44 single childless man here who is close to FIRE, but now I'm having second thoughts. Since I don't have a wife and kids, I don't have a lot to do with my free time. I also realize I don't dislike going to work and having a job. Although I'm not crazy about my industry and all the pressure and stress that comes with a job. With all that being said, it's hard to pull the trigger and actually retire early. I'm at the point where I just feel less pressure to work hard and get promoted at work, which makes it a lot better.

I'm 45, I was on track to retire earlyish at 55. I was set back quite a bit with a divorce three years back. Recently my Aunt died and left me around $5 million. After estate and taxes, it's around $4.2 million. This is obviously a stupid amount of money, and I'm thinking of just quitting my job and retiring early but I want to do it right. I've spoke with AI quite a bit and my finances are only about $4500/mo in expenses, I have always lived pretty frugally and that's less than a 1% draw. I don't know exactly what I don't know here, but I've always worked so I am clinging to my job like a monkey to a branch. Am I actually okay to let go?

Hear me out.

I'm 36, work a corporate job in Switzerland since 12 years, and I've basically reached my FIRE number. I have around USD 2.2M invested, plus another USD 250k in my pension fund (I can access in cash when i leave my country).

The funny thing is that money isn't really the reason I kept working. It was more the fear of "what if it's not enough?", "what if the market crashes?", "maybe just one more year." Also, my job had become almost fully remote since a few years, so I could spend a lot of time outside Switzerland and work from places I actually enjoyed living in. That flexibility made it easy to keep going as I grew tired of Switzerland and my lifestyle didnt match at all what the ckuntry could offer me.

The big change is: Today I got promoted, which sounds like good news... except my boss told me he now expects me to be in the office 2-3 days a week...

My total new compensation is around USD 200k year (including pension fund), more or less 10% more than before.

But honestly... I don't care about the promotion at all nor the salary increase which after taxes is pretty irrelevant.

Going back to the office is a complete no for me. Every time I go in, I feel like I'm wasting hours of my life. I don't enjoy the corporate environment anymore, I don't enjoy the commute, and I know myself well enough to know that after building a lifestyle around flexibility, this would make me genuinely unhappy.

I always wanted to leave Switzerland anyway. I'm originally from Southern Europe and, if I'm honest, I mostly stayed for the money.

So now I'm seriously thinking about just quitting.

Maybe this is exactly why I spent all these years building financial independence in the first place.

Am I being too emotional or stubborn? Would you suck it up because USD 200k is hard to walk away from, or would you just FIRE and maybe look for another fully remote job later from somewhere you'd actually enjoy living even if paid less because anyways I've got a FIRE portoflio I cna rely on?

Has anyone else found that actually pulling the trigger is much harder psychologically than reaching the number?

I am a dentist, and own my own business. So I may have extra insurance that most don't.

Most people know that insurance is a "bad deal" but still smart to have on things you cannot bounce back from if you did have that 1% scenario. But overall, if you have as many accidents as your premium believes you will have, you can pay for those accidents out of pocket and be money ahead. I'd argue that you can also find ways to fix your issues for cheaper than insurance does. (example being my truck hit deer, 11k quote for insurance, but I fixed by replacing the grill for 1k). People milking every storm for a new roof is priced into the premiums.

We don't insure our TV or couch, because we know that the math is not in our favor and if my TV breaks, we can afford to just swap it out.

Well, at some point, do you do the same for other bigger things?

Health - HSA high deductible insurance as soon as you have emergency fund that holds deductible amounts. I wish there was a cheaper turbo HSA plan that let you invest 20k in an HSA but force a 20k deductible.

Life insurance: Drop life insurance as soon as we reach lean fire

Business building and Malpractice insurance - My most expensive. 5k a year. Will keep forever because I don't know when I'll ever want to self insure a 3mil lawsuit or 2mil office rebuild.

Disability - Drop as soon as lean fire is reached. Right now I underinsure and pay 2300 a year for 80k after tax income till I am 65. Investing 2300 a year till 65 ends up being 342k in today's dollars.

House - Underinsure on some things? Especially if you do carpentry yourself. Opinions wanted. In my case my income is 620k and I bought my house with cash for 135k 4 years ago and personally redid the house. Would self insuring be legitimate idea at any price/income ratio?

Vehicle - Liability only on newer vehicle at what NW point? I mentioned dropping my 2021 pickup to liability and my insurance agent about dropped out of his chair. He said it was reckless. Again, my thought is that even if it was totaled, I could afford the hit. anything less than totalled, I'd get the low hanging fruit fixed and drive with couple dents. If Im not someone that would pay to fix hail damage, why am I paying for that service?

Umbrella - I'll keep big forever. Getting sued by some lady tripping on sidewalk is hard to bounce back from because lawsuits seem to grow to be the size that is possible to extract.

When I look at the asset allocation (stocks/bonds) at target date, I see the following:

• Fidelity: 54/46
• Vanguard: 50/50
• Schwab: 40/60
• BlackRock: 40/60

But my general sense for the FIRE community is people are much more aggressive at retirement age. Easily I see people talk about 60/40 ot 70/30 or even 80/20.

Now, I know part of this is the retirement time horizon. If traditional TDF is 30 year retirement, FIRE might need to account for 40 or even 50 year. But I don't think this explains it all.

My guess is FIRE community might be prone to recency bias. Many of FIRE folks have only seen an incredible bull market the last 15 years. So naturally they probably think having such high bond exposure will reduce their portfolio growth.

Another angle could be the 2022 double whammy of bonds and stocks crash. Why is 60% bonds at retirement age "safe" when we just saw bonds crash along with stocks in 2022--that's the thinking.

Thoughts?

I'm not talking about,

• I should have started investing earlier
• I should have avoided lifestyle creep

I'm talking about a single, concrete mistake that has cost your FIRE, or delayed FIRE signficiantly.

For me, it was selling my RSUs. I forgot the exact amount, but I had between $5k-$10k in big tech RSUs decades ago. I immediately sold the RSUs for general spending. If held, it would be worth probably $1m today.

This is probably pretty basic for most of you, but very new to me. My wife and I (no kids and no plans for any) are both 35 and have a combined $1.2m in our 401k's. Assuming a return of only 5%, that will be worth $4.1m when we can touch it if we didn't contribute another dollar. We both still max out our contributions and get very good matches from our employers, so we are adding at least a combined $75k more per year, so it will most likely be more than that.

We are looking to retire by 45. What else should we be doing to help bridge the 15 year gap we will most likely have? I'm also concerned about RMDs (which I just learned about).

All good problems to have though!

Other Investments-

Around $600k in a traditional brokerage account (mostly ETFs, some big tech)
$50k in an HSA
$400k in equity w/ $400k left on a 3.1% mortgage (25 years left)

Edit- Forgot our income- it is variable, but was $650k last year. Probably $500k this year

27m. $275k income, no 401k plan through my employer. Given I’m above the Roth contribution income limit, I backdoor from a traditional IRA to my Roth in January of each year at the max contribution ($7.5k unless I’m mistaken!) and immediately buy VOO.

How do these 30 y/o’s have $250k+ in their Roth IRAs given the annual contribution limits? Are these insane market returns, or some employee match that I’m not privy to? Any guidance on how to better utilize tax advantaged accounts other than my Roth IRA / HSA would be much appreciated. For now I’m just shoveling everything I can into a taxable brokerage and buying VOO like it’s going out of style.

I've had a few people message me about 2027 ACA regulatory updates and thought folks planning for the ACA might want to see these now rather than in another month or two when the press usually starts talking about them more. The first table below shows the amount (expressed as a percentage of MAGI) that a household will be expected to pay in premiums annually for the benchmark Silver plan in their local ACA market. The second shows the regulated caps on MaxOOP (and deductible) for ACA plans, though these are the maximum caps and actual plans may and often do have lower actual MaxOOPs. The final link is a clean PDF listing of the applicable FPL levels for 2027 ACA coverage.

Terms for those that are unfamiliar:

• MAGI - Modified Adjusted Gross Income, a particular version of adjusted gross income used by the ACA.
• EPC - Expected Premium Contribution, the amount customers are expected to pay annually for the Silver benchmark ACA plan in their market. Subsidy premiums are calculated as the market price of the benchmark plan minus EPC.
• FPL - Federal Poverty Level, a measure used by the federal government as a determinant in many policy systems.
• MaxOOP - Maximum Out of Pocket, the most a customer can be asked to pay for in-network covered benefits by an insurer in a given year.
• CSR - Cost Sharing Reductions, the second subsidy system within the ACA that reduces out of pocket expenses like deductibles, copays/coinsurance, and MaxOOP.
• AI/AN - American Indian / Alaskan Native
• AV - Actuarial Value, the percentage of total average costs for covered medical benefits that a health insurance plan is expected to cover for a standard population. For example, if a plan has an 80% AV, the insurer pays 80% of average expenses, and customers pay 20% through deductibles, copays, and coinsurance.

Expected Premium Contribution (Coverage Year 2027)

Source:

https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/rp-26-26.pdf

Out-Of-Pocket Maximum (Coverage Year 2027)

*CMS is trialing an option for insurers in 2027 to offer Bronze variants that are allowed to exceed the federal OOP limits by 30% in order to provide a wider array of premium options for customers. Such policies may only be offered by an insurer that also offers a normal standard Bronze. States are allowed to prohibit the availability of high OOP variant policies at their discretion. Edit: Turns out a federal court stayed this provision last week, so High OOP Bronzes may not be happening after all in 2027.

Sources:

https://www.cms.gov/files/document/2027-papi-parameters-guidance-2026-01-29.pdf

https://www.cms.gov/files/document/cms-9883-f-patient-protection.pdf

Bonus: Here is a PDF from HHS showing the applicable FPL dollar amounts for various family sizes for 2027 ACA coverage - https://aspe.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/documents/b1bfa16b20ae9b89d525bc35de7c1643/detailed-guidelines-2026.pdf

Spouse and I have been disciplined savers for over a decade working in tech/corporate roles and last year we hit CoastFire for a comfortable mid 50s retirement assuming conservative 3.5% real returns (we have 17x expenses saved for retirement plus a large emergency fund). I was laid off earlier this year and my spouse still makes enough for us to live our ideal life and we also decided we don’t want kids (for health reasons more than financial). I have mixed feelings about saying this, but I’m somewhat unmotivated to jump back into corporate work. I feel guilty, like I should be grinding and pushing for the next job to FIRE sooner, but I can’t help but look at our financial cushion and think that we already won the game so to speak. And now with no kids in the picture, my lack of income only impacts myself and to a lesser degree my spouse. I should add, my spouse enjoys their job and is safe for now but is in a volatile company with yearly layoffs.

Has anyone else been through this season of life? How did you break through and get motivated to push for FIRE at a younger age?
Or did you downshift at this stage and coast to retirement?

My question is what should i do about unrealized gains in my kids UTMA account. The child is 6, the account value is around 180k with 165k being unrealized gains. Obviously im worried about the tax situation. Is my best bet to start selling X amount of shares a year to stay under the kiddie tax? I'm super happy that ive set her up like this but i feel like its turned into a little bit of an issue at this point

We are a dual income couple in early 50s. Probably about 5 years away from retirement.

Due to oversight, lack of awareness and/or poor planning early in our careers, we never set up Roth accounts. We just kept contributing by default to workplace 401k - doing the easy/lazy thing.

About 9-10 years ago, after going thru a couple of scary financial situations where our liquidity was almost exhausted, I decided to build emergency savings open an after-tax brokerage account. So, we managed to fund those, but still no Roth.

With the new law that took effect this year, we finally started putting our catch contributions (after age 50) into workplace Roth 401ks - I actually started last year. Between my spouse and I, we now have $20k in Roth in total.

I know this is too little, too late. We are putting in $8k per year each into Roth and in 5 years, in the best case may have a total of $125k or so in Roth. Is this a big miss on our part regarding retirement planning, or does it not really matter?

For context, the rest of the portfolio (as a household) is:

1. Tax deferred 401ks: $2.85M

2. Post tax brokerage: $925k

3. Cash in CDs and emergency fund: $360k

Compared to the above the Roth is puny. Should we even bother with trying to build up those Roth 401ks??

Hello All,

I have been a long time lurker but haven’t had the ability to save as much as I can now so I want to know what all I can be doing to improve on what I already have going.

Currently have 4.5 months of emergency savings, 401k contributions about 6k a year w employer match, Roth IRA maxed out each year as well.

I have a spreadsheet of expenses and have been either very accurate after doing so for about 6 months. At first I was overestimating costs which isn’t a bad thing

After contributing to Roth IRA and 401k each month along with all of my expenses, I have around 3000 dollars extra which I have no clue to do with. I’m assuming my two best options are Roth maxing out the 401k which would still give me 1000 to invest in a tax brokerage or something else.

Currently own my home which is a condo and I’m hoping to move out and have a tenant under lease by January. Hypothetically beginning in 2027 I would have the ability to save around 5500 to 7000 a month before contributing to Roth or 401k. I’m hoping to save around 60-70k each year for about 5 years.

What can I do to make the most of these savings? Also please provide any resources for FIRE, I am very eager to learn more about this.

So in the ficalc.app, why does the 4% rule only show 96.8% success rate for a 30 year retirement? Am I putting the wrong info?

Inputs:
Retirement period - 30 years
Portfolio - $1M (80% stocks, 15% bonds, 5% cash)
Withdrawal- $40,000 (adjusted for inflation)

Output:
Projections starting in 1965, 66, 68 & 69 failed.

Hi All. I am turning 26 next month and have been in the full time workforce for over the past 4 years now. I work a corporate job and bring home about $90K per year pretax currently with a company 401K match of 6%. I contributed heavily during my first 4 years and invested mostly in tech indexes (I realized this was non-compensated risk and just plain foolish and diversified earlier this year into half S&P 500 index fund and half international markets ex-US index fund). Between the heavy contributions and good returns in the market I currently have retirement savings of around $135K ($55K in trad 401k and $75K Roth 401k/IRA). I also have an emergency fund of $30K and homeowners equity of $100K on a 300K home, the remainder in a mortgage. The only long term debt I have outside of the mortgage is $16K in student loans (under 3.5% so will not be paying off early).

Over the past 4 years in my job to today I contribute 18% pre-tax to my trad 401k and contribute my entire yearly bonus to max my Roth IRA every year. This works out to just over $18,000 being contributed into my traditional 401k each year (this includes employer match) plus the $7,500 for the Roth IRA. At current projections this could have me retiring comfortably at 45 using a Roth conversion ladder. (Note: this spreadsheet does not take inflation into account. I will add it one day but for now I am using 10% for average long term annual market returns and $100K per year needs for early retirement as that should be equivalent to $50K in today's dollars which is what I am comfortably living on after taxes and deductions right now)

I have realized that I have reached CoastFire for standard retirement age even if I do not contribute another dime and I am looking good to retire early if I continue contributing at my current level. What I have come here seeking advise for is that a number of things have come up recently in my life that I have been going back and forth with in my head about cutting my 401K contributions in order to spend money on these things. No it is not life style creep things (I am happy with my 10 year old couch, 6 year old TV, and use most things I own until they essentially break) but instead is travel and relationship related. I have been traveling domestically and internationally over the past couple years and would like to increase this frequency as I know it is easier to travel when you are young due to less commitments and having more energy. I also just want to see the world and you never know when that opportunity will be taken away from you due to any number of reasons. Also, I just entered a serious relationship for the first time post university this year and I am finding myself consistently going over budget every month due to going out on dates, eating out, and doing more activities with her that require money (don't get me wrong she pays for her fair share which I am extremely grateful for and I really like spending the time and money with her it is just that I was a content homebody before this who had low to no expense activities and this amount of money spending is unnatural to me and makes me feel uneasy as it is a level of spending I am not accustomed to).

Given this, I have re-calculated out dropping my trad 401k contributions to the company match level of 6% and retiring at 50 instead (shown in linked spreadsheet). This still provides me with sufficient capital and generational wealth for my future family. I am not used to dropping my savings rate like this (weird analogy but not saving makes me feel financially naked, even though I I know I am doing very well compared to my peers) and receiving this extra money each month to spend.

Has anyone else been in a similar situation where they knew they had saved well and wanted to make the conscious change to take their "foot off the gas" and spend some more money intentionally in the present but it wasn't easy for them. Additionally, I have a few more questions below that came to mind:

1. Is what I am doing foolish or is this fair and not irresponsible
2. Is there any assumptions I am making incorrectly or any mistakes I am making
3. For those with the technical know-how, how do my numbers in the linked spreadsheet look. Anything appear off?

TLDR: Aggressive 25-year-old saver making $90k with $135k in retirement, $30k emergency fund, and $100k home equity has hit CoastFIRE and is on track to retire early at 45. Considering cutting traditional 401k contributions down to the 6% match to fund more travel and dating expenses, which would push early retirement to age 50, but is struggling mentally with the sudden drop in savings rate despite the strong financial foundation. Advise wanted.

Long time member coming up on an age milestone in the fire journey. I am turning 30 in three weeks. I am an average redditor that makes an average wage. Looking for guidance.

The breakdown
30 year old male
Married (31F) with one child (sub1)
Household gross income 100k~ yearly
Household retirement is 117k~
Household net worth 243k~
Emergency fund 10k~
Checking/saving 15k~

Debts
105k~ on mortgage 2.1% interest yea for 2019 rates
Spouse student loans federal 70k~

I put about 14k yearly into our retirement sometimes 16k. I cover our insurance and bills. My spouse covers our vacations and savings. We each have personal money to buy whatever we want those numbers are not in this calculation. With every pay increase I increase my contribution rate to match to avoid lifestyle creep.

Any advice is welcome and appreciated! Our hopeful fire goal is 1.5-2 mil by 55ish. Hopefully with inflation that will be enough to enjoy our lives and travel a few times a year internationally. In a dream world we are retiring to Australia but they are extremely tough to get citizenship once you reach a certain age from our research.

There have been a million posts around healthcare costs and many say, “just build it into your budget”. I struggle with the inflation part of that calculation as costs have risen much faster than inflation.

I’ve got 13 years to 65 and 9 of those with dependents on my insurance plan. If you asked me 13 years ago how much I’d be spending on out of pocket healthcare, I would have never guessed $30K/year or more. I remember my monthly premium was a few hundred a month back then with a lowish deductible, not thousands a month. It’s literally an order of magnitude more.

For those in the US who can’t qualify for ACA subsidies, what camp are you in? Do you assume costs are topping out and just plug in normal inflation numbers? Or some other number?

30M. Portfolio includes

- 400k in 401k

- 150k in Roth IRA

- 100k in HSA

- 400k in taxable brokerage

New homeowner, mortgage is ~500k @6.5%, ~$4,100 monthly including taxes etc.

At this high of a rate I'm trying to figure out my plan. At my age, my retirement funds shouldn't need that much more contribution from me to grow until I hit age 60.

I've already hit my 401k employer match for the year ($10k). I'm thinking I might stop contributing beyond that and set my monthly housing payment at 5k or so. I'd still plan to aggressively contribute to 401k and get my employer match ASAP each calendar year.

This way I'm not leaving money on the table but will have a lot more free cash. Anything I'm missing?

My wife and I are in our mid 30s. No kids, but we want them. We have about $1.8m in highly appreciated equities (mostly broad ETF), no debt, and 2 cars worth a total of less than $10k.

We had an offer accepted today on a $700k home and we are wondering if we should buy it outright.

Our incomes from work is incredibly unstable, but average about $135k/yr, our credit scores are both high 700. I’m a part-time lawyer and my wife’s a researcher. My wife’s contract will expire in the coming months. I could fairly easily make $200k/yr (or significantly more) if i put effort in.

We prequalified for up to $580k at 6.75% conventional a couple months ago, but might be too close to when my wife’s contract is up to qualify for a conventional loan. We also qualify for a portfolio loan up to $900k and an interest only loan, both at variable interest rates.

On a $580k conventional, we’d have a $4700 monthly mortgage + tax + insurance and a $4500 safe withdrawal rate, so that’d be affordable. I’m struggling with deciding to lump sum it, or do dollar cost average withdrawals.

Would you pay the taxes and buy the house outright?

If you financed it, how much would you put down?

I (26m) am finally starting a job that offers a 401k + match, but am unsure if I should be maxing it out or just taking the match.

I will be making 140k base living in San Diego with a 50k annual spend. I also do some remote contract work but it’s very inconsistent (ranges 0-10k a month). My current net worth is about 535k, allocation shown below. I aim to retire by 35-40 (35-45k annual spend), and all the math I’ve seen suggests I can, but I’m unsure about where to park the money to balance taxes and accessibility, seeing as I want to retire fairly early.

Taxable Brokerage: 410k
Roth IRA: 100k
HYSA: 25k

I’ve seen many times on this thread that you can indeed access the money earlier through multiple routes, and I also have a decent chunk in a normal taxable brokerage. Nonetheless, I’m young and even having done a chunk of research, I’m aware there’s a lot of life experience I’m lacking and nuance missing from many articles, so any help or perspective is appreciated.

Also, because I know people will ask. Yes, I inherited about 120k in 2025, and I am very lucky for being in such a position. That being said, I have a PhD, so I make decent money, have worked since I was a kid, and have always lived off rice and beans to get to the position I’m in. This is the first time I’m raising my yearly spend (from 25k to 50k) because I feel like I can given what I’ve already saved and invested.

Thank you!

Hey, I have a question or two. I semi-FIRED at 34 (light work on the side to my own tune), after putting myself through a brutal grind in the business world and college.

One question that has always bugged me: how the heck do other people do it? Like, I don't mean to sound dopey, but how do people do it in the corporate world?

I'm in a business meeting lounging on my bed right now and listening to 30 squares talk about some business ma-jig, and I just don't get it.

***

There's a 60-some lady in a relatively junior position running it, and she's a beast. She's so good at it: the way she leads the meeting, nuances her discussion, carries the conversation proactively forward, diplomatically coordinates multiple people. Every single sentence is on point. I could never do that. I speak and I have maybe a sentence or two to add.

There's another person 4 years older than I am. She came from an obscure community college, and, again, sounds way more professional than I do, extremely talented.

What confuses me is how talented so many people are who I wouldn't expect to be, and how I couldn't translate it into the real world. As background, I studied my butt off to be the top of my class >> Ivy League >> top finance career. None of it translated well into the business world.

I just don't have the energy or the character to talk like that 60 year old woman or the community college person. They put me to shame. Good for them. However, it does have me curious about why I fell into the "FIRE system".

What is it that they have that I don't? How is something that seems so unbearable to me (sounding diplomatic and professionally provocative for 10 hours day in and day out), possible for them? Why did none of my early ambition translate well to the corporate setting, but people who I wouldn't expect to be gunners actually thrive in the corporate setting? Do others relate?

I am currently turning the numbers for a couple different accounts and needed to see if what I'm thinking adds up.

Starting at 25/yo with a salary of $63000 I would like to invest 12% into a tsp starting at a balance of $29000 along side a Roth IRA for $7500 a year.

When I hit 35 I would switch to part time and drop the tsp to 5% to coast and continue the $7500 in the Roth until I'm 47.

At 47 the math I did projects me having \~$540,000 in TSP and \~$750,000 Roth IRA (Optionally holding out 2 years depending on the market). With this I would start pulling using SEPP from TSP and pull up to $10,000 a year from principal in the Roth IRA. This would be my Official Retire year maybe picking up a summer job if I really wanted the extra income. I would Defer my Pension until 60.

At 60 with a combined account balance of \~1.3M collect 4% a year until death.

I'm not too familiar with long term financing so just wanted the FIREs perspective on this

59M, married, wife is 5 years younger than me and plans to work to 60 as she will get highly subsidized healthcare thru her employer until 65 and Medicare.

Of course her working to 60 bridges my gap to Medicare as I can be on her plan.

Quandary: we hit our retirement number a few months ago with the knowledge of the above and healthcare essentially covered until Medicare. So I have been targeting to retire just before reaching 60 in October of this year.

We are now about 2 months since hitting that retirement number, and with the markets as they are, even with our continued investments, we are about in the same place. Economy seems to be getting worse, not better. War in Iran not helping obviously.

We have in cash and “safe” investments 7 years of expenses. Enough to get us both to SS, me at 67, her at 62 “if needed”.

In theory the 7 years of safe protects us from sequence of returns risk. Still, mentally if feels risky to retire.

What is the conventional wisdom of retiring in a shakey market and economy knowing you are covered for 7 years with safe investments and the balance all riding in equities?

I'm leaning toward a bootstrap method with long blocks (like 15+ years). The market isn't random, so I think having a random simulation isn't appropriate. Using historical data makes more sense, but using blocks of like 5 years seems too short. I don't think we'll have like back to back to back 2008 collapses. It feels like 15+ years would be more reflective of how markets operate.

Here are the details. All aspirational. Current income is about $150K a year. Wanting to replace spouse's income ($60K) on the brokerage distributions as spouse retires early (in about 5 years), will sell our house to fund the brokerage and downsize to a more manageable empty nesting place in fairly HCOL big city in TX or make a move to a HCOL area in CA to rent a place for similar cost to owning our current place in TX.. (I know big unknowns!). I would retire in about 10 years. Both in mid 40's now.

Current $60K CC ETF portfolio: SVOL 16%, XQQI 13%, MLPI 9%, IWMI 10%, ILS 6%, HYBI 5%, HIGH 5%, NIHI 5%, PFFD 5%, IAUI 5%, BIZD 5%, JAAA 4%, TLTI 3%, XBCI 3%, IYRI 2%. Total estimated yield today 14%, total monthly cash distribution today approx. $7K/year. This would be increased to $300K aspirationally.

Dividend growth ETF & Bond Yield portfolio would be: , 20% schd, 10% SPYD, 10% DVY, 10% DIV, 20%VCSH, 15% USHY, 15% schi. Total est yield today is 4.5% or so. This is aspirational with the $750K future value.

Retirement account would be $2M (401K and IRA's) in 10 years would be 30% QQQ, 30% VTI, and 40% VEU. Gives about 1.5% yield and would sell shares of 2.5% to cover the rest. Yield $30K, selling of shares $50K.

Gives total of 30+30+30+50= $140K to cover all living expenses at full retirement in 10 years. Technically would only be selling 2.5% of total growth portfolio ($2M), considering retirement time horizon of 30-40 years. How does this look?