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Additional Posts in FIRE Financial Independence Retire Early
Decided to payoff my mortgage.
What are the best cities to live in for FIRE?
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Agree with VP. For most people pursuing FIRE from very young means a delayed gratification strategy where you work very hard early in your career while keeping spending very low to accumulate both assets and professional experience, which both snowball. Then at some point in your 30s or 40s, you reach a level of FI where you can decide whether to lean FIRE, coast FIRE, or work a bit longer and fat FIRE.
But a lot of those people don’t have kids when they start this journey, and maybe only have their kids when they’re already well on their way to FI, at which point the time they want to spend with the kids may be one of the drivers of their choice of FIRE approach.
Your situation is different- with kids already at the start, you will likely be in the accumulation stage until they are grown. That’s not a bad thing, but it means you need to think about how you want to design a life that gives you quality time with them *while* you are accumulating, not only once you get to some FIRE milestone. It may even mean you decide retiring early is less important to you than having good work life balance and flexibility while they are young, even if you continue working longer.
Subject Expert
The other path to FIRE would be extreme frugality. Since this is a “professional” site you see very little of that here.
But living on $30k a year, using modest savings, government credits, etc could be an option.
All home cooked meals, clothes from charity stores, modest housing, car, etc
Again, most people don’t go down that route by choice but it’s another option, and can be a fulfilling life if it means putting family first.
I agree with OW figuring out how to design life to spend quality time with kids *while* working is most likely to be best approach here.
Everyone has a different path and starting young like you is extremely helpful. I started at 26 after grad school and hit my FI income last year at 39 but am not quite ready to retire.
My #1 advice would be to keep your housing costs low. I mean just as low as you cam possibly get away with. Even just $50 or $100 going into the market monthly will do wonders with compound interest over time. Apply the same for other high dollar monthly expenses like car and groceries.
Set up a budget. Create sinking funds to give you wiggle room between months.
Aggressively pay off any debt over 6% interest rate.
Create automatic transfers to the market once you no longer have 6%+ debt. My favorite platform for this is Betterment.
Its an uphill battle until you hit that $100k networth but it really starts to take off from there.
Even if you don’t retire early, incorporating FIRE habits into your life will give you so much financial freedom. You can move, quit a bad job, leave a shitty relationship, pay for expensive medical care, the list goes on and on.
Subject Expert
Honestly. FIRE may not be the best path for you to maximize time with your son.
Traditional FIRE approach would say save 50-60%+ of your salary and you can retire within 10 years.
Is that even what you want when your kid will be mostly grown by then?
Can you find a job that allows you to do this?
Usually that may mean becoming highly talented and dedicated to a skilled role.
What are you skills, can you learn new ones to increase your earnings significantly?
In sales, have you found a mentor to teach you all the tricks, are you reading books on sales skills, are you networking near constantly to expand your network?
Fire is also far easier with a husband. What is the father doing?
If he’s not around it’s going to be much more difficult.
If you are truly dedicated only to maximizing your earnings and caring for family, excluding all other activities, fun, relaxing, friends etc. then aggressively aiming for FIRE could be an option.
First five years of my career I studied weekends on qualifications and skills. It’s not “easy” and most people don’t do the work.
Otherwise seeking balance in your life may be a better approach.
My compensation grew exponentially while my spending stayed the same. I saved the difference. I had school debt well into my 30s. I started seeing the wealth snowball over the last 10 years. In that time I bought a house, got married, had 2 kids, super-funded their 529s, and saved over $5m. Invest in yourself early on and it will pay off in the future. For most people who have kids early it will be difficult to retire while they are still young because kid related expenses are so high while you’re trying to build your foundation. But you have the benefit of youth and time, your greatest asset. I would just try to put a little in tax advantaged accounts, and as your salary grows, continue to save and invest the difference. Best of luck.