Reply to Has anyone here on a normal income successfully FIREd?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]You need to figure out what kind of childhood you want your kids to have. HCOL or LCOL, and what are you willing to deny them for the sake of FIRE? You also need to understand that if one of your children has significant special needs, it will be really expensive and any notion of FIRE will vanish immediately. Instead it will be work until 70 to pay for therapies and adult care.

What is your FIRE number assuming your kids will need a 3br home, health insurance, and college? Are you willing to deny them all sports and activities? Are you willing to make them go in-state or to a much less good college just for FIRE? It can be hard to find a woman who's on board with that.

I would really question your assumption that there's no rush to have kids. Plenty of women don't want an older husband or don't want their kids to have an older dad, and that's what you're on track to be if you don't get serious about dating very soon. Yes late-30s men can still date, marry, and have kids, but it becomes more and more of a liability. Especially if they don't earn that much. You don't earn enough to make up for it.[/quote]

Well, you didn’t answer the question, but you do raise some good points. My FIRE number is just for me, not for a family—my number is $2 million plus a paid-off $500,000 condo.  That would provide $60,000 per year (3% withdrawal), which is fine for me.

Obviously, that would not be enough to support a family, But I assume that my future wife will probably have another million dollars and some home equity (after all, given how much I value savings, I don’t see how I could end up with a spouse that has a fundamentally different view in that regard).

So with $3 million and a paid-off house, I figure that’s plenty for a LCOL area. And I’m not opposed to working in the future if needed – I just don’t want it to be a necessity.

Lastly, I guess I just disagree with your assessment that, in a few years, I’ll be too old to date. I’ve never heard of a 33-year-old woman that wouldn’t date a 39-year-old man. In fact, that seems to be more common than not in my experience.[/quote]

1) [b]Bwahahhaa to the idea that your wife will have a million dollars. By what age are you expecting this? From a woman younger than you? [/b]Who takes time out of the workforce to bear children, and who do you think will be the primary parent with the more flexible job? It doesn't sound like you're intending to be that person.

2) I think plenty of 33 year old women would consider being 39 a liability. It means you'll be an old dad, less energetic, and be an old man before she is ready. I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm saying it's not a positive thing for you on the dating market. You're already limiting yourself to the tiny pool of women interested in FIRE parenting. And of those women you only want one with significant savings. And now you're cutting it down further with your off-putting age. Your dating pool is more like a teaspoon. You need to open your eyes to the cost of raising kids, how tiring it is, and how being a decent parent makes it hard to maximize earnings.[/quote]

Ideally, I FIRE at 38 and then meet a woman who’s 33.  No kids yet so she’s been able to save that whole time—it’s reasonable for her to have $1 million by then.  I’m 33 now and have saved more than that on a normal salary—and could have substantially more had paying off my condo not been such a priority for me.[/quote]

My dude, if you are looking for 33 year old woman who has $1m saved at that time, who is willing to marry a 38 year old and live out her days on a tight budget in a LCOL area, you are looking for a unicorn. Why on earth would she be interested in that life with you? If you only MEET her at 38, you're 39 at engagement, 40 at marriage, and 41 at first baby, best-case scenario. I know you don't want this to be true, but women who are 33 and want kids tend to look for age-peers, not Old Dads.[/quote]

A 33 year old woman trying to date is too old for age-peers men. She has already faded and her biological clock is ticking. Men her age are looking for women in the 25-29 range. 
Unless she looks like a model, she is more likely to end with a 40 year old man.[/quote]

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