My Road to FIRE

2026 is the year I'm betting on myself. Here are the 5 things I'm focused on—from growing SpendSense to leaving my job and building things I care about.

It's that time of the year again! The annual spending review. I spent $76,154.80 in 2025 on credit cards alone, tracking everything with my new tool SpendSense.

AI is reshaping software engineering. The engineers who will thrive aren't the ones who prompt the best—they're the ones who can move fluidly across disciplines and make good decisions fast.

I used to think hitting financial independence would flip some internal switch. That I'd wake up one day and suddenly operate differently—more sophisticated, more intentional, more free. I had a clear picture in my head of what post-FIRE life would look like. Turns out, the reality is messier than the spreadsheet ever predicted.

6 years ago, when I started this blog I had a goal of retiring and spending part of my free time building tools and community for the FIRE audience. Many things have changed, goals have been met, even exceeded, but my desire to continue to give back to the FIRE community is still there. I achieved FI by earning a decent salary as a high earning 9-5 employee, being financially active, not overspending, and repeating that for 15 years. Nothing special.

I’ve been a manager for 9 years, a Director for the last 3, running ~45 people across two orgs. By all external measures, I had “made it.” Titles, scope, social recognition, the kind of comp that makes FIRE possible years ahead of schedule. And yet, lately, I’ve been asking myself: what if I went back to being an IC? Not because I stalled out. Not because I couldn’t “climb higher.” But because somewhere between chasing FIRE and hitting it—I rediscovered something about myself: I actually love building things. Let’s break this down through the lenses that always mattered to me: FIRE, money, stress, fulfillment, and recognition. Are you ready? Standby.