Hi all, I see lots of subscribers in this community. What stage of FIRE are you guys in? curious about the demographic in here.
- Neither FI nor RE
- FI but not RE
- FIRE’d
- ?
I am in the first category, working towards FI for seven years now and recently reached 100K NW. Unfortunately I live in very HCOL area so I still have long ways to go 🥲
You missed Coast/Barista in your hierarchy
| Financial position | Not retired | Semi-retired | Retired |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pre FIRE | x | - | - |
| Coast | x | x | - |
| Barista | x | x | - |
| FI | x | x | x |
The difference between Coast and Barista is whether your non-investment income fully covers expenses. To Barista FIRE you must have a bit more invested to support some level of draw-down
thank you, I was not sure about the detailed hierarchy. So Coast is working with regular full time instead of part time? That seems like what most people would prefer by continuing their current jobs… rather than quitting it to have a more labor intensive part time job.
Coast is working enough that you don’t have to touch your investments (whether working full or part time, so you can be semi-retired)
Barista is working full or part time in something that doesn’t pay enough to cover your day to day expenses, but it’s ok because you have enough capital to draw on your investments without compromising your retirement goals
Neither. But I can at least see the finish line.
I’m at the point where my milestones are kinda fun. Instead of just X saved, it’s:
- can retire by <age> w/o further investment - currently this is well before “normal” retirement age
- can pay off all mortgage if I sell retirement assets
- can retire in X county - every year that country gets more and more attractive
I’m hoping to reach FI in ~10 years.
Neither FI nor RE. About 10-15 more years to go assuming a conservative (steady and realistic) timeline. Optimistically around 7 if the stars align and a few previous stock option gambles pop, but i treat those as pricey lottery tickets at best in today’s environment.
wow so you’re more than half way there, nice. I do similarly have a few fun tech stocks but they fluctuate like extreme rollercoasters haha.
I’m deep in the boring middle of neither FI nor RE. I’m currently ~halfway to my current goal number, and can definitely see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Neither FI or RE.
But solidly in the boring middle, but over halfway. My principal is now large enough, and my runway until retirement short enough, that my contributions have less and less of an impact compared to my compounding interest…well, my theoretical compounding interest if the stock market improves.
Which is fortunate because I got laid off in March. I was worried about what impact this would have on my retirement date…and it won’t. I could stop saving now and still retire when I want to, with a slightly tighter budget. Or work a few more months and retire with the same large budget.
So that’s where I’m at.
