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The FIRE Exit
Worked exits · Invented on purpose — the person is fiction, the arithmetic is not.

Jonas & Priya, 36 and 34 — Berlin

Two developer salaries, one question they keep postponing.

Do kids end a couple's early exit?

Jonas and Priya spend €4,200 a month between them, hold €380,000, and save €3,500 a month on two tech salaries. The plan works. The question that keeps moving the plan is a child — and everything they read tells them a family ends the exit.

Spends
4,200/mo
Invested
€380k
Saves
€3,500/mo
The number (×30)
€1,512,000

13 yrs 4 mo at 49

My verdict

A child moves their spending line, and the spending line moves everything — the number, the date, all of it. What it doesn't do is break the machinery. They can price the bigger life the same way they priced this one, and the two salaries carry it.

The honest version: kids don't end the exit, they re-price it. The couple that runs the new number BEFORE deciding is having a different, calmer conversation than the couple that treats it as fate.

Next exit: Carmen, 45 — Madrid

Everyone here runs at a deliberately modest 5% real return (after inflation) and a ×30 number — the calculators default to showing you more of the range; drag the sliders yourself. The people are invented, the arithmetic is real, and none of it is advice.

Bring me a challenge.

The Exit Audit, then ninety minutes: a straight verdict, real alternatives with their pros and cons, and your first move. If you want someone to nod along, I’m the wrong person to pay.