Weekly “Help Me FIRE!” thread. Post your detailed information for highly specific advice - August 23, 2021

Hi all, I've been really interested in FIRE for the last few years, but now that I feel I am getting close am struggling to calculate how to know when I've made it. I've avoided making exact calculations and just focused on saving, but I feel like I might be within a couple years of having the option of quitting my job/going part-time and need help!
-36 / Graphic Design / San Francisco, CA
-General goals

I want to be able to "retire" from my job and freelance as much or as little as I want/can get clients.
-Target FIRE Age: Hoping sometime in the next 5 years / Amount / Withdrawal Rate: 3.5%? (does this seem right for erring on the side of cautious?) / Location : San Francisco

-Budget breakdown:

I am trying to be flexible on what I would be happy to live on in retirement but there are a few things I need to factor in

  • Hose Costs / Loan ending partway into retirement
    • Mortgage: $2,872 (last payment due May 2051)
    • House Insurance and Property Taxes: $1,425 (currently this is bundled into the loan, but once I pay off the loan I will still owe this
    • HOA: $890
  • I currently live on what I consider to be a fairly lean amount (for me) - Right now I am trying to keep my budget on the lean side (for me), which means that I am spending about $1200 per month after the above house expenses. I def. want more flexibility in my budge in the future, but can be flexible with how much. My current spending is the bare minimum I can support.
  • Large unexpected expenses. The living expenses I mention above are just for a normal daily life and do not factor in any emergencies like a broken fridge, or splurges like a vacation or home renovations. How do people factor in things like that?

-Career situation and plans / Current and future income breakdown, including one-time events

  • Work full-time as a graphic designer, 97,800k a year in salary, 401k has 4% match starting next month.
  • Work freelance (W9), income is highly variable, but last year I made about 65k gross and this year expect to pull in about 100k gross. Business expenses are comparatively low (probably about 8k MAX in a given year, usually closer to aobut 2k, but taxes are very high (I live in California so I generally set aside ~45% of my freelance income for taxes and this number is usually about right). Also, this number will not necessarily continue to go up—I would expect that next year I will likely be much closer to 65k again, though it's theoretically possible that if I went full time freelance I would be able to build this up more than it's been.

I plan to continue to work my freelance (W9) for the foreseeable future, but also am very risk averse and want to factor in the possibility that in a few years my work dries up pretty much entirely and I am unable to get it going again (I realize this is not likely, but why quit my Full-time if I could just work it a few more years and feel safe). Ideally I want to be able to get by if I had to take a part-time minimum wage job with the option to transition to being fully retired by 65.

-Asset breakdown, including home, cars, etc.

  • Investment account: $1,184,000
  • Roth IRA: $65,000
  • Inherited Roth IRA (must fully withdraw in 9 years): $55,000
  • Various Taxable Retirement Accounts: $184000
  • Own a Condo, 29 years left on Mortgage, have $709,751.86 left, interest rate is
    2.625%

-Debt breakdown

Debt free except Mortgage as detailed above
-Health concerns

No major concerns as of now, but I do have to see my doctor every 2 months for a minor, non life threatening issue. Medication is about $40 without insurance, $3 with
-Family: current situation / future plans / special needs / elderly parents

  • Father is elderly, but my sister and I have a separate well funded account to accomodate payments we expect to need to pay out for him.

-Questions?

- How do I factor in Health insurance costs, especially given that at some point I will be transitioning to Medicare. I am also thinking I might Barista fire (probably Starbucks or Chipotle so this complicates that further maybe—I am ok with having multiple spreadsheets based on different paths though—want to stay flexible!)

-Surprise Health issues?

- Factoring in other "surprise" costs or large expenses that I might need to make?

- How close am I? I'm having a HUGE amount of difficulty figuring out how to set up the calculations based on having both a full-time job and significant W9 work, especially as I give myself a SEP-IRA. (My tax lady tells me what my contribution to that should be every year and I do that—last year it was about ~9k, hopefully this year with my really good income it will be more)

- How do I factor in the taxes that will be owed on my withdrawals from investments/retirement accounts esp. since I will not owe them on my ROTH accounts?

- How do I factor in Social Security Payments? Should I even bother? At this point I have 17 years worth of credits and SSI thinks that if my income stays on the same track until 67 (spoiler, it wont! lol) that I would get $3280 per month at 67.

- Are there other things I'm not factoring in that I should be?

/r/financialindependence Thread