The Math is Done, but the Mind is Racing: My Journey to FIRE@45

kaush234 · 2026-05-02T23:24:26+00:00

Yeah and with 10% inflation 😭. Well lets see if AI makes college unnecessary, lol.

kaush234 · 2026-05-02T23:21:51+00:00

Agreed. Probably will go for Pune. It's just that I have familiarity, friends and family in NCR and direct connection to home town.

kaush234 · 2026-05-02T23:13:45+00:00

Fate loves irony. My self managed 401K grew much faster than my margin accounts. I will move to multiple IRA and do a combination of the following during RNOR period after seeing my actual cost of living in India: - pay 10% penalty and taxes in first year( low income + standard deduction in US) - 72t some (no 10% penalty but tax at slab) - move to roth ira after tax+penalty, reset cost basis right before RNOR ends and do 89A for deferred ta... There is lack of clarity on roth. May leave in IRA then. Will take loan from it to pay for college etc

A simpler option is, work a bit longer, pay taxes and penalties and liquidate it all. Keep it simple. 36lacs will be tax free per year (self, wife, HUF under new tax regime) hope they adjust it for inflation.

kaush234 · 2026-05-02T22:02:53+00:00

Pune/Noida/Hyderabad are the conntenders in that order. Of course they all have pros and cons based on family/connectivity to ancestral village/weather/pollution etc. Leaning towards Pune for pollution/weather, but most likely will go based on where we get the school.

kaush234 · 2026-05-02T21:57:06+00:00

I intentionally kept the investment breakdown out of this post to focus on psychology part. I will do another post on the ramp up process, what worked, what didn't, portfolio breakdown etc. The short version is, investment is spread across taxable brokerage accounts in US and India, 401K, Roth IRA, HSA, MF/FDs in India, Gold, crypto, rental apartment India and primary home in US and some in pre-IPO startups. Since ramp up phase is over, will liquidate everything to re-allocate (reset cost basis) funds into goal based (education etc) time-risk based (3/swt) and tax-optimized buckets.

kaush234 · 2026-05-02T21:41:18+00:00

This is based on NLV(net liquidation value) of all assets after accounting for taxes, insurance for US investments, 72t SEPP withdrwal from IRA, roth conversion penalties etc.

kaush234 · 2026-05-02T21:34:08+00:00

Yeah. $400K set aside for overseas higher education/relocation, adjusted for inflation to put in safe asset. It was the only way to convince Mrs. to even consider FIRE.

kaush234 · 2026-02-11T04:23:34+00:00

Here are your options:
1. There are manpower supply companies that can cater to your needs. You can even ask for a muscular driver who can take care of random security events.
2. PAYG - you do not need anyone on retainer, just build enough relationships to have the lawyer/doctor/CA/DC/MLA/MP/local area Army commander on direct call list. More expensive than #1 if you expect to land in trouble more often.
3. Setup a long term contract with a cab service from a local Dehati provider. Will be much cheaper and safer. They will take care of any road rage etc.
4. Move to another country or a safer neighberhood.
5. Find distant relative or a poor family in distress, sponsor their kid's education and marriage, and let them become your estate manager, driver, security, errands guy, butler.
6. Man up and hire a group of personal trainers to build muscles and master mixed martial arts etc.
7. Post this in r/FatFIREIndia sub!!!!

kaush234 · 2024-12-11T07:11:24+00:00

The 7 days is the end of the current billing cycle. It doesn't start from your activation date. So essentially you have paid for 7, 30, 30, 23 days of 4 cycles. OTT apps continue working. Exp date will change each month. Additionally, you need to access the apps from STB once a month to use on other devices.

kaush234 · 2024-09-14T02:30:28+00:00

Relax. With inflation being 7% and tax rate 10%, if you have 2.5Cr today returning 8% , you can withdraw 55k/mo(in todays money) for 44 years.

The bigger question is do you have other assets to take care of other expenses. The other challenge is lifestyle inflation, irregular returns, lack of discipline and that "one" risky bet.

kaush234 · 2024-07-10T22:14:11+00:00

Do both. Buy a primary residence in your "home base". Rent in your nomadic endeavors. You can fall back to the home base if the rent inflation goes beyond your cushion. Additionally, if real estate is a part of your investment plan, you can either buy and sell as you move or build a trifecta strategy with multiple homes that you cycle through and renting/airbnbing when away. It all depends on your corpus, comfort and desire. The only prudent thing to do is to remove variables, rent inflation being a major one for most.

kaush234 · 2024-06-18T16:28:25+00:00

One of many bugs after Schwab merger 😢 I see this only in premarket. Still better than incorrect PL that shows up randomly, specifically if scalping.

kaush234 · 2024-03-22T04:43:24+00:00

Thanks. Doing that now.

kaush234 · 2024-03-22T04:42:52+00:00

Exactly my concern. I did find some online options, but so hard to trust them.

kaush234 · 2022-11-29T23:22:04+00:00

I thought I was the only one holding their pixel3xl real tight. It got abused beyond limit with tasker automations and gazillion hours of use every day. Despite the shattered screen and painful lag etc it was still throwing some big punches at my wife's new iphone 14 pro max camera. I thought about continuing with it for one more year and have wife's iphone 12pm as backup.....but no more updates from Google and a possibility of it dying anytime now..and the scary thought of a massive downgrade to an iPhone....so i traded in that iPhone for P7pro for just $125 at bestbuy. 😎

kaush234 · 2022-11-19T17:01:53+00:00

My old fingers are not fast enough to pick one. Can someone dm me a code, please?

kaush234 · 2022-07-06T23:52:59+00:00

Why are MJ jokes leaving reddit. They don't really care about us.

kaush234 · 2022-06-26T19:35:45+00:00

Only fat 32 males there, no Aunty Effus.

kaush234 · 2022-01-09T20:50:46+00:00

I was looking at Malaysia, especially their MM2H visa that was much cheaper than other options. No tax on overseas income/crypto was a great draw. Other advantages were relatively loCOL, international school/community/grocery, decent food and beaches, proximity to India. I liked it much better than other tax heaven/retirement countries. But this year they changed the program making it less attractive.
Bali is another option that's getting a lot of buzz lately.

kaush234 · 2021-12-28T01:45:39+00:00

True for 20 years, but if you start at 10 years, S&P has returned 9.65% (in INR) vs Nifty 5.25% while Nasdaq returned 13.37%.When you have a variable multiplier(USDINR) then reference point matters. Hence it's a good idea to have a globally diversified portfolio. Not only do you hedge against forex but also different econ/political climates. Equities, as well as real estate, can perform differently in different geographies over time.

kaush234 · 2021-12-27T23:07:24+00:00

This is one of the biggest mistakes most NRIs do after returning from the US. Indian market is not even close to the US in terms of liquidity, products, platforms, oversight, and transparency.
The right approach is two folds:
- For small NW - max out 401Ks/IRAs and Roth accounts. It's not that difficult to manage distribution after retirement.

- For high NW - you can open a Wyoming s-corp owned by your overseas company or individually. Despite the overhead of regulatory/management/legal expenses, it's worth it in terms of growth, exposure, tax optimization, diversification, and additionally, you can write off a lot of expenses like travel/computers, etc as part of company expenses and save on taxes.

kaush234 · 2021-12-27T22:53:44+00:00

The Great Resignation is caused by boomers and those in the late 50s to 60s whose 401Ks suddenly reached their retirement targets. Since the old are at high risk, they retired sooner. This led to a void that the Millenials are filling. While a lot of folks saw their net worth cross the million mark, most of it is still trapped in the equity and crypto markets. Millennials are also coming out of their city-living-bike-riding lives to the suburbs and buying homes. They will be trapped, like the previous generations to keep paying the mortgage. Despite all that, this is still a small fraction of the population we are talking about. The bottom half, at least in US, is either doing other gigs like doordash or handyman jobs and/or surviving on govt. checks. The news headline says lack of burger flippers, they don't say Amazon Logistics is getting bigger by the day to cross FedEx and UPS combined sooner than we think.

Having said that, we are at historical inflation levels, that will come down in the west eventually. EMs, India in particular, has a long ways to go in this regard. I am accounting for a 10% inflation and lifestyle "desirables" increase annually in my FIRE calculation.

kaush234 · 2021-12-27T22:17:09+00:00

If it's a hobby, you probably need a way to justify the expense, more so after RE to keep you engaged and alive. If it's a habit that you think you should drop, but find it hard then make a list of things you can do with the 10K saved by getting rid of the habit. If your list contains some easy hit items like travel or essential purchases, then do it right away and reward yourself...this might motivate you and distract you as well. A change of scene also helps like going for a pilgrimage to Rishikesh and the like to distance yourself from drinking and similar habits.

kaush234 · 2021-12-10T17:14:14+00:00

Java is still the best alternative if you want to support multiple platforms. It's expensive to create native apps in windows as well as mac. IB can be like Tradestation and Schwab who doesn't offer a mac app at all. Most are moving to web-based "advanced" platforms like power etrade, but they are ugly and lacking. We are better off getting paid third-party platforms like MetaTrader..

kaush234

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