You’ve heard the saying “don’t put all of your eggs in one basket” (because if you drop the basket, all of the eggs break, and you lose all of them). What I’m about to discuss is about having one egg in one basket… the difference is… when the egg breaks… it breaks into ~3600 little eggs. That one egg is VTI. It’s technically not a stock, but an ETF (a fund that you can buy and sell as a stock). It’s managed by Vanguard (and I use the word “managed” loosely). VTI is also known as a mutual fund under VTSAX (3K initial investment). Note there used to be a VTSMX with a 3K initial investment and slightly higher fees, but Vanguard did away with VTSMX and now there is only VTSAX (it’s all the same, and all VTSMX holdings were converted to VTSAX).  Now let’s get back to discussing this one egg concept…

I blog a lot about this subject (choices in life), because it really is at the core of all that I believe. The sum of your choices in life will determine where you end up (and with how much money). Of course there are people who get the “short end of the stick”… that’s not you. If you’re here reading this, you’re alive, have internet, you’re doing better than the folks who got the short end.

FIRE: Financial Independence Retire Early

The math of FIRE is simply to save 25-30 times your yearly expenses and live off that savings by withdrawing 3%-4% “forever”. If you spend $30,000/year, you need to save $750,000 to $900,000. If you spend $100,000/year, you need to save $2,500,000 to $3,000,000.

A lot of people seem to think it’s impossible to save 25-30 times your yearly expenses. It’s not. It’s all math and choices.