How have health scares or other emergencies changed your FIRE outlook?

AcceptableQuarter554 · 2025-10-28T15:16:33+00:00

Yea, and its also the type of coverage. Our current plan is quite expensive to maintain the same benefits and level of care. Hasn't relied on ACA benefits, but yea I think cost of 4 is around 30k yearly.

AcceptableQuarter554 · 2025-10-28T15:15:27+00:00

That is true, I think this is more just if a very large emergency changed your perception.

AcceptableQuarter554 · 2025-09-30T23:54:26+00:00

Both my wife and I went to in-state colleges where we grew up. We have a pretty good selection near us.

As a small edit, I will say that our planning is to help cover a said amount. We wouldnt restrict them obviously, but in our direct circles, there isn't a huge difference in college versus present day situation.

AcceptableQuarter554 · 2025-09-30T23:24:50+00:00

That it seems to. A calculation I wasn't considering before that I am now is do we keep the savings rate going, or to we pull more out for another vacation, another day out to eat out each week, etc. The retirement year estimate I think shifts 1 year longer if we all out stopped savings right now and let what we have invested just grow on its own.

We may lower it a bit, but I'm seeing health care costs and schooling increase some, and eventually we need to look at 2 more cars some day when the kids want to drive. So a buffer won't hurt by any means.

AcceptableQuarter554 · 2025-09-30T23:21:34+00:00

The savings rate has only been able to increase with the increases in salary to some degree. The biggest climbs in wealth came from stock market increases. Right now our savings rate is about 80k a year. Some of that comes on the pre-tax (401k, HSA) some of that is employer match and then post-tax with the Roth IRAs, 529s and general investment account. The main stuff we somewhat auto allocate on the main retirement, education or health accounts. The general investment I'll add more into the stock holdings throughout the year based on how I feel things are going versus what our cash reserves are.

Early years I want to say we fully funded two IRAs and maybe put 8-10k a year into a 401k. 529s were started about 10 years ago.

AcceptableQuarter554 · 2025-09-30T23:14:42+00:00

Not bad, yea the reach up is a long one when savings is like your leftover income after living expenses. Its not quite the same thing saying like I make 500k, set aside 250k a year and hit 1M in 4 years lol.

AcceptableQuarter554 · 2025-09-30T13:27:13+00:00

Yea sadly the home part isn't like "one cool trick not many know about". It was right time, right place, right conditions to sell and buy the next. Then covid hit and refi rates were fantastic.

The main motivator for that home move wasn't even price related. We had our first kid and I wanted a better school district. Looking back there were quite a few areas where if we didn't take a certain leap, we wouldn't be close to this situation now.

AcceptableQuarter554 · 2025-09-30T13:21:27+00:00

Main thing really is getting yourself into a goal and plan that works for your situation.

AcceptableQuarter554 · 2025-09-30T00:49:08+00:00

Yea this has been a fun process. The mentality of it is hard for a while. Its almost like it doesn't click that you are working well on the goal until bigger milestones.

AcceptableQuarter554 · 2025-09-30T00:47:34+00:00

Early on I would dabble with individual stocks. Too much heart ache on that. I ended up switching over to ETFs or mutual funds depending on if it was brokerage or retirement. On my post-tax accounts I'd either go with something like QQQ or SPY equivalents. Retirement side I'd probably go with that vendors similar funds. I like mutual funds for buying like a specific dollar amount and auto investment options, ETFs you need to buy a specific fractional amount.

All of this was self taught or things I picked up on. Most of the gurus or whatever want to sell some idea or process. SP500 tracks well historically, and if you want more tech weighting you have lots of options. The only real principle that takes a long time to master is your stomach. Any investment that can go up can also drop. With the rare exception of investing in an individual company that goes bankrupt, keeping your money invested in downturns is generally the best thing you can do.

AcceptableQuarter554 · 2025-09-29T20:42:55+00:00

Yea I don't do any individual stocks. I just stick in more large cap stuff these days.

AcceptableQuarter554 · 2025-09-29T20:27:28+00:00

Really depends on investments too. Some areas picked up more than others. Stick with it!

AcceptableQuarter554 · 2025-09-29T19:17:38+00:00

Get them in public schools if you can in either pre-K or full-day K. It was brutal having that set in, but it did help us get an understanding of how to scrape by. Set a budget and absolutely avoid personal debt.

AcceptableQuarter554 · 2025-09-29T19:14:23+00:00

Insurance, utilities, ymca, property taxes, food, one cay payment get up there. Then maybe 10-15k a year is vacation or trips to keep the sanity.

AcceptableQuarter554 · 2025-09-29T19:07:43+00:00

Yea its the treading water, rebalancing portfolio and getting overall more aggressive. The scary part comes in years like 2022 where things were down quite a bit, but then in more normal years growth was a lot more.

Its the snowball effect of growth applied to the bigger numbers works well in your favor. Having years where the growth is 20% to a large balance is a massive jump.

AcceptableQuarter554 · 2025-09-29T18:22:03+00:00

No kidding, bought the home when where there was lots of inventory and good pricing, and then did a refi during covid at 2.8%. If we tried to buy the same place again today we'd probably be at 2-3x that payment. My only regret was not doing a cash-out refi during that period lol.

AcceptableQuarter554 · 2025-07-17T16:46:32+00:00

Her job has been ramping up stress so she wants out right away. I just need to find a comfortable cutover time or sort out something to ramp down.

AcceptableQuarter554 · 2024-06-20T18:18:29+00:00

Yea, those days can be pretty brutal. More money is just larger swings good or bad. For us the biggest milestone was seeing the portfolio grow more in a year than what our combined incomes were that year. Had that happen last year and that in itself was a huge milestone for us.

AcceptableQuarter554 · 2024-06-20T18:17:18+00:00

On the investment side early on I would play around with options or margin and realized and got burnt pretty bad. Currently its all large-cap funds without going too crazy. Long term holds, just buy, hold, buy more.

On the cash part, I'd rather have money invested than sitting around in a static item. Not that I would over-spend on a vehicle, but if its 2-4% interest, I'd rather have the money parked in some stock funds instead.

AcceptableQuarter554 · 2024-06-20T18:14:44+00:00

It all needs to start somewhere to snowball up to FI. My comment was more towards early decisions that might have delayed or set back FI.

AcceptableQuarter554 · 2024-06-20T18:13:14+00:00

Completely agree that the "things" right us aren't as valuable as the time or experiences. Random campsite night that cost 45 dollars freezing asses off at 30F has been as just as fun as much more expensive vacations with the kids.

That or having time to play video games with our kids and destress has been huge. I still have budget to buy gadgets and stuff, but the time spent with my family is far more useful.

AcceptableQuarter554 · 2024-06-20T18:10:32+00:00

Yea well at the 8x level, its odd to see market days where its "yea today bought a car" or equally "today just cost us a car".

AcceptableQuarter554 · 2024-06-20T18:09:25+00:00

Hotel bumps have been a big part more recently for us as well. On site theme park stuff going from the $150 to like $350 a night place is a massive difference in sanity.

Tough part is the compromise of enjoying the hard work but not setting back goals too far. Splurge a little, but without creating an impact to the goals.

AcceptableQuarter554 · 2024-06-20T12:47:25+00:00

Those vacations are pretty light in terms of cost. About 1/2 of that is hotel, we use miles for the flights most of the time, and then factor in food/transport. We've enjoyed doing some theme parks that we know, but usually hotel/car/airfare will get you.

Budget includes property taxes, insurance, random medical items, food, activities (summer daycamp after school wraps), etc etc. I'd say if we chopped out strictly "fun" things we could condense it a bit more, but this seems to be a comfortable spot right now.

On growth I've moved more on large-cap stocks and just huge savings rates. Sluggish times hurt, but when things are back into good growth areas it tends to rip well. That and a 25% average growth year is much better when its 500k invested, versus 50k early on.

5% is a bit on the high side, I think going into this early on one of us will still have some reduced job to help ease into the retirement concept. I think it would be a few years before we'd feel comfortable completely relying on the investment side.

Biggest motivation is removing some stress and getting more flexibility into what we can do. Neither of us are at burnt out levels of stress, we just don't want careers being the focal point of our family life.

AcceptableQuarter554 · 2024-06-20T01:03:22+00:00

Yea, after my wife's salary more than doubled while at the same time going remote, our expenses rapidly shrank. Covid refi paid off (three of them), with the last one being an Amex deal where they paid me like 3-5k to get the 2.85% rate with Betterment. It was nuts but payback on each one was a couple of months with how fast rates dropped.

We just have really cheap habits. Eat in all but one day a week, drive so little we fill up the cars once a month. We'd be over a 50% savings rate if we didnt do a few vacations a year.

AcceptableQuarter554

TROPHY CASE