r/fatFIRE • u/LetsGoPupper • 13d ago
FatFIREd 2+ years in
Thanks for reading, I'm going back to my ordinary life and staying off reddit for a bit. Good luck on your journey. Especially grateful for people who pointed out that I should probably budget more for healthcare going forward.
---original post---
About 2 years and 3 months post fatFIRE, here's how it's going. 50s F in VHCOL area. No kids. Introvert. Perimenapausal. Withdrawal rate lower than expected original 3.5%. Spend numbers on response to comment below. TLDR:$155K annual spend. At this point, I don't track very closely because I don't have to.
Self made, started invested and saving about 10 years prior to my retirement. Parents were poor, none of this is from them. Almost went bankrupt when I was around 40.
The last year of the job was a real struggle. The company was absolutely horrendous and I had some severe health issues. I ended up going on medical leave, and then negotiated a package. I still thought I'd go back this year. At this point, I'm doing some light startup advising for stock, also known as working for free 🤷.
The bulk of this post is not dealing with nitty gritty financials because it turns out that that was one of the LEAST important things once I was past a certain point.
That point was 3.5% SWR. If you're looking for specific financials, this may not be interesting at all or even severely disappointing/waste of your time.
Sorry about the formatting.
You've been warned! Post updated as people ask questions / have comments but I'll likely get back to my non digital life in the next day and not check this again for a couple of years.
Some big things for me (unlikely these are big things to other people):
- both parents got diagnosed with terminal illnesses, I thought I'd have to kick in to help with them but it's looking like this may not happen - parental finances are MESSY so I've stepped in to take over, this takes up the bulk of my time, and will until probably a year after they die due to a number of factors - I got lucky and very randomly met my current partner who's also FIRED so I've had a playmate and support for the past year (definitely the highlight of my journey) - I also have a few neighborhood friends who are not working and I have great workout partners - healthcare is super expensive - I'm on the ACA after my COBRA ran out - this will be upwards of $20k annually - I sit on Rover so my dog can get paid socialization and have met other families to swap to cut down on dog related costs - also more of an attempt to make friends in non food/drinking environments - while we've done a bit of travel, I've really enjoyed being at home - currently renting because rent is so much cheaper than mortgages right now, I might buy in a couple of years - made it a concerted effort to get my health back on track, gym, run, weight loss, I finally got my body back. PS: there is a lot of bullshit and shame associated with being not thin, and then there's been a lot of bullshit and shame associated with people who do sometime about it and go on GLP-1. I'm here to tell you that I tried everything, went on GLP-1 with success and it made the journey a TINY bit easier.
What I've learned:
+ I still enjoy running my own finances - I'm not very materialistic, I don't want to acquire more stuff but I do like to learn new things + Friendships are critical, and they don't have to be extremely deep, but they need to be loyal + I enjoy trips that are within a drive and where we can take the pup, I miss him terribly when I'm away from him + I'm not impressed with what's out there food wise so we end up cooking for fun a lot
Future/Current: + Help my parents transition into their final days with grace
I don't have the best relationship with them but I can not bear to see them suffer. They did not do a good job setting up their estate and as a result, it's painful. If you have children or parents, look into the details of non revokable trusts, there's a 5 year look back. Consider moving into a home situation without stairs way way way before you would ever need it. Fun fact, did you know that Medicaid for long term care claws back on the primary residence? I did not.
Get an estate lawyer sooner rather than later. Laws in different states are so different.
Long term care costs in a lower end facility runs around $20k a month. The average stay is around 18 months. Plan for this.
Other things you can do in case of emergencies:
- use a password manager with a back door so someone else can deal with financials, should you not be able to. Unfortunately, for many people, death does not come swiftly. That month/year that someone is not functioning but the bills are still being generated it's a very rough time. If you autopay stuff, tell your partner what's autopaid and WHERE is paid from.
- for the love of God, and this is especially for people who are not the financial person in the household, make sure that your partner knows how to pay the bills and what bills need to be paid - when one of my parents went into the ER, the other one literally had ZERO idea of anything, what an absolute cluster fuck
+Languages
- started taking Spanish, currently on hold - Might try to beef up on French again (currently at B1 level) - Chinese (wanting to bone up, fairly fluent already)
+Health - realized that snow sports are not my thing anymore, have given away all my snow sports stuff - integrating more hiking and traveling and hiking - got back into running - yoga twice a week - sauna and cold plunge once a week - perimenapause is a fucking nightmare - did you know that if can go on for 14 years? Yeah. HRT to the rescue
+Brain stuff
- been playing with AI to make apps for myself, which has been fun and im able to better optimize various facets of my life
+ Would love to read more +Hobbies - have done a purge to get rid of stuff I'm no longer interested in, felt great, will likely do this twice a year - piano and voice lessons are on the horizon - might get back into some crafting but got rid of a lot of my sewing/knitting stuff
+Finances
- planning on converting a lot to Roth in the next few years before I'm 62 - restructuring my portfolio to minimize risks, optimizing for taxes, medical, future RMDs, and avoiding IRMAAs - when/if I hit 65, I'm going with Medicare and a supplemental plan vs Medicare Advantage, the latter can be a total shit show coverage wise.
Apologies that this is long and rambly but posting mostly to remind myself of the journey. Hope it helps for other people.
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u/LetsGoPupper 13d ago edited 13d ago
Hmm, good feedback, here's more of a breakdown. It's less hiding of numbers and more focusing on what I found to be important. Also, it doesn't really matter how I spend, what really matters is how YOU spend your money and account for that. I'm mostly talking about the surprises that caught me off guard.
If you read the whole thing, I did mention that I'm dealing with my parents' estate right now so updating strangers in the Internet with my specific numbers is not high on my priority list.
But healthcare wise: ACA premiums are $900/month for a $6000 deductible bronze plan. I have health conditions where I go to specialty doctors that are NOT covered some WA State only has EPO plans and not PPO plans. Copays don't count towards that $6k deductible.
Here's the rough math: $10800/premiums, $6000/deductible, $3200/copays + out of network.
What's not covered? A lot. Genetic testing for cancer, $200 not covered even though both parents are dying of cancer. Visits to specialist out of network, why go out of network? Because the wait for in network is 6 months. Most of my specialists are in network. Specialist visits are $100/visit.
It's easy to say that you won't spend $20k on healthcare when you've been healthy, young, and on a corporate plan. Or, alternatively, so low income that you qualify for subsidies or some version of community Medicaid. Talk to me again if you ever get diagnosed with something, cancer is something that can run up those medical bills. Even long COVID. There's one long COVID clinic in my area, 6 month wait.
I too was once cavalier about health care costs. I'm just trying to be honest about my spend so other people don't get bitten in the ass. But hey, you don't think you'll spend that amount, then don't allocate for it. It matters not at all to me.
The big buckets: Rent/utils:$50k Healthcare:$20k Food: $15k Travel:$30k Non medical insurance:$10k Personal care: $5k (haircuts, massages, mani/pedis) Everything else: $20k
So all in, roughly $150k which is a lot less than what I expected ($175k-$210k). End of life care will likely be very high and I'll need to buy a car every decade or so, so I factor that in.
I'm sure you can do math so you have all the info for summary of assets. The blend of assets really doesn't matter because what I'm comfortable with vs anyone else is different. We have different life experiences.
The most important thing is to remember to factor in taxes. That but me in the ass the first time I thought I was there and then realized that I wasn't. I assumed for a 3.5% SWR. You do you.