I've started my FIRE journey in India! (Part 1: Intro and Net Worth)

There's no shortage of posts here on Blind where people ask how much one needs to FIRE in India and then responders throwing around random numbers that range from practical to downright stupid. There however are hardly any first-person accounts of folks that have truly retired early. Nobody seems to have taken the trouble to present an honest account of their FI journey, with all the gory details laid down. I'd like to try to fill this gap here by documenting my experiment with FIRE in India.

Since there's a lot I want to share, I'd like to break my post into a series of articles so this one single post doesn't get overwhelmingly long and hairy. I'll be focusing mostly on the nuts and bolts of it all where I talk about 'How I did it', without getting much into the 'Why I'm doing it' angle.

Intro:
My wife and I, 34 and 36 respectively, quit our H-1B jobs in the U.S in March 2021 and moved back to Bangalore, India with our 2 year old son. We're both Indian citizens while our son holds an American passport. My wife and I both did our Masters in the U.S and worked in the S.F Bay Area for 8 years and then in the Seattle region for 2 years before pulling the plug and beginning our experiment with early retirement in India. In the interest of not blowing away my anonymity, I'll only say that my last job was at Microsoft in Redmond, WA.

Net Worth:
We have begun our FIRE journey with a combined net worth of $1.3 million, that is all invested in the U.S stock market. In addition to that, we have a 3 bedroom apartment in Bangalore that has been paid off. I'm valuing our apartment at $300,000. This puts our total net worth at $1.6M, although I don't always count our home equity into our net worth.

Here's a break down of our $1.3M:
Checking Account - $12,000
Taxable Brokerage Account - $692,500
Traditional IRA - $441,000
Roth IRA - $89,000
Health Savings Account - $65,000

Below are our holdings along with the number of shares:
AAPL - 176
BA - 14
MSFT - 331
CDNS - 1055
FB - 402
FSKAX - 1450
FXAIX - 1188
VTSAX - 3177
VFIAX - 223

We attained our net worth while holding non-FAANG jobs and working at levels not exceeding an MTS-4 (Member of technical staff) or the equivalent of an L62 at Microsoft. Except for my last two years at MS where the sign-on bonus and vested RSUs bumped up my TC, all through the earlier years, our salaries were under $150K each.

We got to our current figures through a combination of frugal living and aggressive investing, coupled with the incredible bull run of the U.S stock market during the last decade, that continues to the present day. When I say aggressive investing, I don't mean the risky WSB/YOLO style of wagering bets. I only mean throwing all the money I could into the stock market and betting on the U.S economy as a whole by buying Total Market and S&P500 index funds. Except for a few like Apple and FB, I never got much into picking individual stocks. I missed out on the moon-rides of Tesla and never got into crypto investing. No IPO windfalls or other lotteries came our way. Options trading is still a little foreign to me. In hindsight, I do feel that I missed out on making a far bigger fortune and should have invested more time into sniffing out trends.

The areas where we scored big savings were owning a modest car, renting apartments that didn't exceed $3000 a month (South Bay), short commutes to work and steering clear of conspicuous consumption. We've never cared much for the latest gadgets and gizmos or branded clothing and accessories. The biggest savings however, came - an easy guess - by not buying a house in the Bay Area or Seattle region. I'd like to make it clear that home ownership wasn't a good idea for us personally because we had other plans with our lives. It doesn't mean I narrow-mindedly go around shoving my opinions on home ownership down people's throats. I'd only suggest that you don't buy a home out of peer pressure or because your parents/in-laws talk you into it.

Now, before the biased ones wriggle out of the can and judge me for a stereotypical penny-pinching Indian that just hoards all his money and never has any life experiences, I'd like to get that out of the way. We had a great time in the U.S and traveled all over the country, Hawaii and Alaska included. I dearly hold Yosemite National Park close to my heart and have gone on multi-day solo backpacking trips there and went up the cables to the summit of Half-Dome. We had plenty of house parties with friends and ate out a lot. I play the Guitar decently well. We have donated generously to Goodwill and I've volunteered a bunch of times at Habitat for Humanity. I watched one of my favourite bands Guns 'n Roses live in Oakland. My wife watched her teenage sweetheart Enrique Iglesias live twice, in Oakland once and then in Vegas again.

I'm not bragging here but just trying to make a point that FIRE doesn't have to come at the cost of making endless sacrifices and lead a dead boring life. You just have to prioritise your wants and desires.

I love the United States with all my heart. If there were no family ties back in India and if there were opportunities to take longer breaks in between jobs every so often without constantly being on the leash that H-1B has become, I'd have called the United States home.

In my next post that should come out by this weekend, I'll talk about some topics like the logistical and financial things I did before moving back to India. In the post after that, I'll write a bit about what my wife and I plan on doing with our time. Suffice to say that right now, with a two year old son in tow, taking care of him almost seems like a full time job.

I will link to my future posts here so there's a trail interested readers can follow. Keep an eye out!

Part 2 (Financials Before Leaving US): https://www.teamblind.com/post/ShzXbLBN
Part 3 (Miscellaneous Odds and Ends Before Leaving US) https://www.teamblind.com/post/4j3vmX8N

Random musings: https://www.teamblind.com/post/CxNu7nwo

#investments #personalfinance #fire

Post FIRE Life: Notes to self for a meaningful life in 2022 Blind

I’ve started my FIRE journey in India! (Part 3: Miscellaneous Odds and Ends Before Leaving US) Blind

I’ve started my FIRE journey in India! (Part 2: Financials Before Leaving US) Blind