Momma, I did it!

8 years ago when I officially started my road to FIRE, I didn’t know what to expect. I can’t say that I truly believed it was achievable before 50 years old. And by “it” I mean amassing $5 million in net worth. If memory serves me, the original plan was $5 million by 45 years old. I remember telling my mom about this ridiculous plan to retire early. She didn’t give me much of a reaction. Kind of like when you told your parents you were going to the NBA in middle school or that you were going to be a YouTube star. It’s how parents react when they don’t want to bust their kid’s unrealistic dreams.

I kept going though--math don’t lie. I assumed that an annual rate of return of 8% while investing 6-figures into the stock market every year would get me there before 50 years old. But because I’ve never met anyone who has done it before, and all of my close friends were either doing startups or in grad/med school, it became a lonely road to FIRE. I walked this path alone for almost 3 years. During this time, I was making progress and on schedule. Even my serious girlfriend at the time, now wife, didn’t know about my plans. Part of it was because personal finance is very...personal. But the other part was that I was afraid I couldn’t achieve it. I was unmarried, had no kids, no house, and badly wanted to join another early stage startup. In summary, I can’t say that I was all that committed to FIRE in those first 3 years.

It wasn’t until I got married that I had really started to think about my future: where do I want to raise my kids, when do I want to move closer to my parents, etc. In 2016, I pulled an all-nighter building a spreadsheet with macros, formulas, conditional formatting, and financial assumptions for the next 60 years. That spreadsheet told me that I was on track for $5M by 40 years old. But as I made it clear to myself that I’d move to Texas instead of staying in the Bay Area, I calculated that I only needed $4M. I remember having the supreme confidence in my plan...it was now $4M by 37 years old. The confidence came from 3 years of following the spreadsheet and exceeding my own expectations in terms of income, investment returns, and spending. I was 29 years old and could see how, if I kept the course, I’ll be financially independent by 37 years old, pending any major recessions during those latter years.

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Then in 2018 I made a significant decision to quit my job at LinkedIn to join Google (31 years old). The pay bump plus market returns were so great, that it shifted my FIRE plans by 2 years ($4M by 35 years old). I told myself that I will not be changing this trajectory anymore even if I got more pay raises because there wasn’t enough time to compound in a significant way.

Finally, 8 years into my road to FIRE (34 years old), I am happy to announce that “momma, I did it!” My net worth is now exceeding $4 million! Over the last 3 years, my net worth got supercharged due to a doubling of compensation, a booming stock market, and an enormous market opportunity in COVID-19. This puts me 18 months ahead of schedule and that doesn’t include the significant chunk of stock I have in a startup.

The feeling of freedom and peace has never been greater for me. However, I’ve only been able to achieve the FI (“financial independence”) of FIRE. I’m now realizing that situating one’s life to RE (“retire early”) is harder than it looks. I still have some things to take care of like planning for kid #3, buying a house, physically moving, and converting more of my portfolio into dividend-paying stocks / mutual funds. More on that in a later blog!

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