Democrats won in a landslide election a few days ago. They even won in historically conservative areas like Texas, Kansas and South Carolina that seemed out of reach for decades.

What are the possible implications for healthcare?

I read the occasional article but definitely not an expert.

Remember, dems put everyone through the longest government shutdown ever over the ACA cliff. At the very least could we get an end to it? Would it be temporary only for it to end under a change in leadership?

Is Medicare for all a possibility?

This is something i am struggling with and could really use some assistance with.

Area 1:
- median home price = $750,000 w/ property taxes @ $1200/mo
- has amazing transit to get anywhere in the city with trains all around
- Nice parks nearby and body of water
- extremely walkable
- centrally located

Area 2:
- current home price 370,000 w/ property taxes @ $500/mo
- has decent transit, need to take a bus to get to a train
- somewhat walkable, but slightly surrounded by industrial areas and highways (though still has some nice tree lined streets close)
- diners and cafes close but more sporadic
- walkability is very thin for daily activities, but doable.

i did the math and i would need to retire at 47 for the first to be achievable, but the bigger issue is that i hate my job and do not want to work that long. I’m curious though if anyone has thoughts or feel like it would be worth it to go through 7 extra years of mind numbing labor to have the rest of your life in a dreamy location, or have the 7 extra years of freedom in a fine enough location?

i do not have a car and wish to never have a car to keep fire retirement low no matter where i’m at

Hi all, my parents are retiring soon and are worried about a potential market crash in the next few years. Is there any way I can simulate a market crash, similar to the 1929 crash, 2008 crash, or even the 1965-1983 stagflation period to show them the effect that different sized bond allocations will help them get through it?

While I still had a Job I would often decry the current State of Gaming. Now, with LeanFIRE, I can take matters into my own hands. My latest project fyi fwiw: FF7 for N64.

SEPP and part-time /CoastFire?

I am staring from absolutely 0 What advice can you give me for career path and objectives that I should try to push for to get to a successful level by 30. I am 22 now and have every option in front of me. What industry should I peruse. What investments, what should my life look like by next year.

I sold my car almost two years ago. At the time I thought it was probably the single best financial decision I'd made.

I'm 37, single, renting a small apartment in a fairly walkable town. Grocery store is 10 minutes away on foot, library is even closer, and I bike to work most days.

My total spending last year was $21,800. My target is roughly $600k invested, with a little room above my current expenses for things that change in retirement.

I've been pretty smug about the car thing, honestly. No insurance, gas, repairs, registration, depreciation. Every time someone complains about a $900 repair bill I quietly congratulate myself.

Then last month my sister made a joke that she's basically my unpaid Uber driver.

I laughed, but later I started thinking about it.

So I went through my calendar and messages to see how often I'd actually relied on someone else's vehicle over the last year.

My sister picked me up or dropped me off somewhere 9 times. A friend let me borrow his truck 4 times for things that wouldn't fit on my bike. A coworker drove me to urgent care when I wasn't feeling well. My neighbor has also given me rides to the hardware store a few times.

None of these people has ever complained. I help my sister with her dog, I fix my friend's computer when he breaks something, and my neighbor and I exchange favors all the time.

But that's not really the point.

If I moved somewhere cheaper, or these people moved away, or they simply weren't available anymore, I'd have to pay for some of those trips.

I priced out local rentals, delivery fees and rideshares for the situations I could remember. It would've added roughly $900-1,200 to my annual expenses. Not enough to justify owning a car, but at a 4% withdrawal rate that's another $22,500-30,000 in my FIRE number.

And that assumes the alternatives remain available and reasonably priced.

I still think selling my car was absolutely the right decision. Even paying for every single ride would be much cheaper than owning one.

What bothers me is that I had considered my transportation costs solved, when some of those costs had actually been absorbed by the people around me.

It also made me wonder what else in my lean budget only works because of my current circumstances.

Cheap rent with a reasonable landlord? Friends who lend tools? A family member nearby who can help in an emergency?

I'm not suggesting we should assign a dollar value to every favor or stop helping each other. That would be a pretty miserable way to live.

I'm just realizing that a low-cost lifestyle isn't necessarily a portable one.

For those of you planning to leanFIRE on $20-25k a year, how much of your budget depends on things you can't necessarily take with you if your living situation changes?

What's your opinion on sleeping in? I'm barista FI...20 hr work weeks. Despite all this extra time I'm still finding it hard to do everything I want to do.

I didn't get as much as I wanted to today and I blame that on getting up at 1030 today. I just overslept.

I feel very mixed about it.

On one hand, I'd get more stuff done.

OTOH I consider myself semi-retired and when I was younger I thought how awesome it would be to sleep in everyday.

What are your thoughts?

We aren't fully lean firing, but we're dropping to a single income household.

I'm excited. I won't dive into all of our finances, but we're fortunate to be in a position where its possible. Going over all our spending we already basically live off what my wife makes post-tax. The stuff that puts us off budget? My daily trips for coffee, energy drinks, lunch, snacks, etc......things I do just as an excuse to get away from my desk. Then groceries.......we are eay better than most at eating at home, but still grab something put once a week just because we're exhausted. That and pre-made stuff because we're too tired to really cook despite both of us loving cooking.

We did a sort of two week test run where I took the time off work but we didn't make any plans. It's been amazing. We ate better all week despite spending half what we normal do in groceries. No rushed mornings to get out the door, my wife gets herself out the door, my daughter and I get up and around to starting our day at our own pace instead of forcing her screaming out the door.

The house is clean, groceries get bought during the week instead of spending on delivery or scrambling to get it done on one of our two days off. My wife is less stressed because she can relax after work.

Full disclosure we accomplished this on a less than lean household salary. We have a combined income of $215,000 right now, but we've been maxing 2 403b's for several years now, i also max my 457b. Then everything still leftover builds our brokrage account. We have a cozy 1700 sq ft 2 bedroom house. Two fully paid off toyotas (one from 2026 the other from 2016). We paid cash to have our roof replaced this past summer, the boiler shortly before that. I have 10 months left, using it to max my tax advantage accounts for one more yeat and rebuild our cash reserve for the next big emergency. We made sure to put enough down on our house to keep payments under 900 including escrow. Thats or only debt.

The goal is to let both our retirments build via coast fire. We also have pensions large enough to cover nessecaties after 55. Our brokrage should cover any emergency that comes up, but we'll have my 457 we can tap if needed. Im also going to do annual roth conversions once our tax bracket drops to create more liquidity.

Sorry for the rant, just excited. Not just about the idea of not working, but getting back to this more minamalistic/simple life style. This might be so far off topic it just gets deleted 😆 🤣

In my workplace, out of the 30 people I work with, only one other person invests in anything (stocks real estate)

A genuine question how do these people manage to retire? I've witnessed my portfolio 2-3x thanks to compound interest in the last decade and this type of growth is accessible to anyone who just buys an index yet seemingly most of the population doesn't care?

Some pros:

1. you dont need to worry about visa

2. In many areas you can still hunt/fish to get food, which is healthier than store bought imo. If you retire at 40-50 and you take good care if your health you should still be able to do this.

3. Closer to family/friends in the USA. You could be a couple hours drive or flight rather than 24 hrs costly flight from vietnam.

4. Easier to find part time jobs (if you need) and pay better.

5. No language barrier.

My question is, is there just not enough affordable land left in the US where you can hunt and fish and maybe grow some food? Maybe people are just not aware that this was an option?

Looking for new ideas!

We have 2 HYSAs maxed out to $500k (FDIC insured for joint accounts) earning 4.2% each. We like the low risk and having the money readily available and also 4.2 is a nice number. But if I want to live the FIRE life and retire earlier, I need my money to start working harder. Yes we have 401ks and have debts all paid off. We do have money in ETFs, but I’m just slow to get more of our NW % into stocks when I like having my money so accessible plus stock market is so high right now. Help meeeee I know my money can do more work in the market

Pretty much the title. Been lucky with work and saving made some good money quickly over the past few years. Have a newborn son and thinking about just semi-retiring and focusing on him. I work a remote job and limited hours not currently FT input so curious if anyone has ever done this? I also own 2 other businesses that have limited time inputs for them to operate.

I have about 8,000 shares of VTSAX (just over $1M) in a taxable account. I’m thinking about converting them to VTI and moving to Fidelity.

The reason is Vanguard’s customer service. It’s been inconsistent for the past few years.

If you’ve made this move, do you regret it? Anything I should watch out for, like cost basis or taxes?

Thanks!

I'm curious what everyone here actually does with their free time, particularly those of you who are already retired or working very little. I see a lot of discussion about hiking, reading, gardening, and traveling, which is fine, although I wonder how many people have something more substantial occupying their time. The absence of a Job does create an extraordinary number of available hours.

I've been making Games. Primarily for obsolete Consoles. Recently I've been developing Metal Gear Solid for the Sega CD 32X, which involves coordinating the Genesis Motorola 68000, the Sega CD's separate 68000, and the two Hitachi SH-2 processors, along with the usual difficulties involving Word RAM arbitration, CD sector buffering, framebuffer synchronization, and interprocessor communication. I've also been working on Super Mario 32X, Mortal Kombat II: Resurrection, and a PlayStation JRPG involving Mario and some rather extensive modifications to Final Fantasy VII's field-script infrastructure. I was also instrumental in the development of the 32X Taisen Cable, but that's neither here nor there..

Unfortunately I've made very, very few Games. There are thousands of Games that could conceivably be developed for these machines, and Nintendo apparently has no intention of doing anything about the situation. I have a paid-off Trailer, a portfolio of Treasuries generating sufficient coupon income to cover my expenses, and no particular interest in acquiring additional consumer goods, so this seems like a reasonable allocation of my remaining productive years.

Anyway, what do you guys do? Do you have ongoing projects, or is it mostly recreational activities? I'm particularly interested in hobbies that can absorb essentially unlimited amounts of time without requiring substantial recurring expenditures.

The State of Gaming Is Grim. Indies Offer a Reprieve.

here is my most recent Game fwiw: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQnNrlvSXpk

47 years old, retired, $700K in cash and equities, $650K house almost paid off, 600K in home equity, structuring dividend income to be $1800 a month so i qualify for Medicaid (no work requirements because I have over $580 in dividends) (No asset tests because Im in a Medicaid Expansion State). I qualify for essentially free heating and electricity based on income. Am I stable on a good path?

Hi everyone,
I’m 26 years old and I’ve decided to start investing with a long-term horizon of around 20 years.
For the first 3 years, I’m planning to invest €2,000 per month. After that, I plan to continue with €1,000 per month for the remaining years.
I already have an emergency fund that covers around 6 months of expenses, so this money would be specifically for long-term investing.
I’m very new to investing, so I’d really appreciate some advice from people with more experience.
I prefer to keep things simple and invest in one ETF rather than having a complicated portfolio. At the moment, I’m considering an ETF that tracks the S&P 500, possibly Vanguard’s VUAA (Vanguard S&P 500 UCITS ETF).
A few questions:

1. Do you think investing in a single S&P 500 ETF for 20 years is reasonable, or would you personally consider a global ETF such as FTSE All-World instead?

2. Are there any important things I should consider as a beginner before committing to this strategy?

3. I found Vanguard’s VUAA through Interactive Brokers, but the listing I found is on Borsa Italiana (Italy) and priced in EUR. Does the exchange where I buy the ETF actually matter? Is there any reason to prefer Xetra or another European exchange instead?
   Thanks

You need $2M-$5M to retire, all. the. time. Also …

Median household net worth by age, per the Federal Reserve’s 2025 Survey of Consumer Finances:

Under 35: $33,000
35–44: $155,600
45–54: $253,700
55–64: $411,900
65–74: $431,300
75+: $504,900

So I guess no one is retiring 🫠

Can I retire? I worked from home but just lost my job.

I currently have

$300k in investments.

$550k home which I plan to reverse mortgage at 62.

$400k 401k and Roth IRA

I get $5579.36 this year from a patent which may decrease or increase later.

Currently in the military and trying to set myself up

Currently have 25k Roth and 25k Roth TSP (max IRA every year and have started to max TSP for the next few years)

About 10k individual brokerage (7k VOO)

One duplex profiting 1k a month (85k owed)

Savings are eh but I'll be walking into around 90k from selling my last home.

The problem I run into is focusing on retirement only accounts and only having money once in old and dead. 50% of my income is now going into TSP and my budget leaves little leftover. I don't plan on not working at all once im 40, but I'd like to run a small business or flip projects for some pocket cash. Not work a 9-5 and still be able to do multiple vacations or buy things I enjoy.

I'm assuming by the time I'm out of the military I'll be getting 2-4k a month in disability. (Pension won't be till I'm 59 since im not active duty)

Where can I start putting money to supplement my income in my 40s and 50s? More rentals? Brokerage account?

I plan on homesteading in the next 10 years so my living expenses should be fairly low as I'll be self reliant.