Almost two years ago, I made a first post and shared our progress here. We were just settling into homeownership, starting to see some real traction with investing, and figuring out what FIRE might actually look like. Now at 31/33, we’ve made a lot of progress financially... but also feel more worn out by work than ever.
Numbers (then → now)
- Net worth: $600K → $1.1M
- Investments: $530K → $900K ($550K in retirement accounts, $350K taxable)
- Home equity: roughly $130K
- Income: $390K → $500K (tech + accounting)
- Savings rate: We’re currently able to put away ~$200K per year
- Mortgage rate 7.9% → refinanced to 6.5%
- FIRE target: Increased slightly from $1.6M → $1.8M. 2030 is the rough estimate, but flexible depending on markets and life
Where our heads are at
I'm feeling a lot of the drag of full-time corporate. I’ve been in tech for a little over ten years, and lately it’s been harder to stay motivated. There’s less energy for the bullshit meetings, endless jargon being thrown around, and staring at the computer all day.
That said, we’re very aware of how fortunate we are. No major health issues, no major financial curveballs. Just steady progress and good market tailwinds. We’ve been around long enough to know that won’t always be the case.
The main goal is freedom with our time: more space for hobbies, travel, and being with the people we care about. We’ve been lucky to take multiple sabbaticals before and are definitely open to doing that again before we hit our number.
Housing and lifestyle
We bought a home in a quiet part of our city in the PNW. It’s been nice, but I won’t pretend I haven’t had second thoughts. It’s not very walkable, and more than often I miss being closer to the kind of energy and convenience we value. We’ve stopped making big extra principal payments for now since we’re not sure how long we’ll stay.
Longer term, post FIRE, we’re strongly leaning towards moving to Asia. We’ve got family there, and we’re drawn to the lifestyle shift. The plan would be to live comfortably, travel a bit, and still have enough room in the budget to visit the US now and then.
Onwards
If our income and lifestyle hold pretty steady, we should hit our number around 2030. That’s probably a conservative guess. The market’s obviously been strong lately and helped push us forward, but we’re expecting some ups and downs ahead as always 🙂
We’re not sure if we’ll keep grinding straight through or take a sabbatical along the way. Either way, we’re focused on building a life with more flexibility and time doing things we love, while trying to enjoy the journey as much as we can.
If anyone’s got thoughts, we’d really appreciate input and feedback.
- For those who neared their number... what do you wish you had done differently in your final 3-5 years before FIRE? (did you push too hard? did you wish you had slowed down sooner?)
- Any red flags or risks we might be missing?
Thanks for reading. Always grateful for this community
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