The 9-5 FIRE Guide

FIRE vs. Coast FIRE

FIRE means Financial Independence, Retire Early. You save and invest hard in your 20s and 30s so work becomes optional instead of required.

Coast FIRE means you've invested enough that growth alone gets you to a normal retirement, even if you never add another dollar. You still work, but only to cover today's bills.

We're going for full FIRE. We're not crazy frugal either. We just don't spend money on stuff we don't care about, like new cars or a big house, so we have more for what we do care about, which is mostly travel and getting our time back.

Our story

When we met, we both wanted work to be optional so we could travel the world. Neither of us came from money, so we taught ourselves how investing works and started early.

• Our first contribution was $217. Start with whatever you've got. Time does more than the amount.
• We've never had a car payment. We buy older cars off Craigslist, cook at home, and our hobbies are cheap stuff like hiking and guitar.
• We fully combine our finances. Everything's shared and we don't keep score.
• We're about 10% of the way to $1.7M, and we track it publicly.

Honestly, most of it is just being consistent. We put money in every month, leave it alone, and let it grow.

What we hold

An ETF is a basket of hundreds of stocks you buy in one click. You own a slice of every company in it instead of betting on a few.

Want it simpler? VT is one fund that does what VOO + VXUS do together. Want the whole U.S. market instead of the top 500? Swap VOO for VTI.

Will this change? Yes. This mix is aggressive because we're years out. As we get close, we'll add bonds and trim QQQM so one bad year right before we quit doesn't force us to sell low. Your split should fit your timeline, not ours.

The four accounts

Open a Roth IRA in 15 minutes

1. Pick a broker. Stick with a big, low-cost one. See our Roth IRA picks →
2. Check the income limit. Roth IRAs have one. Over it? Look up the "backdoor Roth" later.
3. Open it online. You need your Social Security number and a bank account.
4. Automate it. Set up a recurring contribution so it happens without you.
5. Buy your funds. Money sitting in the account as cash isn't invested. You have to place the trade.
6. Leave it alone.

How we do it (and why)

We follow the plan at the top, with two changes:

• No HSA. We don't have a high-deductible health plan right now.
• After maxing both Roth IRAs, we split the rest 30/70. 30% into a Roth 401(k), 70% into our brokerage. Our emergency fund sits in a SoFi high-yield savings account. See our top 3 savings picks →

Why Roth instead of Traditional? Our tax bracket is low, partly because some of my military pay isn't taxed. A tax break now isn't worth much to us, so we pay a little tax today and let everything grow tax-free.

Why so much brokerage? We have a pension coming, so we skip the Roth ladder most FIRE people use (below) and pay for our early years straight from brokerage. If our income goes up, this could change.

The advanced stuff

Getting to your money before 59½

Your bridge is the years between quitting and turning 59½. That money has to come from accounts you can actually touch. Here's what you can use, in the order most people use it:

1. Brokerage. Yours anytime. Long-term gains can even be taxed at 0% when your income is low, which it usually is in early retirement.
2. Roth IRA contributions. Yours anytime, tax-free.
3. The Roth conversion ladder. After you quit, convert a chunk of Traditional 401(k) or IRA money to Roth each year. You pay income tax on that chunk the year you convert it, usually at a low rate since there's no paycheck. Five years later, it's yours penalty-free.
4. Rule 72(t). Fixed yearly withdrawals, penalty-free at any age. The catch: you must stick to the exact schedule for 5 years or until 59½, whichever is longer, or the IRS charges the penalty plus interest on everything you took.

The ladder, in one picture

Say you retire with $400,000 in a Traditional 401(k) and convert $40,000 a year. Brokerage covers your first five years. From year 6 on, you live on the conversion you made five years earlier.

That's why you spread it out. Converting all $400,000 in one year would push most of it into high tax brackets.

So if you plan to run the ladder, you only need about five years of money in brokerage. The rest can go into your 401(k) for the tax break.

Traditional or Roth?

2026 limits: $7,500 for IRAs (Traditional and Roth combined) and $24,500 for 401(k)s.

Quick answers

Before you go

This is how we invest, not personalized advice. Your situation is your own, so do your research or talk to a licensed advisor before big decisions.

If you want to follow along, we post our real numbers, good months and bad ones.