These days I hardly ever think about money. It is quite the contrast from before when I’d check in on the stock market every day, do back-of-the-napkin math on investment opportunities, and follow the Federal Reserve for macroeconomic movements like a hawk. But after some reflection, I must admit that I am a little stuck in my progression towards FIRE. In this blog post, I want to share the 3 challenges all FIRE people go through and how one of them currently has me in a pickle. Are you ready? Standby. (FIRE update at the end)

2023 was a fantastic year for people who held on to their stocks–up ~25% for the year. Despite interest rates, the cost of housing, and the cost of cars still being high, it was an overall good year for investors. As long as you were in crypto, bonds, or stocks it was pretty hard to have lost money. In this post, I will go over some of the highlights of my year. Are you ready? Standby.

Over the last 8 years as a manager of engineers and having been in hundreds of conversations about promotion candidates, I have learned that there is a huge disconnect between employee expectations and reality. Specifically, there is a gap in understanding of the employee’s role in the promotion process vs their manager, of the employee’s impact vs how hard they work, and of the employee’s behaviors vs how they are perceived by others. If you are frustrated about your lack of promotion or just want to learn how the sausage is made, this post is for you. Are you ready? Standby.

4 years ago when I started MyRoadToFire I got a good amount of readers because the FIRE community was defining fatFIRE as having a net worth of $2,500,000 but I, and many of you, believed that to be too low. In 2019, I strongly believed that having $4 million would comfortably allow a family to FIRE. Fast forward to the end of 2023, I strongly believe that having only $4 million would be extremely risky for that same family to FIRE. So was I wrong? As one of my most annoying managers used to say “yes and no.”

For many, 2022 was a disaster year. Especially for me. I was set back by $1.84 million–yikes! Many people believe we still haven’t hit bottom yet and even fewer people believe that we will recover to 2021 levels in 2023. My prediction is that SP 500 will continue to hover around 3800-4200, mortgage rates will continue to hover around 6%, residential real estate prices will drop, but tech stocks will boom. Based on those predictions there are 3 areas I want to put my money to earn a positive return in 2023. Are you ready? Standby.

I started this blog almost 3 years ago with the goal of sharing my personal finance story with the world. I took the dive not knowing if people will care, or worse, feel resentment towards my success. But through this blog, I’ve reunited with some old friends and I’ve been introduced to new ones. We all share the same optimism around our own personal financial success. Additionally, I’ve had the pleasure to sit down with some people to listen to their stories and understand how they have achieved the American Dream. It’s very humbling to learn about their unique challenges and how they’ve overcome them. These are the exact stories that are missing from today’s mainstream media but are silently happening every day.

Several months ago I was delivering what may be my last downward feedback to the engineers on my team. At my company, we go through a lengthy process of 360 feedback and several rounds of calibrating with other managers to ensure fairness. And as I reflect back on my 6 years of being a people manager, there are qualities of employees that are more highly rewarded than others. Unfortunately, the hierarchy of importance of those qualities aren’t known to most people. In this article, I will talk about 4 of the top 10 ways I believe will make you a successful employee at a big company, especially if you’re still young in your career. Are you ready? Standby.

In case you missed it, you can find the other 6 ways in Part I and Part II.

Just 2 months ago I was delivering what may be my last downward feedback to the engineers on my team. At my company, we go through a lengthy process of 360 feedback and several rounds of calibrating with other managers to ensure fairness. And as I reflect back on my 6 years of being a people manager, there are qualities of employees that are more highly rewarded than others. In this 3-part blog series, I will break down the behaviors that are needed at different stages of your career in a big company. This is part II of a III part series. In Part II, I will cover 3 more behaviors and skills needed to excel after showing some success at your job. You can find Part I here. Are you ready? Standby.

Just 2 months ago I was delivering what may be my last downward feedback to the engineers on my team. At my company, we go through a lengthy process of 360 feedback and several rounds of calibrating with other managers to ensure fairness. And as I reflect back on my 6 years of being a people manager, there are qualities of employees that are more highly rewarded than others. Unfortunately, the hierarchy of importance of those qualities aren’t known to most people. In this article, I will talk about 3 of the top 10 ways I believe will make you a successful employee at a big company, especially if you’re still young in your career. Are you ready? Standby.

It’s been a while since I last posted and a lot has happened since. On the macro level, the stock market almost went into a bear market (defined as -20%) since the start of the year, Russia-Ukraine war started, home mortgage rates went from 3% to 5%, and baby formula cannot be found in some cities. On a personal level, my family finally caught COVID, my new home construction has been delayed by 4 months, I went through a re-org at work, I sold a ton of stock, I lost over $1,000,000 in portfolio value, I paid my $85K tax bill (not a typo), and I am now a father of 3 boys. In this blog, I’ll expand on my $1,000,000 loss, why I’m not concerned for myself, why I’m concerned for the bottom 90%, and what my plan is for the next 12 months.

I thought that when I hit my $4,000,000 FI number, I would immediately hand in my resignation letter and pack my bags the next day. After all, I’ll be financially independent. I’ll have enough f-you money to do whatever I want. Why would I care what my employer has to say? Well, I reached my FIRE number in the middle of 2021 and I’m still working 9 months later. Over the last year, as I quickly approached my FIRE number I learned a great deal on what it takes to retire early. I’ve been overly focused on achieving FI and it came so fast, that I was left ill-prepared to RE. In this post, I’ll outline 5 of the difficulties that I’m currently going through and why I haven’t been able to throw in that resignation letter…yet. Are you ready? Standby.

Do you and your spouse make more than $150K a year? If so, I am offering free financial coaching to you! I know that personal finance is hard but there’s no reason why you need to do it alone. Your traditional Financial Advisors will not know how aggressive you need to be in order to achieve FIRE or have the proper experience to coach you through difficult financial decisions while still prioritizing FIRE.

Have you ever wondered what it takes to become a self-made multi-millionaire? Or does it feel too distant that it’s just a dream? Is the American Dream dead for millennials and Gen Zers? Unquestionably, the world is rapidly changing, and our generation is left to navigate it with very little guidance. The jobs that our parents’ generations did to become rich most likely won’t make our generation rich. With that said, I strongly believe that the American Dream is still alive and that the recipe for success is a set of behaviors, not a set of instructions. My family came to America in the late 1980s as refugees, and in one generation have been able to go from the bottom 5% to the top 1%. In this article, I will distill it down to the 5 behaviors, with examples, that I believe is the foundation for financial and career success.

In this series, which I’ll call “Road to $1,000,000”, I will be constructing a portfolio that is more aggressive but still mainly grounded in dividend aristocrats. At the beginning of last year, I set out to run a $77,000 experiment where I only invested in dividend aristocrat stocks. After some consideration, I will be reusing that same account in order to build up a $1,000,000 portfolio alongside the rest of you! To help me get there quicker, I have also decided to double my weekly contributions from $1,000 to $2,000. The rest of this post will be focusing on what is in my new portfolio, how long I think it’ll take until this portfolio grows to be $1,000,000, and some exciting news on where I’m at on my road to FIRE. I promise there is no April Fools joke in here. Are you ready? Standby.

It’s that time of the year! I’m in the middle of writing annual performance reviews for my day job. And like all of the other managers, I needed a break from politicking. So I decided to spend a couple of hours reviewing my 2020 spending! Since I had a ton of fun doing it last year I thought I’d do it again. What a year! Standby.

Happy new year! A year ago, I started a new M1Finance portfolio where I picked several dividend stocks to invest in. The goal was to achieve similar returns to the SP 500 index but beat it in terms of dividends. As of the writing of this article, I’ve contributed $77,000 of my own money into this portfolio ($25,000 initially and $1k contribution per week). In this article, I’ll share the end-of-the-year results, how I’m doing against the market and my thoughts on the dividend aristocrat experiment. Finally, I will be sharing an update on what I plan to do during 2021--stay tuned!

I have spent a decent amount of time reflecting on my biggest money mistakes. 13 years ago I started on a journey to build wealth. I can’t say that I always did the right things. In fact, I made a lot of mistakes. And now looking back, those mistakes have amounted to $3+ million dollars in either lost opportunity or lost money. In this article, I’ll be talking about specific mistakes and try my best to quantify how much money was lost.

At the beginning of 2020, I started a new M1Finance portfolio where I picked several dividend stocks to invest in. The goal is to achieve similar returns to the SP 500 index but beat it in terms of dividends. As of the writing of this article, I’ve contributed $73,000 of my own money into this portfolio. By the end of this year, I will have contributed $77,000 ($25,000 initially and $1k contribution per week). In this article, I’ll share my M1Finance portfolio, how I’m doing against the market, my thoughts on the current stock market, and how I am doing against my FIRE schedule.

At the beginning of 2020, I started a new M1Finance portfolio where I picked several dividend stocks to invest in. The goal is to achieve similar returns to the SP 500 index but beat it in terms of dividends. As of the writing of this article, I’ve contributed $66,000 of my own money into this portfolio. By the end of this year, I will have contributed $77,000 ($25,000 initially and $1k contribution per week). In this article, I’ll share my M1Finance portfolio, how I’m doing against the market, my thoughts on the current stock market, and how I am doing against my FIRE schedule.

At the beginning of 2020, I started a new M1Finance portfolio where I picked several dividend stocks to invest in. The goal is to achieve similar returns to the SP 500 index but beat it in terms of dividends. As of the writing of this article, I’ve contributed $48,000 of my own money into this portfolio. By the end of this year, I will have contributed $77,000 ($25,000 initially and $1k contribution per week). In this article, I’ll share my M1Finance portfolio, how I’m doing against the market, my thoughts on the current stock market, and how I am doing against my FIRE schedule.

The cost of higher education has gotten expensive over the years. This means that being financially prepared for those 4+ years of college is more important than ever. As a parent of 1.5 kids (yes, one is in the oven), 529 plans have been top of mind for me especially during a market pullback such as now. In the following article I’ll share with you the reasons and best ways to utilize your 529 accounts. But first, what is a 529 plan? A 529 plan is essentially a brokerage account that is used specifically for education expenses. Anyone can deposit money into that account, and you can then purchase mutual funds that the plan offers. The gains that are made in that account can be spent tax-free. It is similar to 401k plans, used for retirement, or HSA accounts, used for medical care.

It is sad to see a lot of talented, former colleagues of mine get impacted as a part of the broad layoffs at companies like Lyft, Uber, and Airbnb. There will be at least dozens of thousands of highly skilled tech professionals out of work when it’s all said and done. And those who are fortunate to not be laid off, have already seen pay cuts (e.g. Lyft cutting 10% of base pay) or will see decreased future compensation (e.g. no yearly bonuses, suspension of promotions). On the bright side, there are still tech companies out there who are still hiring. As of the writing of this article, Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple are hiring. So if you’re looking for a new job, you still have the opportunity to earn the big $$$. The following are 5 tips I would give to anyone looking for a software engineering job today.

The main concepts of the FIRE movement started from a book called “Your Money or Your Life” in 1992. And in 2011 Mr. Money Mustache amplified those concepts by giving the average worker hope. That as long as they can increase their savings rate through frugality, they can one day live off of a “safe” withdrawal rate of 4%. It has since become popular amongst millennials and has branched into different flavors (e.g. lean FIRE, barista FIRE, fat FIRE). But for the first time in its short history, the FIRE movement is being challenged. Since 2011, the real estate market has been booming, exceeding its 2007 levels and the stock market has averaged a yearly return of 13.6% from 2011-2019. In other words, it has not been truly tested--until now.