I am going to try to help with some of the lingo.
FIRE = Financial Independence and Retire Early.
- if you plan to still work, such as a hobby as a real estate land lord that makes you money, just say retired anyway. for simplicity
401k = retirement account at a job = PreTax dollars.
- This means you pay no tax on that money when it goes in the account. At 59.5 you can take it out. You then pay taxes on what you take out.
Roth = Roth IRA retirement account, usually separate from a job = PostTax dollars.
- This means you pay tax on that money before it goes in to the account. You can take the money you put in out after 5 years. At 59.5 you can take gains out. You do not pay taxes on money you take out.
HSA = Health Savings Account.
- This is No-Tax. No tax in, no tax out. But you can only spend the money on medical expenses (which is a broad term including just about anything related).
- You must have high deductible health insurance to get this. High deductible means it is cheap, but you must pay the first several thousand of a bill out of your emergency fund. Then the insurance pays the rest.
Taxable = People use this as shorthand for "Taxable investment accounts". This is all the various forms of investments you have that are not sheltered by tax advantages.
"How to I retire early?"
Stash 4% is generally considered 'safe' (but people vary widely in opinion on this). Take your total expenses per month x 300, or your yearly x 25.
Ladder because you can take money out of a Roth 5 years after you put it in, you can use a Roth account to retire early.
You need your total stash number amoung all accounts (HSA, 401k, Roth, Taxable) And 5 years buffer in only (RothPrinciple and Taxable) to retire.
1 Max the Roth ($5.5k per year). You can only touch the money you put in, not the total, until 59.5.
2 Have Taxable Investment account(s).
3 After these two above cover your yearly expenses x5, you are ready.
4 Post retirement. Transfer money from your 401k to your Roth, each year to cover expenses.
How much are reasonable expenses?
This opinion also varies widely.
Generally we are looking at $12k-21k per person. So 24k-42k when/if you get married.
You cannot possibly be spending more than that yet, so dont start.
Companies tend to give you matches on HSA and 401k. That means if you put in some money, your company also puts in the same amount to "match" what you put in. This is up to a limit. So a 2% match means they will match up to 2% of your annual gross salary ($18x2000 = $36000 -> 2% = $720)
Everything is more complicated than what I just said. This is the simple version.