edit: This is for standard retirement plans (58-61)

By the age of 30 I believe you should have 1 year of salary saved up. So if you continued to make 78k until 30, you'd have 78k saved up. (Its unlikely you'd continue to make 78k by then, though.)

From my personal experience to retire early I do two things.

1. I max out my 401k every year ($20.5k before company match, or ~$854/every 2 weeks.)
2. I am slowly buying up properties, I have my first house and am working toward a 2nd.

note: with my current income I don't qualify for a Roth IRA. (income too high)

I'm 27 right now.

saving up that much should be fairly doable. Thats a lot of money to put into the 401k tho, should I be putting most of my money into my roth then? And not my tda? This is the most confusing part for me. Also any info/sources on learning about buying rental houses would be great.

Most on this reddit will say roth because tax laws can change and its untaxed income in the future. For me I did 401k because I need the tax break and I assume I'll make less in retirement.

If you want to early retire, you need to be targeting 20-25% gross income savings rate, or more, for retirement purposes. The 1x salary at 30 is a traditional retirement plan marker.

Hmm ok I see what you mean (i think).

This feels doable. Good to know. Thank you!

Is housing actually an investment? Considering all the taxes and maintenance and repairs that houses need, I'd assume that would cancel out any profit. Especially because you can only live in one house at a time.

My current house cost the same as my rent did (mortgage payment+taxes is equal to my rent I was paying). without taxes I would be saving about $400/mo. (I pay almost double in taxes and get a check cut to me yearly for the overpayment from escrow, but due to how taxes change my escrow plays it safe)

For example, say my rent was $2k/mo, thats $24k a year with no equity. Now say you pay $2k/mo in mortgage+taxes, thats $2k toward interest and your equity.

You can use that equity as an asset when taking out loans, or cash-out refinance it later to purchase more properties. (This is what most house flippers did).

Rent at fair market value for a house my size is already $2300/mo. In about 5 years it'll probably be ~$2600/mo(2% increase yearly). Thats $600 profit from renters who also pay my mortgage for me.

edit: clarification/cleaning it up

Oh also noting for early retirement - taxes / pulling money out of accounts before a certain age could have a negative affect like additional fees or taxes. Be sure to read into your accounts :)

MrMoneyMoustache is kinda the OG regarding the FIRE movement and this article opened my eyes to early retirement as even a possibility.

MMM Shockingly Simple Math for Early Retirement

Thats how I just learned about this! He’s fantastic!

Ah, the opposite is the case where I live. Rent is like $1-1.5k while a house would be like $2-4k/mo with taxes and mortgage, not including maintenance and repairs.

You probably need to be saving quite a bit more in the 401k. Remember, post-60 is just as important as 40-60.

You need to look at how much you are spending and figure out a number that will produce that much at like 3% withdrawal.

I would mix traditional and Roth savings (whether that’s both in 401k or you do 401k and Roth IRA).

Hmm yeah I figured that, I’ll research more about what this all means lol