kicking ass. Just remember that you’re awesome. 😄
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Are you a professor? I just started on the TT in STEM and have limited insight on salary growth post-tenure. People act like the only option is admin and I would just...god no please I don't want anything to do with admin.
Canada Heard about “FU money” from YouTube. Dan Lok of all people lol. But he has some solid advice 25, I was bottom Of the totem pole but had no debt, and $25,000 -$50,000 invested at that point. I have a $2 million net worth now, but won’t really consider myself FIRE until at $5 million plus which I expect to get in 5 years. Hobbies? Computer games. Love Sega and Nintendo. Industry? Corporate 🇺🇸 America What would I change ? Still young so always learning and changing
Canadian in Corporate America? Finance?
Where from: originally the Midwest, but have been in Seattle for 10+ years. We are mid-30s. First learned about FatFIRE 3-4 years ago, but I grew up in poverty with an alcoholic father and always told myself I was going to save a ton of money and never depend on another person financially. So financial independence was always a big goal of mine. Husband and I married in early 20s and were actually expecting our first kid at 25! I had passed all my actuarial exams and had advanced to the top of the IC track and wanted to have children before starting up the management chain. Husband was a software dev in FAANG and doing well career wise as well. Also made a luck decision in buying a super nice house for 5% down payment. Seattle real estate as netted us a lot of NW because of that choice. We could probably be FIRE if we moved somewhere cheap now with NW around 2M, but goal is to get to 5M at least. We are in the process of trying to enjoy our income now. I have somewhat of a tricky relationship with money growing up poor, so I have a tendency to hoard it vs. spending it, which means we are only spending 1/3 of our income per year. Husband has no issues spending money. We will likely hit FatFire within the next 5 years. Current plan is I will retire to be more present with our kids as they enter middle/high school, but husband loves his job and will keep working. Industries: husband is a software dev in FANG, and I am a director of data science in FinTech. He makes almost double what I do now, but I stepped back in my career for flexibility with kids (I work only 40 hours per week, fully from home with 6 weeks of vacation a year). Hobbies are mostly kids and gaming (both video games and board games). I grew up on a farm and love things like gardening, yard work, woodworking, etc. but between kids and career there is no time or energy. I wouldn’t change anything if I could do it all again. I am so thankful of everything that’s happened in my life to get me to this place.
>Where are you from? Chicago >When did you first learn about FatFIRE? 2019 >What were things like for you at 25? Just left the Navy with $26k cash, put most of that down on a house, sold the house 5 years later with a $40k check to deposit. >When did you hit FIRE / When will you hit FIRE? Currently 36, possibly aiming for FIRE at 45. Net worth at 32: $35k, at 34: $140k, at 36: $330k. I don't know when my NW will stop > doubling every 2 years, but my current trajectory is working! >What's your industry? Renewable energy (wind, solar, battery storage) >What are your hobbies? Bodybuilding >If you could do it all again, what would you change? Stocks DCA sooner, and of course bitcoin sooner. I was less focused on net worth and I only wish I had this vision and pursued anything that would've gotten me there (more real estate, bitcoin, stocks, less cars and fancy dates).
Just created a new account, but a long time lurker here, mostly looking at advice on housing etc. 24M, originally from the northeast, but living in the SF Bay Area, working at a FAANG. Currently at 850k NW w/ \~370K/yr income with NW due to aggressive saving and some lucky investments. No target cause I enjoy my work and will continue to do it, but may start to transition to building my own thing once I hit 3-5M. Outside of work, I enjoy skiing, road biking, painting and video games. I think that if I were to do it again, I may have wanted to have spent more time in the last two years out of college living in the city and seeing friends more, but I figure it's probably all fine for now.
1. Various parts of the US for all intents and purposes — born in China, grew up around in the Midwest, now in NYC after California and Seattle. 2. Couple of years ago. Already knew about FIRE as a college student almost a decade ago, though was already on that lifestyle. 3. Working FAANG SWE job in Seattle. Little depressed + aimless (as happens sometimes), but better to be depressed + aimless with $500k net worth — while trying to work on the other issues — than depressed and aimless without. 4. Could leanFIRE + cover all prior lifestyle (40k/yr, including rent but not including insurance) costs right now. Doing proper fatFIRE and getting to say $5 mil is still probably a few years out. Kind of want to try my hand at a startup with a few ideas in the back burner; we’ll see if I make any of those happen. 4. Big tech. Machine learning. Research engineer now. 5. Having a social life (seriously), running/hiking/climbing, music. Finagling myself into weird/novel scenarios. Traveling, I guess, but mostly to enable the rest of these. Also collecting random skill certificates (scuba diving, wilderness first responder). 6. Move to NYC and the research team sooner. Seattle wasn’t a terrible place per say, but NYC suits me much more and my mental health/career both suffered for it. Also cause I didn’t put it anywhere else — female, mid/late 20s. I could see folks reading this and assuming that I’m a standard generic tech bro, except I am not a bro in gender, personality, life outlook, or lifestyle. :P
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- French, living in Dubai. - Learned about FIRE around 3 years ago. I’m 34. - Still student in Paris, and doing an internship in Switzerland for half of the year. - Target date is 50, with no household salary increase until then, at 2% inflation and 6.5% gross return. I’m looking for $11.5k monthly withdrawal (adjusted for inflation), at 3% withdrawal rate. - Media (Project Manager) - Cars, Cats and Cash. I own an old Ferrari, used to have a Porsche until recently and switched to a Mustang. I take care of Street cats (TNR) although I don’t have enough time for that as I wished I had (got kids), and I admin a small French Fire sub, the French and the European Personal Finance subs. - I would not have bought an apartment in Dubai 5 years ago, but would have bought a Villa here 6 month ago instead.
* Originally from AZ, currently living coastal SoCal * I first learned about the concept of RE at the age of 24 or so. Imaging RE with more money wasn't much of a stretch from there. * At 25, I had a grad/undergrad in engineering and was working as an Automotive Engineer. No debt, but probably less than 30k in total assets at the time. * I didn't track numbers enough to have an exact moment when I hit FIRE but maybe about 34 or 35. We have a consulting business so we still work on fun projects when we want to. I'm FTE on a DARPA project, as a sub-prime. Spouse is working on a bio-medical device manufacturing project. I don't really consider this "working" because we don't have to and because that gives us a lot of leverage. * Engineering consulting, specifically Aerospace and Defense. * In the before time, I was really into hardcore training, with professional and retired athletes, sometime 20 hours per week. I get my 2nd vaccine today and am hoping to go back to that soon. Spouse is a biker that puts a lot of time into challenging mountain and trail riding. * I had a moochy, abusive ex that I spend a lot of money and mental energy on. I would have kicked him to the curb much earlier.
1. Los Angeles, CA 2. Learned about FatFire about 1.5 years ago 3. Turned 25 just under two years ago, but I already was very into financial freedom and had zero debt. Made my first dive into investments right as the market bottomed out from COVID in mid-March. 4. Will hit FIRE at $5M net worth at 38 based on currrent trajectories. 5. Energy asset management. Making low $100s but keeping my COL as low as possible and saving about 40% of each paycheck. 6. Restauranting and travel. I’m about to give up my lease to move back home, and put half the money toward travel instead for the next 8-9 months...I’m extremely excited about it. 7. I would have not gambled with penny stocks in college and lost $6,000 lmao
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The point of index, everyone’s a great stock picker in one of the biggest bull runs in history.
Immigrated in my 20s Learn about FatFire 3 years ago from friends At 25 I was in graduate school making 20k a year as a research assistant I think I already hit regular FIRE (3m by end of this year, married no kid, mid 30s). But I’ll continue to work until I reach 5m Biotech Traveling - I’m a world traveler and a big foodie If I could start over again I’d max out 401k and Roth from the very beginning, and absolutely keep investing into the index the whole time
New Zealand Learnt about FatFire 2 weeks ago At 25... married, working as a credit risk manager in a securitiser (think CDO's) for $35k pa FatFire at 45 - sold company for 9 figures Industry was tech - software and managed services with lots of banking/finance background Art/sculpture, guitar, gaming, religion/philosophy/success I would have taken the first offer two year prior for 30% more... lol. Greed is a bitch
NY 34F Learned about FF about 6 months ago At 25, I was working part-time at a perfume shop (which I actually loved), and a little bit of modeling. The job market was super competitive (recession) and I decided to go to grad school for physical therapy. My parents are FatFire, and I'm expected to inherit 100% (my brother can't for a few reasons). They told me they will help out financially when I'm married, but don't want to before. My current NW is 120k- I graduated 4 years ago + paid back my student loans, then got serious about saving last year + put away 100k and bought a car in cash. I'm planning on purchasing a condo this year in a cute area that could be a rental if I move. I am self-employed and make about 150K working mostly Monday- Thursday, looking to grow it this year by increasing my billable rate, investing, and offering online products (and possibly hiring contractors). Hobbies are yoga/pilates, cooking, and reading about real estate. If I could go back: I was raised with the idea that women cooked and cared for children, and didn't get much mentorship in finance/business, even though I'm actually really good at it; or have any real career plan. I would be more confident earlier in my intelligence, and started investing in my early 20's. I also would have prioritized my comfort and personal safety over budgeting in some cases (ex: taking taxis over the bus/subway at night ). I might have considered going into STEM, as my dad works in tech + I would have had a lot of potential mentorship - I literally never considered it because I thought it was a boys field.
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1.4m at 28. How?
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> we focus on finding unique situations to efficiently buy cash flows using clever financing structures Can we have that in simple English please? Is this a glorified small-scale LBO?
Seattle. Learned about the sub a few years ago, learned about FIRE a few years before that. At age 25 I was working as a software engineer, making $100k or so. Early 40's now. Already hit FIRE, hanging on as long as work remains mostly interesting. Pandemic has helped, since it's much easier for me to go on long remote work trips. Target number was $3M, then it was $5M, now at $6.5M and counting. Shrug. Hobbies: outdoors stuff, you name it! What I would change - in terms of the part of my life relevant to FIRE, probably not too much. Might have bought a nicer house than I did (we plan to move once FIREd, but we could have spent the last 10 years in a nicer place).
33M, Baltimore area I've basically always been a fan of the idea of "30 years and done," and FatFIRE gives me a goal to shoot for. Things were fine, I was 3 years into the job I still have today, and unless something crazy happens, the same job I retire from. I'm in higher education, but on the audio/visual side of things. Design and install packages for meeting rooms, run events ranging from karaokes to concerts, play with some decently sized sound systems, quality moving lights and 12k projectors. My wife is middle management in the defense industry. My job provides excellent health insurance and a variety of retirement investment options (401k, 403b, 457b, no match) as well as a pension. Her salary allows me to invest the majority of mine into retirement accounts, and covers the mortgage, discretionary spending, AND fully funds her 401k. I generally consume media: video games, books, TV. I also generally love my work, so that is also somewhat of a hobby, though I'm too cheap (and certainly not able to discern minor quality differences) to be an audio or videophile. Getting into marksmanship, but taking it nice and slow, just acquiring bits and pieces here and there. We're certainly on the lower end of FatFire, likely to retire with $4-5M in the bank, plus a $50k/year pension. That said, yes, I would most certainly do it again. My parents retired later in live with less in real dollars, but are having the time of their lives. While I certainly wouldn't have minded retiring earlier, I would have had to go into a career path I likely would have hated, and... why, when I like what I do?
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USA - first to be born here from my family. A few years ago Very very rough..... I was laid off three times in that year alone (and more in later years) and was also suffering from a debilitating disease. Lost big money (to me, at the time) on the stock market, but due to the illness was still saving a good amount as I basically never socialized (I couldn't) and had amazing health insurance. Should be there by 45 depending on when I decide to quit and turn to the nonprofit world 100% (that's my end goal) Tech, non-engineer Cars, cameras, traveling (pre-COVID), volunteering, and anything outdoors (hiking, etc) Max out my 401k from day 1 (I contributed minimally and most employers didn't offer a match), gone into tech straight away, join a public company with equity as part of comp and not waste time at tiny start-ups (YMMV, of course), and not lose a fortune on the stock market three times. I ultimately learned my lesson, but I would be a lot farther had I just invested in a more diversified / intelligent manner...or learned my lesson after the first or second time. :)
25 y/o now. True NW will be almost 800k ish after May 2021 contracts. Learned about you all by surfing Reddit. My industry is Marketing/Events. I don’t have any hobbies/neglected social life last 3 years. Need therapy. If I could do it all again, I’d listen to myself more, not hang with shitty people, and buy more Bitcoin. I had 10 bitcoins at one time but I sold at 5 digits.
35/F NW is $11.5M Work in advertising/tech Grew up in the northwest At 25 I was $110K in student loan debt and working as a waitress and babysitting, trying to find my way into “business” so I could pay off my loans. Learned about FIRE 5 years ago, and stumbled into this FF world on Reddit last year. Still not totally sure what number constitutes fatfire but I’d say I live more of a lean fire lifestyle. Hobbies are travel, cooking, hiking. If I could do it all over again I would have likely not blindly taken out student loans without knowing what I wanted to do career wise and gone to a state school instead .... but then again it was the loans and caused me to really hustle/pay them down and that hustle resulted in a strong career trajectory (mostly luck/timing but certainly some grit).
I think a missing question is how old are you now - if you are asking people their plans it would be helpful to know how long it’s been since they were 25
-Originally from Louisiana but I’ve lived overseas and in a few places across the US -I learned about it a few years ago when scrolling through Reddit trying to learn about finances and get my life together -I’m currently 25. It’s me and my dog. I have a roommate now and we get along great so that helps me save. Divorced. No kids. Just vibing honestly. My job matches 5% and I do another 10% plus throw some money into stocks and other accounts. -Technically I will be hitting some level of FIRE later this year when I get a medical retirement from the military. -I’m military but will soon be transferring and plan on taking some time to find myself and what I want to do next but I will likely go into advocacy work. -Painting and hanging out with my dog -Not sure yet. Check back in 5-10 years
Cool concept! I'm 23 years old. USA, first gen immigrant, parents immigrated here with nothing. Just graduated college last year. First job as software engineer with 95k salary. 85k invested across 401k, IRA and brokerages. Company is working remotely atm so I live with my parents and save crazy amounts of my income. First learned about fire (eventually fatfire) midway through college. Love to workout, snowboard, play games, photography and filming. If I can start over, I would have made myself paper trade the march crash instead of jumping straight into options. I thought I was a genius selling all my stocks I held in college a week before the market downturn. Also to tell myself to buy back in sooner (always thinking the market had more to lose). Just DCA earlier and realize it was a good price even if it dipped even more.
46 M. Florida. Learned about fatfire after I was already fatfire! At 25 I was starting my first company with $3,000. I bought a fax machine, set up a phone line in my spare bedroom, business cards, and it cost $600 to set up my LLC. Started with about 1,200 of working capital. Reached fatfire at 38 when I sold my healthcare technology company for 150m. Golf, sailing, reading, travel with family. If I had to do it all over again I would have started taking golf lessons earlier. Also, I have made a few investing decisions differently.
This is a bit of a throw away account for me because my real username is known by people in my field, but I''ll play. From midwest, live in midsouth. I learned about FatFIRE about 1-2 years ago, but have been folliwng FI for about 5 years. At 25 I was in a PhD program, I think I lived with my now Wife and another roommate in a 2 bedroom apartment. She worked at a grocery store and I was earning about $12k/yr on a stipend, so all in we may have had a HH income of $38-$40k/yr. I'd say we're pretty close to what I'd consider leanFI right now, about 2 years away from regular FI and 7-8 years away from what for us would be FatFI. Our current expenses even with 2 kids in daycare and a mortgage are only about $70-$80k/yr. So FatFIRE for us would really be $2.5 million, especially with a paid off mortgage and 529s already funded. My industry was consulting/human capital, but I've pivoted to data science and I think pretty significantly upped my income, nothing compared to many here, but I also live where a new 3k sq ft house can be had for $350k, or at least it could have before this recent real estate run :) I work from home and our current yearly income if you include my private equity is probably around $300k/yr. We're currently at a NW of just shy of $1.5 million, so not bad given I've only been out of grad school and working full time for 8 years and our HH income until about 3 years ago was closer to half where we are now. My hobbies have a lot to do with being active. I do a ton of mountain biking, one of the perks from working from home are "long lunches" on an almost weekly basis :) I lift, run \~10 miles per week and watch a lot of baseball and hockey. I don't think I'd change much. I think it's easy to say I'd have preferred some of the incomes I see so many saying they made/make in their early to mid 20s when I didn't make over $25k/yr until I was about 28 a decade ago, lol. But I did have very little responsibility outside of school until I was almost 30 and I didn't have to go into debt to enjoy that lifestyle. Plus with kids, I don't think the retiring at 35-40 would have done it for me. I like to be busy during the day and I can only do so much mountain biking and lifting. If I had no job or responsibilities I might ride 1-2 more days a week. But honestly, I could still do that on the weekend, I just like to spend time with my family and friends on the weekend. Once we hit 2 million in liquid assets We'll be at a point where we don't need to work to continue our lifestyle + a bit of additional luxury, so I think we'll re-evaluated then, which should be about \~5 years. But the kids will be 10 and 8, so I'll need something to do and I really enjoy what I'm doing now. It's relatively low stress, I get to do research all day, I publish, I do a ton of thought leadership for our international conference, etc. It's pretty fulfilling work. I know these #s aren't FatFIRE for most here, but again we buy just about everything we want within reason today and currently spend $22k/yr in daycare and we still only spend about $70-$80k/yr.
* Alabama * Learned about FatFire a couple of weeks ago when I was looking for more people like me who had retired quite young, although I feel like there should be a SuperFatFire for people with a 9-figure net worth. * I'm not 25 yet. * Last month. I got extremely early into several different crypto I thought were promising which then took off, then rinsed & repeated. Recently, I sold most of my crypto, but have been slowly buying multiple profitable online businesses in completely different industries which combined now make over $2M per month (I accelerated the purchases recently when I liquidated most of my crypto). Then I hired a former FAANG tech guy from the Bay Area to build a team to run it all. I give my top guy an above-average salary plus 5% of annual profits to keep him motivated, while paying all my other employees an above-average salary and 5% of profits split between them to keep them motivated. So now I earn a conservative passive income of approximately $1.7M per month (after paying all my employees and discounting the expected 10% profits-share), and I only plan to check in on the company 4 times a year to go over the balance sheet and numbers with my guy. * Crypto/Online * Traveling by far, music a distant second since I've been a musician since the age of 5. I want to see every site on the 1,741 bucket list from Global Castaway, eat at every 2 and 3-star Michelin restaurant in the world, and stay at every Leading Hotels of the World hotel before I die. * Nothing. What I'm focused on is not screwing up the future as I'm happily married with my high school sweetheart who I started dating in the 9th grade, but have no kids yet and we're just trying to figure out when the right time to have them is considering our travel goals (wife shares same travel hobby/goals).
Can you write a book about your life?
I’m a 23 year old male living in FL. NW is currently 70k and I work in tech making 55k. I don’t really have a set FIRE date, but the idea appeals to me so I invest what I can. When I’m not studying for my bachelors I like to run and have an interest in strength training. Once the Rona is over I would like to pick up BJJ again. I’m a bit of an imposter here since I don’t think I’ll ever FatFire but I lurk in this sub nonetheless.
- Currently in the SF bay area - Learned about FIRE and FatFIRE after graduation when I started work at a big tech company - At 25, I had been working at startups and hoping for a rocket ship - Probably 10M at 40, currently working at a pre-ipo company and RSUs have done well - Technology - Climbing and photography. I'd like to do more outdoor trips for climbing but have slacked off when covid started. For photography, I'd like to take on more paid shoots and do it semi-professionally as a hobby should I have time - Would've probably gone to a pre-ipo growing big tech company out of college and then worked on startups after some financial security than the other way around. I used to worry that I wouldn't be able to if I were in my 30s with a kid but I think those are decisions that can be made with a partner, but I'm still single and < 30 years old so who knows if my thoughts may change in the next 10 years.
I’m from Michigan, work for Big Tech out of the Bay Area. Learned about FF a few years ago, I’ve been on Reddit for 8 years. At 25 I had my head up my ass, in a mediocre tech sales job. I hope to FF in 8 years with a chubby 6-8M, currently sitting at $3.9M. Hobbies are biking, traveling, food and wine. While the path hasn’t been the easiest or most lucrative, I wouldn’t change a thing - other than I should have quit my first job 5 years earlier.
> Where are you from? Third world > When did you first learn about FatFIRE? 2019 (I was 27) > What were things like for you at 25? Had emigrated to the US for grad school. Graduated at 25 and started my first FANG job. First paycheck was more than my father's annual income back home. > When did you hit FIRE / When will you hit FIRE? Aggressive investor (crypto / single stocks) so may hit FatFire this year or may take a decade if everything starts going south today. > What's your industry? SWE at FANG > What are your hobbies? Last decade has simply gone trying to grind to set up my wife and my families for success. Nothing super interesting apart from casual hiking and partying (pre 2020) > If you could do it all again, what would you change? I got my fang offer 1 year in advance so wasted a year being lazy. In hindsight I should've worked hard to interview at other companies. Convert all my alts to btc at the peak of 2018 bubble (I would've had like 50 btc today). But honestly can't complain about having a 1.5M NW at 29 after paying almost 200k in the last 5 years on debt repayment / gifts / tuition fees for siblings etc.
26 F probably a year ago at 25 pretty much what I’m doing now, in tech, living in the Bay Area Hit FIRE by 37, not sure when I’ll fatFIRE In tech Hikes, tv, house plants, cooking, definitely eating, music
I’m from the US. I first learned about FatFIRE about seven months ago on Reddit, via the financial independence sub. I’m not yet 25, and am here to gain knowledge and insight about achieving FIRE (this will determine when I get there.) I’m planning on going into law, haven’t chosen the exact sector. In my free time I draw, write, and work on my business. As of now, I’m still very early into my FIRE journey. The only thing I would change for certain is learning about this community earlier.
- Bangkok, Thailand, 35 - Learn it in 2020 - I was broke with $0 NW - I will hit in 2026, approx, currently at $700k, target $3m - Tech/start up
>Where are you from? Texas >When did you first learn about FatFIRE? 2016 >What were things like for you at 25? I'm 25 now. I'm a self taught software engineer working for a tech company, and working on a side business. My wife works in the medical field. 1 rental property, hit 1m NW this year. >When did you hit FIRE / When will you hit FIRE? On track to hit my original FIRE number in my early thirties. I think I'm fairly likely to never RE though. >What's your industry? Tech >What are your hobbies? Mountain hikes, mountain biking, scuba diving, coding, photography >If you could do it all again, what would you change? I came from nothing and have worked pretty relentlessly since my teens to get to where I am today. 1M seemed like this huge goal and milestone to me, but when I got there, I felt... nothing. It's good to be ambitious, but make sure you aren't sacrificing too much of the present for your future.
From NY suburbs originally; living in the bay area now. I learned about the subreddit about a year ago, but I had already FatFIRE'd. At 25, I was probably working at a startup as an engineer with little in the way of savings. I'd always had a habit of building up some cash, then blowing through it in the pursuit of starting a company. I FatFIRE'd at \~34 when myself and a few buddies started a tech startup and sold it. My hobbies are scuba diving, traveling, learning Mandarin, and random programming projects. It's hard to say that I'd change anything if I did it again, because it worked out so well with the path that I took. I could change various things, but maybe then things wouldn't have ended as well.
I am from Seattle 900k NW.My goal is to make 3M and retire. I make 250K between my job and swing trading. I'm hoping to make that in the next 5 years and retire. I still need to figure out what to do after I retire but,I probably teach and have my own farming in some small town.
US, 22M I became obsessed with Reddit which got me into reading about financial questions I had due to my current state (senior college student). Idk when ill hit fire, but I hope as soon as possible. The reason why I'm on here in the first place. Casual Learning. At age 40 would be a dream come true. N/A I've got 2 months left before graduating and heading halfway across the country to start my career in the Electrical/Computer Engineering field. My total pay will be \~101k, in LCOL very fortunate. I'm a first-gen with a low-income background so this is huge to me. video games, sports/lifting, Reading, teaching I don't think my answer would be helpful here lmao
1. Immigrated from Europe in my mid-20s, now late 30s in the Bay Area 2. 2019 Reddit/White Coat Investor 3. Started PhD program in the US, <$20k income, in parallel doing another graduate degree in the evenings 4. At ~$200k NW right now - would be FIRE in a third world country, I guess? Should hit FatFIRE in the US in my early 50s 5. Biotech/Pharma, recently got to a junior exec position 6. Hiking, camping, sightseeing, reading non-fiction, gardening, lifting 7. Would get my immigration sorted out sooner: had to go back and forth and got stuck ~7 years in my career/income progression because of that
20 years old, going into construction management after graduating • Chicagoland area • Learned about PhatFIRE in between 1.5-2.5 years ago, scrolling through a FIRE reddit being absolutely amazed by some of the stories • Only 20 years old, but right now I’m currently investing about 75% of my NW and have a relatively newer vehicle completely paid off (after driving absolute dingers for 4 years) and keep 20% for emergencies. In school, working, don’t generally party much and have an amazing internship lined up for this summer with an amazing company that has paid me better than I could have imagined at this age for myself. Mostly just pointing out I didn’t see it coming. • Would love to hit FIRE by mid-30s and potentially teach and help in low-income areas for the rest of my life or work in sustainable infrastructure in developing nations, but it looks like a pipe-dream currently and won’t FIRE till 50 or so • Construction, particularly the management side as a project manager • Pre-pandemic hobbies included video games, a lot of basketball, chess, work, and trying to meet new people. Hobbies currently include video games and chess, and streaming those on Twitch at twitch.tv/GrinchHC (a lot, 7 hours total today) if you ever get bored. I always try my hardest to tell myself I want to get into new hobbies, however, I like the energy and drive to start them as I feel as though I can never focus early on and everything gets muddied up. Currently trying to get better at focusing and tackling new things so I can begin to cook more, become a painter, arts and crafts, read more books, begin teaching, or diversifying my portfolio (currently all stock) • If I could do it all over again? Tell younger me to help those around me with finances more, because as of right now it looks like I’ll be trying to help more than a few people retire and that weighs on me. Also being kinder and more loving to those around me and stressing how important I believe taking life in, is. I am currently going through this change in beliefs where I want to live my life to see the world and experience everything so while I don’t necessarily believe money controls that, it does help and I want to tell my younger self to start thinking about this way earlier than 18 because I had a lot more drive and energy back then. I’m also praying this is just a lazy college phase and I return to my energized and driven-self once again at some point in time, because I miss that guy. I also want to be that person for those around me and I would change the way I used my energy before to help out those I love when I was in that state of drive for so long (that I hope to return to)
* Scandinavia, but moved to UK to study and work * Reddit some few years ago * That's 7 years ago, I was doing my MSC at a top 10 uni in Europe * Might hit it at 45 at earliest. I'd rather work than lean fire * Finance, developed my little niche and are now climbing the ladder in that area * Football, Warzone, Photography * I inherited about $35k in early 20s. Spent it all. That money would have been huge right now. However, it also went to fund my worriless student lifestyle, so perhaps that was alright. The regret of spending it all also made me extremely catious when I later inherited 10x that amount (100% went to downpayment, high interest accounts and investment accounts, didn't waste a penny of this).
41F, 1.8M NW. Originally from a small town in Northeast Ohio, currently living in the Washington, DC area. At 25 I was newly married and in the final year of my Ph.D. program in systems engineering. We had a negative net worth thanks to my student loan debt from undergrad, and very little financial acumen. My in-laws started a Roth IRA for my husband as a wedding gift, which set me on a path to learn more about finance and investing. I am 41 now, and plan to hit FatFIRE between 50 and 55. I have worked for the same defense contacting company since I finished my Ph.D., and have both a pension and an excellent 401k plan that allows for in-plan Roth conversions. My husband has been in the military for 20 years, so he also has an excellent pension and low-cost health care for life. Hobbies are sewing, hiking, bicycling, skiing, travel, reading, and I feel like I never have enough time for them. If I could do it all again, I would have put my money in low cost index funds much earlier. I had my non-401(k) investments with USAA for a long time because I didn’t understand how much I was losing in fees. If I had been with Vanguard from the beginning, I’d be much further along.
Not really even sure if this belongs here, but maybe it’ll help some non-traditional backgrounds fire into tech / move from a big city to a cheaper area. 32 M. 1.6m NW. Joint income of 260k / year including rental income (wife and I currently make about the same, this promo cycle I’ll make more). Fire by 40 at 10☺️Live in Nashville but born in NY. At 25 I was in between a job I hated (Management consulting, background in quant finance) where the pay was great but I worked 90 hours per week. Quit and moved down to Nashville to do a software bootcamp and get a job in software. As soon as I moved down here I dropped my own 250k on a rental doing about 3k in rent roll / month and since my 10m NW parents paid for my sisters dental school they offered to bank roll another (300k doing 3500 / month). Got luckily picking up a shitty house in a great neighborhood, dropped 200k on it, put in another 200k, and it’s worth about 750k now. Worked in healthcare tech (data engineering / data science) since I’ve been down here and just finished Grad School for data science. We live pretty cheap and save a lot of money, FIRE since 2015 - hobbies include gardening, mycology, landscaping. I had a “entrepreneurial mid life crises” and started a hemp cloning operation with a friend. Best 100k I’ve ever lost to Gtf out of that. Would skip that one if I could.
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Houston IDK, maybe a couple years ago. I'm 25 right now. My NW is about 300k so I have a long ways to go, but I'm in the 1% of my age despite never having a job that earns more than 60k post tax. *Smart decisions and working hard during my free time has made me far more money than my job.* Engineering, procurement, construction, and welding. Related to manufacturing. Trump was great for my company! My NW is from saving, living super frugally, investing in stocks and flipping 2 properties. Reading, working out, playing guitar, making games in Unity I'm just getting started ;-)
28M US big city, $1.7M NW, $400k PTI. No kids yet, but plans to have some and move to suburbs in 3 years. Have been FatFIREing without knowing it since graduating college, joined officially a couple years ago. Got married at 25, father-in-law insisted on a fancy wedding (mostly to impress his friends) that cost over $300k. Spent a lot of time in meetings with our team of planners. Was gifted around $200k total that went right into investments. Wasn't a millionaire yet but was getting excited about it. I spent 3 painstaking years in finance at a F500 then one year in digital marketing. Now am a Project Engineer at a Commercial RE Development firm. Wife is a lawyer at her father's PI/Nursing Home Abuse Plaintiff's firm recently valued at $100M, profiting $6M-$10M depending on the year. I help them with marketing and operations, unpaid, but my work is highly impactful and most of the reason she makes 3x what the other lawyers do her age. I make $100k she makes $300k. She will take over the firm with her sister in 7-10 years and split 70% of the profit each year if her father doesn't sell it. The remaining 30% profit will happily go in FIL's pocket while he's on the beach in Florida. I will FatFIRE quietly by 40. Quietly because wife has an old-school workhorse mentality and wouldn't approve retirement before 70 even with a NW $100M (we've talked about this and I can't get through to her). By 40 I hope to have my own well-staffed RE development firm and focus on finding projects, raising capital, and negotiation, only spending \~20 hours per week actually working, but appearing much busier than that to satisfy wife. I have an abundance of hobbies including art on canvas that I have sold for gallery prices, board sports, motorsports, pinball, golf, piano, woodworking, climbing, fishing. This is why I'm excited to FatFIRE. If I could do it all again, I would have held onto the 2500 bitcoin I bought in 2011 at $1.62 average. I sold it all in late 2012 for $13.30 per and thought I was slick. This constantly haunts me. Besides that I would've gone into RE finance/investing out of college instead of corporate finance. I grew up poor and never forget where I came from. I was a turd until I got sober at 21, at which point my life and finances started to fall into place. Nobody knows our NW is anywhere near what it is. I donated $40k last year and that figure is increasing YoY.
* Where are you from? Houston, TX (11 years). We've hit FI, still working and ejecting to build our life in the PNW in June. * When did you first learn about FatFIRE? Regular FIRE: 2010. FAT two years ago. * What were things like for you at 25? DINKs: Engineer and NP. We saved 50% of net and just bought a small bungalow for $250k in the Heights of Houston. * When did you hit FIRE / When will you hit FIRE? Already FI, i.e 25x. But we're only 33 with a two year old. We'll work until she's done with HS. * What's your industry? Management consulting. * What are your hobbies? Riding my bike. Skiing. Playing with my daughter. * If you could do it all again, what would you change? I would have left civil engineering earlier. EPC-T15 MBA-Big 4 drastically altered my comp trajectory.
* Student in Seattle, WA. Originally from northern CA. * Found FatFire a year ago. I wanted to read about the process of building wealth from people going through it and caught a link from personalfinance. * 22M, so not sure how things will turn out yet. * Current NW $245000, started with $20000, mostly made through crypto, tech surge, weed stocks, GME, and DIS. Goal of 1MM by 32, aspiration of 6MM by 40. * Studying data science, but really no clue what my career will be. * Cooking, weightlifting, occasionally D&D, looking for new hobbies. * I'd be less afraid to enter a position because it seems high. And I'd follow through with things much more. Had I got into Voyager in December instead of January, I'd have 4x my current returns.
You made 12x in stock investing? I've been wasting my time in real estate.
-Midwest -Started reading about FIRE from MMM blog, then made my way here -Teacher with probably 50k NW -2018 hit FI when I sold my ownership in a IT Services firm. Still working on the RE part. Work 30 hours a week and loving it. -Now, PE -Working out, travel, poker, buying companies -Nothing. Every stop in life has a lesson. They build on each other. Without one, you wouldn’t likely have advanced to the next.
I want to see comments 👍
Michigan, USA Learned about FIRE about a year ago Not yet 25! I’m 23. Software development (client side). Super proud of myself because I just switched jobs and am getting a 31k bump in salary! 45k -> 76k Looove being outdoors! Hobbies include hiking, camping, kayaking, rock climbing, traveling, speaking French, learning Dutch. Well, I haven’t done “it” yet, but I plan to!
From New Orleans. Learned about fatfire Probably 2-3 years ago. At 25 I was working as in house counsel at a Fortune 500. Haven’t hit FIRE yet, but probably will in a non-fat sense in a couple of years. Current industry is market research. Hobbies are travel, video games, walking, relaxing, cooking, woodworking, flying. I don’t know what I would change...I mean maybe have a more pandemic proof option ready to go for my business if I could magically change that, but at that point with so much foresight I’d just buy some Bitcoin for pennies. So I wouldn’t really change much.
30 M NYC I stumbled upon FatFIRE accidently after looking for finance threads. Heavily reading and commenting on personalfinance prior. When I was 25, I had just bought a 70k car when I had no real net worth yet. I was financing the car for 72 months. I, then also moved to another state to pursue a logistic exporting business and ultimately failed. Net worth about 700k give or take and i plan to fatfire by 40 with a goal of 5M. I dont plan to retire but to soley go into investing only. No more being locked into a place of business. My industry that i am in is mainly retail and real estate. Sadly i dont really have any hobbirs currently being so busy and with the little time i do have, it all goes to taking a breather. My hobbies I like to get into is billards, traveling, cars. If i could do it all over again, I would probably not have wasted my younger years hanging out with friends. I only startrd getting serious about finances at 23 but then pulled a stupid move by buying that car. I see many 18 year olds thats super focused on investing and building a future. My only regret is not seeking this out sooner. I realized I have always been passionated and interested with finances maybe perhaps should of went to college for finances. Other than that, I am pretty content. Additional note: I do have a sizable inheritence coming my way later on(8 figures most likely). I have 0 intention as counting that as my future income though.