4 percent rule Archives – Marriage, Kids and Money

The FIRE movement is getting a lot of buzz lately, especially with millennials.

Our guests today, Kristy Shen and Bryce Leung are leaders in the millennial revolution for FIRE.

Kristy and Bryce are Canada’s youngest retirees. They used to live in one of the most expensive cities in Canada, but instead of drowning in debt, they rejected home ownership. And what resulted was a 7-figure portfolio, which has allowed them to retire in their 30s and travel the world.

Their story has been featured in the New York Times, Forbes, Huffington Post, amongst many other publications. They’ve written a book on FIRE called Quit Like a Millionaire and it’s out this month.

In order to achieve financial independence, you need to first understand what your annual expenses are. That’s how much money you need to live comfortably every year.

Your annual expenses can include things like housing, transportation, food, utility bills, entertainment, travel and the many other things that make your life … well, your life!

For our family, I’ve found that number to range between $60,000 and $70,000 per year. That number is after taxes and it doesn’t include money for saving and investing.

With lower annual expenses, it would definitely be a lot easier for our family to become financially independent.

If we’re using the 4% rule to calculate how much to save to become FI, then we’d need $1,500,000 – $1,750,000. Considering I have around $4,000 in a taxable brokerage account at 37 years old, that’s going to take quite a while!