FIRE Goals

Status: Updated December 2019

Progress to Early Retirement: 57.0%
Progress to Financial Independence (3/4): 76.0%
Progress to Half Annual Spending: 114.0%
Percent Home Ownership: 58.6%
Net Worth / Annual Spending Tax Adj.: 14.3x of that Home: 2.2x Retire: 8.8x Non-Retire: 3.2x

My Thoughts on My FIRE Goals

My goal ultimate goal is to be able to continue my current lifestyle here in the NY area with the 4% rule. That’s early retirement for me. Getting to half that number means financial independence to me. Getting to a quarter of that number is means I am off to a great start.

Having half my income means that we can get maintain our current lifestyle off of one income. It also means I can take a much less stressful job, and maintain our lifestyle. It’s all about piece of mind for me. I am not ready to slow down professionally, but knowing that I could itself takes some stress and pressure off. I am not there yet, but we can see the top of the mountain from where we are.

I should make it clear, though, I do notice the breakdown of our net worth. All of are money is not in taxable accounts. That means most of it is in our retirement accounts and could only be withdrawn for a large fee. The rest is locked up in home equity, which is only available for a large fee; a home equity loan. So it’s not as easy as my last comment makes it sound. This is yet another reason to keep working!

{Edit 1/1/2018} I could see that FI goal moving quite a bit. The more I think about it, the more likely I will be moving that to 75%. I am not really sure I actually would feel comfortable stepping back from my job at 50%. I think I would feel safe when I get there, and I think I will get to 50% relatively soon.  Yeah, I have changed this. I originally thought that stepping back at 50% would be a good idea. After mulling that over for the last few months, I think that is a terrible idea. New plan is to keep pushing as hard as I can for 10 more years, and then seeing where we are. Of course, if we get lucky, and get to 85-90% of our goal in 10 years, wonderful. I don’t see that as likely. I think it’s more like 14 – 15 years.

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Assuming we can keep saving the way we are, then we should be able to retire, or down shift as I plan on working but less hard or fewer hours, when we get to this number. I think we should be able to get there in 10 years or so, but it might be a bit longer or quicker depending on the market and our goals.

Now we have a mortgage, and we will for many years to come. The rate on it is lower than inflation has been, on average, since 1920. We did not time the market so much as we were just lucky. I am not eager to pay it off early, but who knows what we will do as I learn more about finance and FIRE. My current plan is to be able to make payments to my mortgage as part of my earnings needs for Early Retirement.

This is Skellig Michel, which you might recognize from the last main line Star Wars Movie. We were visiting my wife’s family in Ireland when we took this; several years before the Star Wars movies were filmed.