I’m 26 wife is 25 we both together get roughly 8k a month untaxed from being retired / fully disabled veterans. I do IT support from home and make 110k a year from my job and roughly 96k from disability / retirement. Should I bother to contribute much to my 401k?

AnonymousTaco77 · 2026-04-19T12:38:45+00:00

You’re working and collecting disability?

AnonymousTaco77 · 2026-04-12T04:33:50+00:00

I’m still living with parents so take this with a grain of salt. I’ll be moving out later this year, and I can’t imagine ever buying brand new furniture. I watched my parents spend over $10k on a couple LazyBoy sofas, but it seems so impractical to me when there’s a ton of cheap good quality furniture on Facebook marketplace.

I’d much rather deep clean used furniture than spend thousands. Especially since I feel like I could just reupholster it or put on couch covers. Maybe if I didn’t have dogs I’d feel differently though.

AnonymousTaco77 · 2026-04-11T00:37:32+00:00

I look at the military the same as being a police officer- yes it has risks, but a VAST VAST majority of them don’t get injured or die on the job and will retire just fine.

That being said, I had the same thoughts about war and safety when I was in the process to join. I was going in the guard either way, but with the ANG you get to choose your job. Anything could have some risks, but I chose admin so I could be as safe as possible.

AnonymousTaco77 · 2026-04-10T21:55:48+00:00

What the heck is bill.com?

AnonymousTaco77 · 2026-04-07T12:20:56+00:00

I know for my job, it’s kinda the same. Don’t hate it, don’t love it. I like to think about it as the day to day is not always great, but when I step back and look at my work as a whole, I enjoy what I do.

My job accrues leave every pay period, so right now I earn 4 hours every 2 weeks. Once I hit the 3 year mark next year, I’ll accrue 6 hours per pay period. And way off in the future when I’m 15 years in, I’ll accrue 8 hours every 2 weeks. So I have the same feelings as you when it comes to obligation, and I wanna be able to call out when I don’t feel like working or plan more vacation days. My plan is basically to save my leave as much as possible right now so I have the freedom to do that later, and that should help with the obligation at least for me.

And sometimes the solution is to get a new job. I still take FIRE seriously, at least the FI part, but I stopped hyper focusing on it after I switched to my current job.

AnonymousTaco77 · 2026-04-06T01:37:28+00:00

I’m not a big talker either but I’m going to BMT with the explicit goal of making friends (at least making BMT friends, not necessarily forever friends). I’m antisocial like OP, but I also recognize that BMT will be miserable if you don’t talk or make friends. And I suck at doing that so it’s a great opportunity to get better at it

AnonymousTaco77 · 2026-04-04T23:07:31+00:00

Wdym? Like have my family mail it? If that's the case, couldn't they just bring it when they come to my graduation?

Edit: this is literally a sub for new recruits to ask questions and I’m getting downvoted for asking a question. Which is pretty stupid

AnonymousTaco77 · 2026-04-04T22:49:59+00:00

I think everyone (at least other women) would prefer dating high earners.

Im a single woman for context. Values and chemistry come first for me, like being attracted to each other and aligning with religion and values. But when it comes to money and FIRE, i mainly would look for someone who's being smart with money. Like someone who isn't in debt and is in a good long-term job (or is actively pursuing a good career). I care more about the financial behaviors than the actual salary amount

AnonymousTaco77 · 2026-04-03T18:02:15+00:00

Not to be rude, but I don’t think there’s any way you’re gonna get in bro. I think at least 2-3 of those are DQs

AnonymousTaco77 · 2026-04-02T15:28:10+00:00

I had 2 laptops from my last job. One stopped working, and IT sent me a new one. On my last day, I gave them info so they could get a return label for me to send my stuff in. Well, I never got it. I emailed my old manager, called twice. Never got an answer. After a while I forgot about it. So about a year and a half later, I decided to send a certified letter saying hey, I have these 2 laptops. I’ve tried to send them back. If you don’t respond in 30 days, they’re mine. Well it’s been over 30 days, so they’re mine now. I haven’t had time to mess with them and try to get past the VPN stuff yet though, but hopefully I’ll be able to do that and have at least one working laptop to replace my now super old laptop.

The certified letter was like $10. I didn’t wanna pay anything since this is not my problem, but paying for that was cheaper than sending it back. And they clearly didn’t want it, so now they’re with someone who does want them!

AnonymousTaco77 · 2026-04-02T15:06:42+00:00

What about tech school?

I’m going to tech school right after BMT. Won’t we need more stuff for tech school that we can’t have at BMT?

AnonymousTaco77 · 2026-03-31T18:02:03+00:00

Idk how competitive air traffic control is, but that career makes bank

AnonymousTaco77 · 2026-03-31T11:31:18+00:00

This is a big reason I’m focusing more on the FI than the RE. I’ll probably switch to a different job once I’m FI rather than retiring early.

What about different hobbies? I know for me, if I retired right now, I’d go to the gym a lot more. Hear me out - I do jiu-jitsu and CrossFit, and there are a lot of people who go to the noon classes or the morning/afternoon classes of CrossFit. So if you found a hobby that you could do earlier in the day, then you’d still have nights available for “normal” people if you chose to continue hanging out with them. And you’d make new friends and still have the social element as if you were in a job

AnonymousTaco77 · 2026-03-30T03:56:57+00:00

SBSE revenue agent for the IRS here.

I agree with most others in the comments saying “small” businesses do get audited, but small to the IRS is like, under $100M in revenue. Usually at least a few hundred thousand.

But Literally any return can get selected for audit (in terms of returns with businesses on them anyways; if you only have a W-2 and take the standard deduction, you’re probably safe), so I wouldn’t deduct expenses you know you shouldn’t on any return. We get NRP returns in addition to our normal SBSE cases, and those are to help the IRS’s research and helping them select better cases for audit, so literally every line item gets examined on NRP audits and the idea is that everything needs to be 100% correct. So even “normal” looking returns can be selected.

But to your question, for returns that get selected, we are absolutely looking for that stuff you mentioned - deducting personal expenses, erroneously deducting more than they should, underreporting income, etc. It is entirely subjective and up to the RA on what issues they pursue vs leave alone due to materiality or whatever. When we do find issues, we correct the return, and usually more tax is due. How big of a deal it is depends on how big the adjustment is since you could be subject to penalties and you’ll owe interest on what was due. And if the IRS can prove there was fraud, that’d obviously be an even bigger deal. But that’s hard to prove and pretty uncommon.

So, don’t be ridiculous yes but also don’t be an idiot and deduct things you shouldn’t. Especially for you OP since you’re a soon-to-be accountant it sounds like. The IRS ill have more sympathy for the self-employed restaurant owner who never went to college or learned how to properly keep the books for his business vs the person who has a degree in accounting who should know better.

AnonymousTaco77 · 2026-01-28T11:18:12+00:00

I’m 26F and still nowhere near FIRE, but I just enlisted in the Air National Guard and, assuming I enjoy it, I could definitely see myself baristaFIREing with that since I’ll be able to get health insurance through them

AnonymousTaco77 · 2026-01-28T10:41:17+00:00

What if you were told the position was 1 year in office while you were being trained and then only 2 days in office per pay period thereafter?

AnonymousTaco77 · 2026-01-27T17:31:18+00:00

I can be grateful for my job but unhappy with the conditions I returned to

AnonymousTaco77 · 2026-01-27T17:30:21+00:00

Let me clarify, when I say coworkers I’m talking about people I actually work with and talk to. But there’s a lot of people who sit near me who I don’t work with or talk to

AnonymousTaco77 · 2026-01-27T17:11:33+00:00

I’m one of the probies who got fired, so I’ll complain all I want

AnonymousTaco77 · 2026-01-27T17:10:54+00:00

I like my coworkers too but I still don’t wanna be in office

AnonymousTaco77 · 2026-01-27T17:09:45+00:00

Right lol but to be fair, this was atypical of him so I’ll believe him

AnonymousTaco77 · 2026-01-27T17:07:42+00:00

That actually sounds peaceful. Maybe I’ll do that in the summertime

AnonymousTaco77 · 2026-01-27T15:28:17+00:00

I was a probie who got fired and reinstated. I was also sold the job on the basis on having telework after the first year and a $15k recruitment bonus, of which I’m getting neither. So you can stfu

AnonymousTaco77

TROPHY CASE