I still think EPF should be included in the calculation. After all, it’s a defined contribution retirement plan. Wealth is semi-fungible: you draw down from what’s liquid now while waiting for other assets or liquidity events to come through.

Understand your intention and rationale.
But you are overly conservative and put in too much buffers... Everywhere...

It's like you are playing the resource gathering game in not just hardmode, but on inferno mode. Lol. Stress....

Not really a matter of difficulty… just undecided.
Plus, I still carry over the old corporate habit of evaluating plans by calendar year.
The increase is a bit too steep and might be counterproductive. A gradual increase could work better???

any reason to hold on to the land? if its for capital appreciation, then ok to hold. else the standard thinking is that this is a unproductive use of capital.

Best is for him to do a proper financial analysis on his situation to see if FIRE is really possible. High income doesn’t automatically mean higher chances of early FIRE. If his passive income is already close to his spending, then he has real options.

Of course, it also depends on his character — how aggressive (or greedy) he is.

And then there’s the flip side. some of us here are already generating decent passive income b4 and after retirement. Like Ram, whose passive income already dwarfs his active income. By the time he fully retires, that passive income should still be sizable… Who knows, your friend’s new “retirement activity” might turn out far more fulfilling than that next promotion and pay bump.

Easy solution.... Don't change the lifestyle. Just maintain lor....

That's what it means for normal fire... Passive income covering spending budget of working life before retirement.

I'm very curious... what do you mean by gainfully employed tax free? in Malaysia? is there a special case or in a special job scope (like arm forces) to be tax free?
or this is from working overseas that doesn't have income tax... ?

Funny you brought this up… before trying to convince you that promotions usually come with decent bumps, I thought its best I check my old records.
Turns out you’re right. When I was promoted, my increment was a glorious 5%. What a sad joke.

The good part came later though: raises every 6 months for some years. I suspect that was partly due to profitability, and partly to bring my pay in line with peers (most of whom were like 15 to 20 years older than me).

So maybe it’s still worth taking the chance and climbing the ladder...

How many dare to all in? That requires huge convictions and balls of steel....!
Especially for Fire retirees... Scary one eh...

1.2m pa at 4% is like a 30 million pot rite? (assuming no cap gain from the FI instrument)
If its me, this is highly inefficient if bulk of wealth. Should diversify out to other assets and optimize a bit.

Small amt BTC for fun, I use luno. It's really for fun as the value is lesser than 100K rm. Big amount, etf better.

This post has been edited by Wedchar2912: Sep 17 2025, 04:26 PM

wondering.... now that your networth essentially double (or more than double) vs 2021, are you thinking of retiring earlier, or semi-retire or continue to accumulate resources?
to me, your job seems interesting to continue cos one month on, one month off... quite interesting a schedule to someone like me.

Still on track to pull the trigger and FIRE this year?

You made a really sharp point on the word "work". It’s a world apart from "job". With today’s economy and new work setups, that old strict definition of "work = job" doesn’t really hold anymore.

Using your example (and layering my own), I think it helps to reclassify income sources. Beyond pure passive income, which most of us agree on, almost everything else still requires some level of "work":

Pure passive income
– EPF dividends
– Long-term equity holdings (eg Maybank or DBS shares)
– Static instruments like FDs and even some e-wallet balances paying 3.x% pa

No effort, no monitoring: just collect.

Semi-passive income
– a few rental properties (tenants, repairs, paperwork = not exactly “do nothing”)
– investments that need babysitting (tactical stock plays, some options trades)


Semi-work income
– Mature business on semi-auto (you’re not in daily ops, but still need to steer the ship)
– Side hustles that aren’t 9–5 but still need formal attention

Pure work income
– A job, where someone else dictates your tasks and schedule
– Active trading or gig-style work that requires constant monitoring


So yeah… if I use this classification, I haven’t really “retired” the past 4 years either. More like semi-passive FIRE. Kinda disappointing… but at least it pays

I enjoy tremendously my semi-passive income activities. So happen also generate very good income with minimal attention (a few hours attention a month, max ... no-one counts reading news as work rite?)... imitating Buffett, I am still "working" past my FIRE date. lol

traditional definition is simply this....

sum up all your expenses on yearly basis (so as to smooth out any monthly variations)... take the average over a few years to be better.
That's your benchmark.

If want some buffer, add in like 20 to 30% extra.

Say, your yearly expenditure is 120K rm, then passive income of this is enough.
to sleep soundly, 156K rm per year passive income...

Note: this is passive income... to be compared to expenditures. Usually this is way lower than current active income

does TCM count? ie working in a chinese medicine shop?

That’s a good rule too… because net monthly salary already means after tax and EPF deductions.
In essence, your definition boils down to:
Net monthly salary = expenditure + leftover savings.

So if your passive income covers ~80% of net salary, that’s almost the same as if you’d been saving 20% all along.

And at retirement, there’s no need to keep saving: so covering expenses alone is technically enough.

Yeah, it’s tough. That’s why so many can’t afford to retire.
The real issue is that most people never start building a passive income portfolio from day 1 of employment. The earlier you start, the more it accumulates and eventually, it snowballs fast.

I still hear the old-school advice: "You’re hitting 50, time to save for retirement". By right, that advice should’ve been given on day 1… or at least by age 30. That’s when the compounding and passive income growth really work in your favor.

Hate to break it to you, but not really… every firm, whether European, American, Malaysian, Singaporean or Chinaman, puts itself first. Everyone is expendable and is just a replaceable resource.

That’s also why companies and business owners loudly dislike the FIRE movement. The fewer choices employees have, the more control stays with them.

Well bro, I think you can afford to relax a little instead of living the full-on B40 lifestyle. You could easily bump up your spending by, say, an extra 1K per month and have a much more chilled life. No need to play “resource gathering” on hell mode. Just switch it to hard mode.
(the optimization target need not be maximize savings or minimize time to FIRE.)

If you rework your numbers, you’ll see it won’t derail your plan much at all. At that small expense (which you’ll hardly feel once you’re 40++), your standard of living today improves drastically. After all, 1K represents about a 70% jump in spending power.

This post has been edited by Wedchar2912: Sep 21 2025, 11:46 AM

lol... good one!