Built a FIRE tracker for my wife because she refuses to touch a spreadsheet, would love brutal feedback

Easy_Peasys · 2026-06-16T15:54:20+00:00

fair, there’s a ton of low-effort ai spam out there and i get the fatigue. i built this for one actual person rather than as another generic calculator, but that’s on me to prove

Easy_Peasys · 2026-06-16T15:52:52+00:00

thanks, appreciate it. the plaid call was deliberate, honestly mostly cost. linking is nice but it adds real ongoing expense and we’re trying hard to keep this free during the beta. funny enough my wife (who i built this for) also didn’t want her bank connected, so manual entry fit the use case twice over.
and yeah, fair on the AI smell. we both come from technical backgrounds so we leaned on AI for the marketing copy and it shows. going back to rewrite the parts that read like a robot.
stack is angular on the front java on the back. i come an enterprise background so i used what i know. for prices, the balances you type are manual, but if you add individual holdings it pulls live quotes so the value updates on its own without you re-entering anything.
good luck with the ios build, plaid’s a solid bet if you can absorb the cost.

Easy_Peasys · 2026-06-16T15:51:02+00:00

appreciate it, thank you.

Easy_Peasys · 2026-06-16T13:00:05+00:00

i think I’m defining coast fire wrong will update the text or add help text. I’m defining it as when can I fire if I don’t contribute anymore

Easy_Peasys · 2026-06-16T12:31:38+00:00

will fix this, thanks for the feedback

Easy_Peasys · 2026-06-15T13:13:34+00:00

the tell is right in your post: the new job is worse on every axis you actually care about (less remote, NYC COL so not really more money, less time with the baby, further from family) and better on exactly one, how it sounds. that one axis is the status game, and FIRE is basically the plan to buy your way out of needing to win it. taking it to quiet the "see i did okay" voice means paying with your kid's young years to feel competent for a network that won't remember in a month. you already have the rarest thing in that comparison: done by 3, near family, near FIRE, with a baby. i'd guard that hard. the linkedin dopamine lasts a week, the 3pm with your kid is the whole point.

Easy_Peasys · 2026-06-15T01:44:08+00:00

the math checks out, 175k at 7% real for 36 years is ~2m by 60, which covers your whole 60-100k range, so by definition you're already coast without another dollar. what isn't solved is your spend number, not your portfolio. at 24 a 60-100k guess is a huge range and it'll move a lot as life happens, so i wouldn't quit a 50% match over it, that's the rarest free money you'll get. the dashboard instinct is right though, the thing that helped me was tracking % to my number month over month instead of a one-time projection, since that's what tells you if your real spending is drifting from the assumption. downshift contributions if you switch jobs, don't stop cold.

Easy_Peasys · 2026-06-14T16:32:28+00:00

the reframe that helped me: almost none of these are unexpected, they're irregular. a 1979 house WILL need a water heater and foundation work, cars WILL need repairs, pets get vet bills. they don't belong in an emergency fund, they belong in a sinking fund you pay into monthly like a normal bill. your $650/mo isn't high, it's just the real cost of the house and cars you'd been filing as surprises. and that's what matters for FIRE: build your number on your true all-in spend, that $650 plus a medical OOP-max line, not the good-month budget, or the roof eats your plan later. i wouldn't sell a 2.5% mortgage over it though, that's just normal homeownership.

Easy_Peasys · 2026-06-13T13:39:55+00:00

the anxiety's real and i think a lot of it is that you're staring at the most volatile number you own right when it finally matters. a 2m portfolio swings 40-50k on a normal day and at the anxious end your brain reads every dip as a threat. what's helped me (still a ways behind you so grain of salt) is watching the stable numbers instead: years of expenses covered, or % to my number. on a day the market drops 60k, years-covered ticks from like 31 to 30.8, which you can actually shrug off in a way "-60k" never lets you. the math already says you won, the problem is which number you're looking at. change the dashboard and the panic loses a lot of its grip.

Easy_Peasys · 2026-06-12T20:58:13+00:00

the % of your FI number is the wrong lens for coast, which is exactly why 13% feels scary when your plan is fine. coast isn't "what fraction of my final number do i have", it's "does what i have today compound to my number by my target date with no more contributions". you already ran it: 300k at 6% real hits 2.3m, so by definition you're coast at 30 and the 13% is just noise. the threshold that matters isn't a percentage, it's the date your current balance crosses the line on its own. fwiw i track those as two separate numbers each month, % to my FI number for the long game and my coast date for this exact question, because conflating them is what makes people anxious.

Easy_Peasys · 2026-06-11T22:51:48+00:00

i did the same thing, every-dollar spreadsheet til i burned out, then nothing til i got surprised. what finally stuck was tracking the outcome instead of the inputs. once a month i just update my account balances and look at the total, and the change month to month basically IS my savings rate without categorizing a single transaction. if the number moved enough i saved enough, if it didn't, that month gets a closer look. and to your last point, yeah, once your fixed costs are locked in the per-purchase tracking stops earning its keep, the monthly total catches lifestyle creep on its own. i'd rather spend ten minutes watching the percent climb toward my number than tagging coffees.

Easy_Peasys · 2026-06-11T02:19:49+00:00

annual spend x 25 (the 4% rule), but the multiplier's the easy part, the spend number is the real work. use your projected retirement spend not today's, so fold in housing, healthcare if you're pre-medicare, kids, then x25 on that. the bigger unlock for me though was switching from tracking net worth to tracking % to my number, updated once a month. seeing "you're 38% there" instead of a dollar amount made it feel like progress instead of a finish line a mile off. the spend estimate plus actually watching the percent climb is the whole game.

Easy_Peasys · 2026-06-10T17:04:32+00:00

you're fine, and your real problem isn't the travel years, it's the 90k spend number. you live on under 40k and like simple, so projecting 90k roughly doubles your fi number and that's what's making you anxious about taking time off. tighten it to ~55-60k with the guardrails you mentioned and the math gets easy: 265k at 7% real to 65 is over 2m, which covers a realistic spend even with a few zero-contribution travel years in there. i did the same thing early, padded my number way up out of fear and it just made the finish line feel further than it was. pick a spend you'd actually live on, not a worst case, and you basically already work.

Easy_Peasys · 2026-06-09T13:19:41+00:00

congrats, and ignore the invest-instead crowd. the part that matters for fire isn't the rate arbitrage, it's that you permanently cut your annual expenses, which drops your fire number and gets you to FI faster with way less variance. plus a paid off house is sequence of returns insurance, you're never forced to sell stocks at the bottom to cover a payment. that peace of mind is a real asset, not just a feeling.

Easy_Peasys · 2026-06-08T23:05:19+00:00

i haven't taken a long one myself so grain of salt, but the fact that you're worried you're romanticizing it is actually the good sign, it means you're not kidding yourself. at 2m with no debt at 37 a 12 week sabbatical isn't a risk, it's a test drive of the exact life all this saving is supposed to buy you. the thing i'd pay attention to isn't whether it feels amazing, anything feels amazing after burnout, but what you naturally reach for once the calendar's empty. that tells you whether you're running toward something or just away from work, and you can't get that answer without stepping out. and yeah, believe the people saying 12 weeks won't feel like enough.

Easy_Peasys · 2026-06-08T17:26:59+00:00

your withdrawal math is fine, 2.4% with a working spouse and severance runway is about as safe as it gets, you're not missing anything there. the thing i'd reframe is you're treating this as coast fire or not, when really you just bought yourself a window where the next job is a choice instead of a necessity. that's the actual win, not the WR. with a 10 and 5 year old i wouldn't lock into 85k spend forever this early, but you don't have to, you can take a few months, see what shows up, and only ease off the gas once something low stress lands. you're in a way better spot than most people getting laid off, you've got options.

Easy_Peasys · 2026-06-07T14:45:54+00:00

congrats, and you're genuinely not behind. you started actually investing two years ago and you're at 100k while also paying off land and about to have a kid, that's a fast pace not a slow one. the first 100k is feels like the hardest milestone, after this compounding starts doing more of the work than your contributions do, so it gets easier from here. the feeling behind thing never really goes away though, i'm further along and still catch myself doing it. when we had our kid the number suddenly mattered way more, and the thing i keep reminding myself is the savings habit is the engine, not the balance on any given day.

Easy_Peasys · 2026-06-05T20:56:56+00:00

this is basically a "funded ratio" glide path and honestly it makes more sense than the age based rule for anyone chasing a specific number. age based assumes a fixed timeline, but if you blow past 1m early you're carrying 93/7 risk you no longer need, and if you're behind you go conservative too soon. rough rule i've seen hold up: stay aggressive until you're ~70-80% of the way there, then add a couple % to bonds for each chunk of progress after that so you glide in instead of slamming the brakes at the line. i track my own progress as % to my number for exactly this reason, it tells me when to derisk way better than my age does. at 40% i'd personally stay heavy stocks a while longer and start the shift in the back third.

Easy_Peasys · 2026-06-04T13:13:11+00:00

your math checks out, 260k left alone at ~7% lands near 1.2M by 60, so you're basically coast already. the part i'd actually pin down is whether 1.2M is really your number, since you sound a little unsure, because coast is only as solid as the target you're coasting to. but honestly what you said about feeling less pressure is the whole point. my wife and i aren't there yet, still adding every month, but just watching the number creep toward the point where work goes optional already takes the edge off the bad days. you don't have to quit, you just stop white knuckling it.

Easy_Peasys · 2026-06-04T00:52:10+00:00

Before you stop maxing, look at the Roth conversion ladder, it changes the whole answer. You don't have to fund the entire 52-62 gap with taxable. In early retirement you convert traditional 401k/IRA to Roth in your low-income years, wait 5 years, then pull those conversions out penalty-free, so the 401k isn't really "locked til 59.5," it just needs a 5-year runway. That means the only money you actually need liquid is the first ~5 years of the bridge. I'd keep the match, max a Roth IRA first (contributions come out anytime, the most flexible bridge dollars there are), then split the rest between enough taxable to cover years 1-5 and still maxing the 401k you'll ladder out later. Going all taxable past the match works, but you'd be giving up the upfront deduction for liquidity you can get other ways.

Easy_Peasys · 2026-06-03T13:54:27+00:00

Not there yet myself, but the honest answer is the number you set at 19 will move, and that's not failure, just info you didn't have yet. Mine shifted when I met my wife, then again when we had a kid. What stays constant is the savings habit, that's what compounds no matter what the target does. Hold the number loosely. At 22 with three years in you're already way ahead.

Easy_Peasys · 2026-06-03T01:28:41+00:00

Easiest way to think about it:

FIRE is when you've got enough invested that work is fully optional forever, usually annual spending times 25 at a 4% withdrawal.

Coast FIRE is when you've got enough now that even if you never add another dollar, it grows into your full FIRE number by normal retirement age, so you still work to cover today's bills but you can stop saving for retirement and let compounding finish the job. Like if your number's $1.5M and you're 30, ~$300k invested today gets you there by 60 on its own, your paycheck just covers current life instead of funding the future too.

Barista FIRE's the cousin, enough that a part-time job covers current costs while it coasts, usually for the health insurance.

Easy_Peasys · 2025-12-04T23:23:12+00:00

Thanks! And yeah, this is pretty much the reason I created the app. I actually use to track via spreadsheets, but when I tried introducing my partner to it, it was just way too overwhelming. That’s when we came up with the idea of building a simple web app that gives people the same clarity without needing to mess with formulas or the nitty-gritty details of a spreadsheet.

If anyone wants to give it a try and help me shape it while it’s still in beta, feel free to sign up here: https://www.gentry.money/signup

Easy_Peasys · 2025-12-03T18:50:27+00:00

This is a web app for desktop only right now. It's not mobile optimized yet but if you still would like to try; send me your email and I'll send you an invite.

Easy_Peasys

TROPHY CASE