folkefire financial independence Year In Review 2025
My 2025 FIRE journey was one of continuing change. The only constant: that I increased my account balance across the board! That’s good, right?
AI FI (not to be confused with AFI)
New in 2025; I don’t hate AI as much as I used to. But granted, I still hate it with the fire of a 1,000 suns. I had some fun with Gemini a couple weeks ago and asked a variety of prompts about varying FI-related scenarios; i.e. putting more money into an emergency fund, or into paying down the principle on our mortgage, or prioritizing my 401k, or in having a little more spending money to blow on life’s little luxuries. One positive about the ability of a robot to conjure up innumerable scenarios in an instant is that you don’t have to waste a ton of time fretting over different options, and for that I thank AI. During this experience I discovered that many of the options I juggled in my brain had minimal impact on a COASTFI or FIRE dates; these were personal decisions that had big impact on lifestyle but didn’t seem to have a huge impact on finances. AI helped to confirm that I’m very close to a robust COASTFI trigger date and if I can keep up the status quo for five more years I’ll be in good shape; raises and other new sources of income will have a decent impact; folkefire., i.e. the income I generate from my marginal music talent, is an important component of that strategy.
New Adjustments
As a new parent I had to adjust goals (more funds for diapers, toys, clothes and food) adjust budgets (less money for dining out, buying beer, other frivolous b.s.) and adjust how I spent my time (relinquishing the reigns of the Portland FIRE Meetup group was the hard decision) - and I’ve even had to adjust how I think about my musical contribution as a component of our household financial path.
2024 recap
In my 2024 year in review I documented a year of change. We had learned we were expecting only months before the new year and made a quick decision to leave a rental ($2,000 per month) and move to the suburbs into a house in which we put 3% down and increased our mortgage to $3710. How is that FIRE? Probably isn’t, but it provided a nice lifestyle adjustment as we prepped the arrival of our little one and merged into a multigenerational household, replete with free childcare ($2,500 per month value). Plus I have a sweet practice space at the opposite side of the house. In 2024 I finally hit that $100k in retirement savings milestone and I made a goal to make more time for my family and to book more gigs - this was a success.
2025 recap
As I look back on 2025 I see a year of growth. Big consequential decisions made in 2024 (buying house, having kid) continued to affect our FIRE plans and we got to assess some of that impact in 2025. It seems there weren’t any right or wrong decisions made - just different decisions. If my wife and I were in alignment with FIRE (we aren’t always) we might have cut expenses closer to the bone, but I’m finding the moderation she offers still leaves us with a fine economic outlook as a family. In 2025 I made good on a goal to set aside more time for music, including regular appearances at The Scout Wine Bar in Gresham. I wrote 30-pages towards a debut novel. My individual retirement accounts increased by 23% but our combined familial wealth grew by 35%. More on that later. And we relished each day in the absolute splendor of our baby son. I relinquished my Portland FIRE Meetup Group to a wonderful team that had been attending regularly and that clearly had new enthusiasm and new ideas.
Emergency Fund
In 2025 my wife and I got more serious about our emergency fund. We began diverting 13% of our monthly income to emergency savings. More recently, we’ve decided to prioritize this even further to knock it out and we’ve made it to 60% of our goal. We hope to reach this goal by October 2026.
College Fund
With the generous contribution of a friend we christened a college fund and began making contributions. We’re huge advocates for higher education and trust that our son would be able to take and pay off college debt, but we also see no harm in giving him a leg up.
Real Estate
Despite having departed from my FIRE-centric personal journey, and reoriented my brain to more of a family-friendly COAST FI hybrid model, things are just fine and the retirement math is great. This is thanks in part to unrealized gains from normal real estate appreciation. Turns out, even if you borrow a lot of money to buy a house, the value of that house can continue to climb, and when combined with even modest principle payments, can make the ledger look a bit better than it may have otherwise. Now we’re watching to see if the assessed land value continues to increase to the point where we can request an appraisal in an effort to get rid of our PMI. That’d be a complete coup de’etat to pull off in less than five years, given that we only put 3% down two years ago. Again, I don’t recommend this as a strategy, especially since it isn’t in the spirit of FIRE - but it is a reality we’re enjoying at the moment.
Family
Also new in 2025, we’re thinking about our retirement accounts through the lens of family versus solely through the lens of individuals. You hear Dave Ramsey, Ramit Sethi et al talk about this a lot - the idea that married couples need to combine and get on the same page with their finances - but it’s hard! We’ve had a lot of financial conversations during the past year - some that immediately flare up into anger and misunderstandings - but after intentionally returning and again and again - we’re making progress. I’m at a point where I no longer think about putting all music earnings into my ROTH IRA - but into my familial goals. And given that it’s all one pot anyways; familial goals can be snowballed with dual incomes, and these goals feed into personal goals.
Retirement Accounts
In early 2025 I was spooked by the political climate. I did whatever everyone says you shouldn’t do and fiddled with my investments based on fear. It turned out that I was very lucky. I sold all of my investments at the market high in January (lucky), moved cash into money market accounts just before the market dropped (lucky), then bought back into VTI just below my previous position as the market rallied for the better part of the year (lucky). No harm, no foul, no genius at work. I also learned that the market doesn’t care about democracy or invading Canada or threatening Greenland or appeasing Russia or other values that we might hope to attribute to it - it cares about making money and going up. Lesson learned.
ROTH IRA Conversion
This was my first year doing a ROTH IRA conversion and there’s a lot I could say about it. Other thought leaders cover this well - but a big shocker to me was the Pro Rata Rule. The rule means that if I performed a ROTH IRA conversion and had money sitting in any other IRA account, the value would be taxed based upon the proportion of money held in these various accounts. This learning mean’t that I scrambled at the end of the year to move money from existing IRA accounts into a 401k (where the money was immune from the pro rata rule) and spent a lot of time (I’ll never get back) with customer service.
Adjustments Moving Forward
I started folkefire with the intention of maxing out my ROTH IRA every year with contributions from my mediocre musical career. It’s year three or four and I haven’t quite gotten to the point where I am maxing out my ROTH IRA, but I haven’t put a ton of energy into doing so. I’ve learned that when married and filing jointly I make too much to contribute to a ROTH. I learned that a backdoor ROTH conversion is complicated and is beholden to the pro rata rule. But I also learned that the money earned from performing music can be more immediately used for other less complex goals, like completing our emergency fund goal. This took a minute for me to wrap my brain around, but in the accumulation phase the only thing that matters is meeting the most immediate goal - not setting cumbersome and whimsical boundaries.
folkefire evolution.
Was thinking about titling this section evilution. I created folkefire with the intention to max out my ROTH each year with funds acquired by performing music. Early on I realized this would be both harder than I thought ($6,500 is a lot) and easier than I thought (people pay me when I put forth the effort!). I learned that when I got married my income became too great to contribute to a ROTH IRA via traditional means and that I had to explore backdoor options. I learned via backdoor ROTH IRA conversions, I had to move my other IRA holdings into my 401K otherwise I’d be subject to a tax when converting via the pro rata rule. Glad that is solved. I also realized that when combining finances, contributing to a ROTH IRA can take a backseat to other priorities presented by the family; and that the alternative scenarios are not much worse or better - but simply present different options based upon differing or converging needs from two human beings with differing priorities. And a little more present-day security offers peace of mind. So while my original idea was to show I can earn a million dollars by performing music with ROTH IRA contributions - I’ve now expanded that definition to show how a music hobby can contribute to an overall wealth plan. As we move forward I hope to make both music and writing the centerpiece of my wealth-building strategy - just putting it out there, universe!
