Author Topic: Approaching the fiscal no-mans land between non-FIRE and FIRE  (Read 2247 times)

rob in cal

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Approaching the fiscal no-mans land between non-FIRE and FIRE
« on: August 09, 2015, 03:34:19 PM »
         I guess I'm in the enviable spot of crossing into the vague area of sort of, kind of, maybe FIRE.  Our monthly expenses are somewhere around 2600 (low due to a paid off house, and thus low housing costs, plus low property tax).  Our monthly passive income (not counting our 80k in IRA's), which includes business ownership income, interest income, and income from non retirement S&P 500 index fund and a REIT, is roughly around the same amount, assuming a high single figure annual rate of return from our index fund and REIT.  The business income and interest income is pretty predictable, the rest not so much, with a modest majority of total passive income coming from those two sources. 
         I would not want to try FIRE now because we are just entering this cross over point, and also our expenses may go up as the kids hit college age.  Right now one of our two kids doesn't have any desire to go to college, and the other one is starting at the community college soon.  I like the idea of building up a bigger cushion, or margin of safety before doing anything drastic FIRE wise, but its nice to know we are on the outskirts of FIRE land.  Also, I'd want to have a fairlyl big cushion to persuade my wife about this.  A coldwar Soviet defector analogy would be as follows.  If non-FIRE is the Soviet Union, and FIRE is the west, we have crossed over into Finland. Out of the Soviet Union for sure, but if the Finnish police catch us, we'd be sent back to the USSR, even though we can see the west from there.
   

forummm

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Re: Approaching the fiscal no-mans land between non-FIRE and FIRE
« Reply #1 on: August 09, 2015, 03:41:41 PM »
Congratulations on at least being close!

Is it going to change the way you approach anything in your life?

rob in cal

  • Bristles
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Re: Approaching the fiscal no-mans land between non-FIRE and FIRE
« Reply #2 on: August 09, 2015, 04:58:53 PM »
     I think the main things are that I would not be stressed at all to help my daughter through college even if she went to a pricier one for two years. Also, knowing that we are making such progress has inspired me to think about traveling alot in the summers.  Otoh, this would set back plans to reach full, complete FIRE, but I wouldn't mind if it meant we could really enjoy our summers.