My Wife and I hit Coast FIRE number which is close to $500,000 this year, allowing us to quit our 9-5 jobs, move abroad to China, and more fully pursue our passions in life at age 26.
You may be asking yourself, what is this Coast FIRE term exactly?
In a nutshell, Coast FIRE is a popular retirement strategy involving saving enough money so your nest egg can grow without additional contributions. Once you reach Coast FIRE, you no longer need to work to save for retirement; instead, you only work to pay for current living expenses. This allows you to enjoy a more relaxed lifestyle and focus on activities you enjoy rather than working simply to earn a paycheck.
Before breaking down our $500,000 net worth, I want to share some interesting statistics.
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The average net worth by age for Americans
Let’s see the average net worth by age for Americans according to CNBC.
- For those under age 35, the average net worth of Americans is $76,300.
- For those ages 35 to 44, the average net worth of Americans is $436,200.
- For those ages 45 to 54, the average net worth of Americans is $833,200.
- For those ages 55 to 64, the average net worth of Americans is $1,175,900.
- For those ages 55 to 64, the average net worth of Americans is $1,217,700.
- For those ages 75 and above, the average net worth of Americans is $977,600.
Our Net Worth Breakdown
Now let’s take a closer look at our net worth broken down into 7 categories.
1) US Checking Accounts: $5000
Not much to add here, we have about $5,000 cash sitting in our checking accounts in the US.
2) China Bank Accounts: $3100
We currently have around 20,000 CNY which is $3100 in our China bank account. If you wonder how much it costs to live in China, you can check our other blog post – Cost to Semi-Retire in China (Our First Month Expenses).
3) High Yield Saving Account: $21,000
We have one high-yield saving account, which acts as our emergency fund.
Related Article: Emergency Funds: What they are and how to get started
Having an emergency fund gives us peace of mind. For example, we have rental properties in the US and if something happened, we have money to fix it.
Actually, we have $40,000 total because of the Biden student loan refund. We put it there to receive higher interest payments. Once we know if the forgiveness part will pass or not we know how to use this money. We don’t account this as our net worth since we don’t know the final results yet.
4) Retirement/Tax-Advantaged Accounts: $100,000
These include all of our Roth IRAs, HSA, Rollover IRAs, etc. Even though after hitting Coast FIRE you can choose to stop investing, we still want to max our IRAs if possible so our nest egg can grow even larger.
5) Brokerage Accounts: $2,300
In Robinhood, we did some higher risk investing like crypto, but only a very small bit compared to the rest of our net worth. As you know recently the market has not been very good so the value dropped a lot!
6) Single house rental Property: $200,000
We built a single-family house and finished the basement and yard after we moved in. In total, it is 0.12 ace with 2300 sqft. 4 bedrooms and 3.5 baths.
When we move to China, we decided to rent it out.
The total home value now minus the loan we have is about $200,000, which is our equity.
7) Condo Rental Property: $150,000
We have another rental property which is a cozy 3 bedroom/2 bath condo.
We checked condos in the same community and can say we have at least $150,000 house equity in it.
Side note: when calculating net worth for home loans you take the current market value minus what you owe on the loan.
TOTAL: $481,400
“When you invest, you are buying a day that you don’t have to work.”
Aya Laraya
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Disclaimer:
We hope the information in this article provides valuable insights to every reader but we, the Biesingers, are not financial advisors. When making your personal finance decisions, research multiple sources and/or receive advice from a licensed professional. As always, we wish you the best in your pursuit of financial independence!
