Her FI Story No. 1: Anita, 33 yrs, $900k - $1.2M

A learning engineer on a $67,800 salary and 4 day work week used Coast FI to reinvent her career and is on track to retire in her 40s.

In 2020, Anita was working at what she thought was her "forever career" as a software engineer for the Department of Defense when she discovered something that would change everything: she didn't have to wait until 65 to have options. After learning about financial independence, she started investing 50-60% of her income. Two years later, she reached Coast FI - the point where her investments were enough to grow into a full retirement by age 65, even if she never invested another penny. That milestone gave her the confidence to reinvent her career to part-time work in higher education and pursue a master's degree, while continuing to work on a passion project sharing what she's learned. Now at 33, she's still on track to retire in her early 40s while working 4 days a week and investing $3,000 a month. As you’ll read, it didn’t start this way.

Why This Story Matters

Anita's journey shows how financial independence isn't just about the end goal – it's about using each milestone to create more freedom and flexibility along the way. Whether you're considering a career reinvention, or wondering how to balance investing with living well today, or looking to build multiple income streams, her simple, but mindful approach might inform your approach or give you the inspirational boost you need.

Story Highlights

• Reached Coast FI after two years of aggressive investing, enabling a purposeful career downshift

• Invests 45% of W2 income plus side hustle earnings while working 30 hours a week

• Created a portfolio that's returning nearly as much as her annual salary (~$60k this year)

• Building wealth while pursuing a master's degree and growing a mission-driven content project

The stories and weekly challenges shared here represent honest personal experiences and educational material. The content is meant to serve as inspiration and education respectively, and should not be taken as financial advice. Some links are affiliate links, meaning I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.

Question Set

Every woman's path to financial independence looks different. In this week's story, we explore how Anita is building her version of financial independence while staying true to her values.

• Name: Anita Kinoshita

• Age: 33

• Ethnicity: Mexican American

• Location: Monterey Bay Area, CA (MCOL)

• Relationship Status: Married

• Children: 0, but I have two fur babies. 7 year old Border Collie, Luna, and a 2 year old miniature long haired Dachshund, Coco.

• Occupation: Part-Time Learning Engineer & Content Creator

• Current annual income: $67,800 W2 + Side Hustle Income ($12k+)

• FI #: $900k - $1.2M

• What does FI mean to you and why is it important for you to pursue?: FI means being able to fund all of my life expenses without needing to trade my time for income and it means having options along the way. Pursuing FI is important to me for two main reasons: the first is that I get more control over my time and therefore life design. I want control over what my life revolves around, and I don't want my life to revolve around work I feel obligated to go to. The second reason is that I don't have to rely on anyone or get anyone's permission to create a life I am fulfilled by. Even having a level of financial independence has given me life changing options, and I expect that reaching financial independence one day will have a multi-generational effect.

• Where can readers learn more about you?: Instagram: @the.retired.millennial

Spending Philosophy

• What expenses bring you the most joy or value?: Aside from being able to buy my time freedom (through investing), I love spending my money on self-care, education and gifts. My monthly massage membership, master's degree or other educational programs that help me gain skills, and gift line items bring me the most joy and value.

• What expenses do you consciously minimize or eliminate?: Most people think of eliminating small expenses, or "wants", but I try my hardest to consciously bring down "needs," which represent the biggest section of my expenses. Before I got married, I made sure to have a roommate. I have a paid off car, and shop bargain for groceries, and minimize my tax bill. I do this so I can increase my contributions to what brings me the most joy and value on a smaller income.

• How do you balance spending today versus saving for tomorrow?: I have intentional funds for purchases like travel, school, omakase experiences that I contribute to monthly as well as a monthly line item what I get to spend guilt free on whatever I want. I also practice paying myself first, so I pick a percentage of income I want to invest at the beginning of the year, and I automate contributions to my investments, so it allows me to spend the rest on anything I want.

Budget Breakdown

• What percentage of your income goes to: Essential expenses, Lifestyle spending, Short-term savings, Long-term investing?:
  W2 (this year)

  • 45.2% goes to investing

  • 36.8% to needs, and

  • 18% to wants

  Passive income

  • Any dividend income gets re-invested

  • Income I get from cash back I put in a savings account that I am free to use one whatever I want. Sometimes I use it for gifts, or sometimes I use it on myself

  Side Hustle

  • Any income I get from sides hustles goes towards, taxes, business expenses and I invest the rest for FI.

• How did you decide on this allocation?: I worked backwards from my early retirement goal, which is early 40s. In order for me to reach that goal, I need to invest $3k/month minimum, so I set up my budget based on this goal.

• How has this breakdown evolved during your FI journey?: Yes, I certainly didn't start investing so much of my income. The first year that I started investing for FI, I was closer to investing $10,000 a year, and more of my income went towards my needs and saving for a downpayment, then as I examined my spending, I became intentional about lowering my big ticket expenses (needs). For about 2 years, I invested $50-60k a year (including my downpayment savings and side hustle income), and I'm down to investing about $36k a year.

Wellness, Beauty, & Wardrobe

• What are your wellness & beauty costs?:

  • $120/month massage/facial membership

  • $100/year on makeup (black Friday Bare Minerals stock-up)

  • $100/year on skincare (The Ordinary, Trader Joe's SPF, Cerave & Cetaphil moisturizer from Costco)

  • $5.99/month Oura ring

  • $30 haircuts 1-2x/year

  • Basic medical expenses: vitamin D ($5/m), rosacea cream($5/m), other

  • Recent one-time expenses: dental work ($1,300), Invisalign ($500 after insurance)

• What's your approach to building and maintaining a wardrobe while pursuing FI?

  • $100/month discretionary spending (saves unspent amount into a general savings account, and I pull $$ from this account when I do a wardrobe edit).

  • Annual wardrobe edits (~$500/year)

  • I use Pinterest for planning

  • Maintain wait list for items over $100

  • Check eBay and thrift stores

  • Shares wish list with husband for gifts

• How do you prioritize which wellness, beauty, and wardrobe expenses are worth the investment?: Right now, I feel like I am on a healthy pace to reaching my FI goal, so I don't mind spending money on my self care. I am also very aware of cost per wear, so if an item is expensive, but I know I'm going to wear it, it feels worth it to me. If I can afford something that I really want, even if the cost per wear is low, I also don't think twice about it. I never put beauty or wardrobe before my financial goals, though. Wellness, on the hand, I see as an investment as part of the FI equation.

• How do you handle the pressure of beauty standards while pursuing FI?: I've grown to be content with my “out of the box” appearance. I used to feel more pressure about beauty when I was younger, but the truth is that I'm not really in a profession where there is pressure to maintain a certain appearance, and I don't have friends that make me free pressure about keeping a certain look. I studied computer science where it's normal for women not to spend so much time on their appearance. I've never had to cut back on beauty expenses for FI because they have always been pretty minimal. I care more about wellness than I do beauty, but I don't completely ignore beauty either. I'm more interested in jewelry than I am make up, hair, or procedures. FI or not, it also helps to know the damage that certain procedures can do, which makes sticking to my out-of-the-box the easy and better choice for me.

The Beginning

• What was your financial situation like before discovering FI?: I was in my second full-time job, making about $70,000 a year working as a software engineer for the Department of Defense in a medium cost of living town in California. I had about a $50,000 net-worth that I built up over several years of investing to my 401k and savings.

• What were your early beliefs about money and work?: I always saw money as a tool to buy what I wanted. In high school, my dad was raising me and my brother by himself, which meant that as soon as I was able to work, I started paying for everything I own. I didn't see work or money as a status symbol or aspirational, but what I have always wanted was flexibility and white space on my calendar. Work and money have always been tools to get me that.

• How did you feel about your financial future?: I didn't have any extreme feelings about my financial future before discovering FI. I naively thought that I was good with money just because I was investing 15% of my income, but I was in a job I didn't love just because of the money, and was following conventional wisdom to buy a house, because I thought that's what financially responsible people do next in all cases. I still want to purchase a home with my now husband, but at the time I didn't know there were other options outside of the standard work a 9-5 job and buy a house. What I've realized now is that if I went in that direction, I would have felt trapped working a job to pay off my home. So while my financial future was healthy on the surface, it would have left me existentially miserable.

The Turning Point

• What specific moment or experience led you to FI?: Because I was in what I thought was my forever career which was software engineering where I was in a position to buy a home (condo), I took a personal finance course locally at the beginning of 2020 (before the pandemic), because it has a real estate module. I didn't know anything about buying a home, so I thought it would be helpful.

  
  My ah-ha moment came during the retirement module. I played around with a retirement calculator, and it let me input my retirement age. I remember being confused that it didn't say 62 or 65, or that I could put any number I wanted in. I think I input 65 at first, then kept dropping it, and at age like 50 or 45, the calculator output how much I needed to invest a month to make that happen: $1.3k a month, it read. At the time, I was already investing like $800 a month, and that's when the lightbulb moment happened for me: the more I invest, the earlier I can retire.

  
  Immediately, I was in love with the idea of retiring earlier than the status quo, and saw so many options for my life: I can spend more time with my kids, I can wake up whenever I want, I can create my own schedule, I can have side projects that make an impact without having to worry about making an income.

• What was the first action you took after deciding to pursue FI?: The first thing I wanted to do was tell more people what I had learned. I wanted to start an online blog about financial freedom. Inspired by "The Budget Mom," I thought "The Retired Millennial" would be a great blog name. I googled around to see if anyone was using the name, and I stumbled across a video about the FIRE movement and later Grant Sabatier's work, and realized that I was not the first millennial to discover early retirement.

  
  Because I was in this personal finance course, the first thing I started to do was create a budget. I gave myself 3 months to get the hang of a budget, and started to track my expenses and review my monthly spending.

Your Evolution

• How has your view of money and work changed since starting your FI journey?: Because I was in a career that I was only doing for money, I was excited to retire ASAP, but my view on early retirement has changed. I love working and spending time growing as a person and spending my time using my talents. Two years after aggressively investing, I reached Coast FI, which I used as an opportunity to downshift from my full-time job to a part-time job in higher education. Now, I feel motivated to continue to work on projects aligned with my talents and values. I still view money as a tool, but now I see money as a ticket to time freedom: I get to use my money to buy my freedom. I also now see money as my employee: each year, I expect it to work more than me than I do for it.

  
  Just this year, my portfolio has returned ~$60k across two of my biggest accounts. That is nearly all of my earned salary. Before pursuing FI, I would have never thought that I could work less and make more. I can see now, that it's possible.

• What inherited beliefs or cultural messages about money did you have to challenge?: My dad has always told me to save money money, but he never told me to invest it. He always instilled in my employee loyalty, to take as little sick time. Through his actions, I learned that the only way to earn money was to exchange my time for it.

  
  My dad and his brothers all held the belief that it was the man's responsibility (in a heterosexual relationship) to buy a home and be the breadwinner.

• What common/popular financial advice have you rejected along the way?: I had to reject the advice that buying a home as soon as you can afford one is the financial responsible thing to do. I now see more clearly that just because I can afford one, doesn't mean that I can't get ahead financially without owning one.

The Numbers

• What's your current FI number and how did you arrive at it?: $900 - $1.2M

• What's your expected timeline to FI?: I plan to reach FI in my early 40's: 40-42.

• How much of your income goes to investing for FI?: I invest a minimum of $3,000 a month.

Portfolio Breakdown

• What is your primary FI investing strategy?: Right now, I mostly invest in the S&P 500 and a few other index funds.

• How is your portfolio currently allocated?: About 98% equities, about 1% crypto, 1% bonds. I plan to invest more in bonds in my 40's

• How are your investments distributed across accounts?: 401k - $211,534 Brokerage - $134,004 IRA (Roth & SEP) - $65,751 Crypto & Ind. Stocks - $11,447

• How do you approach market downturns?: I stay on schedule with my automated investments, and if I have extra money to invest, I will, but I never purposely save money to "buy the dip" since I follow my investing plan no matter what. In the past, I have chosen to take my downpayment savings and invest them for the long term.

• How has your investing strategy evolved over time?: I used to invest more in a three fund portfolio, but decided to be a little more aggressive with my allocations since I'm in my 30's.

Systems & Tracking

• What are the 1-3 most important numbers you track?: Investment contributions, Portfolio size, FI milestones.

• What specific tools and practices work best for you to track these numbers?: Investment contributions - At the beginning on the year, I use a spreadsheet I made to make a plan of how much I will invest. I use the financial institution apps to track how much I have contributed. I also have a spreadsheet of every contribution i've made from my side hustle income, so I can track that separately.
  

  Portfolio size - I have monarch that combines all of my accounts to show me my net-worth, but since my husband and I both use that app, I track my own accounts separately on a simple spreadsheet.
  

  FI milestones - I keep track of my FI milestones and dates on a spreadsheet.

• What systems are you implementing to stay on track?: The best system I use is simple: pay myself first and automate the investments.

Career & Balance

• How do you balance career growth with FI goals?: In 2022 I left my full time software engineering job, and since I pivoted to higher education, I went back to school to get a master's degree to grow in my role. My work does offer financial assistance, so they will be reimbursing me for half of the cost. They will pay $10k, and i'll pay the other $9-10k over this and next year.

  
  The trade off I had to make was not to travel this year, or invest as much (I had to rely on my side hustle to meet my investing goal).

  
  To help with cashflow, I got a Fidelity credit card that is 0% for 18 months (the same length as my degree). Every month, I put $750 into a HYSA, but charge school expenses to the credit card and pay the $40-84 each credit card statement, and plan to pay the credit card off entirely once the 0% deal is off.

• How have you approached salary and/or job changes?: I've gotten very lucky to have a part-time role (30 hrs/week) with benefits working on a mission based project, with an affordable housing option in a safe neighborhood. My entire package is worth a little over $100k. This option also allows me to work on my passion project (telling more people about FI!) and work from home. My entire package including side hustles is more than my full-time income, and I am much more fulfilled by the way I spend my time.

• What are your top 3 strategies for maintaining quality of life while pursuing FI?: I try to always have something to look forward to, whether its a staycation or Omakase meal. I also invest in my personal growth, have a weekly date night, work on a passion project, and pull elements from my ideal day, like have a great cup of coffee every morning. Something I'm working on is starting is an offline hobby like pottery or spoken word.

Support & Advantages

• What unfair advantages or support systems have helped your progress?: I was able to get a full-ride scholarship and financial support in undergrad on top of work and internships, which helped me graduate with a bachelors degree in computer science with a positive net-worth.

• How do you think about and honor these advantages?: I feel like I got extremely lucky to have gotten those opportunities, and it makes me want to be generous with my own wealth and knowledge.

Milestones

• What is your current progress toward FI?: I'm 46% of the way to the bottom end of the range or 35% to the upper end.

• Which FI milestone are you most proud of achieving?: Coast FI

• What was your most challenging milestone?: My first $100,000 took the longest and challenged so much of my existing beliefs.

• What's your next exciting milestone?: I'm looking forward to reaching $500k invested because it's 50% to $1M.

• How do you celebrate your financial wins?: I try to do something at every milestone I feel proud about. For $200k, I made a cake and had some ice cream to go along with it and went out for a drink. I haven't celebrated since, but I plan to celebrate $500k, i'm not sure how yet, tough.

Progress Reflections

• What's been the biggest surprise in your FI journey?: Compound interest in action! Even after a 5 year period, it's insane to me that this year, my portfolio has grown by almost as much as my salary, and may match or surpass my salary by the end of the year. Even though I knew how compound interest works in theory, it's such a pleasant a big surprise to see the actual numbers.

• What has been the biggest challenge you've had to overcome on your path to FI?: Career expectations. I feel like I've disappointed a lot of people when I left engineering, and I don't have a straight forward answer for what I do for a living. I recently learned about the notion of a portfolio career, and identify diversification which have helped.

• What would you do differently if starting over?: I would have invested in the S&P 500 instead of a three fund portfolio (because of my age and risk tolerance)

Future Vision

• How do you see your FI journey evolving from here?: Next year, I plan to invest 50% of my W2 income (up from 45% this year) since my school is taken care of, and I plan to continue to invest any side hustle income. I plan to experiment with UGC for my pets to bring in additional income to invest, and beyond that, I'm not sure. I like to take it year by year, but I hope to invest the minimum necessary to reach FI in my early 40's.

• What lifestyle changes do you anticipate as you get closer to FI?: I do plan on having kids, so before I have them, I hope to invest as much as I can so that I can still afford both FI & kids.

• How do you plan to maintain motivation for the long haul?: I'm a control freak, and love the idea of being able to have more control over my time and projects.

Influences & Resources

• What unexpected piece of media changed your FI perspective?: Both the FI180 (https://choosefi.com/podcast-episode/032-milestones-fi) and The Fioneers (https://thefioneers.com/financial-independence-milestones/) content on FI milestones, and Ramit Sethi's content on living your rich life (https://a.co/d/aRuI6eq).

• How did it influence your approach or decisions?: Ramit's content helped me with my relationship with guilt-free spending and home purchase logic. I will now reach FI sooner because of this.

  
  The Fioneers emphasize building a life you love now, so when I reached Coast FI, it helped give me a framework to know that I was taking advantage of a milestone to gain a level of flexibility and time freedom now.

• What resources would you recommend that have been game-changing in your own experience?:
  A FI calculator, like a coast FI calculator makes it helpful to know how much you should be investing on monthly basis to reach your goal.

  
  An affordable index fund investing course. It also helped me to learn how to invest on my own outside of my 401k. I learned from Jeremey Schneider, and I always recommend his course to beginners.

Community Impact

• What lasting impact do you want your FI journey to have on other women?: I hope any any woman in her 20s and 30s would be inspired to increase her contributions through my story. She deserves time freedom and independence.

• What do you wish you had known or started doing sooner?: I wish that I would have invested an uncomfortable amount of money earlier on.

---

📚 Resource Corner

1. Save money on your auto insurance

Are you overpaying on your auto insurance? I have a better idea. Get a better quote and use the savings to put towards your current financial goals instead.

2. Open up an investing account or HYSA

Your cash is losing purchasing power to inflation. It’s time to make financial decisions in your best interest. Find an investing or HYSA account today.

3. Find a professional advice-only advisor*

Do you have a one time investing question you want to run through a certified professional that legally has your best interest in mind? Or do you need help developing a strategic plan? How Nectarine can help: retirement planning, portfolio review, estate planning, 401k rollovers, tax planning, Getting started with investing, Investing for kids, and more. Find an advisor today!

4. Find more thoughtfully curated resources HERE.

*I am not the creator or employee of this company, but I will be compensated by them if you use my affiliate link. As with all affiliate partnerships, I am incentivized to share these links which is a conflict of interest.

---

💬 Community Corner

This Week's Challenge:
Inspired by Anita’s approach to Coast FI, let's try this together!

Calculate your Coast FI number! Feel free to share in the comments what calculator you’re using, or feel free to use this one.

This Week’s Connection:
Money can be messy, and not having anyone to share high or low moments can feel isolating. What would you like to get off your chest or celebrate this week?

🎉 A Recent Win: Big or small, celebrate your progress! Did you start that investment account? Hit a milestone? Cook at home all week? Say no to an impulse purchase? Buy something you’ve been saving for? We're here to cheer you on!

😩 A Current Gripe: What's frustrating you on your FI journey? Dealing with lifestyle inflation? Struggling to stay motivated? Can't get your partner on board? You're not alone - let's support each other.

Drop a comment below - your share might be exactly what someone needs to hear today!

---

---

Are you pursuing FI? I’d love to feature you!

Your version of pursuing FI might be exactly what someone else needs to read! We all pursuing it differently and for different reasons. It doesn’t matter where in the journey you are: whether you just got started, or whether you’ve already reached FI, we’d love to hear from you.

Talk Soon,