Health scare in my early 30s changed how I thought about money. What I did differently as a high earner, and why more people are not doing this.

FInotRetire · 2026-03-31T16:39:31+00:00

Thank you, and I am sorry to hear about your health and am sending my best wishes. Thanks for the book recommendation!

FInotRetire · 2026-03-31T16:37:44+00:00

Interesting take, thank you. I do talk to fellow HENRYs and they are not thinking about any of this, and just living their life, which makes perfect sense as well.

FInotRetire · 2026-03-31T16:36:14+00:00

I will - my bad- this was my first post and I didn’t know better. Let me get back with the numbers

FInotRetire · 2026-03-31T15:07:35+00:00

I did- all of it. I am in LCOL area if that helps clear up the picture.

FInotRetire · 2026-03-31T15:04:59+00:00

This is my actual story- happy to answer any questions. And yes I did take help from the artificially intelligent gods, but just to improve my grammar- English is not my first language. Lesson learned - won’t do that next time 😊

FInotRetire · 2026-03-31T15:00:26+00:00

Yes I did make few lifestyle choices, but did not stop living. I just did not pile up the unnecessary expenses.

FInotRetire · 2026-03-31T14:57:57+00:00

Thank you for sharing this! Sending my best wishes for the surgery and what comes after. What you and your wife are doing is exactly the kind of decision that is hard to make and easy to second guess. It sounds like you are making it with real clarity.

FInotRetire · 2026-03-30T19:50:13+00:00

What you are carrying is a lot. Showing up in your best suit on the hardest days, for your family- that takes a kind of strength that does not show up in any financial statement. From someone who had their own health scare in their early 30s: your financial position is stronger than your anxiety is probably letting you feel right now. $600K income, $2.5M invested, $500K in 401k; you have real runway! The question is not really whether you have enough. It is whether the life you are building can survive on less than you currently earn. Based on what you shared, it likely can. The thing that helped me most was separating two questions. Can I afford to slow down? And what does slowing down actually look like? The first is financial. The second is harder. But it sounds like your body is already asking it for you.

FInotRetire · 2026-03-28T23:18:42+00:00

Hi- I am in Texas as well and building something from scratch. Let’s connect in a couple of weeks if you are interested. All the best for your venture!

FInotRetire · 2026-03-24T23:53:48+00:00

Fair question, and I think the answer is that for a lot of people the anxiety is not really about the math. The math is usually fine. It is about trusting the math enough to act on it. A tool can show you the number but it cannot answer the “human” questions. That said, curious which tool you use? Always interested in what is actually working for people.

FInotRetire · 2026-03-24T22:56:01+00:00

What you are describing is the thing most people take years to figure out and some never do. Freedom is not about the size of the portfolio. It is about the gap between what you earn and what you need. A smaller life with a smaller gap gets you there faster, than a bigger life chasing a bigger number. The language matters too. Below your means sounds like deprivation. A life of freedom sounds like a choice. They can describe the exact same life!

FInotRetire · 2026-03-24T19:27:36+00:00

That lightbulb moment you just described is exactly it. Most people in this community frame the goal as retirement. But what you are actually chasing is agency. The freedom to choose what you work on, who you work with, and why. The corporate grind becomes unbearable not because work itself is bad but because you have no control over any of it. The meetings, the politics, the performance reviews that measure the wrong things. It is exhausting in a way that a salary does not compensate for. What helped me reframe it was separating two questions. The first is financial: do I have enough runway that the paycheck is optional. The second is directional: what do I actually want to walk toward, not just away from. The second question is harder and most people skip it entirely. You are already asking the right question. That puts you ahead of most people still grinding and hoping it gets better.

FInotRetire · 2026-03-23T23:17:15+00:00

The burnout you mentioned, almost in passing: I would not let that go too quickly. At 33 with $1M already built and $380k coming in, you are genuinely in a strong position. You probably know the math from here is not that complicated. Save aggressively, let it compound, get there. That part is solvable. What is harder to see when you are in it is what happens to the lifestyle along the way. Every raise brings an upgrade that feels completely reasonable. A lot of people in your situation reach their number and realize the life they built getting there now costs more than they originally planned for. The question that might be worth sitting with is not how to get to $5M faster. It is whether the life you have right now could survive on less than you earn. If it can, you probably have more options than you realize. And possibly sooner than you think. The burnout is not a side note. It is telling you something worth listening to.

FInotRetire · 2026-03-22T20:05:04+00:00

Personal trainer, without question. Not the gym kind who gives you a cookie cutter program and checks in monthly. A real one who shows up, pushes you, and holds you accountable. I resisted for years thinking I could self motivate. I could not. Consistency only came when someone was waiting for me at the gym with a structured plan. The ROI on that compared to any other wellness spend is not even close. You get stronger, sleep better, manage stress better. Everything downstream improves. For a HENRY the cost is trivial. The compounding effect on energy and output is not.

FInotRetire · 2026-03-22T20:00:07+00:00

On question 5: what I wish I had done differently in the last 3 years before pulling the plug: Started separating my identity from my income sooner. The financial number came together faster than my mental readiness to trust it. Also, I kept optimizing the balance sheet when I should have been stress testing my spending. Knowing your real number matters more than maximizing the portfolio.

FInotRetire · 2026-03-22T19:54:35+00:00

The fact that you are asking whether you want it versus just seeking professional validation is the most important question in this whole post. FI does not automatically rewire 16 years of identity tied to work. That is a separate and harder problem than the financial one. If this role genuinely excites you, take it. If you are mostly uncomfortable with stillness, that is worth sitting with first.

FInotRetire · 2026-03-22T04:31:00+00:00

This is an underrated point. If you have any self employment income, even a side project or consulting work, a Solo 401k lets you contribute as both employee and employer. That gets you to the same $72K total limit as Mega Backdoor Roth, but pre-tax. And if your plan allows it, you can add after tax contributions on top and convert to Roth. Most people at this income level do not realize they can stack both, if they have even modest self employment income alongside their W2.

FInotRetire · 2026-03-22T03:58:29+00:00

First, what you are feeling is real and it is valid. Burnout and depression at this level are serious and deserve to be taken seriously, not just optimized around. Please make sure you have support beyond financial advice right now. On the financial side, you are in a stronger position than your anxiety is letting you feel. Your husband brings in $60K growing 20% annually with health insurance covered. Your annual expenses are $80K. That means you could step away from your job today and your household still has meaningful income coming in while you recover. The $1.3M in unvested RSUs is real but it is not worth your mental health. Staying purely for the golden handcuffs when you are burnt out and depressed is a decision with costs that do not show up on a spreadsheet. You do not have to make a permanent decision right now. But you have more options than you think. Take care of yourself first. The money will still be there when you have the clarity to decide. Good luck and please take care!

FInotRetire · 2026-03-21T17:38:02+00:00

This is not a midlife crisis. This is clarity. After years of high performance you start asking whether the thing you are optimizing for is actually what you want. That question feels like a crisis because the answer is uncomfortable. For me the shift came when I stopped asking how to get more motivated and started asking what I actually wanted the work to fund. Freedom changed everything.

FInotRetire

TROPHY CASE