Sunday, October 29, 2023

After 5 months of FIRE, can I still FIRE?

 I wanted to check after 5 months of no pay, can I still afford to FIRE.

Especially with the recent market downturn. Currently, both SP500 and Nasdaq are in correction:

https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/stock-market-today-dow-jones-10-27-2023/card/the-nasdaq-composite-is-on-track-to-enter-a-correction-btCPOJVi7uczdASFmhlr

The main culprits are the Israel-Hamas war, high inflation, and the stalemate of the Ukraine-Russia war. 

I did my spreadsheets and arrived at the below:


So my starting balance is still > required savings, which means I am still FIRE.

What happens if my starting balance falls below the required savings? Hmm I'm not sure actually...

2 comments:

  1. Hi FO,

    A good practise when planning retirement be it FIRE or normal retirement is to have cash reserves of 2 to 3 years of annual expenses. This cash reserves is to allow you to ride through market cycles without your lifestyle being disrupted by market downturn.

    The 2 to 3 years cash buffer should be sufficient for the market to recover from a crisis. If there is no crisis, the incoming flow of passive income can be reinvested.

    Although I am not retired, I am practising this concept now, ie holding two to three years of cash buffers which doubles up as my war chest. And thanks to the high T-bill yields, I have parked the cash reserves in them.

    Can read more here : https://t.me/CPF_Tree

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ah yes, this is a good tip. Thanks!

    ReplyDelete