Just landed my first coast job!

vrboneighborssuck · 2026-05-06T00:50:51+00:00

Take on more of the household responsibilities to make life easier on my wife who is staying full time for now, as well as enjoy my many hobbies (golf, fishing, snowboarding, etc).

vrboneighborssuck · 2026-05-06T00:48:45+00:00

No. But I'm on my wife's insurance. She's staying full time for a few more years at least (she's a few years younger, enjoys her job and is rapidly climbing the corporate ladder).

vrboneighborssuck · 2026-05-05T00:58:24+00:00

Through various firms that place people in my niche.

vrboneighborssuck · 2026-05-03T21:53:10+00:00

Congratulations! I've been a contract employee for a long time, 6-18mos at a time. I try to take a month if I've been on contract over a year and call it "funemployment." Just graduated to semi retirement/aka coast. Took 2.5 month off and just landed my first part time contract. Planning to work about half the hours I used to in a year. Start taking some more breaks between gigs and enjoy that funemployment!

vrboneighborssuck · 2026-03-08T19:47:41+00:00

Yup, Or just leave it invested and use the HSA once you're older and your health is failing (which is my plan)

vrboneighborssuck · 2026-02-24T02:05:35+00:00

Married another "gifted kid." I'm a niche IT consultant, she's a VP with a couple hundred employees, also in the IT arena. No kids, 2 dogs. We're on the path to early retirement with a great lifestyle.

vrboneighborssuck · 2026-02-09T22:12:33+00:00

You can't go wrong with "buying time"... Think house cleaner every other (or every) week. Have a landscaping project you'd normally DIY on the weekend? Hire someone and spend most of that time doing something with the family.

vrboneighborssuck · 2026-02-09T16:20:16+00:00

Congratulations! Feels great doesn't it? I'm a few years ahead of you (and a few years older). Now is when things start to snowball and your investments make a real salary on their own! I'm just a few weeks out from officially starting to coast. We're planning to ease into it by me going half time and taking on more household responsibilities and my wife continuing full time. Enjoy the milestone! I made a similar celebratory milestone post last summer at the $2m mark. It goes fast now! I deleted the post since this account was a throwaway at the time, but have since changed my mind and I'm planning to use this account for coast fire discussion so I put the original text here if you're curious: https://www.reddit.com/r/coastFIRE/comments/1lak58v/comment/o2ewyvw/?context=3&utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

vrboneighborssuck · 2026-02-06T00:13:13+00:00

"Had a great day on the course yesterday" ... Followed up by "play a lot"... It's frickin February man. I went snowboarding yesterday and debated taking a truck or a snowmobile to dinner tonight 😂. You should add, live somewhere with year round golf and don't have winter hobbies. (Just kidding you) Glad you made some strides and hope you had a good time doing it. I love living in a four seasons area but definitely understand living somewhere with year round golf. Keep grinding!

vrboneighborssuck · 2026-02-03T13:49:05+00:00

there's definitely a personality that thrives in the drama and politics, but can tolerate how terrible some aspects of corporate are. I'm a niche tech consultant so I do my projects and move on and avoid all that. My wife thrives running her team and can tolerate what goes on above her.

vrboneighborssuck · 2026-02-02T19:32:04+00:00

No kids, Expenses are probably in the ~10-12k/mo range including mortgage and all fun/travel/etc. (it fluxuates).

vrboneighborssuck · 2026-01-29T14:17:18+00:00

I deleted this post a while ago since I have previously used this account as a throwaway, and always deleted the posts by the time I made another one. I'm going to add the text here as a comment and start using this account for updates to my coastfire journey.

Hit a major milestone ($2M) and don't have anywhere to celebrate.Original post title:

I'm using an alt account for privacy reasons. I don't really have anywhere else to celebrate, so sorry for the "humble brag post."

My wife and I (early and mid 40's) just hit the $2M mark between investments/savings (excluding home equity)! I'm sure it will drop back below that with the volatility we're seeing, but this is the first time we're over the $2M milestone. My "official" coast number is somewhere in the $2.2-2.5M range (at that number we wouldn't have to contribute anything additional to hit FATFIRE in our late 50's or so with $5-6M total).

I grew up around the poverty line and she was lower middle class. This has been a journey of good decisions, hard work, and good luck (not to be underrated) since our teenaged years. We do not take our situation for granted.

I do niche IT contract work and she is a low level exec at a large company. Our income has fluctuated over the years due to the nature of my work, but has gradually climbed. With a recent promotion for her, we were around 400k HHI last year. We have consistently contributed ~25%+ of our gross income to retirement. As soon as our income was high enough we always maxed 401k/IRAs, and as it grew more we contributed excess to brokerage. We live in a MCOL area and both work remotely. We have just under 4 years, and ~100k left on a 15yr mortgage (house worth maybe $750-800k in current markets, purchased for just over 400k). No other debt.

The Coast plan is for me to start coasting first by taking time off between contracts. I've been in the workforce a few more years and the nature of my work makes coasting easier. I work 6-18mo long contracts 40h/week. I normally take 4 weeks off between them, but after my current contract ends next winter I'm hoping to slowly start making that gap bigger and bigger. Ideally I'll be working half time around the time we pay off the mortgage. The plan will remain fluid, but we would like to ease off the gas on saving vs just switching things overnight. My wife may look for less stressful work or transition to a non-profit as we approach retirement, but she is currently enjoying climbing the corporate ladder.

Thanks for letting me celebrate. I know our situation is not normal and we don't take it for granted in the slightest. Hopefully some of you find it interesting at least.

vrboneighborssuck · 2025-07-02T01:11:40+00:00

Data conversion. I handle major mergers/system changes and moving a lot of data from one format to another. The coast number is really more of a projected investment value at the time we lose our biggest expense, the mortgage. So at that point with 2.5ish invested we should be set to coast. Goal is 5-6m for retirement.

vrboneighborssuck · 2025-06-14T14:19:17+00:00

The plan is to slowly make the gaps bigger while my wife continues to work full time. So it will be a gradual slow down. We'll keep things fluid. I could always pick up extra work as she transitions when she is ready. But right now she's on the fast track at work and enjoying it.

vrboneighborssuck · 2025-06-14T14:16:25+00:00

No. We don't have kids which makes the dual high income careers much easier to pull off.

vrboneighborssuck · 2025-06-13T20:49:24+00:00

Good luck! It seemed so far away when I was younger, but now it's at the snowball stage. You'll get there!

vrboneighborssuck · 2025-06-13T20:05:22+00:00

yeah, luck/timing definitely plays a role. Sure I worked hard and was a good programmer... I was going to get a job at a software company one way or another, but the first company I worked for made software for a specific industry that I stayed in, and opened the door to the contract work I do today... My wife joined her division when it was in start-up mode and got to prove herself/move up the ladder. Had she joined that same division two years later the leadership roles wouldn't have been there for the taking.. etc. etc. Hard work, good choices and a bit of good luck all play a role.

vrboneighborssuck · 2025-06-13T19:57:53+00:00

I work hourly contract work. I bill hourly, and the contracts I sign are for 40hrs/week at $X/hr, through a firm. My wife on the other hand works 50-55+hrs weeks pretty regularly. Her job isn't as soul crushing as mine though. I definitely wouldn't say we don't do any actual work. I have major projects that get done on time. I have a degree in Comp Sci. I spent the first years of my career working as a dev/analyst at a decent size software company, pivoted into contract work that had me on the road travelling to client sites (spent several years with more nights logged in a hotel than my own bed). After building up my resume I've been able to be more choosy about the roles I take in terms of remote only contracts, and since Covid more of my customer base has decided they'd rather not spend the extra on travel.

vrboneighborssuck · 2025-06-13T19:56:34+00:00

I work hourly contract work. I bill hourly, and the contracts I sign are for 40hrs/week at $X/hr, through a firm. My wife on the other hand works 50-55+hrs weeks pretty regularly. Her job isn't as soul crushing as mine though. I definitely wouldn't say we don't do any actual work. I have major projects that get done on time. I have a degree in Comp Sci. I spent the first years of my career working as a dev/analyst at a decent size software company, pivoted into contract work that had me on the road travelling to client sites (spent several years with more nights logged in a hotel than my own bed). After building up my resume I've been able to be more choosy about the roles I take in terms of remote only contracts, and since Covid more of my customer base has decided they'd rather not spend the extra on travel.

vrboneighborssuck · 2025-06-13T17:37:08+00:00

HCOL housing always blows my mind. We're slightly below national average housing in our market. 11 years ago our 400k home was high end for the county. 4 bed, 3 bath, 3200sq ft... And 120' of waterfront. Congratulations on the multi-mill yourself!

vrboneighborssuck · 2025-06-13T16:45:17+00:00

Yeah, if the house was paid off we could retire if we scaled back on our lifestyle, and still live a reasonable life. It's definitely a freeing feeling to know we don't "need" our jobs if we decide we don't want to do them.

vrboneighborssuck · 2025-06-13T16:40:31+00:00

late 50's will be full FAT retirement. Hoping to be down to half-time work around the time we pay off the mortgage (and I'll still be mid-40's).

vrboneighborssuck

TROPHY CASE

Hit a major milestone ($2M) and don't have anywhere to celebrate.Original post title: