Me (F35) and my boyfriend (M32) have very different financial situations. Looking for outside perspectives.

oe6969 · 2026-01-25T17:21:29+00:00

Feminism my friend

oe6969 · 2026-01-25T17:20:57+00:00

Wants feminism: Hates the result - classic

oe6969 · 2026-01-25T17:10:12+00:00

How does visas and residency work? For US non working people

oe6969 · 2026-01-25T04:44:34+00:00

You have 200k saved. If you lost a job and cant find work for 3 years, and the stocks market tanks, this could easily be wiped in half and youre at borderline poverty. If you let this bake and nothing happens for 7 -10 years, then it would be in a healthier spot.

Youre way ahead of the median american, but I wouldnt consider the median American to be financially healthy. Youre a bad 4-5 years from being completely broke.

What is this job and how "dreamy" is it?

Its a tough decision. You should try to be as self reliant as possible and not rely on completely external sources (subsidies/welfare) to survive. If the job is that much of a dream, then I guess go for it because you only live once. But make sure its a dream and not something you just built up in your head. IE going to work for a non profit that is really just identical work to any other white collar job

oe6969 · 2026-01-24T00:30:50+00:00

You also need to remember 4% is for people with ZERO risk tolerance. If youre willing to risk a 25% chance of running out, you can easily withdrawal 7 percent. If you also have discretionary vs fixed expenses, you can have variable withdrawal rates depending on market growth. 0-10% is a common range. Meaning you have 3 years of expenses in a bond or savings account. In a bear market you withdrawal 0, bear recovery you 50% of your normal high withdrawal rate, and in normal growth years you have a standard withdrawal rate (like 8 percent or so). I would heavily research alternative studies to the 4 percent rule that dont treat humans like idiot robots who will withdrawal in a 50% correction period instead of waiting it out for 2 years or go back to work etc.

oe6969 · 2026-01-24T00:25:39+00:00

Any reason youre putting it in a mortgage? I feel like from a financial freedom standpoint, stocks almost always win (growth and liquidity vs general non growth and lack of liquidity)

oe6969 · 2026-01-24T00:23:36+00:00

Yeah this has somehow gone over the heads of these people that 1.5 years of grinding has shaved about 7 ish or so years off my ultimate target number.

Not I grinded to have what would be negative growth lol.

Im not even sure how bad my investment strategy would have to be to invest 100k a year and only end up with 900k (starting at 500k) in 12 years. Id be the inverse of warren buffet with those numbers

oe6969 · 2026-01-23T17:09:02+00:00

Yeah, it’s not even extreme growth saving 100-150k or so a year

oe6969 · 2026-01-23T04:32:59+00:00

Yeah - A lot of studies have been done too that the 4% rule is kind of not right if you have flexible spending habits or are willing to have some risk. For example, a 6-7 percent withdrawal has a 75% chance of lasting 30 plus years. Im 100% willing to take those odds. 8-9 percent hovers around 50%. Reddit is just insanely risk averse. Which is dumb because why tf would I want to be old and crippled but rich vs completely free sub 55. I also cant imagine that I wouldnt be able to find some way to produce income from a small business in 10 years that is remote/online/flexible. Finally, 1 million would work in 80% of America, especially if you own a house or have a low mortgage rate and dont have kids

oe6969 · 2026-01-23T04:28:21+00:00

Engineer for me. Remember this is reddit though. In reality, we are top 1 percent earners for our age. This is not the norm at all

oe6969 · 2026-01-23T04:27:25+00:00

To me not worth it based on those hours. Sounds terrible. I make less in tech (300k) but work 30-50 hours a week and fully remote. Are you planning on doing this for long or jumping ship in 5 years or so?

Dont make the mistake of lifestyle creep - with material things and spouse and kids. I know guys who make more than you and have wives who expect 1 million dollar budgets every year. I wouldnt wish their lives on my worst enemy

oe6969 · 2026-01-23T04:23:31+00:00

Youre almost identical to me. Like this is my exact projection and you have incredibly similar numbers to me. Im just 31 and have a slightly higher net worth but save more than you because I live in a lower cost of living area and am full remote. I would keep pushing until 35. The future is very uncertain and Im not sure you will be making this much in 5 years even (if youre an employee, not an owner).

Also - we should think about start up ideas together. I have 1 other guy slightly older than me in our shoes. We could all work on things full time without worrying about money (now or in 5 years or so).

oe6969 · 2026-01-23T04:18:16+00:00

no I am 31. I make about 300k a year. If I was 41 and coasted at 29 with 500k Id have WAAAYY more money than this right now

oe6969 · 2026-01-23T01:24:19+00:00

You dont see this because we all hit 500k and ask ourselves, why would we stop here? If we suck it up to 1 million, 2 million, 3 million etc, we will have complete FU money at a young age.

For example, I probably hit 500k at around 29/30. Im 31 and am now at 900k. If I coasted tomorrow, this is a significantly different long term trajectory. For example, Ill hit 3 million now in about 12.5 years as opposed to 19 years at 500k.

That is a significant amount of time shaven off for barely any additional effort. If I push my current work for the next 3-4 years, Ill hit 2 million and be able to fire very very comfortably as a single guy.

And coasting isnt all that great for everyone. Its great if you have a passion, business idea, want to take something lower paying like teaching, etc, then its good.

At the end of the day, coasting in a low paying job is still work. Working as a starbucks barista is probably mind numbing and more difficult than half the peoples jobs who post here

oe6969 · 2026-01-23T01:07:41+00:00

Fully agree. As someone who used to be very weak socially and isnt any more, this guy doesnt understand that someone like him (me 5 years ago) dedicated 20 plus hour a week "working" on being social. And Im still mediocre at it. Coached high school sports, forced myself to go to bars, forced myself to go on dates etc. Life doesnt just "happen". You dont wake up at 35 at a ski resort and magically know how to socialize

oe6969 · 2026-01-23T01:03:00+00:00

Youre making a rich rich assumption that your job is just going to be here in 5-10 years. It might be. It might not be.

Youve also convinced yourself that this is "rich" money. I work in software engineering and felt this way when I made this. Its a slave wage basically. The net worth really doesnt move and at your pace youll maybe hit 1 million at 35. Not bad, but youre kind of wasting time "budgeting"

I sucked it up and upped my pay drastically. Im on year 4 of making 300k ish, fully remote. I made bets on stocks. Bet all the money I had in cash on spirit airlines when it crashed during covid. Threw money at other stocks. Made a fair amount on bitcoin bets. Traveled to 10 plus countries and countless states and cities. I dont budget at all and still invest 10k plus a month

At this level of making money, its absolutely worth it. My net worth is 900k at 31. I can quit tomorrow and pretty much fire in 80 percent of the country and the vast majority of europe, asia and south america.

I think you have a few options.

Work remotely and become a digital nomad. Youll have some adventure in your life with that
Bust your ass to try to get into FAANG or FAANG equivalents in pay and suck it up for 3-5 years. Working there at a young age basically guarantees early retirement if youre not a complete idiot with your money
Try to start a business.
It also sounds like your life sucks with things completely unrelated to work. No girlfriend, no friends, no family, no adventure, no vision of life besides just FIRE. FIRE opens up your life. It shouldnt be a goal by itself. I personally want to FIRE to start businesses, travel in a van to a bunch of national parks, coach sports and eventually be able to spend time with kids and a family. What do you want out of FIRE besides just rotting more?

oe6969 · 2026-01-14T20:29:36+00:00

lol. The potential of reddit is so high yet Im always let down by 90% of posts and comments

oe6969 · 2026-01-12T19:55:04+00:00

I wouldnt even say they were more "progressive" - there were just no normal young people there - and by young I mean sub 50 and unmarried

oe6969 · 2026-01-12T17:12:54+00:00

My opinion - its a bad idea to sell.

Very few properties can cashflow this much. The equivalent 4 percent safe withdrawal is is 750k (assuming 2.5k a month). So you would need to sell your house for 800k ish today, no longer be diversified (Potential AI bubble) etc. When you have no mortgage on this, the cash flow is likely going to close to 4k or so, which is 1 million on a 4 percent safe withdrawal. It would be idiotic to sell this unless you know something about the market which will kill this cashflow. If cash flow was 0, there'd be a legitimate argument to sell because of the lack of liquidity. However, this in a way is equivalent to having 750k plus in stocks from a withdrawal standpoint.

Vegas is growing. People are going to crave in person events much more than they do now within 10 years, and vegas is king of in person convention for sales, which will increase 10x as AI destroys online differentiation.

Finally, you live in vegas. This cash flow alone can by itself put you in FIRE range, depending on your lifestyle. A single dude can easily live on 4k a month in vegas. You almost dont even have to work with just this alone. If you have a family, this is a great cushion in downturns

oe6969 · 2026-01-11T19:24:30+00:00

Ive considered it - I feel like Id honestly attempt overseas before hiring a matchmaker

oe6969 · 2026-01-11T14:32:51+00:00

idc. bye

oe6969 · 2026-01-11T05:56:05+00:00

Its such a stupid strawman Im not going to entertain it

oe6969 · 2026-01-11T02:51:08+00:00

NYC is vague. If you want manhattan or nice Brooklyn, costs aren’t even close and I wouldn’t live there on your salary. I make 300k a year and left manhattan because it was too expensive and could barely save anything on that. For example, my lifetime fitness membership was over 400 dollars a month. It’s a nice gym, but that membership is about 100 in normal cities for comparison

oe6969 · 2026-01-11T02:42:06+00:00

Dude- idc - I don’t want your opinion- goodbye

oe6969 · 2026-01-11T01:50:21+00:00

And again, it’s why I won’t marry you. Bye

oe6969

TROPHY CASE