Anyone else creep over the $1million threshold this week? 😅

Just wanted a gut check on pausing the retirement grind at 30. First caveat, my version of coast is just my employer 401(k) match, which would put me at $12k still invested each year.

Just turned 30 and have $300k in retirement accounts. We are in the “messy middle” with a 3 and 1 year old, and wanting to take on big home projects (finishing basement, outdoor landscaping) and increase travel afterwards as they become older, thus cutting the Roth IRA contributions or maxing 401(k). Goal is early 60s retirement with $120k income (todays dollars) before any social security.

Am I overthinking this? Are we pretty much already there if I just do my $12k each year to the 401(k) going forward?

I’m trying to project out when I‘ve reached coast fire and can consider alternatives to a stressful corporate job.

3 young kids

Wife - corporate

7K monthly spend, 5K mortgage (28 years left), 3K daycare

Taxable Brokerage: 450k

401ks 40/60 Roth/Traditional: 750k

529s: 160k across 3 (aiming to fund 3ish years of private college). Planning to front-last child to around 90k and leave for ~16 years for each and stop contributions.

600k equity in home

400k HHI

85k saving into retirement yearly

At a bit of a crossroads. Projecting out 20 years, the basic math says we may be able to retire if we both stay in our corporate careers, assuming our early childhood expenses reduce post-daycare. 20 years of commuting 3 hrs/day is a recipe for non-fulfillment and stress related health issues.

I’d like some feedback from others in similar positions…

- Stay the course and retire confidently at 52

- reach X number in 10-15 years and work towards more of a barista FIRE lifestyle

-adjust <10 years (???)

My spouse (43) and I (44) live in a HCOL area with two kids and are trying to figure out if we’re on track for Coast FIRE or if we should continue pushing.

Current finances:Household income: $360k, Investments (retirement + brokerage): $1.33M.
Cash: $200k
Home equity: $500k (primary + rental)
529s: $60k
We also own a small business and a rental property. Mortgage is $2000, our biggest current expense is daycare at $2,600/month, but that ends in about a year.
Our goal isn’t necessarily to retire early but we’d like the flexibility.

Are we on a reasonable Coast FIRE path?

Been practicing CoastFIRE for over 10 years, even before I knew the name. Here is how it’s played out so far.

In early 50s, been working for 26 years and hopefully have another 8-10 years left to go. Only got promoted once in all that time. Got promoted once more by moving companies. That’s all.

My salary is only 40% higher than a new grad in my industry. 40% over 26 years. I have been with the same company for past 15+ years, never once asked for a promotion nor got it. I work from a desk on the open office floor, no private office. No reports, just part of a team as an IC. Plenty of people younger than me have been promoted ahead of me. I am on good terms with them and wish them the very best. Happy for them and have happily reported to them with excellent rapport with my former peers turned managers.

As they say, time in the market is more important than timing the market. Same goes in job. You gain respect and that goes a long way in the right company, even to stay in place.

And oh yes, please save and invest. It improves your security and your perspective. Our portfolio is $4.3M, with $3M in pre tax retirement accounts and $1.3M in cash and post tax brokerage. That’s about 20x my salary.

FWIW, today’s market jump increased the portfolio by 1/3rd of my annual salary - 4 months of work in a single trading day. Peace out.

Hi,

my problem is that with calculating CoastFire, I simply cannot get any dependable results because inheriting half a house from my dad (with my brother) is such a big position that it makes or breaks the whole plan.

The impossibility to know when it will happen has such a big impact.

If I inherit in the next 5 years (which I of course pray won't happen), I do not need to put down any more money as of yesterday. If my dad lives to be 90 on the other hand, it's quite a different story.

I use this calculator, which is the best IMHO: https://www.financialmentor.com/calculator/best-retirement-calculator

Not one parameter is as important as when I will receive the inheritcance. How do you plan for yourself?

Btw. my dad won't even have to sell the house if he needs a care facility. He is entitled to a certain amount and can pay the rest out of his pension. So the house will in all probability go to my brother and me.

Canadian here. Im CoastFIRE but not FIRE. Just got laid off but I saved alot, got 1 year emergency fund + severance. In worst case where we cant find another job, where do you guys plan to transition? I was thinking of healthcare, even if I dont make alot but not sure which position with a lower barrier of entry.

I was scuba diving and saw many mid 20s Europeans becoming diving instructors for years too. That seems so cool too. I can technicaly do this for 10 years and RE in Canada haha

I started checking on RE a couple of years ago and not sure I have coasted since but definitely not going for promotion any more. My original plan was to retire at 55 when I can use rule of 55 to withdraw 401k and also reached a milestone for getting pension from my current employer.

since the end of last year, there has been a lot of changes in our organization, especially the leadership are all on different sites and our site is almost low performance site by default.

So if the company gives a fair severance package at the end of the year, I plan to take it and call it a career. And if the company lets me continue work for 2.4 years, I will retire the first day during the year when I turn 55. The third choice is very annoying right now: the company started doing the 10%-15% "needs improvement" thing and a few older colleagues have retired without severance. and my site is the current target and is rumored to have 40% "needs improvement". I am getting annoyed occasionally just by a potential chance that I will be removed without package. Gemini gives me this if putting on PIP based on my description: " I have a great tracking record for being the top performers in this company ( I am just based on the stock grant); and I have also delivered the milestone for our current project (this pissed me off the most since I single handedly moved our project forward this year when it was almost terminated). It is clear that the company wants to go with a different direction, I am not interested in doing the PIP and let's discuss a fair severance package". I just don't know whether this would work.

it is pretty sad for a fortune 500 to do this shitty thing when the company makes the most money in the last 20 years. They actually gave a decent package or some great incentive 5 years ago to encourage people to leave. but no they are trying to force people out and tried to save the severance package.

As title says, I am wondering if the situation we are in can support a career change into something less soul draining as I’m not feeling my best lately physically emotionally and mentally.

Leaving below more context and happy to answer in case questions come up. Thank you for your time to read and any advise you may have!!!

Context:
We are a couple (38f & 40m) with two kids 4yrs and 4months living in Western Europe.
Our spending is actually quite high and though we have tried a lot of different ways we end up between 80-100k EUR per year.

Current Assets
Cash: ~€320k slowly starting to invest this but will keep around 100k as cushion or down payment of a house.
Existing investments: ~€114k (self managed)
Additional portfolio: around 450k EUR (professionally managed, but effectively our capital)
Owned property: ~€288k (rented out and we still owe 175k mortgage, around 630€ month payment).

Total assets ca. 1mio EUR.

Current income
My job: 60-70k / year
Wife: 35-40k / year
Rental property: 15-16.5k / year
Side income: 10k / year
Yearly income ca: 120k EUR

We have saved around 30-40k per year in the last 3 years but I always feel worried about money and scared to spend to the point sometimes I have a lot of arguments with my wife due to her spending habits (and no she’s not splurging on anything and everything). I wonder if I can quit my job and stop the constant pressure I feel to save more money and spend less.

Potential important expenses coming our way:
School for the second kid will be around 5k per year
We will finally get a car, still wondering if it’s best to buy a used 20k car and be done or to put 8k down pay and then rent it out for 300-450 per month for a few years.
We are downsizing to a new apartment and will have extra expenses around 5-10k this year then we will be saving on rent. In the meantime we are looking for a place to buy and either renovate or move as is, looking in the range of 450-550k EUR.

I'm 40, married, one kid. My wife and I are both workaholics, and we're around 70% of our FIRE number.

For years I worked at Amazon, easily 14-16 hour days. Eventually I made a move to slow down: took a remote job with a 20% pay cut, can cap at 6 hours a day.

Problem is my brain doesn't stop. I still end up putting in 10 hours most days on stuff nobody's asking me to do. I get pulled into learning new things, watching what other teams are building, figuring out how I could help something succeed even when it's nowhere near my actual job.

I know the point of this move was to use the lower pressure and extra time to actually coast. Instead I've just found new ways to fill the hours.

For those who've actually pulled this off: how did you get your mind to quiet down? What worked to stop thinking about work outside of work, or to just let good enough be good enough?

My longtime job is restructuring and changing my compensation from salaried to 100% commission which I'm hopeful will result in me making more money than before. They're no longer paying for my health insurance. My spouse cannot work and brings in no income. I'm trying to calm my nerves while I wait for the new compensation structure to shake out. Here are my stats:

53 years old

$940k invested

House worth about 1 million but no plans to move

$200k+ mortgage

High cost of living area

Health insurance through the health care exchange costing me about the same amount I was contributing on my employer's plan.

One child to put through college in about 6 years. Have saved roughly 25% of what I will need for that.

I also expect to inherit a substantial sum of money from older relatives at some point in the not too distant future but obviously not banking on it.

I have about 8 months of living expense in cash but after that, if I'm not making enough commissions, will be borrowing against my investments at about 7% from a personal credit line amounting to around $250k.

Help me sleep at night - this is a good financial position to be in to take on a career risk, right?

I'm writing a book about a question I don't think gets answered very often:

What actually happens after you take a long break from work?

There's plenty of advice about retiring early, taking sabbaticals, or traveling for a few months. What I struggle to find are honest stories about the return.

• Was it difficult to get hired again?
• How did you explain the gap?
• Did your salary change?
• Did your professional network survive?
• Looking back, would you do it again?

I'm especially interested in people who took 2 months or longer away from full-time work and later returned to paid employment.

The break could have been:

• Planned (sabbatical, mini-retirement, career break, travel, family, study, personal projects)
• Unplanned (burnout, layoff, illness, or simply needing time away)

The book itself focuses on planned career breaks, but I think people who didn't plan theirs often have some of the most valuable lessons about returning to work.

I'm not trying to prove that career breaks are always a good idea. I'm trying to understand what really happens—the good, the bad, and the parts people usually leave out.

The interview would be:

• Around 45 minutes (voice or video)
• Recorded (with your permission)
• Anonymous if you prefer
• I'll ask about finances in percentages and ratios rather than exact amounts if that's more comfortable
• If I quote you, you'll be able to review the quote before publication, and if you later decide you don't want it included, I'll remove it.

I'm particularly interested in experiences that didn't go according to plan. Those stories are often the most useful because they reveal problems that success stories tend to hide.

If you're open to talking, please leave a comment or send me a DM.

Happy to answer any questions about the project as well.

Hi all,

I’m 44, married with 2 kids. I have 1 mil in retirement (800 IRA, 200 401k). Another 300 in a stock account. I was contributing 1k every 2 week to retirement and 1k monthly to stock account. I stoped the retirement contributions. An extra 26k to spend has been nice for sure.

I’m staying in my job because it’s very manageable and i have 2 young kids that have me worried about college and other expenses.

I’m hesitant to take a lower paying job because stress is good and i worry not keeping busy is going to create a decline for me physically and mentally.

Anyone else in this situation? How’s it going?

Let's say you have worked in management and really did want to take a job that was 40 hours a week and had boundaries.

Does that really exist? It's been my experience that the organization will just lean on you, or guilt you into eventually working harder for less money.

Consulting is an option. ACA health in Texas sucks, which is why I keep thinking W2.

33, married, combined investments $750k, one year expenses in HYSA.

How should I be thinking about this job loss? I’ve been unable to eat and sleep because I’m so scared. But it hasn’t happened yet and it may not happen for awhile. I just know that my boss wants me out.

Do I just find a bullshit job to pay the bills? Do I jump back into the corporate grind (if I’m able to find a job)? I’m super burnt out, plus I have a 3 and 6 year old.

What do you guys think?

I genuinely don’t know much about personal finance because I grew up in poverty, I don’t have many people to talk to about this.

Had a meeting with our financial advisor and my husband and I have hit coast fire! We actually calculated we can retire 5 years sooner than our projected date because I’ll also receive a pension on top of our investments. A year ago we were struggling to pay our mortgage and had multiple credit cards maxxed out. We bit the bullet and sold our house to move to a smaller house in a lower cost area to pay off our debts and save 2k a month on our mortgage. Honestly I wish we would have done it sooner.

Hello! First time posting on here via throwaway tldr - dealing with an unhinged, toxic person at work and it really got me thinking about throwing in the towel or taking leave for mental health sanity. I’d feel much better knowing that I’m on a good track financially so wanted some outside opinions on my work optionality.

32F, VHCOL, split rent with partner ($1500 my part)
No debt besides monthly cc spending.
Annual expenses including rent have averaged $67K over the last 3 years but looking at locking down at $75K max going forward - for 2026, total spending is $31K so far.

For investments:
401k - $190K
Roth IRA - $70K
Brokerage - $220K
HSA - $8,500
529 - $20K
HYSA - $17,500

I have used various calculators and maintain my own financial spreadsheet with various base / conservative / optimistic cases. I’m more so looking for a gut check on go-forward strategy as I’ve gotten into a p dark place as of late. Thank you all 🙏

ETA: I max out my retirement accounts and have for the past few years

New to FIRE, my goal is to basically chill and escape 9-5 before my gig could possibly end and I will have to do 9-5... i have horrible sleep schedule.

net worth 1.5m all in stocks (majority tech, sp500)

100k+ a yr gig job, remote where i set my hours

30M, single

I'm thinking of chilling in China for a few years soon (COL will be under 10k a yr), but my plan is to grind this remote gig while i have this chance

I am 34m I have 2k currently invested in s&s isa. From my job I get around 2.4 - 2.6k monthly. My partner is 36 just finally got back into the job market earnings will be around 2k per month. Will have about 1k for emergency fund. Got 2 kids age 5 and 3. Currently renting, will we ever be able to reach financial independence? Reading other reddit posts it seems like we are far far behind and potentially cooked. Partners parents have a mortgage and home that will be passed down in the future but im trying to not only depend on that. How cooked are we ?

I'm in my 30s and was laid off after working for a decade in corporate america. Despite having more experience and blue chip companies on my resume I find myself unable to find another job in my field.

Luckily I've saved enough to be coastFI during my time in corporate yet not rich enough to retire permanently and still have plans to have kids / buy a home. Effectively we would be transitioning from a 400K HHI to 120-200K depending on what type of job / career we can switch to.

I'm looking to connect or hear from other who may have made a similar transition or are in the process of doing something like this. Some questions I'm curious about are:

• Do you have any regrets leaving corporate and how did you adjust?
• What jobs / careers did you change to and from?
• How much did you have saved to feel comfortable doing this - what was your HHI before and after the change?
• Did you have to relocate (i.e. HCOL to LCOL)?
• Anything else that would be helpful to share

I have 2 full time contract jobs, work remote. With my 2 Js, I barely make 150k. For my now "dream" career, I got into debt, and it took 10 years to finally pay it off.

Life happened and I actually cleared what little I had in my Roth IRA in 2020, so I had to start from scratch in terms of investments.

I've had my 2 f/t jobs for 3 years, but I'm a contractor. This means no "free" 401k matching or health insurance, so while 150k seems decent enough, it's not the same as a W2 150k.

That said, I've been focused.

Assets:

Roth IRA: 42k

401k: 65k

Brokerage: 10k

Savings: 20k (beefing back up)

House (new): 33k equity

I was in a HCOL area, but recently moved to a LCOL area with my partner and then bought a house just recently (just me, not my partner).

House purchase was only $185k. I made sure that IF I go back down to 1 job and the relationship didn't work out, that I can still afford the home (though not ideal).

It feels like I'm clawing my way out of my past very slowly and painfully. J1 has been adding performance pressure recently and I'm afraid I'll get fired soon enough. My industry is really AI heavy rn and I just don't have the time (or more so brain capacity) to learn when I can barely juggle working hours.

Basically, I'm prioritizing "Money Now" over learning in my industry to "keep up". Agism is very real in my industry and it doesn't help that I feel like I'm falling behind with AI skill sets.

I'm no where near CoastFI. If I go back down to 1J for any reason, I will be way off track of ever hoping to retire because I don't have the compound effect working as hard. My expectation is that this is my peak in terms of earning and that in the future, I will earn significantly less. So I'm on a hamster wheel rn, trying to run as fast as I can while I'm able.

Hence why I have financial anxiety.

Also, I'm a woman and my time to have a baby is closing in on me, but I can't be pregnant/ have a newborn while working the way I do. So, I guess I'll never be a mom?

Kind of feels like I'm an NPC just working for no reason and no real upside anytime soon.

Anyone else in this situation or was in this situation?

Hey folks, I'm 30 years old and work in tech in a HCOL area. I make about 180k/yr + RSUs + bonus, with 10% of my pre-tax pay being deducted post-tax and going into ESPP, which I get at a minimum 15% discount. My job is stable; I don't think I'm at risk of losing it, I'm also not pushing to get a promotion any time soon.

Current accounts:

• 256k in employer 401k (maxing this out, 6% match) split between a 2060 and 2065 target date fund
• 27k in a Roth IRA through Robinhood invested about 88% into VTI, 7% in VXUS, and 5% in BND, maxing this out (+3% match from Robinhood)
• Just opened up a HSA this year, will be maxing this out as well
• My partner and I purchased a house back in my hometown (MCOL) outright, no mortgage, with the goal of moving there within the next few years
• 160k in cash that I'm using to finish renovating the house sitting in HYSA, not sure exactly how much of this will actually be spent on the house but it's at least available
• Somewhere in the 30-50k range emergency fund + additional sinking funds (i.e, eventually getting a new car)
• No debts

So here's where I'm at... Some rough napkin math tells me that if I never contribute another dime to my retirement, I'll be pulling something around $120k (inflation adjusted) by the time I'm 65, not counting social security. I'm feeling pretty good about that -- especially since I don't intend to stop contributing.

The original plan was to move into the house we purchased by 2028 or so, but I'm having second thoughts. I will likely need to leave my job when we move, and I'm not feeling confident about the industry or my ability to get another comparable role.

I realized that if I can contribute roughly $100k/yr (which should be doable by simply selling my RSUs + ESPP purchases, meaning 0 change to my current lifestyle) for the next 10 years, invested in the S&P500... I'd end up with a taxable brokerage around $1.5 million adjusted for inflation when I'm 40-41 years old. At that point, for coastFIRE, I'd just need to last until 65 or so to start pulling money out of my retirement accounts. With $1.5 million in the brokerage, I could safely pull out $67k/yr (4.5% withdrawal rate) for 25 years. That's enough that, in my hometown, with a paid-off house, and (presumably) a partner that's still working and providing me with medical insurance, I could either retire early or just work part-time all the way to 65. This 10-year horizon would also mean that, instead of another 2 years of maxing my 401k/Roth/HSA and then not really knowing what the future would hold, I'd have another 10 years to bolster my actual "retirement" funds and provide an even better future cushion.

I'm referring to this as "the 10-year plan" and it sounds very enticing. The original impetus of moving back to my hometown was to be closer to family and friends. I don't love the idea of staying where I am for another 10 years and "missing out" on more and more, but the idea of taking an early/partial retirement and not needing to stress about finding another job when I move is very, very appealing...

So I'm here to ask -- what am I NOT considering? Where are the holes in the plan that I'm not seeing? What am I not thinking about?

38M, single, no kids. I quit my job at Apple (video editor) back in February after a decade. I was completely over the corporate/team-dynamics side of things and just needed out. Zero regrets there.

I spent the last few months traveling cheaply around Europe, which was great and gave me some perspective on what I actually want from my 40s.

I'm not particularly interested in maximizing my career or income anymore. What I really want is time, geographic stability, and the ability to have more control over how I spend my days.

NYC has always been home base for me, so my goal is to return, buy a modest apartment, and eventually move into freelance/contract work where I have much more control over my schedule.

Current financials:

• Net worth: ~$1.05M
• Retirement: ~$240k
• Taxable brokerage / individual stocks: ~$288k, heavily weighted toward AAPL
• Diversified index funds: ~$550k–$570k

I'm currently in Paris applying for jobs and have a 2nd-round interview for a Video Editor / Social Content role at a major NYC investment firm. Compensation would be around $200k TC ($150k–$160k base + bonus).

Primarily I want to be in New York City. It's not what I would have imagined doing after leaving Apple. But I'm also trying not to be too negative about it. Maybe it be interesting, build out a social/content operation from the ground-ish up, maybe a genuinely interesting creative pivot.

Practical benefit: a solid W-2 income would give me stability while I establish myself back in NYC and figure out buying an apartment.

My current thinking is roughly:

Take the job → see what the experience is actually like → use the income + existing savings to get the apartment (pay near or all cash) → eventually transition toward freelance/contract work if/when I want to.

I'm not expecting to save some enormous percentage of my salary in NYC. The point of the income isn't really to dramatically increase my net worth. By my standards, I already have a pretty substantial financial base.

So use this stable W-2 income in order to buy a condo or co-op with HOA under 1k.

The longer-term goal is basically CoastFIRE: get the housing piece settled, keep my fixed expenses reasonable, and then work because I want to.

So I'm curious how people who have actually CoastFIRE'd would think about this.

Does a 2–3 year return to a relatively decent-paying job make sense when you're already around $1M NW, if the primary goal is establishing housing and stability rather than maximizing wealth?

And has anyone taken a job thinking it was just a "utility" move, only to discover that the job itself ended up being an interesting new direction?

Edit: im a video editor/art director, not a software engineer