In corresponding with readers, we often find that useful nuggets of (dare I say) wisdom surface in our conversations. These come in the form of emails (sorry for the late responses), comments to our posts and on our Twitter account (follow us please!), but we thought it would be good to share these in our main site so that everyone gets to learn from the experiences of others.
Reader:
I am one of them who wants FI at age 50, I wish I can’t achieve early, however, the number is too large for me to achieve.
Mind to share more how much your desire amount for FI? I have read from Mr C portfolio is mostly in Etfs with expect return of about 5% – 8%.
I have reading most of your blogs and have a doubt. When Ms C retired at 32 and look after 2 kids, is it means only Mr C alone working till age 60? If not, how both of you manage to have such big savings amount and put into the investments since 5 years ago? (sorry if I am too direct or offended if any). I wish I could learn from you guys to achieve early FI.
SippingCoconuts:
Hello KK, thanks for reading and commenting on our blog. It’s very heartening to see that you now have intentions to pursue FI. There’s no need to fret on your target retirement age as we all have different starting points. What’s more important is that you start the journey.
We choose not to share our FI magic number. This is because of privacy reasons, and the fact that our FI number or another blogger’s shouldn’t matter to a reader because “personal finance” is personal, and your FI number ultimately depends on your financial commitments.
You can just use the simple rule of thumb of 25x your required annual expenses. That’s a rough guide. [So, if you think you need S$1k a month in retirement, equal to S$1k x 12 mths x 25 = S$300k. S$2k/mth = S$600k, S$3k/mth = S$900k and so forth]
On the question of Ms.K, yes she’s quit her job to care for our kids full time. And I don’t intend to work till 60!! I plan to quit my current role in the next 8 months to travel, either that or negotiate some flexi work arrangement.
Our FIRE portfolio will consist mainly of ETFs however currently I do allocate a significant share to my discretionary/stock-picking portfolio for faster growth.
On how we seem to have so much progress since 2015, it’s a combination of:
– before we even embarked on FIRE, we’ve already been savers;
– major cost cutting to increase our savings rate after we discovered FIRE;
– profits from Ms.K’s real estate investment in Malaysia; and
– we’ve been fortunate to get large returns from Mr.C’s stock picking. I guess this deserves a post of it’s own one day.
You can ignore the last two because that’s just a bonus and the first two will surely and steadily lead to FIRE.
Author: Mr.C
Mr.C – our resident investment expert and the muscle behind this entire movement for Sipping Coconuts. When his nose is not buried in anything financial, he’s either sailing or cooking or with the kids and always with a beer or a coconut nearby!