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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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.[/quote]

That’s a lot more complicated than getting paid double or more at your main job for 10 years, growing a $million+ nest egg, and investing that. 
[/quote]

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