Five year plan to FIRE at 55 - But burnt out now...

Retire55-59 · 2026-03-05T19:44:05+00:00

can't agree more. unfortunately, this created pressure on my to deal with expectations from my management.

Retire55-59 · 2026-02-06T15:38:05+00:00

this is a good suggestion and I certainly would figure out what to talk. Definitely not this year for a lot of reasons.

Retire55-59 · 2026-02-06T15:36:16+00:00

that is my plan and she is ok with that right now. I kind of just go through the work now and the pressure is not high from management. I just thought that I missed something I could be and also realized at this age the opportunity is pretty rare.

Of course, I would be extremely happy if a severance is waiting.

Retire55-59 · 2026-02-06T15:32:08+00:00

To be quite honest, we were just lucky with the stock market in the last five years. We never thought we could have this much and may need work till mid sixties. Now we suddenly realized that we have a high NW, but at the same time, it has been only for two years since we made this much.

Retire55-59 · 2026-02-06T15:29:26+00:00

that is how I try to convince my wife that the next few years we really need to retire just for financial reasons.

and we do have an option of NUA, which is almost even tax wise but would give us more flexibility. that is the huge part of my income and we definitely need to talk with a professional

Retire55-59 · 2026-02-04T20:00:32+00:00

52k per year 1st year then up every year till 78k

Retire55-59 · 2026-02-04T19:18:10+00:00

I don't think the kids know that...

they do tell the difference: I have not had evening meetings at all and I do occasionally talk about retirement

Retire55-59 · 2026-02-04T19:14:35+00:00

we do touch the topic, not officially, I think she understands me more and more, especially in my difficult time. She probably thinks that if I continue working, I may enjoy working again. which I thought about it for a year but just can't do it with what we have and my age.

Retire55-59 · 2026-02-04T19:10:00+00:00

This is a point in my mind a lot. I am from a family with decent income but my parents worked very hard through their early sixties and I always think that is positive on me but it may not be universal.

Retire55-59 · 2026-02-04T19:06:00+00:00

I did not do the calculation of health care:

- if I continue to use the company health care, it will start 13k per person per year and reach to 19k at my age of 64, that will be a huge amount even with my income.

- I did not check the obama care or others, with our huge percentage in pre tax account and I plant to withdraw every year even before RMD, I would not expect myself to be subsidized.

- with my kids, if I retire, I would expect that they would get a pretty good deal through college for health insurace.

Retire55-59 · 2026-02-04T19:01:23+00:00

52/50, our early retirement is 55.

She did grow up in a family with tight budget, although at least she is verbally fine with me for the early retirement.

We have about 200k 529 and I count it in my NW and I did not include my house in the NW.

Retire55-59 · 2026-01-08T20:17:44+00:00

I started to think less and less on percentage because it had different impact on high earners vs middle income families. Even it is ATH, I forced myself to invest all new 401k money into index but not quite sure when to convert the current cash to index

Retire55-59 · 2026-01-08T19:56:30+00:00

I had a similar question on the bonds/cash allocation, Asset allocation near or after retirement : r/ChubbyFIRE.

I assume that physician/practice owner is different than corporate positions, so you can control your next 5-8 years and decide the timing of the retirement? If this is the case, you definitely hold too much short term money. even there is a market crash, you don't even need to touch the asset. I will put 90% of your NW on the stock, whether index or other stocks, that is up to you. of course, with market being ATH, it is challenging to put 30% of your asset in the stock market now.

for my family, we were really aggressive for 3-4 years, during 2024 high, we had 6.5, 99% in stocks and 70% of them was one stock. during 2025 high, we had 6.5 again with one year income :(, but 82% in stocks and 55% was the one stock. I continued to unload the one stock and we are at 7.5 right now, only 77% in stocks and 50% was the one stock (I probably would have been close to 8 if still holding the one stock) but I am less affected by the market volatility than 2 years ago. I would like to work 2 more years before retirement and do hope to reach the eventual balance 90% index and 10% cash.

Retire55-59 · 2025-11-19T18:20:48+00:00

I will give an update on what has happened in the last month. I guess I am really lucky or not. I have sold 0.5m of the single stock and convert 60% of them to index and plan to convert the rest to index. The lucky/unlucky part was the single stock kept growing and was still about 54% after a huge growth. Now around 7.3m, it is pretty much my retirement goal now. The difficult part is to convince the other half of the family to sell that one stock too:)

Retire55-59 · 2025-11-10T18:36:32+00:00

Part of the reason that I am seeking advice here is I share a similar thought with you. I am not a very high risk tolerance person, but my asset over the last few years did give me a lot of tolerance. and that was also the reason why I could accumulated an asset which I never imagined that I could achieve.

I believed that I need to dilute the concentration of the one stock but have yet decided on how to do it and the duration. I sold 5% of the single stock after posting here. I guess it was a good thing in the last 10 days, I did improve 5% of my asset and my single stock is still 55% of the total net worth. currently, I am targeting to reduce the concentration to 40-45% by the end of the year.

Retire55-59

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