How to Reach FIRE Based on Your Income ($45K

Mindy:
Wealth building isn’t just about how much you earn, but how much you save and invest, which is why today we are diving into a topic that I think is going to resonate with a lot of people how to win financially. No matter what income bracket you’re in, whether you’re just starting out with a low salary, climbing your way up or already earning a six figure income, there are strategies that can help you reach your financial goals. Hello, hello, hello and welcome to the BiggerPockets Money podcast. My name is Mindy Jensen and with me as always is my definitely in sum income bracket. Co-host, Scott Trench,

Scott:
Capital introduction, Mindy, just capital BiggerPockets has a goal of creating 1 million millionaires. You are in the right place if you want to get your financial house in order and achieve some capital gains because we truly believe financial freedom is attainable for everyone no matter when or where you’re starting. And today we’re going to discuss how to make the biggest financial impact that 45, 75 and a hundred thousand dollars a year in income to propel you on your financial independence journey. We’re going to talk about what investment strategies should stay the same between those three income brackets and what should be different as you increase your income. Okay, Mindy, so let’s start off with how you would approach a $45,000 per year salary starting today.

Mindy:
Okay, at the very beginning of the intro I said wealth building isn’t just about how much you earn, but how much you save and invest. And in the $45,000 tax bracket in the $45,000 income, you don’t have a ton of opportunities to save and invest in large amounts. I want you to first go back to the basics. You are likely at more of the beginning of your career and you have time on your side, which is what I am assuming. I want you to max out your Roth IRA. The contribution limits for under 50 20, 24 is $7,000. That is a little bit over $500 a month. I want you to figure out how you can take $500 a month and put it into your Roth IRA. I think that would be a huge benefit for you right now. I also want you to look at your company’s 401k options.
Do you have a 401k? Do you have a 4 0 3 B? If you’re a government employee, you may have a 4 57 plan. So I want to know what your company is offering as far as a match to your 401k because we are looking for ways to invest and when your company matches the money that you’re putting into the account, we call that free money here. I want you to take advantage of every free dollar you possibly can If your company has a Roth 401k option, I think that’s a great thing to look into as well. It’s got the difference between a Roth and a traditional account is that you pay the taxes now on the rough and then it grows tax free and you withdraw it tax free down the road. So if you’re 20, 25, 30 years old, you have a long runway for this to grow tax free.
If you’re 45, 50, 60, you don’t have as much time for that to compound and grow in the Roth plans. You also might be making more money, in which case reducing your current taxable income could be your goal. That’s what my goal is. But if you are making $45,000 a year, let’s say you’re spending 25 or 30, you’re paying taxes on it. There’s just not a ton of money leftover and I hate to say leftover to contribute to these accounts. Again, assuming that you’re a younger person, I’m going to encourage you to look at side income side hustles so that you can generate more income to more easily fund that Roth IRA and potential 401k contributions. Scott, what are your tips for people making $45,000 a year?

Scott:
I’m going to get way more aggressive than what you just said there and say, look, if you’re making $45,000 a year, you’re just getting started or something drastic needs to change if you want to achieve financial independence because you ain’t achieving financial independence in a hurry, making $45,000 a year. So the whole game becomes how do we change the fact that you’re making $45,000 a year, which is fundamentally incongruent with the achievement of very early financial independence like 10, 15, 20 years at minimum here. So I would be throwing out a lot of the long-term saving and investing advice. The question is how can we get expenses extremely low and build up a cash position, which allows us to exploit the next set of opportunities and how do we gear up for the career pivot or entrepreneurial venture or house hack that can actually begin exploding income?
I was in this position to start my career. I was 23 making 48 KA year. That’s more today adjusted for inflation of course than 40 5K. It’s about 60 K, but in that situation, my day was I would get up, make my own breakfast, pack my own lunch drive or bike to work in my Corolla if I was driving or on my $250 bicycle that I purchased from a coworker. If it was a nice day and I could bike and in the evenings as soon as I stopped, I would uber or tutor or figure out a way to earn side hustle income and this way I saved up about 20 K by living with a roommate to be able to make the next big investment. So that’s the goal. I would forget the Roth or the 401k or whatever and I’d just stick cash in a savings account because the problem isn’t whether, which vehicle you’re taking, the problem is that even if you saved all of the $45,000, you wouldn’t achieve fire in the next 10 to 15 years on that unless you got pretty lucky from an investment standpoint.
So we need to increase that income with that cash position and the very low cost lifestyle. I would be looking for an opportunity within the next six months to a year to dramatically accelerate that income. If that was in the current position, that’s one thing, but probably unlikely I’d be looking for a sales gig or an opportunity to go to work at a startup or I’d be thinking about the small business and a world and how to maybe acquire or get into that if I could partner with somebody, but I would be stockpiling cold hard cash in the form of digital savings in the bank account, of course in the checking your savings account and I’d be looking to use that opportunity. So example what that could look like. You earn $45,000 a year, you try to save 10, $15,000 of it in emergency reserve, maybe 20, and then you go after a house hack.
The ideal house hack I would say in Denver, Colorado at this moment or where I’d be sniffing around for opportunity is I’d be looking for a four or five bedroom house in a specific part of town called Aurora near a medical campus. I have this all located, you should get this specific for yourself over the next six months to a year while you study this in your market, wherever that is. By way looking to it for a four to five bedroom house with two to three baths, I’d be looking for a large yard that would enable or allow the option for an A DU to be constructed and I would be thinking about can I live in that house and rent out the other bedrooms? Can I construct an A DU and live in that and Airbnb the house? What are my options there to be able to provide a really good opportunity?
I’d also be looking at consumable mortgages in that particular area of town. It may be different in yours. There’s a lot of assumable mortgages which are perfect for somebody in this position because you don’t need as much income to qualify for an assumable mortgage if it has that last year’s or 2021 or previous lower interest rate mortgages. So I’d be getting really aggressive about those things and stockpiling cash to enable myself to make that career or house hacking pivot because the investing doesn’t make sense at this base or it’s way dramatically outweighed by the opportunities to switch career or house hack, which the cash directly enables by giving you some cushion there. So how do you feel about that? Very different answer, Mindy. I

Mindy:
Will agree to disagree. I like what you’re saying about stockpiling cash and taking advantage and reducing your expenses. You said you packed your own lunch, you biked to work, you did side hustles and you had a roommate. I have heard story after story from people who aren’t on the path of financial independence who make 45, $50,000 a year and go out to lunch every day because that’s what all their coworkers do. They drive to work in that brand new car that they bought for high school or college graduation because they deserve it and they don’t do side hustles because I’m in my twenties, I want to live my life and they don’t have a roommate. They had roommates all through college and they just want to be by themselves and those are choices that they’re making. I’m not sure if those are choices that they’re making, consciously understanding the financial impact.
I think those are choices that they’re making based on wants once instead of needs. So I see where you’re coming from. I love that advice. I still want to go back to the Roth IRA. If you are young, you have so much runway to grow tax-free. That is a gift. Also get an HSA, but I think that the bottom line, Scott, is that income needs to increase if you want to reach financial independence and at $45,000, there’s just not a lot of extra to be putting into your wealth building, which is why your tip about reducing your expenses is really, really, really key.

Scott:
Stay tuned for more on how to change up your investing strategies with more income after a quick break,

Mindy:
Let’s jump back in.

Scott:
I’m literally saying if you’re trying to go retire, traditionally you can retire traditionally by saving 10 15% of that 40 5K salary and investing it in a Roth, IRA, Dave Ramsey, Ramit, all these other great personal finance folks, they’re good resources for that and you should do that. But if you’re trying to fire, if you’re trying to retire early in 10 to 15 years, don’t do that. Save a bunch of cash and use that to manufacture opportunities. Don’t blow the cash but just stockpile it for one year and I promise that if you couple that with reading 30 50 business books in your spare time and tons of side hustles, the opportunities that emerge for you will be better than a 10% stock market return on average around that. For that I promise I don’t know, but I would way rather take that bet and that’s what I did when I was in that position and I think that it will pay off really handsomely to have that cash stock piled rather than having a little bit of money in that first Roth.
Again, if you’re trying to get there very quickly, there’ll be time to catch up that Roth and 401k later when we really go after our income, but that’s a huge, I am literally suggesting that you go through 30 to 50 business books during this time period, side hustle a lot and really treat the situation of earning 40 5K is an emergency and that in the next year that is going to be going up and there’s going to be an opportunity set that will emerge that will allow me to make much more than that. On a go forward basis, if you want to fire well in advance of traditional retirement age, there’s no really way around how to fire with 40 5K. The answer is, and you’ll find a lot of people here on BiggerPockets money who fired starting from an income of $45,000. You’re going to find very few who never materially changed that starting point of $45,000 and that’s also a frustration people say is, oh, this person made 150 K.
Well guess what? If you’re capable of saving 30 40% of $45,000 salary and you read a bunch of business books and you listen to podcasts, you will accumulate first tens and then hundreds of thousands of dollars in assets, maybe a million dollars in assets, people who are capable and disciplined enough to amass and then effectively manage a million dollars in assets, often have job opportunities and can drive much more value than that at businesses to earn more money. So this will all work together and compound. It just needs to start with a major pivot and new orientation around that I think and the aggressive accumulation of cash to seize those opportunities.

Mindy:
Scott, now let’s look at a $75,000 income you’re making. I would say significantly more than you need to live off of, especially if you’re able to live off of this 45,000, I think you’re making significantly more than you need to bare bones live. I know there’s people that are going to say, oh, I can’t live off 75. Okay, great for you, but these are people who are living off of 75. What would you do differently at a $75,000 income than you would or recommend at a $45,000 income?

Scott:
So I think that the game has changed a little bit at $75,000 and it depends on the type of income, right? So if you’re a salesperson making $75,000, well there’s opportunity to really expand that and that changes the way I think about investing a little bit more than, for example, a teacher who may be making $75,000 between their base salary and summer gig for example in there, if you’re in the teaching profession for example, with that $75,000 in combined income and benefits, again including a summer job, I know that many teachers do not earn $75,000 per year, especially earlier in the career, but that’s a case where I would say, okay, now let’s go down the ladder of these retirement accounts and say, okay, how do I put this into tax advantaged accounts like the Roth, like the 401k, like the HSA. I know the teachers actually have different versions of those here, but I think that that’s where I would be thinking about, I’m going to use these tax advantage retirement accounts.
Maybe in the off time I’m going to be thinking about maybe a real estate project every couple of years, save up some cash for that, but I’m going to be moving down that stack and thinking, can I get to 30 40% of the income and yeah, you can probably fire in about 17 to 22 years starting from upstanding position if you’re able to save 30, 40, maybe get approaching that 50% mark on that income, which of course will get easier as the investments pile on and add a little bit more income on top of that base salary. So that’s one approach. If I’m going to be a little bit more aggressive about this and I’m in more of that sales approach or I am expecting my career to accelerate at a faster clip, maybe I’m on the corporate finance track and I’m thinking that the 70 5K today should be bumping up against a hundred thousand in three to five years.
Okay, maybe now I’m actually thinking about this is the more aggressive period of my investment career and I’m going to start saving up as much cash as possible and getting a couple of those rental properties done now so that by the time I fire in 15 years or 10 to 15 years, there’ll be a little bit more lightly leveraged and producing a little bit more cashflow. So that’s how I’d be thinking about it in those kinds of maybe two different types of scenarios. One that’s a little bit more static, 75,001 that’s more in a trajectory that’s moving me towards six figures or beyond.

Mindy:
I like what you’re saying there. Did you say index funds? Because I think at 75,000 you should be starting investing in the stock market.

Scott:
So lemme put this, I’ll restate this. If I’m in the more static progression in my career, I’m not expecting my income to surge over the next two to three years, then I would be investing in index funds or thinking about those types of investments. The decision about how to invest really depends on my aggression and timeline here. Let’s say that I am a teacher and my pension is going to mature in 20 years. Well, I’m probably not going to retire in 15 years. Even if I’m capable of doing that because I’m giving up one of the best assets of that profession, I’m probably going to be thinking about a more passive approach that’s going to get me there with a lot less headache. Maybe at that point I’m going to invest in index funds if I’m in a more aggressive pursuit of financial independence and I don’t have those types of timelines and I always want to get there as fast as possible, I’m probably waiting much more heavily towards real estate in the early years because real estate comes with the benefits of leverage and that compounding, and I’m thinking about maybe if I’m going to take the 401k match, maybe I’ll max that HSA, but I’m probably going to be, if I’m having to make trade-offs here, which most people at the $75,000 per year income range are going to have, I’m probably thinking if I want that portfolio, my end state and maybe a million in real estate, maybe a million in stocks, it’s a great idea in my view to buy that real estate earlier in the journey because you get the benefits of leverage and by the time you want to retire, the portfolio will be de-leveraging and you’ll be able to get more cashflow from that as you’ve paid off the mortgage and as rent growth has come on.
So I would probably wait towards real estate first and then as I get closer to financial dependence, really focus on that stock portfolio in these tax advantaged accounts.

Mindy:
We have to take one final break, but stick around for more on maximizing your income when we’re back.

Scott:
Welcome back to the show.

Mindy:
I want to look at $75,000 a year. I’m thinking that your job has a little bit more responsibility so you have more obligations to be at work to be doing things for work and you have less free time. I don’t see side hustles as a really big part of your wealth building journey At 75,000 and above. I see more unless you have some rockstar side hustle that is taking little time or easy to automate. I’m looking more at passive income streams. The stock market is a great go-to especially when you don’t want to be doing real estate syndications. If you can get a really great syndicator, if you can get a really great product, if you can get a really great property, syndications are a great source of passive income. I also really like private lending. That’s one of my favorite ways to generate some pretty good income short-term loans that I am doing like three-ish months. We had the authors of Lend to Live, which is a BiggerPockets book on the show a few months ago. They both have different ways of looking at the way that they lend, they lend. One of them lends more to the person than the deal and one lends more to the deal than the person. I am definitely on person more than the deal side. I typically lend only to people that I know can pay me back.

Scott:
How much capital do you need to privately lend?

Mindy:
I do private. I have done many private loans at around $50,000.

Scott:
Okay.

Mindy:
I have done private loans at higher amounts, but I don’t think that’s necessary to get into private lending. There’s also a lot of ways that you can lend without being the middleman. You hand the money to the middleman and they take care of it, and that’s a way to get into it at lower amounts. You don’t like private lending at 75,000.

Scott:
I was just thinking, I’m putting myself on the, I know you can do this with less capital, but I’m just putting my hat on of I earn less than $75,000. I’m listening and I’m like, well, can I really actually buy a $50,000 loan on a rental property? Is that even possible? And then do I have the capital to do that in liquidity at that point in time? So I wanted to just check in on that to see for those who might think that it’s less feasible to actually pull that off in that income bracket.

Mindy:
And that’s a good point. You do have to have some income to lend. You can’t just be like, yeah, I’ll lend you 50,000 and then like, Ooh, where am I going to get 50,000 from? But I like that as a passive income source. Again, you have to know what you’re doing. You should definitely read that book and learn about this process before you get into it. But I like the passive income streams at 75,000 and above the stock market. I am always going to be pro stock market. I have done very well in the stock market, but again, in your $75,000 income, this is not a free for all spend, whatever you want, keeping your expenses low, investing intelligently and with purpose at $75,000 a year, you’re working with other people who are now saying, oh, I got this hot stock tip. There’s no such thing as a hot stock tip.
Don’t buy that hot stock. That’s never going to work out. You’re making a good income. I wouldn’t say this is fire income yet. It’s fire a bowl, but your fire journey is going to be longer, especially with how much you’re spending if you can get your income or your expenses way down. Again, house hacking, living in a low cost of living area, having an older car riding your bike to work, living close enough that you can ride your bike to work. There’s lots of ways to cut down your expenses so that you can save more.

Scott:
Yeah, look, I think that a reality of fire that we probably need to just address is even at 45, 45, let’s take the 45 example. If you just saved a hundred percent of your income for 20 years, that’s 900 grand plus the investment returns, maybe you’re getting to fire in 20 years, it’s just not enough income. You just can’t do it with that. It has to change. The income has to change. If you want to fire, let’s use the same example with 750 in 10 years, you’re going to save 750 grand. If you save 100% of that and paid no tax on it, it’s still fundamentally the blocker for fire. So you either have to be on a trajectory to increase that income there or begin taking much more risky or more aggressive or sacrifice investments or you have to sacrifice like the house hack so you’re still in that position.
This is not an income level that will support rapid achievement of fire unless you’re going to serial house hack, unless you’re going to live and flip, unless you’re going to make big changes here. But I’m still not in the position of saying that we can achieve fire with 70 5K in income in a really robust timeline without continuing to make changes on those fronts. You’re looking at at least 20 years, I think even if you’re saving 30, 40, 50% of that in the stock market, and that’s if things go well and the trajectory kind of continues to climb. But I think that that’s still fundamentally the issue here and that’s how I’d be thinking about it. Even at 70 5K, I don’t even know. Moving on to the next bracket, if it changes that much at a hundred K here, a hundred K is now we’re earning a pretty serious income and if we save 30 to 50% of that, we’re talking about maybe 30 to 40 grand a year after taxes, for example, and that’s going to take you what?
400 k, 800 k, 400 k in savings over 10 years, 800 k over 20 years, and you’re still living a very modest lifestyle at that point in time on that income. So I think we continue in the fire journey to have this dependence on these fairly high leverage investments. Remember, our goal here is to achieve a retirement level of wealth way before most people, so a hundred k, we’re starting to get this much more doable. If you do go down the traditional retirement stack ladder, I don’t think you’re going to be able to do it at 75,000. I think you’re going to have to do the live and flip Mindy for example, or whatever. You might be able to do it at a hundred, especially if there are, like we mentioned earlier, good income jump opportunities, but now we’re really flirting with that border of yeah, I think you could get pretty close in about 15 to 20 years if you had a low cost of living and you went down the traditional money guy or Dave Ramsey retirement planning stack, and he said, okay, I’m going to max out the HSA, I’m going to take my 401k and then max out the 401k.
If I can contribute anywhere else and maybe save a little bit in after tax brokerage account. You could get there with a fairly passive investing strategy if you are really tight on the expense side and consistent over a decade or two, at least almost about two decades, maybe two decades plus in this route. But I would still be thinking I need to layer in a couple of fairly substantial bets or using my housing as a tool to supplement the journey to fire. Even at a hundred thousand dollars a year in income, I think you’d still have to house hack live and flip or think about some other side project like building a real estate portfolio in order to really get there in a reasonable timeframe. What do you think about that? Mindy?

Mindy:
I don’t want to agree with you, Scott, because I see a hundred thousand dollars a year and I think, wow, that’s a great income and it is a great income, but I don’t really think that you’re wrong. I’m trying to think back to all the people that we have interviewed who got to a position of zero net worth and then started building and they reached financial independence within 10 years and none of them made $45,000. None of them made $75,000.

Scott:
Some of them started there, but none of them finished there.

Mindy:
Started, yes, but they didn’t finish there, and I don’t think many of them were only, and I do this in air quotes, only making a hundred thousand dollars. They had two. Now I’m assuming that a hundred thousand is household income, not per person.

Scott:
We’ve had several couples who have neither of them made more than a hundred thousand dollars a year.

Mindy:
Yes, neither. But together that’s like 150 or $175,000 a year, which is a much more, normal is not the right word. I know people are going to [email protected] to tell him that they don’t want me to say it’s a normal income, but it’s a much more normal tofi income at 175,000 than it is at a hundred thousand. It just takes a lot of money to reach financial independence because you are taking your 35 year career or your 45 year career and you are compressing it. Well, if you’re not going to make all this money for 45 years, you’re going to have to save a whole lot more in order to be able to reach your financial independence goals. So I don’t want to agree with you, but I think you’re right. I think even at a hundred thousand dollars a year, you’ve got to focus on keeping your savings rate at 30, 40, 50, 60%.
You need to avoid lifestyle creep, especially if you were in that $45,000 bracket and then increase to a hundred, oh my goodness, I got, I doubled my income, now I can spend more. No, you doubled your income now you can save more. Again, reach with the goal of early financial independence, you will have to be saving more and REIT encourages you to enjoy your best life, live your rich life, that’s great. He’s not wrong, but living your rich life and achieving early financial independence is not really two goals that you can do At the same time, you can live a great life while achieving financial independence. You can live a rich life depending on what your definition of a rich life is and reach financial independence, and I encourage you to enjoy the journey to financial independence, but income is going to have to increase because your savings has to increase because you are decreasing your timeline to get to retirement money.

Scott:
Yeah, I think that’s right. I think that’s the problem with, again, you can get there. I think a hundred thousand dollars a year in annual income is the starting line for, and let’s define fire. Let’s define fire. There’s all these crazy things here. Jacob Lund, Fisker, early retirement Extreme living off of $7,000 a year out of a trailer. That’s not what we’re about here. That’s awesome that he does that. That’s not what you’re probably listening to. BiggerPockets money in order to achieve fire for, I think the vast majority of listeners, I said this before, I’ve never gotten challenged on it. Please do challenge me if you disagree, is one and a half to two and a half million dollars depending on where you’re located. So when we say that, when we frame that goal, that makes it a little bit more clear that, again, a hundred K is just not going to cut it in terms of firing in a reasonable amount of time.
You can get there by 55 if you want, if you’re starting at 2025 in there. That’s possible with a hundred K, but we got to still got to supplement at all three of these income levels with them. 40 5K is so little income relative to the needs for fire that the game has to be around. How do I dramatically increase my income at 70 5K? We’re still kind of there, but we can get there if we’re able to have enough side pursuits that can really stack on there, and a hundred K is just a little bit reducing the pressure for those side hustles a little bit more. But in the 70 5K to a hundred K range, I still think you really have to throw in a couple of live-in flips or house hacks at the very least to really have a shot there if there’s not serious potential to expand the income by just sticking with it in the career and continuing to climb the ladder or advance the skillset there.
And those options I think are necessary that, or building the machine of a real estate portfolio, if your area is conducive to that in that and that income bracket, that’s not going to be practical in Los Angeles, although perhaps a hundred thousand dollars a year income earner or two could find some way to make it work within 50 to a hundred miles of Los Angeles with some sort of live-in flipper house hack getting going here. You’re probably going to need that dual income to really have that opportunity or find something creative. But in other parts of the country that are lower cost of living, that is a reasonable way to go about it. But I think you’re going to have to have that side business where you’re truly adding value as a business and not just passively investing in order to supplement that income and have a real crack at fire within 10 to 15 years.

Mindy:
Okay, I want to hear now from our listeners who are sitting here saying, Scott, I totally did that. If you reached Financial independence making 45, 75, a hundred thousand dollars a year household or similar, please email [email protected], [email protected], tell us your story. We want to hear it. But those of you who were making a higher income, we want to hear your stories too. Email me anyway just to say hi email Scott just to say hi. But I do believe that, Scott, you are correct. We’re both correct.

Scott:
Yeah, I think there’s a lot of right ways to approach life and building wealth. And again, if you’re not trying to fire, go down the traditional retirement stack, put the money in the 401k and the Roth, start investing today and build for the long term, even if you’re starting at $45,000 a year. But if you want to get rich in 10 to 15 years, you got to play a different set of rules because that ain’t going to do it. It’s just not going to happen there unless you get extremely lucky. And I think I’m not, this is a one to two year delay. I’m not saying do not invest in your 401k. I’m saying for the first next two years, pile up a bunch of cash, read a bunch of books, and find some opportunities to expand the income and then contribute to the 401k in Roth once you solved for the income problem and used every resource at your disposal, including your cash position to seize that next opportunity and then go after it’s a two year delay. And don’t do that. If you’re the type of person who’s just going to blow your money on a boat instead of actually investing it in the next opportunity or investment on this, don’t put it in cash, put it somewhere you can’t touch it. But for the fire community, if you’re going to go after this, go after it and recognize that the investment returns in your first $15,000 are totally immaterial to the 1.5 million to 2.5 million goal you’d know you’ll actually have in terms of reaching fire within the next 10 to 15 years.

Mindy:
Alright, Scott, I thought this was a great conversation. I would love to hear from our listeners, either through our Facebook group or if you want to send me or Scott a message [email protected]. [email protected] or the Facebook group, facebook.com/groups/bp money. We would love to hear from you, how did you reach financial independence? What business books do you have to recommend share with our listeners? Alright, Scott, we get out of here.

Scott:
Let’s do it.

Mindy:
That wraps up this episode of the BiggerPockets Money podcast. He is the Scott Trench. I am Mindy Jensen saying Tooles noodles.