FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early)

This is exciting for me because:

• I model ny taxes in my spreadsheet anyway, so I'm likely to notice a mistake
• I usually use FreeTaxUSA to file for free, and this means there's one less party to share my personal information with
• my state's taxes are pretty simple, so I don't need state-specific tax software

I hope this helps simplify things for some people and save a bit of money as well. I'm going to try it out next year.

Do any of you estimate your taxes? Are you interested in trying out this service?

Here are just the number for all of you degenerates who just want some milestones for your spreadsheets.

Average total retirement savings by age:

• <35 - $49,130
• 35-44 - $141,520
• 45-54 - $313,220
• 55-64 - $537,560
• 65-74 - $609,230
• >=75 - $462,410

Average 401k balance by age:

• <25 - $5,236
• 25-34 - $30,017
• 35-44 - $76,354
• 45-54 - $142,069
• 55-64 - $207,874
• 65 and older - $232,710

And retirement savings targets from various advisors:

Fidelity:

• 1x by 30
• 3x by 40
• 6x by 50
• 8x by 60
• 10x by 67

Rowley:

• 1x by 35
• 5x by 50
• 7x by 70

Anyway, do you like metrics like these?

Sorry last week's post was missing! I've fixed the bug and added better error handling that should notify me if it fails again. Thanks to yenahmik for letting me know about the problem.

I like looking at ERN's articles from time to time because they cover so much that I'm all but guaranteed to learn something.

This article is about how, despite the wealth inequality figures, the US is still doing okay when it comes to wealth accumulation. Here are some of my personal highlights from the article:

> If I want to put a positive spin on the unpleasant wealth inequality stats in the U.S., I would again point to the net worth chart by age group: Some of our inequality is due to the natural wealth accumulation lifecycle. For example, within my age group (45-49), the wealth Gini coefficient is lower: 0.769. Americans are very good at building assets, thanks to their entrepreneurial spirit and generous tax incentives, like tax-advantaged retirement plans and capital gains deferral.

And later:

> It’s also worth pointing out that the Gini coefficient decreased in 2022 and now stands at the lowest level since 2007, though still far above the Gini in the 1990s.

And this is an interesting alternative to some of the rhetoric I'm seeing about the eroding middle class:

> If we compare the wealth distribution in 1989 with 2022, most percentiles gained ground. True, the 1%, 5%, and 10% lowest percentile had negative to zero net worth figures. The 1% poorest got deeper into debt. But the middle class is getting richer, albeit modestly slower.

There's a lot here, and my takeaway is that FIRE should continue to be a possibility to the middle class and above. It's not a weird phenomenon that only a lucky few were positioned correctly to achieve, but conditions remain good if you want to put in the work to love below your means and invest consistently.

Anyway, I like looking at graphs and deep analysis like this. Please share your thoughts.

I was doing a little EOY accounting, and I wanted to see where I could afford to retire to with my current amount of investments. I searched a bit, but couldn't find anything good, and then I remembered the old /r/financialindependence sidebar.

Since I happen to be a mod, I went ahead and abused my mod powers and added it to the community info here. My wife is from another country, and we're not yet to the point where we could retire there, but we're surprisingly close, so I now have a new milestone to shoot for.

I don't know the methodology they use here, or how often it's updated, but I think it's fun to look around at options.

I remember another site that simply gave a list of countries in order from cheapest to most expensive and you'd enter your current assets and figure out where you could go. I thought it was a lot of fun to see what "upgrades" an extra year or two of working would get me, but I didn't bookmark it. If anyone can find something like that, please post it.

Anyone considering going expat? If so, does this resource seem accurate? Do you have others you like better?