Resources for beginner investors

[whatthezippos]

Hello everyone.  I'm embarking on "part 2" of my life and looking to get a nudge in the right direction.  I've spent the past 2 years getting my finances 100% under control so I'm really good with handling & budgeting money - but the one thing I don't know a lot about is investing and how to use it to my advantage.

I've been Googling a lot and for some reason can't grasp exactly how FIRE would work in a day-to-day sense.  I mean I understand the principle of it -- invest a lot, early on, so you can retire early and live off your earnings, but I'm hoping to find a "visual" of what this actually looks like.

Analogy time... to me it's sorta like how when I explain a zero-based budget to friends -- the theory makes sense to them but it's a bit abstract and they'd have a hard time sitting down and creating one.  Once they see a Youtube video it suddenly clicks and they're on their way.

My question is... is there some sort of resource for learning more about investing and living off your earnings while retiring early?  I'm hoping for something visual that has someone say "okay so for the past 10 years I've been doing this with my money, and now that I'm retired this is how everything is set up".  It would help me so much.  Thanks!

[matchewed]

Well each individual will have their particular circumstances so there is no one way to do it, but generally speaking you are selling your investments in increments which equal your expenses. This will generally be in large chunks (a year or two years worth of expenses).

Some people will hold a few years in cash and just refill that, but it's the same thing.

The particulars come down to what balances you have in which investment vehicles (tax advantaged accounts, pensions, taxable accounts...etc.).

[Choices]

For investing, many people here recommend Vanguard or Fidelity index funds, and there's a ton of great info in the Bogleheads site and books. You're looking for diversification and low expense ratios.

A big tenet of FIRE is to lower expenses now, and if you get used to that standard of living, they'll continue to be lower in retirement. If you need $80k/yr now, you'll need somewhere around that (minus work clothes/commute, plus more travel/hobbies) for retirement. If you cut the cable, drive a mustachian car, cook at home rather than eating out, etc., you might be able to live off of $30-40K now and the same in retirement, so the nest egg needed to support this is much smaller.

Once you have your nest egg, then use what matchewed said.

[Jim2001]

Take a look at this story http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-simple-math-behind-early-retirement/.