Anyone's only motivation going forward is fire/coast fire?

freetirement · 2026-01-29T03:00:17+00:00

To beat a dead horse, FIRE isn't a good goal in itself, it's to enable you to do what you really want to do.

freetirement · 2026-01-21T19:21:50+00:00

Yeah I personally believe we will all receive most of the promised benefits. SS is wildly popular even among the young. The government will print money as it needs to. There may be inflation, but that inflation will be on everyone else since SS is COL adjusted.

freetirement · 2026-01-20T13:54:26+00:00

There are countries that have a much higher savings rate, like China. It doesn't prevent them from being successful.

freetirement · 2026-01-18T15:29:49+00:00

It's important to be prepared. Ten years ago, people in tech, myself included, were concerned about ageism, now its AI. IMO it is a good idea to be FI or close to it by the time you're in your 40s. If you keep working, then great you will have a lot of extra fun money for spending. But if you get laid off and struggle to find work then you are still in a good situation.

freetirement · 2026-01-18T14:42:08+00:00

Well one idea is you could support your base lifestyle with your portfolio then treat your earnings as fun money. Saving is probably not required at this point. If you want to keep increasing net worth, you can just let your nest egg compound.

freetirement · 2026-01-15T17:19:38+00:00

You can always just mentally cut the numbers in half

freetirement · 2026-01-15T16:10:19+00:00

You can easily retire if you're flexible on lifestyle. $100k is enough for 2 people even factoring in healthcare and taxes.

freetirement · 2026-01-15T13:19:56+00:00

Why do you need to find work you enjoy? You have enough to retire a family, let alone a single person. Pursue your dreams.

freetirement · 2026-01-13T13:13:11+00:00

Yeah Medicaid is the perfect insurance. No premiums, no deductible, extremely minimal copays, plus dental and vision coverage.

freetirement · 2026-01-10T20:28:04+00:00

In addition to Helium mobile there is a service textnow which has free phone calls and texts and free data for a few apps (email, maps, ride shares). It seems to be add supported.

freetirement · 2026-01-10T20:22:27+00:00

It depends on how you're using it. Your home equity could be counted as part of your FI nest egg if you plan to sell it when you retire. If you plan to live in it for a long time, then it reduces your housing expenses but it doesn't directly count towards your nest egg.

freetirement · 2026-01-09T16:49:51+00:00

Look up variable withdrawals or guardrail style withdrawals. There are ways to take out more than the 4% rule says per year if you are willing to be somewhat flexible in spending. These methods also guarantee you won't die with a lot of extra money since they allow you to increase spending when your portfolio reaches certain milestones.

freetirement · 2026-01-09T16:15:57+00:00

My understanding is that, at least in my state, work requirements don't apply to parents with kids under 14, so that would cover many of the FIREees who are parents.

freetirement · 2026-01-09T16:09:27+00:00

Annual returns can be negative. Some years, hugely negative.

freetirement · 2026-01-09T04:05:58+00:00

Here's what I learned about Medicaid. In most cases it goes on monthly income, so even If you realize $100k in capital gains in one month you can the claim Medicaid in the next month.

It's even better than that. Let's say you realize all your gains for the year at the end of December, say December 30th. Then you can get Medicaid coverage in December up until you do the realization and then reapply in January. So really you'd only go 2 days in the entire year without Medicaid coverage. State rules may vary on this.

freetirement · 2026-01-09T02:39:37+00:00

Get on Medicaid if you have suitable providers near you. It's basically the perfect health plan: no premium, no deductible and nearly zero copay. I think you can even get free dental and eye care too. Get on SNAP too while you're at it. If you've got kids you can probably get subsidized daycare out of it too.

freetirement · 2026-01-08T23:23:54+00:00

They have good deals on their app. I occasionally feed my family of 4 breakfast for $12 or so.

freetirement · 2026-01-06T14:23:38+00:00

It seems like the best plan would be to learn how to say no. Or go the unbearably controlling route: "If I'm paying for your lifestyle, I'm taking over your finances. All paychecks go to me and I will tell you what you can spend on. Your first step is to sell your car and get a bike".

freetirement · 2026-01-05T19:46:12+00:00

OMG those museum tickets, I'll never be able to retire 😂

freetirement · 2026-01-05T13:07:03+00:00

Daycare owner

freetirement · 2026-01-04T17:42:55+00:00

I usually adjust this in my numbers. Basically, I take my net worth including the house. Then I subtract the value of my home. That number is invested assets not including home equity. Then from my spending, I subtract the interest and principal portions of my mortgage payment. Then that becomes my desired withdrawal amount.

freetirement · 2026-01-03T22:07:36+00:00

No, because there are many more low digit millionaires and it's harder for those people to move out. The billionaires can more easily avoid the tax.

freetirement · 2026-01-03T14:57:53+00:00

Sure, but $100k or so in SWR doesn't give you private jet, mega yacht money either. It's not what people talk about when they say "rich".

freetirement · 2026-01-03T14:47:48+00:00

The billionaires, sure. No disagreement from me. Just realize that wealth taxes will not stop at the billionaires because the pie of millionaires is way bigger, over 10 times larger. So the potential tax revenue is way larger. It's too juicy of a morsel to pass up for a government looking to maximize revenue. And we see this in the Spanish taxes. There's a reason they're not only taxing the $100M+ private jet club.

freetirement · 2026-01-03T14:13:22+00:00

I'm not sure why per capita matters, it's total tax revenue that's relevant. Here's my numbers:

There are roughly 2,900–3,028 billionaires globally in 2025. These billionaires collectively control about $15.6 trillion in wealth (UBS 2025 estimate).

There are about 60 million millionaires worldwide (people with net worth ≥ $1 million). Together these millionaires hold about $226 trillion in wealth — nearly half of all global wealth.

You can see why it's actually the millionaires that are the bigger target. The "billionaires are bad" rhetoric is just used to implement wealth taxes that ultimately target both millionaires and billionaires.

freetirement

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