So after doing brief research several several months ago, i decided to stay on the silver 94 plan for 2027. But with all the new info i kinda want to revisit the issue.

Ohio

Head of household thanks to elderly mother on socialsecurity

Own house

Male 47 good health, never see doc and no scripts

Leanfired. Only uncontrolled income is about $12k in interest/dividends at fidelity

Overall goal = fill up the standard deduction bucket with interest/roth conversions, and fill up the zero percent capital gains bucket with tax gain harvesting

The last time i reviewed this strategy it was pretty "iffy" with no concrete answers. So here is my new plan and wanted to run it by you folks. Qualify for expanded magi medicaid. After evaluation month, do the capital gains bucket at the end of the month and report the same month. Spend the rest of the year reporting either interest/dividends or roth conversions to meet the min "work" requirements.

Its either this, or try to live in the wee sliver between 138% and 149% yearly income to stay on the silver 94, and pay around a grand a year in premiums.

I really dont want to YOLO a month a year and just hope i dont get the fall/widow maker that month to go the medicaid route.

32F and 31M, currently renting in Toronto.

Have started giving buying more thought in recent years, but can't make up our minds about if/when to do it. Long-time lurker in this community, and hoping to get some ideas.

Arguments for buying:

• We are planning to retire on the lean side, so feel like it would be a sensible choice to buy before retirement to reduce risk.
• Our preference is for apartment/condo living, and the condo market is becoming more favourable to buyers.
• It makes coming back to Canada an easy option. Canada is currently a more geopolitically stable part of the world, and having a residence here means that even if we move overseas, we can always afford to come back if things go wrong.

Arguments against buying:

• In terms of lifestyle, I would be happy to rent forever, and love the flexibility and lack of unexpected maintenance costs. I like the minimalism of living in a small space, being downtown, not needing a car, etc.
• We are very unsure what our life will look like post RE, and even whether we will continue to live in Toronto. We'd like to slow travel the world for a few years, maybe completely relocate.
• Condo ownership feels less "secure" to me than house ownership. With owning a house, the land is always valuable. I don't like the idea of condo fees that can increase, or the risk of a crazy special assessment or the building reaching end of life in e.g. 50 years time. But house ownership is really not something we want to do.
• Maybe we will not actually RE, at least not fully stop working. Maybe we will digital nomad, teach or go back to school/research. Chances are we would be active enough to bring in some moderate income so maybe it is less important to de-risk.

Please ask questions if I've missed any important details, interested to hear all opinions.

I'm aware I'm grieving right now, so this may not make sense.

My cat died on Wednesday. He was 2 years old, and it was very sudden. We went in thinking he'd be ok, to leaving without him. We fought so so hard for him. The chances of this happening were less than 1%. His death was incredibly traumatic.

Since then, I don't see the point of a lot of things. Sure I like travel, restaurants, and a nice home in a city I love. But at the end of the day, all I really want is to be home with my family. To live a normal, simple life with the people I love. I just wanted more time with him. I already hated that works dominates our waking hours, but now I especially loathe it.

I had plans to FIRE before - work hard, save up, and bail once I could provide a good quality of life for my family. Now I feel like I can just throw out 1/3 of the things I budgeted for. I don't need to own a house or live in this city to be happy. Obviously I'd be happier if I could have it all, but right now life feels extremely precious. There's no time to fuck around. I need to be with my family as much as possible, before our short lives are over.

I'm aware making big moves while grieving is a bad idea. I want to do something about all this though. The world feels like it's getting worse, scarier, and more turbulent by the year. The last 4 years have been miserable, but at least I spent 2 of them with him. I want to have kids, but that makes leanFIRE feels especially irresponsible.

Also, I felt like if I had saved more, then I could've have afforded the extremely rare, risky surgery that might have saved him (though his quality of life afterwards was unclear). But doing it now would've wipe out everything we had, and we were already excellent savers.

It's horrible, but I felt like I shouldn't go into debt for a questionable surgery and consequently endanger the rest of my family. But what if I have a kid and they'll need medical care that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars? Or if my partner needed it? Of course I'll do whatever it takes. But then leanFIRE feels wrong, because I could've saved and prepared for that exact situation ahead of time. I'm aware this is catastrophizing, but this already happened to me. The worst luck.

So my questions are:

1. Has anyone changed their lives dramatically to achieve leanFIRE? What about after loss?
2. How do you feel about no longer accumulating wealth, when things are so uncertain and socking away more money feels like a way to protect your family?
3. Related to 2, how do you plan to handle major events that might go far beyond your budget?

Hello all,
I am new to this and I am interested in how people in the fire lifestyle track grocery purchases now, what you’ve tried and what annoys you the most about it. Any insights are much appreciated.

im 21, fairly new to FIRE. whats your favorite FIRE advice youve ever received?