Is FIRE next to impossible with children?

[Anonymous]

I am always amazed at people growing businesses so quickly from scratch. Would love to know what 700k poster does.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I quit my corporate job as a software engineer last year, just before turning 30. My highest corporate W2 income was $126k. If that seems low for a software engineer with 10 years of experience—yeah, but it was intentional. I was offered promotions 3 times during my long tenure at the same company and I refused each time. I needed my brainpower for my side businesses, so if it meant doing mid-tier software development work at the company—I'm all for it since I could do it on autopilot.

My personal cash pile is around $170k now, and I have one kid. I can tap into the cash flow from the business at any time, though I've barely needed to so far. My couple of businesses now make around $700k in revenue per year at roughly a 55% gross margin, and I try to reinvest as much as possible with the goal to 1.5-2x each year. It's been working out well so far.

We're burning through roughly $12k of our personal cash per month, with our only "splurges" being rent at $3,900/month for a 2-bedroom and a car at $995/month. The rest ($7k) goes mainly to Amazon for stuff, Costco for groceries, and a nanny for 12 hours a week to teach our kid a 3rd language. It still adds up, and our $170k would last only around 15 months... I'm worried about that, but I keep it all in investments. Interestingly, I had $170k when I quit my job a year ago, thanks to positions in QQQ, Treasuries, Bitcoin, and so forth. This allowed the business to grow from $400k/year to $700k/year while our personal cash pile stayed the same.

To get back to your original question—if we had one extra kid, our spending might go up another $3k/month, primarily due to the need for an extra room, making it $15k/month total. To bootstrap my businesses a few years ago, I loaned them $310k total, so in your case, you would still have $690k left. At $15k/month spend, it would last you 46 months, more than it took me to reach $700k/year from the businesses. If I chose to stop growing and just took in profits, at 55% margins that would be $385k/year, or $32k/month, which is more than the $15k/month needed.

Starting the businesses wasn't too difficult either. I was able to get them up and running while having a day job, working no more than 30 hours/week, mostly on weekends. Now that the businesses are set, I use AI and virtual assistants offshore to only spend about 1-6 hours/day on them (avg. 2hrs/day), leaving the rest of the time for my child, wife, and traveling. We just spent 3 months in Japan because why not—the yen is at an all-time low, and we're not locked to an office. Our own business means we control the rules!

At 2 hours/day on average, we're effectively FIRE with only $170k and I enjoy growing the businesses, so it's no chore either.

I have three kids. I can’t imagine murdering two of my unborn children for a trip to Japan.

Huh? I’m pretty sure this poster did not murder children. Having one child allows for my financial independence. Seems like this poster is doing a lot of things right!

How is it different? My wife wanted three kids and if I said no I want to retire early and goof off let’s just not have the two extra kids. Those two kids disappear

It is terminator movie where they try to kill the not yet born John Connor by killing mother pre his birth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am always amazed at people growing businesses so quickly from scratch. Would love to know what 700k poster does.

It wasn't super quick - the business was started in the summer of 2020, taking four years to reach $700k/year. This is my fourth business over the last 8 years, with the first and second being complete failures, generating less than $5k in revenue each. My third business, a software app launched in 2017, did better, hitting a peak revenue of $40k per month. However, it trailed off due to covid, and I eventually gave up on it. It still generates about $15k per month in gross revenue from the most dedicated customers.

The business in question (my 4th) is in real estate. We buy cheap land (below $40k), build cabins for short-term rentals with a general contractor (I had zero construction knowledge before this), refinance at 75% loan-to-value, and use the proceeds to start another. It takes 8-12 months to complete construction, and in that time, the previous cabin hopefully generates the needed 25%. If it doesn't, we add more personal money. We gained access to commercial construction loans after a couple of builds and accumulating 2 years of business tax history. This means we no longer need to have 100% of the money upfront, as the bank provides construction-to-permanent loans at 70-75%. So, we only need to buy land + 25% + buffer. This approach allows us to build 2-3 projects instead of just one. No magic involved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am always amazed at people growing businesses so quickly from scratch. Would love to know what 700k poster does.

It wasn't super quick - the business was started in the summer of 2020, taking four years to reach $700k/year. This is my fourth business over the last 8 years, with the first and second being complete failures, generating less than $5k in revenue each. My third business, a software app launched in 2017, did better, hitting a peak revenue of $40k per month. However, it trailed off due to covid, and I eventually gave up on it. It still generates about $15k per month in gross revenue from the most dedicated customers.

The business in question (my 4th) is in real estate. We buy cheap land (below $40k), build cabins for short-term rentals with a general contractor (I had zero construction knowledge before this), refinance at 75% loan-to-value, and use the proceeds to start another. It takes 8-12 months to complete construction, and in that time, the previous cabin hopefully generates the needed 25%. If it doesn't, we add more personal money. We gained access to commercial construction loans after a couple of builds and accumulating 2 years of business tax history. This means we no longer need to have 100% of the money upfront, as the bank provides construction-to-permanent loans at 70-75%. So, we only need to buy land + 25% + buffer. This approach allows us to build 2-3 projects instead of just one. No magic involved.

Thank you for explaining. I consider 4 years very quick! Sounds like an interesting business, though I'm sure very stressful at first.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I quit my corporate job as a software engineer last year, just before turning 30. My highest corporate W2 income was $126k. If that seems low for a software engineer with 10 years of experience—yeah, but it was intentional. I was offered promotions 3 times during my long tenure at the same company and I refused each time. I needed my brainpower for my side businesses, so if it meant doing mid-tier software development work at the company—I'm all for it since I could do it on autopilot.

My personal cash pile is around $170k now, and I have one kid. I can tap into the cash flow from the business at any time, though I've barely needed to so far. My couple of businesses now make around $700k in revenue per year at roughly a 55% gross margin, and I try to reinvest as much as possible with the goal to 1.5-2x each year. It's been working out well so far.

We're burning through roughly $12k of our personal cash per month, with our only "splurges" being rent at $3,900/month for a 2-bedroom and a car at $995/month. The rest ($7k) goes mainly to Amazon for stuff, Costco for groceries, and a nanny for 12 hours a week to teach our kid a 3rd language. It still adds up, and our $170k would last only around 15 months... I'm worried about that, but I keep it all in investments. Interestingly, I had $170k when I quit my job a year ago, thanks to positions in QQQ, Treasuries, Bitcoin, and so forth. This allowed the business to grow from $400k/year to $700k/year while our personal cash pile stayed the same.

To get back to your original question—if we had one extra kid, our spending might go up another $3k/month, primarily due to the need for an extra room, making it $15k/month total. To bootstrap my businesses a few years ago, I loaned them $310k total, so in your case, you would still have $690k left. At $15k/month spend, it would last you 46 months, more than it took me to reach $700k/year from the businesses. If I chose to stop growing and just took in profits, at 55% margins that would be $385k/year, or $32k/month, which is more than the $15k/month needed.

Starting the businesses wasn't too difficult either. I was able to get them up and running while having a day job, working no more than 30 hours/week, mostly on weekends. Now that the businesses are set, I use AI and virtual assistants offshore to only spend about 1-6 hours/day on them (avg. 2hrs/day), leaving the rest of the time for my child, wife, and traveling. We just spent 3 months in Japan because why not—the yen is at an all-time low, and we're not locked to an office. Our own business means we control the rules!

At 2 hours/day on average, we're effectively FIRE with only $170k and I enjoy growing the businesses, so it's no chore either.

I have three kids. I can’t imagine murdering two of my unborn children for a trip to Japan.

Huh? I’m pretty sure this poster did not murder children. Having one child allows for my financial independence. Seems like this poster is doing a lot of things right!

How is it different? My wife wanted three kids and if I said no I want to retire early and goof off let’s just not have the two extra kids. Those two kids disappear

It is terminator movie where they try to kill the not yet born John Connor by killing mother pre his birth.

You are dumber than rocks. Choosing not to have additional kids is not the same as murder.

[Anonymous]

You could still move to a foreign country and FIRE without a huge difference in amount. Maybe $3M with $4M to be conservative.

When I was in my 30s I thought about this a lot. Especially moving to the Caribbean. The problem is that we ultimately decided that we wanted our kids to have a different lifestyle than that. I’m not sure that the one we gave them was any better, just different.

That said, no regrets. My mentaility is more about working my tail off and creating cash flow, which I ultimately did. I ended up retiring by 45 with more than $30M. For now we are still in the DMV

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It'd be impossible for me. And I make seven figures. Sure I could do it but why would I want to? I like living large with my brood. Lots of beautiful vacations, a variety of activities for the kids, great food, beautiful home. A life of meagerness and penny pinching sounds wholly depressing. I enjoy my career for the most part, and am proud of the example I'm setting for my kids as a hardworking mom.

FIRE is "financial independence, retire early." Not for me.

Penny pinching is depressing for you. People are different. Don't assume that a penny pincher doesn't enjoy it. They probably enjoy it more than you enjoy your career. Working for someone else is depressing to me or even working for myself.
I don't work, I trade. I FIRED myself in mid 40s.
My kids don't need an example. They are the example.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I quit my corporate job as a software engineer last year, just before turning 30. My highest corporate W2 income was $126k. If that seems low for a software engineer with 10 years of experience—yeah, but it was intentional. I was offered promotions 3 times during my long tenure at the same company and I refused each time. I needed my brainpower for my side businesses, so if it meant doing mid-tier software development work at the company—I'm all for it since I could do it on autopilot.

My personal cash pile is around $170k now, and I have one kid. I can tap into the cash flow from the business at any time, though I've barely needed to so far. My couple of businesses now make around $700k in revenue per year at roughly a 55% gross margin, and I try to reinvest as much as possible with the goal to 1.5-2x each year. It's been working out well so far.

We're burning through roughly $12k of our personal cash per month, with our only "splurges" being rent at $3,900/month for a 2-bedroom and a car at $995/month. The rest ($7k) goes mainly to Amazon for stuff, Costco for groceries, and a nanny for 12 hours a week to teach our kid a 3rd language. It still adds up, and our $170k would last only around 15 months... I'm worried about that, but I keep it all in investments. Interestingly, I had $170k when I quit my job a year ago, thanks to positions in QQQ, Treasuries, Bitcoin, and so forth. This allowed the business to grow from $400k/year to $700k/year while our personal cash pile stayed the same.

To get back to your original question—if we had one extra kid, our spending might go up another $3k/month, primarily due to the need for an extra room, making it $15k/month total. To bootstrap my businesses a few years ago, I loaned them $310k total, so in your case, you would still have $690k left. At $15k/month spend, it would last you 46 months, more than it took me to reach $700k/year from the businesses. If I chose to stop growing and just took in profits, at 55% margins that would be $385k/year, or $32k/month, which is more than the $15k/month needed.

Starting the businesses wasn't too difficult either. I was able to get them up and running while having a day job, working no more than 30 hours/week, mostly on weekends. Now that the businesses are set, I use AI and virtual assistants offshore to only spend about 1-6 hours/day on them (avg. 2hrs/day), leaving the rest of the time for my child, wife, and traveling. We just spent 3 months in Japan because why not—the yen is at an all-time low, and we're not locked to an office. Our own business means we control the rules!

At 2 hours/day on average, we're effectively FIRE with only $170k and I enjoy growing the businesses, so it's no chore either.

I have three kids. I can’t imagine murdering two of my unborn children for a trip to Japan.

Huh? I’m pretty sure this poster did not murder children. Having one child allows for my financial independence. Seems like this poster is doing a lot of things right!

How is it different? My wife wanted three kids and if I said no I want to retire early and goof off let’s just not have the two extra kids. Those two kids disappear

It is terminator movie where they try to kill the not yet born John Connor by killing mother pre his birth.

You are dumber than rocks. Choosing not to have additional kids is not the same as murder.

It is for the grandparents. My cousin only could have one child. Their one child got married and is Fire decided no kids. She killed off whole bloodline

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I quit my corporate job as a software engineer last year, just before turning 30. My highest corporate W2 income was $126k. If that seems low for a software engineer with 10 years of experience—yeah, but it was intentional. I was offered promotions 3 times during my long tenure at the same company and I refused each time. I needed my brainpower for my side businesses, so if it meant doing mid-tier software development work at the company—I'm all for it since I could do it on autopilot.

My personal cash pile is around $170k now, and I have one kid. I can tap into the cash flow from the business at any time, though I've barely needed to so far. My couple of businesses now make around $700k in revenue per year at roughly a 55% gross margin, and I try to reinvest as much as possible with the goal to 1.5-2x each year. It's been working out well so far.

We're burning through roughly $12k of our personal cash per month, with our only "splurges" being rent at $3,900/month for a 2-bedroom and a car at $995/month. The rest ($7k) goes mainly to Amazon for stuff, Costco for groceries, and a nanny for 12 hours a week to teach our kid a 3rd language. It still adds up, and our $170k would last only around 15 months... I'm worried about that, but I keep it all in investments. Interestingly, I had $170k when I quit my job a year ago, thanks to positions in QQQ, Treasuries, Bitcoin, and so forth. This allowed the business to grow from $400k/year to $700k/year while our personal cash pile stayed the same.

To get back to your original question—if we had one extra kid, our spending might go up another $3k/month, primarily due to the need for an extra room, making it $15k/month total. To bootstrap my businesses a few years ago, I loaned them $310k total, so in your case, you would still have $690k left. At $15k/month spend, it would last you 46 months, more than it took me to reach $700k/year from the businesses. If I chose to stop growing and just took in profits, at 55% margins that would be $385k/year, or $32k/month, which is more than the $15k/month needed.

Starting the businesses wasn't too difficult either. I was able to get them up and running while having a day job, working no more than 30 hours/week, mostly on weekends. Now that the businesses are set, I use AI and virtual assistants offshore to only spend about 1-6 hours/day on them (avg. 2hrs/day), leaving the rest of the time for my child, wife, and traveling. We just spent 3 months in Japan because why not—the yen is at an all-time low, and we're not locked to an office. Our own business means we control the rules!

At 2 hours/day on average, we're effectively FIRE with only $170k and I enjoy growing the businesses, so it's no chore either.

I have three kids. I can’t imagine murdering two of my unborn children for a trip to Japan.

Huh? I’m pretty sure this poster did not murder children. Having one child allows for my financial independence. Seems like this poster is doing a lot of things right!

How is it different? My wife wanted three kids and if I said no I want to retire early and goof off let’s just not have the two extra kids. Those two kids disappear

It is terminator movie where they try to kill the not yet born John Connor by killing mother pre his birth.

You are dumber than rocks. Choosing not to have additional kids is not the same as murder.

It is for the grandparents. My cousin only could have one child. Their one child got married and is Fire decided no kids. She killed off whole bloodline

So what? Adults don’t have to have children they don’t want just so their parents will have grandkids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I quit my corporate job as a software engineer last year, just before turning 30. My highest corporate W2 income was $126k. If that seems low for a software engineer with 10 years of experience—yeah, but it was intentional. I was offered promotions 3 times during my long tenure at the same company and I refused each time. I needed my brainpower for my side businesses, so if it meant doing mid-tier software development work at the company—I'm all for it since I could do it on autopilot.

My personal cash pile is around $170k now, and I have one kid. I can tap into the cash flow from the business at any time, though I've barely needed to so far. My couple of businesses now make around $700k in revenue per year at roughly a 55% gross margin, and I try to reinvest as much as possible with the goal to 1.5-2x each year. It's been working out well so far.

We're burning through roughly $12k of our personal cash per month, with our only "splurges" being rent at $3,900/month for a 2-bedroom and a car at $995/month. The rest ($7k) goes mainly to Amazon for stuff, Costco for groceries, and a nanny for 12 hours a week to teach our kid a 3rd language. It still adds up, and our $170k would last only around 15 months... I'm worried about that, but I keep it all in investments. Interestingly, I had $170k when I quit my job a year ago, thanks to positions in QQQ, Treasuries, Bitcoin, and so forth. This allowed the business to grow from $400k/year to $700k/year while our personal cash pile stayed the same.

To get back to your original question—if we had one extra kid, our spending might go up another $3k/month, primarily due to the need for an extra room, making it $15k/month total. To bootstrap my businesses a few years ago, I loaned them $310k total, so in your case, you would still have $690k left. At $15k/month spend, it would last you 46 months, more than it took me to reach $700k/year from the businesses. If I chose to stop growing and just took in profits, at 55% margins that would be $385k/year, or $32k/month, which is more than the $15k/month needed.

Starting the businesses wasn't too difficult either. I was able to get them up and running while having a day job, working no more than 30 hours/week, mostly on weekends. Now that the businesses are set, I use AI and virtual assistants offshore to only spend about 1-6 hours/day on them (avg. 2hrs/day), leaving the rest of the time for my child, wife, and traveling. We just spent 3 months in Japan because why not—the yen is at an all-time low, and we're not locked to an office. Our own business means we control the rules!

At 2 hours/day on average, we're effectively FIRE with only $170k and I enjoy growing the businesses, so it's no chore either.

I have three kids. I can’t imagine murdering two of my unborn children for a trip to Japan.

Huh? I’m pretty sure this poster did not murder children. Having one child allows for my financial independence. Seems like this poster is doing a lot of things right!

How is it different? My wife wanted three kids and if I said no I want to retire early and goof off let’s just not have the two extra kids. Those two kids disappear

It is terminator movie where they try to kill the not yet born John Connor by killing mother pre his birth.

You are dumber than rocks. Choosing not to have additional kids is not the same as murder.

It is for the grandparents. My cousin only could have one child. Their one child got married and is Fire decided no kids. She killed off whole bloodline

So what? Adults don’t have to have children they don’t want just so their parents will have grandkids.

Young Adults are stupid as their minds are not fully formed. I had one friend who was original fire person. Got in IT earlier. Dropped out of college at 20 and retired 42 for food. I was at their wedding. Married a women about his age.

He was insistent no kids and wife was on fence. He went back to work full time at 52 an easy job as was bored so did wife but she works part time.

At his 60 birthday him and wife got into huge fight how he has a waterfront home, fancy boat, and money and no one to share it with. No kids to go to game, no one to take fishing, no one to leave money to.

Why did she let him do this. Was odd was his idea. But reality started to set in at 50 and by 60 he was furious with himself.

He is a dope. He has millions and wife a nurse even having two kids would not impacted much.

The money not meaningless. He actually has an estate in Turks and Caicos now where he will die alone and his assets split up.

[Anonymous]

The FIRE movement isn’t a good idea for most people. If you’ve done well professionally you can end up in your 40s in a career where you get paid a lot of money and still have time to enjoy your life outside of work. It’s less stressful for me to work and spend a lot of money enjoying life than it is for me to not work and scrimp and save.

My kids would also have to give up a lot to have unemployed parents. No expensive summer camp, frequent ski vacations, tutors, out of state college, etc. No babysitters so that mom and dad can have a break and focus on their marriage.

FIRE also doesn’t recognize how much you’re giving up by not having an income. My salary is $280k roughly. It’s not just that I’d need $280k from investments but I’d also be giving up $280k in earnings.

[Anonymous]

A lot of the FIRE claims, advocacy, and whatnot is just marketing. Many people claim to follow FIRE and advocate for it just to gain eyeballs for the ads on their social media sites. The real number of successful FIRE people is wildly smaller than the number of people who claim to have done it successfully.

Caveat Emptor.

[Anonymous]

If investments and income can get you to 30million by 35 sure. But definitely only have 1 kid. My sister isn't FIRE but manages to raise her kids on a shoe string while her DH retired (he inherited and they owned their house outright). She is an ED nurse and just picked up extra shifts when an expense popped up. That said, 4 kids, zero extracurriculars, zero enrichment of any kind. Travel was maybe driving to another state. Her kids were funnelled into community college and all live at home. One is now at the local 4 year. I have mixed feelings about what she did but it sounds like what the FIRE lifestyle would be with kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I quit my corporate job as a software engineer last year, just before turning 30. My highest corporate W2 income was $126k. If that seems low for a software engineer with 10 years of experience—yeah, but it was intentional. I was offered promotions 3 times during my long tenure at the same company and I refused each time. I needed my brainpower for my side businesses, so if it meant doing mid-tier software development work at the company—I'm all for it since I could do it on autopilot.

My personal cash pile is around $170k now, and I have one kid. I can tap into the cash flow from the business at any time, though I've barely needed to so far. My couple of businesses now make around $700k in revenue per year at roughly a 55% gross margin, and I try to reinvest as much as possible with the goal to 1.5-2x each year. It's been working out well so far.

We're burning through roughly $12k of our personal cash per month, with our only "splurges" being rent at $3,900/month for a 2-bedroom and a car at $995/month. The rest ($7k) goes mainly to Amazon for stuff, Costco for groceries, and a nanny for 12 hours a week to teach our kid a 3rd language. It still adds up, and our $170k would last only around 15 months... I'm worried about that, but I keep it all in investments. Interestingly, I had $170k when I quit my job a year ago, thanks to positions in QQQ, Treasuries, Bitcoin, and so forth. This allowed the business to grow from $400k/year to $700k/year while our personal cash pile stayed the same.

To get back to your original question—if we had one extra kid, our spending might go up another $3k/month, primarily due to the need for an extra room, making it $15k/month total. To bootstrap my businesses a few years ago, I loaned them $310k total, so in your case, you would still have $690k left. At $15k/month spend, it would last you 46 months, more than it took me to reach $700k/year from the businesses. If I chose to stop growing and just took in profits, at 55% margins that would be $385k/year, or $32k/month, which is more than the $15k/month needed.

Starting the businesses wasn't too difficult either. I was able to get them up and running while having a day job, working no more than 30 hours/week, mostly on weekends. Now that the businesses are set, I use AI and virtual assistants offshore to only spend about 1-6 hours/day on them (avg. 2hrs/day), leaving the rest of the time for my child, wife, and traveling. We just spent 3 months in Japan because why not—the yen is at an all-time low, and we're not locked to an office. Our own business means we control the rules!

At 2 hours/day on average, we're effectively FIRE with only $170k and I enjoy growing the businesses, so it's no chore either.

I have three kids. I can’t imagine murdering two of my unborn children for a trip to Japan.

Huh? I’m pretty sure this poster did not murder children. Having one child allows for my financial independence. Seems like this poster is doing a lot of things right!

How is it different? My wife wanted three kids and if I said no I want to retire early and goof off let’s just not have the two extra kids. Those two kids disappear

It is terminator movie where they try to kill the not yet born John Connor by killing mother pre his birth.

You are dumber than rocks. Choosing not to have additional kids is not the same as murder.

It is for the grandparents. My cousin only could have one child. Their one child got married and is Fire decided no kids. She killed off whole bloodline

Are they thoroughbred racehorces?

[Anonymous]

FIRE is countercultural. Have you seen how many people are negative about SAHMs? That's a proxy for the general belief that if you're not working you suck in this country.

If you wanted to do FIRE with kids, you and they would have to come to terms with the fact that extremely expensive hobbies are out. No travel soccer. No private lessons for the viola. Etc. Most people aren't willing to go against the culture on this one.