Most retirement income strategies assume spending will remain relatively stable over time. You retire, determine a sustainable withdrawal amount, and then spend roughly that amount for the rest of your life, perhaps adjusting for inflation along the way.  That assumption is so common that it often goes unquestioned. Yet there are retirement income strategies built on a very different idea. Rather than trying to keep spending stable, they intentionally allow spending to rise and fall over time based on portfolio performance, interest rates, […]

The most common question I get when being interviewed about FIRE is “What about health care?” It’s a big, scary question. Health care costs in America, if not managed properly, can easily run into tens of thousands of dollars per year, and that can really screw over someone’s FIRE plan. So we have to deal with it, but at the same time, the reason why it’s so difficult is that the game keeps changing. Health […]

Geopolitical conflicts often influence global energy markets, trade flows, and consumer prices within days. Events involving the United States and Iran have repeatedly demonstrated how regional tensions can affect oil prices, financial markets, and economic confidence. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and The World Bank have consistently noted that external shocks can create ripple effects that reach households far beyond the countries directly involved. Periods of uncertainty remind families why financial resilience matters. Rising fuel […]

I recently presented “Back to the Future: Is Your FI Journey Stuck in 2017” for the ChooseFI Los Angeles chapter–coming soon to the San Diego ChooseFI chapter! It struck me that back in 2017, most in the Financial Independence community would have said “let that Roth IRA grow tax free for as long as possible!” […]

This is a guest post from Chris at PortfolioAtlas (a tool that maps 100+ cities to the portfolio size you’d need to retire in each one). If you’ve been around the FIRE community for more than a week, you know the drill… Spend less than you earn, invest the difference, and let your savings rate do the heavy lifting. Push your savings rate from 40% to 50% and you knock years off the timeline. Push […]

How I Am Clearing $59,973.72 of Debt and Overhauling My Finances The Thrifty Issue is under new management! I’m Stephamie, and I will be sharing my debt journey, frugality tips, side hustles, all of it. In the past few years, I had some health and mental health issues, was unemployed for a period of time […] The post New Management + Financial Journeys Clearing Debt, Creating Side Hustles and Financial Freedom appeared first on The […]

Yup. It sounds crazy, but it can work. A low-taxed early-retiree spouse can contribute to a higher-taxed still-employed spouse’s RRSP to create a benefit. And if need be, the early retiree can remove funds from their RRSP or RRIF to make that contribution. We might call that a tax arbitrage. You might be in a situation when the early retiree is taxed at 11% for money on the way out of RRSP land. The money […]