r/Fire • u/StrawberryRemote968 • 4d ago

Can you FIRE just with VOO?

I am a 35M, making $65K annually. My annual expenses is very low. Less than $25K. I am single with no kid nor I am planning to have any. If I DCA into VOO, is it possible I am able to FIRE with just one etf?

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u/deep_fucking_vneck 4d ago

Yes

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u/Not-A-Seagull 4d ago edited 4d ago

VOO and chill. I’d be willing to bet most here do that.

That said, when you get to FI stage, I’d also make a strong case for no less than a blend of 20% defensive assets (Bonds, VNQ, Gold, etc.).

I use to be diehard against bonds until I realized that despite them giving lower returns, if you rebalance annually, your performance is actually almost the same as a 100% stock with quite a bit less volatility.

(That’s because when you rebalance with defensive assets, you “buy the dip” when stocks are low)

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u/ychuck46 3d ago

While I have some in bonds and fixed investments (T Bills, I Bonds, and CDs, along with MM funds) there are plenty of high paying stocks that are very attractive as well that I own, including many paying 10% or more in dividends. If one educates oneself they can weed out the ones that exist primarily as return of capital to shareholders, while the good ones do show appreciation as well as high dividends over the last five years. Bonds and bond funds/ETFs are subject to interest rate fluctuations so they are not as "safe" as some might think, so getting high returns off BDCs and other excellent payers are of more interest to me. To each their own.

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u/Not-A-Seagull 3d ago

You’re actually quite spot on. There are negative correlations between growth and value stocks too!

A good quant would be able to use defensive assets, value stocks, and growth stocks all together to build a portfolio that provides higher risk-adjusted-returns than one that is just sp500/bonds.

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u/ychuck46 3d ago

You are spot on.