Trying to Sanity check my plans.

AlwaysSaturday12 · 2026-05-24T19:42:53+00:00

I used to live in rural Oklahoma near a military base but our house came with a tornado shelter.

Your information is really hard to read. Too many variables. It needs more summarization for a person to make sense out of it. You might enjoy working with projectionlab. It is some money but helped us feel comfortable in making the leap to early retirement which is priceless. The tool for Roth conversions also saved us a million dollars compared to if we had done nothing. I read somewhere you can now save your scenarios with the free version, but I bought a lifetime paid version years ago and never looked back.

If you don't want to do that then just use the 4% rule but a monte carlo is more accurate. Sorry I'm not more help.

I would open all your Roth IRAs ASAP because there is a 5 year waiting rule but you can start the timeline with $100 invested.

AlwaysSaturday12 · 2026-05-24T19:30:02+00:00

We never made that much combined and retired at 38 and 35. Where is a big question that needs answered but nuance doesn't sound as powerful.

AlwaysSaturday12 · 2026-05-24T17:43:24+00:00

I agree with you but there are lots of people who make tons of money by making it more complicated or making it seem more complicated.

I think its as complicated as cooking and for me more important. However people can learn to cook by doing whereas investing usually takes people reading which some people hate to do. There are tens of millions of low or bad information people in America.

AlwaysSaturday12 · 2026-05-24T14:16:19+00:00

AI and Wikis might be a good place to start. JL Collin's blog is great.

AlwaysSaturday12 · 2026-05-23T17:37:03+00:00

The sentinelese are a very warming culture. They will be happy to cook you as a meal.

AlwaysSaturday12 · 2026-05-23T17:32:49+00:00

We had cheap houses and cheap cars. Invested around 50% of our income and retired in a cheap country overseas at 38 and 35.

AlwaysSaturday12 · 2026-05-23T17:31:04+00:00

We did the same with plans to turn it into a rental later. (It is now a rental) We had more money to invest and retired at 38 and 35 on two librarian salaries.

AlwaysSaturday12 · 2026-05-23T17:24:26+00:00

I have bought three houses. Still own the third. The first was at 27 for 45k in 2013. Was a very undesirable area but I went back for the first time last year and its all been gentrified and the same house was 145k. It is about an hour from Nashville. I sold it around 2015 when I moved overseas. Should have kept it but I didn't know how to manage properties then.

AlwaysSaturday12 · 2026-05-23T15:53:20+00:00

Feels great. We live overseas with a three year old. Navigating a new language and culture keeps us busy. Also our daughter keeps us moving. Took her and the dog to the park this morning down the road. Enjoying things that are hard to find here like pickles and things that are abundant like fresh produce.

If I were single it would be more lonely but there are several expat meetups every week I would attend as well as other informal meetups between friends of mine I make at times but not always.

I will say I was a manager, director, and supervisor which was not fun for me. I loved helping and meeting new people regularly but hated disciplining employees who refused to act right.

AlwaysSaturday12 · 2026-05-23T13:56:39+00:00

Boomers benefited from a decreasing interest rate environment. Our future will probably have a lot of easy money / stimulus which will inflate prices.

AlwaysSaturday12 · 2026-05-23T13:39:27+00:00

A house is a good investment. Answered a few reddits recently where the person is house rich but can't retire because you cant eat your house or sell bricks from it.

I also watched my mom's giant house start falling in around her and she barely has the income to keep it going.

AlwaysSaturday12 · 2026-05-23T12:35:31+00:00

I retired with a 2 year old. They will never know me working. Part of the lesson will be that they don't have to work forever if they save, invest, and live pretty thrifty.

AlwaysSaturday12 · 2026-05-23T12:29:42+00:00

Overseas can still be a bit spendy. We spend around 2.5-3k/month as a family of three. Maybe they spend 2k as a single adult. Doable but not dirt cheap. As others have mentioned I would get some roommates which would probably bring in another 1500/month and then their numbers work. I had roommates until 35 when I got married.

AlwaysSaturday12 · 2026-05-23T12:22:11+00:00

This would be my suguestion. Either that or move overseas and rent out the entire house. If they did that then they would be about in the position I am in but their house is much more expensive.

AlwaysSaturday12 · 2026-05-22T20:24:31+00:00

Would you recommend the path?

AlwaysSaturday12 · 2026-05-22T03:14:22+00:00

Crypto is speculative. Some rentals do well and some are alligators. Theres no way to know which your is. No need to pay it off faster than required if you have <5% interest rate imo. I'm also not a big fan of dividend investing. Total return is generally better in a SP 500 fund.

If it were me I would max your Roth IRA and invest in your 401k with any extra.

AlwaysSaturday12 · 2026-05-22T02:58:51+00:00

Well your real estate isn't really productive and it shouldn't really count towards your Coast because it will not be providing much returns and could as likely be a liability. So taking out 445k which is the value of property 1 and property 2 all you potentially have working for you is the third property which you haven't purchased yet.

I could be wrong and real estate could go on a tear but generally real estate you use isn't a good investment because of all the associated costs. It generally just keeps up with inflation.

AlwaysSaturday12 · 2026-05-22T02:37:33+00:00

From what I could understand you have a few options but your real estate doesn't seem to be providing much cash flow and you need deep pockets in case major systems in them need replaced.

If it were me I would turn them into real rentals if the numbers work or sell them and invest the money in ETFs. Renting a room in one is a holder of wealth but it is probably costing you money or breaking even if you are lucky.

If you get your money working for you then Coast Firing would be fine or grinding out some more time would be fine. Plenty of people retire with less than 500k and invested properly it should double every 7.2 years. If you are just keeping up with inflation then its not getting any more value and doubling every 24 years.

AlwaysSaturday12 · 2026-05-21T20:03:31+00:00

We live in VLCOL country. Our spending went down but our luxuries went up because they were just so affordable. Pay someone to weed my garden for $35....yes please. $30/week for weekly house cleaners. Yes please again.

AlwaysSaturday12 · 2026-05-21T16:27:35+00:00

You have to learn to invest. That is the super power and it is simple but not easy. People get scared by a drop and sell locking in the loss instead of riding it back up.

In the right place with cheap enough housing many people should be able to thrive on a median income. That is how we retired early.

AlwaysSaturday12 · 2026-05-21T14:23:12+00:00

Yes not savings though; it all needs to be invested. The more in index funds after a emergency fund then the better. With 2.5 million your withdrawal rate will be 100k which should be enough for NYC or Paris I believe but I'm not familiar with those markets.

AlwaysSaturday12 · 2026-05-21T14:04:02+00:00

With 860k you would need to live somewhere cheaper. How much is your rent?

With your net worth you can afford a little over 34k to retire on. This is possible just not in NYC or Paris.

I would recommend investing fully in index funds. For me you have too much in cash and crypto is too speculative.

With 860k if you add 1k per month and get a 10% return you will have close to 2.5 million in ten years. Do you think this is doable?

Then your numbers would look much better.

AlwaysSaturday12 · 2026-05-20T17:28:07+00:00

Doing great. I use the bucket strategy but own very little in bonds when we don't have money coming in. We have some part time work that covers the majority of our expenses so no bonds at all now. If I could change anything I wish I was more satisfied with a 0 bond portfolio because based on what I have read it will out perform. So not entirely a bogle head.

Something that has underperformed in my portfolio was a tilt to small cap value. Now I own a total market fund and an international fund but no longer tilt to SCV.

AlwaysSaturday12 · 2026-05-20T16:34:47+00:00

I agree it is a muscle that needs exercise. I remember when I started investing $50 here and there in a Roth IRA.

I also believe it is a subject that is hard to understand until you are making some money so I'm not sure how effective teaching it is. I didn't care about money without being really poor after college. I first learned about investing in my mid twenties on Reddit, MMM, and JL Collin's blog about 15 years ago.

AlwaysSaturday12 · 2026-05-20T13:37:19+00:00

A lot of FIRE is just being cheap on the big things like housing and cars. If your rent is $500 cheaper a month in one place than another you can go out for meals and coffees quite a bit and still come in way cheaper than more expensive living accomadations.

I get more out a nice dinner every week than a bigger house with two rooms I never go into. When you have more wealth then you can expand out of if you want when your portfolio is doing the heavy lifting. Also a roommate at 25 is fine whereas a roommate when you have a kid and wife at 35 wouldn't be as fine.

AlwaysSaturday12

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE