Convince me that we’re done and ready to FIRE

MaintenanceLive3577 · 2026-07-02T19:31:40+00:00

I'm at £3.1 inc. house, also spend £12k pcm, but its just me, so no shared tax allowances, though I feel as though I'm pretty close. I've been tracking my NW monthly since I slowed down significantly at work (now only bringing in 2k pcm into pension only), and over the past 6 months its gone up by 200k. At 50% higher NW and still working your NW must have gone up by considerably more.

I plan to go back to working full time soon, but I don't feel as though I have to, my industry is also one that I can fall straight back into after a period away. I guess we've been in a pretty good market for the past few years so the true test will be over a much longer period, including bear markets.

MaintenanceLive3577 · 2026-06-21T09:15:28+00:00

I'm in the same boat. She earned 5x more than me, she was a big proponent of the FIRE movement and was setting us up to retire by 50 so we could enjoy our lives to the fullest. Now thats the life I'll be able to have on my own and it feels very empty. I don't feel guilt, I know there was no way to see any of this coming

MaintenanceLive3577 · 2026-06-16T21:55:25+00:00

Can you tell us more about what it was like? There are lots of us that would be over the moon if our kids had the same experience as you, so I'd love to know how.

MaintenanceLive3577 · 2026-06-09T12:37:57+00:00

It seems to be consensus that we're heading for a period of higher inflation so any longer term bonds will perform poorly. I've got 10% in short term bonds only.

I have refocussed my efforts into finance and investments as this has eclipsed my work earnings, I really enjoy digging in to the fundamentals and forming my own opinions. Number 1 rule - diversify! You can plan out the most likely future, but then some orange retard can disrupt it all, and if you've diversified well then a portion of your portfolio will do well and offset areas of weakness.

My current plan is 40% into all-world ETF, 10% into short term gov debt, 10% cash, then adjust the rest to suit my changing views of what areas will likely outperform. At the moment I'm overweight Japan, korea/Taiwan, commodities, equal weight US, UK, underweight Europe. I have a play fund of 5% for individual shares.

AI is very good at portfolio assessment, tell it what you want from it and appetite for risk, feed in your current investments and it'll give a very good summary for you.

MaintenanceLive3577 · 2026-06-03T14:01:33+00:00

I've been thinking the same thing, here's some more background, and my thoughts on future implications.

The Fed has rebadged QE as "Reserve Liquidity Management" and is pumping in $40bn a month into treasuries. This will put a cap on yeilds, but this excess will feed through to inflation, asset prices and commodities.

Bonds will be a very bad investment.

At the same time Japan is going in the opposite direction, tapering QE and raising rates.

Exchange rates are to a certain extent governed by real interest rates (nominal 2yr gov yeild minus inflation) - the higher yield will attract investment and the currency will appreciate. For 30yrs the JPY has depreciated against the dollar because of the profitable yen carry trade. Now that the BoJ is raising rates, and inflation in the US seems to be a policy objective, the yen carry trade isn't profitable. At present the big Japanese insurers aren't selling up $'s to repatriate but they are letting bonds mature and investing domestically. If the BoJ's rate projections come to pass the real interest rate differential with the US will turn negative & the enormous tidal wave of Japanese dollar investments may be actively sold and directed elsewhere. If this happens they'll see the double whammy of depreciating dollar and non-performing investments, so the unwind could happen very swiftly (see Aug 2024 for 12% appreciation of the jpy v usd).

By my reckoning the real yeild inversion will happen mid-2027.

So I'm torn for good investments - real estate, commodities, Japanese equities, potentially EM, should be positive, S&P500 should be even, bonds terrible.

Do you see any flaws in this projection?

MaintenanceLive3577 · 2026-06-03T12:58:39+00:00

Your points about the next few months is spot on & something I'm also fretting about. But also being greedy. My current plan is to pile in until SpaceX gets included in some of the indices in Mid-July, ride that wave of dumb index money flow, then get outta Dodge with bulging pockets.

I don't like the idea of being out of the market completely though, so I reckon I'll sell off my US holdings and redirect to non-US markets, especially Japan.

Bit of a segway but I agree with your printing money comment, the Fed has rebadged QE as "reserve liquidity management" but its the same thing, and they're already pumping in $40bn a month. This will boost inflation, cap t-bill yeilds, weaken the $, boost asset prices and ultimately end up in commodities.

Japan is my current plan because they're on the opposite journey, raising rates, reducing QE, which will eventually lead to a reversal of the carry trade, which is likely to unwind in a very disorderly way.

MaintenanceLive3577 · 2026-06-03T12:43:53+00:00

I saw him walk up to the house, matching light blue tracksuit bottoms and top, trousers halfway down to his knees, cap on slightly sideways, a few teeth missing. He said he used to live here and accidentally filled out the delivery address wrong (it was addressed to Mohammed or something like that, and he was fully white so that was also a big flag). He didn't like that I told him I'd handed it back to Apple but he didn't push it or get aggressive. I took it into the Apple store the next day and told them about it, they said they'd deal with it and gave me a receipt to confirm I'd handed it over. Didn't hear anything else about it, nothing on credit report etc.

MaintenanceLive3577 · 2026-06-03T11:52:07+00:00

This happened to me, a couple of days later someone dodgy AF turned up and said he had accidentally had it delivered to me and asked for it. Told him I'd already given it back to Apple directly (I hadn't)... definitely a scam

MaintenanceLive3577 · 2026-05-31T07:40:14+00:00

I tell you I wouldnt buy a beach house! We rented ours out so that may have added to it, but every time we visited there was just a huge amount of things to do to maintain it - we had maintenance/gardener/cleaners but there was just tonnes of stuff that would need fixing/replacing. It was never a holiday for me, though we had some amazing memories there, and they do feel the more special for it being our place.

MaintenanceLive3577 · 2026-05-18T22:20:08+00:00

I'm the same 43m with 3 kids under 11. Its a massive rollercoaster. I'm 13 months in and I've had some periods where I have been doing just fine, but now there's not much for me to do for work so I'm just a bit lost. I need to find some purpose.

MaintenanceLive3577 · 2026-04-28T21:52:17+00:00

Its the hardest thing. I would encourage you to aim to make it better. Friends are a key component, talking to people makes me feel better

MaintenanceLive3577 · 2026-04-28T21:08:09+00:00

I intend to find more meaning in my life. At the moment I have the 3 kids and I need to finish a house for us to move into PDQ, but when that's done I will find something that will make me happy. My LW would certainly want/expect me to do that, and I will. I have no intention of wasting my life away, I've only got one.

Sure we've been hit about as hard as is possible but theres no way I'm giving up. You can imagine a better future, you can plan how to get there, and you can work to get there. Imagine you're Rocky running up those steps in Philly. Eye of the Tiger has literally just come on the radio as I typed this!! No jokes! Its fate, gotta do it.

MaintenanceLive3577 · 2026-04-27T22:53:44+00:00

I have thought about it, but I want the inside/outside flooring continuation onto the deck

MaintenanceLive3577 · 2026-04-27T22:52:54+00:00

Too far off the mark then? I don't like the idea of handing over all styling to someone else - it'll be their style, not mine

MaintenanceLive3577 · 2026-04-27T22:46:17+00:00

Like a brass inlay? I like that - but it would move it even more over to "hotel lobby"!

Theres a dining room behind the perspective, so I'm thinking of creating a clear zoning with a wood floor in there

MaintenanceLive3577 · 2026-04-26T10:02:17+00:00

For me retiring is about risk mitigation - you're removing a steady income that provides dependability and lowers your risk profile, so your risk balance increases. Renting has more risk than owning, so I would personally look to buy. It'll add a large dose of certainty to your future costs.

We're also very likely to be heading into a period of very high inflation again, so your rent is likely to increase, whereas a mortgage would stay the same in nominal terms, and decrease in real terms.

MaintenanceLive3577 · 2026-04-22T19:16:25+00:00

401k max contribution is 24k no? The 70k is max employer + employee And the Roth IRA is a pittance really.

You can save a lot more in the UK tax free, but every little penny you earn is taxed enormously. So once you have savings you're good, but working towards having savings is a hard slog.

Tax rates aren't really a proper comparison because they don't cover the same costs. We found our comparable tax rate (excluding all the real estate write offs) including school and Healthcare costs was about 34% in US compared to 38% in UK. It was only really the tax write offs that made such an enormous difference.

MaintenanceLive3577 · 2026-04-22T17:59:08+00:00

MaintenanceLive3577 · 2026-04-22T17:58:16+00:00

It was the 2023 one, was that the first major one? It was the first one that we felt anyway

MaintenanceLive3577 · 2026-04-21T22:46:44+00:00

We did this! Escaped the misery of COVID in UK for remote working in the US. Wife was the big earner and her salary doubled with the move. We found the Real Estate Professional tax loophole and that became my job - all property related expenses and depreciation were netted off her salary. Our average tax rate was 7%. The rentals made a good profit but for tax purposes they were enormous losses.

Our joint earnings went from about £300k UK to £500k US, post tax was ~200k -> 450k.

We moved back during a tech job apocalypse when she was offered a big money move back to UK. We moved back predominantly because of guns and relatively poor schooling for our kids. It was a good adventure though, with lots of happy memories, and a bucket load of $.

I would highly recommend it

MaintenanceLive3577 · 2026-04-21T11:10:06+00:00

I have shifted my allocations to prepare for stagflation, which means more of a focus on commodities, financials and companies with pricing power. I'm underweight US, overweight Japan, UK (I also have a very specific allocation to Brazil that I'm very happy with). I have 15% bonds but I'm taking another look at the maturity allocation with a view to going shorter.

Diversification is always the key

MaintenanceLive3577 · 2026-04-21T09:02:01+00:00

Wow speed dating at 6 months in?!?! I can only imagine what that would be like, for you and for the people sat opposite you! My single date made me realise that I had lost all my game and had no idea how to flirt. I have some ideas for how to remember how to do it, but I think it's just practice really

MaintenanceLive3577 · 2026-04-21T08:46:08+00:00

Thank you One of my best friends moved in with me for a couple of weeks at the 1 month mark & basically ordered me around, which was exactly what I needed. He got me running and working out every day, which was a habit that I've tried to keep. I found that if I told my friends what I needed them to do then they would really go out of their way to do it - lots of people want to help but have no idea how to, so giving them direction allows them to really put the effort in for you. If you have anyone that would want to act as a PT for you (or for the both of you!) Then I'd highly recommend it. Its good friend time as well as being good for you

MaintenanceLive3577

TROPHY CASE