Welcome Back, Future Funder!

Do Americans even believe that early retirement is possible anymore?

Or… that even regular retirement is possible?

You may find yourself daunted by the idea of actually being able to stop working, or asking the question “how in the world can I teach my children about retirement and financial independence?”

Worry not. The FIRE (financial independence, retire early) community has a game plan for you.

This week, we’ll dive into this early retirement movement and show you how you can apply its principles to your life right now—while also prepping you to set your children up for successful (and early!) retirements today.

Inside today’s issue:

✅ Your FIRE Number Is the Key
✅ How to Invest for 25x Your Expenses
✅ Teaching Prosperity to Your Kids

Let’s open those calculators and dream a little.

Bon a petit! 🧑‍🍳

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🍽️ Main Course: a Breakdown of the FIRE Method

The overarching goal here is to save the money you need to retire as fast as possible by saving aggressively in order to stop working as early as your 30s or 40s—but don’t worry; if you’re starting later than that or you have debt to pay off, the same principles of saving and investing apply.

Whether you want to go for it yourself or maybe plan to teach your children how to save and invest for early retirement, are the steps to the FIRE process:

1. Find Your FIRE Number

This is the amount of money you need in order to retire, which is typically 25x your annual expenses. The reason that this multiple is so high is because you’ll be living off of 4% of your retirement portfolio each year for the rest of your life (post-retirement).

Some people choose to save more than this in order to live more comfortably during their retirement years—but that’s totally up to the individual.

The average US household’s expenses are $77,280 per year—however, one of the most important focuses of FIRE is to decrease your expenses while increasing your income as much as possible. So, we’ll use a lower figure for our examples: annual expenses of $50,000 (monthly: $4,166). Feel free to substitute your own household expenses here to see what your personal FIRE number is.

25 x $50,000 = $1,250,000 FIRE number

That number may seem intimidating. That’s why the next steps are so important.

2. Aggressively Save

Some people say that putting 10% into a savings account would count as “aggressive savings.”

Some would say 25% is a lot.

How about 75% of your income?

That’s how much a lot of FIRE devotees save annually in the pursuit of early retirement. And it makes sense—drastic measures like that are the only way you can reliably save enough money to reach your FIRE number.

Is saving 75% not for you? Totally understandable. We would still challenge you to consider how much you’re currently saving for retirement—and to think about upping that percentage. Would it be possible to cut back on spending? Or maybe to put that money toward your children’s college funds or a business investment?

The first step is to save an emergency fund for 3-6 months of your expenses. 

For our example: $4,166 x 6 months = $24,996 emergency fund

But where do your 75% savings go after you’ve got your emergency fund set up?

3. Invest Well

As you probably have guessed, just saving money won’t get you to your FIRE number. You’ll need to put your hard-earned cash into high-value investments that can grow over the 15-25 years that you’ll be working.

What types of investments are we talking about?

• If your job offers a 401(k), take full advantage of that. In 2025, employees can contribute up to $23,500/year to their 401(k).

• Next, start an IRA if you haven’t already, and max that account out each year. You can invest $7,000 annually into your IRA (and a catch-up

• The S&P 500 can be a solid option for growth-focused investors—it basically represents the American economy, and has grown 9.72% per year on average, according to The Nerd Wallet.

Average household income in the US is $87,869.

If you invested 75% of that, it would be $76,353 per year.

Perspective: if you invested $65,901 a year for 15 years at an 8% growth rate, you would have $1,918,254 by the end. (Monthly investing and compounding)

Do you see how powerful aggressive saving, investing, and compounding can be? You would be well past your FIRE number in less than 15 years.

4. Live Off of Withdrawals From Your Savings

And finally, after you’d reached your FIRE number, you would then simply quit your job, withdraw 4% of your retirement each year, and live off of that. Simple enough, right?

Or, you could pick up a part time job.

Or start a business.

Or move to the tropics!

It’s really up to you, because by this point, you have crushed your goals and are fully financially independent. Congratulations.The phrase “we have always done it that way” comes from the business world.

💡 Money Isn’t the Only Way to Pass on Generational Wealth to Your Kids

So, how can this information help your children? This is where it’s so important to explain the basics of financial literacy and planning to the next generation so that they can have the best possible starting hand in life.

Do you need to make your kids obsessed with finance, business, and investing? Absolutely not.

Would it be prudent and helpful to their future selves if you explained the following key points to them? Most definitely.

• Work hard: The biggest key to financial success (and success in general) is the ability and drive to simply work hard and not give up. Saving and investing takes time and grit, but you will not reach the payoff if you don’t do these things.

• Delay gratification: Putting $500 into the S&P 500 for a year is not nearly as exciting as buying a PS5 today. However, in 10 years, that one investment could be able to purchase multiple PS5s—or a car! Don’t deny your children fun, but teach them to not immediately take the easy route.

• Compounding interest: The biggest key to leveraging compounding interest and investments is that the earlier you start, the more powerful it will be. Have them start now, even in small ways!

🌟 The Bottom Line

FIRE isn’t for everyone, and that’s okay. But what is for everyone is financial literacy and health. We hope that even if you don’t plan on doing FIRE in your own life, maybe this newsletter has given you some food for thought and—more importantly—some hope that financial independence is totally possible for you.

Cheers to getting 1% better each week! 🥂

👂 We’d love to hear from you

👂 Do you have goals for retirement? If not, are you considering them?

We’d love to hear about it—and your story could help someone else do the same.
Just hit reply and share.

Thanks for reading,
—Your friends @ Future Funders 🍽️

P.S. Forward this to a friend who would laugh at the idea of saving 75% of their income. 🥴