5 Months from Retirement, or: The Month We Reached FI!

Almost two years ago in April 2024, Ryan and I presented our case study to our local ChooseFI group here in Charlotte.

If you’re not familiar with a case study, it is basically a high level look at someone’s financial picture: net worth, assets/debts, expenses and investment allocation. The purpose of it is for the folks in your group to understand where you are now and what your future goals are- so they can help you get there. There are a lot of super-smart people in the ChooseFI groups who know a lot more about this stuff than we do, and we wanted their thoughts.

Sort of.

Here’s the thing- Ryan and I went into this presentation two years ago with a bit of… haughtiness. Our numbers looked so good, so “in the bag” for a June 2026 retirement date that we were using terms like “Porsche FI” (Ryan) and “Luxe Safari FI” (me). We were VERY sure of ourselves. Nothing could go wrong!

Can you guess what happened next?

That’s right- our numbers were horribly, hilariously off. In our financial projection software, we had entered our monthly expenses as what we spent in a year. And sure, with yearly expenses at $7k, most people would be financially independent already! Sigh.

The folks in our group listened politely before letting us know that actually? We were still a ways off. The math wasn’t adding up.

I remember laughing it off during the meeting, being grateful that our (tremendous) oversight had been caught, but also feeling really really down. Feeling crushed. As we were leaving, one of the guys who I’d trust with any financial question let us know that we needed another couple hundred thousand to get there- that we’d probably just have to postpone our early retirement date by a year.

On the ride home, I promised myself that I’d feel the disappointment and then move on. A year wasn’t much. And we were still retiring so early! It would be fine.

Fast forward to this month. We are currently five months away from our original goal of June 2026- and we are there friends. Because of HA-mazing market returns these past two years (read: ten years) and our almost 50% save rate… WE HIT OUR FI # THIS MONTH!!!

Not knowing when this would happen, we had scheduled to present our case study again this month to review our plan and make sure we were on track. I felt pretty confident that our numbers were solid, but I was nervous going in. What if we had made another stupid mistake with our numbers?

Welp, we didn’t. The people in our group were using terms like, “bubble-wrapped” to describe our plan and “overly conservative” with our asset allocation. We got two rounds of applause. I felt so incredibly proud, supported and seen. We’ve had so much luck and privilege, and we’ve also worked really hard to achieve this goal. Grateful? Understatement.

What We’ve Done & Learned in the Last Month

December was a bit of a whirlwind, but I think it was a great balance between spending time with friends, volunteering, work and relaxing. There were also some health-related issues that took up some time + worry, but turned out okay in the end. Nothing like a health scare to remind you of what really matters, and that true wealth is health. Full stop.

Ryan traveled to Chicago for Christmas and I was supposed to follow behind a few days later, but a citywide bout of Norovirus and a bunch of flu going around his family there held me back in Charlotte. It sucked spending the holiday apart and we decided that we won’t be doing that again. My cousin and his beautiful family welcomed me to their house in Raleigh last minute to celebrate, and it was awesome spending time with them.

Where Our Finances Stand Currently

As we’ve now hit FI-yah (!) I’m thinking of transitioning this segment to show our spending- perhaps next month when I re-subscribe to Canva and have the ability to make glorious pie charts in pretty colors. Time will tell.

Next Steps

To be honest, I’m writing this post a bit late. It’s almost the end of January so I’ll save the monthly update for the next post. The biggest next step is that Ryan will be submitting his official retirement paperwork on February 1!! How many exclamation marks can I fit into one blog post?!!!!!

See you next month, friends.