[USER]

Hi everyone. Im 31 no kids and discovered FI at 21. Due to having a low income potential, my FI strategy was working multiple side jobs in addition to my full time and aggressively saving for real estate, paying off student debt, simplifying my life, and house hacking once I bought property.

I successfully “semi retired” 6 months ago after a decade of intentionally working towards this. I could not be happier! I work a flexible part time job and manage my rentals.

I am really wishing my partner could also step down to part time. and I am wondering if people could look at our numbers for some input.

He wants to do it more than anything, but its a little scary since everyone else we know is working full time.

We live simply, we love to grow food, build soil, cook, volunteer, and be active. We have a very low cost life.

Heres the breakdown:
215k spread across HYSA, VOO/VTI, and stocks
825k property value
450k remaining mortgage @ 2.99%
$4,750 cash flow from rentals
$ 4,500 monthly expenses (includes mortgage, property tax, healthcare all necessities and some spending money)

$1000-$2000 post tax from my part time work monthly depending on how much work I choose to take
*** Ive been running rentals for 4.5 years now with no problems, I rent by the room to students, family, and friends.

His field pays more than mine and he’ll be able to pull around $2-3k post tax per month working half time.

Our income will be between $7750-$9750 monthly so we could still save and invest quite a bit.

The numbers always look insanely high to me, but do we really need that much..?

We can still save and invest $2-4K a month and most of my non FI peers don’t even do that with their dual full time incomes…?!!

Id rather enjoy our younger years and be rich in time instead of money. Id love to work part time into my 60s and beyond, I love my work, it was just too much full time.

[David]

The numbers look insanely high because you are usually looking at people a decade older than you in highly compensated fields. You are absolutely crushing it to be living on your own terms at 31.

Keep doing what you are doing. If your partner needs to stay full time for another year or two to build a cushion, then do so.

Personally, I would keep at the day job until we get to the other side of tariff negotiations and the global economy is looking stable again.

[Paul]

Are you married? If not, you might want to plan your FI separately to see if you could both be FI on your own before planning together.

If you are the one with all of the assets and in a few years, you separate, your partner will have missed out on accumulating their own wealth.

If you are married, those assets get split so it’s a different story.

[Valerie]

If you have $4,750/mo in rental income, multiply that by 12 and divide by a 4.7% return, and that’s like having $1,212,000 in a HYSA getting a 4.7% annual return.

So, in my opinion you’re good to retire as the rental income 100% covers your expenses plus you have additional income from part time work on top of that.

[Rodriguez]

The issue with your thought is that often in our senior years you have less energy, many times disabilities (arthritis, hypertension, heart issues, etc.

which are sometimes genetic and have nothing to do with how well you eat and exercise) that impede working certain conditions of work that would take a senior person much longer to recover from.

Also, could be a caregiver for a loved one. Lastly, agism is very real in the workplace.

I would make sacrifices in youth because in old age I want to be comfortable and afford certain luxuries like cleaning, and yard work help, and be able to travel in comfort.

[Lawrencia]

lol we’re in the same boat! Except I’m currently 25, married with a 9month old. I went part time working 2 days a week and bring in 2k a month.

I LOVE being home with my son.

And we’re still able to invest and started a business as well.

You’re young and you should live life! Enjoy!

[Rocky]

I went into mobile home rentals and retired from all 9 to 5s after 4 years with about $75,000 invested (land I already had though)
I have a $14,000 mobile home making $2000 a month on section 8.

In the right zip codes, you could get $3200 a month on a 3b2b mobile home that you picked up for $30,000.

Truth be told, numbers are all over the place and it’s easy to buck rule of thumbs you see everywhere.

I’d think nothing of cutting my spending by 30% in hard times if the markets are down… but some people can’t.

[Author]

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