When I started writing about achieving financial independence in 2009, there wasn’t a lot of hoopla. We had people mainly discussing how they were building large enough investment portfolios to sustain their early retirement lifestyles. There was a thorough discussion and analysis of these investment portfolios.

Sure, there were some interesting folks who went to extreme frugality, like living on a boat, to try and retire early. But for the most part, everybody was focused on building enough passive income to genuinely retire before tapping their 401(k), IRA, and Social Security.

By the end of 2019, the definition of FIRE had strayed away from building up a large enough investment portfolio to the definition of FIRE becoming anything and everything. Everybody was FIRE if they just said so.

So on January 2, 2020, I tried to see if I could move the dialogue back to center by writing, Why I Failed At Early Retirement: A Love Story. By declaring myself a failure, perhaps others might feel OK to admit the same. Alas, nobody joined me. I was left for dead like John Snow battling a hundred horsemen.

Besides getting back to FIRE’s origins, in the post I admitted that my passive income would be severely tested in a couple years due to rising health care and child care costs. Further, I discussed the need to boost our wealth to buffer against an impending downturn during the same time period.

Unfortunately, after I published my post on January 2, I did not anticipate how quickly the bear market would arrive. As a result, roughly 20% of my net worth got blitzed. I’ve since increased my equities allocation to 25% of my net worth based on my stock market bottom analysis. But only time will tell if I made the right move.

As the stock market was cratering, I reached out on Twitter to see if anybody would like to share a FIRE confessional. Surprisingly, several people did. Here are their stories. I’ve changed some of the details to protect their identities.

Americans are facing a difficult dilemma.

How long are we willing to purposefully shut down our economy to combat the coronavirus and risk losing even more people due to a great depression?

I don’t know the answer, which is why I’m turning to you to hear your input.

My gut instinct is that most of our nation is willing to go through at most a 2-month long lockdown/quarantine/shelter-in-place before we demand our local and federal governments allow most businesses to operate again, with modifications for safety.

As of March 23 ,2020, there are supposedly ~35,000 confirmed coronavirus cases in the U.S. and 458 deaths (~1.3% mortality rate so far). The number of cases will surely go up as more testing becomes available and more carriers infect others in their community. On the positive side, the mortality rate should also go down as the denominator grows. You can check the daily numbers on Worldometers.info.

To put some perspective on the number of coronavirus cases and deaths so far, please note that since 2010, the CDC estimates that from 12,000 to 61,000 Americans die annually from the flu. Roughly 31 million Americans so far caught the flu during the 2019-2020 season.

Put differently, the number of coronavirus-related deaths in the U.S. needs to increase by 35X – 175X to match the number of flu deaths that occur each year. With the California Governor saying roughly 25.5 million people in California will get the coronavirus within eight weeks if no measures are put in place, the numbers are plausible if we believe him. Some scientists have postulated that 60% of the American population will eventually get the coronavirus.

Let me be clear that I’m not saying the flu is like the coronavirus. COVID-19 looks to be at least 10X deadlier. I’m just providing some numbers so we can think about what we are doing to prevent an unknown toll on human life.

At the same time, we know that millions of Americans will file for unemployment benefits in March, and millions more will file for unemployment benefits each month we are under lockdown. We also know that the S&P 500 is down ~30% so far and that a recession is almost an inevitability.

Eventually, millions of Americans will lose everything. The unemployment rate will skyrocket. Families will break apart. Children will go hungry. Homelessness will increase. Burglary and homicides will increase. Millions more children will be trapped in a cycle of poverty.

The result will be even more strain on the government and on our community to help those who’ve been most adversely affected. If this strain becomes too great, even more people will suffer.

With real estate firmly in the forefront of investor’s minds now that stock market volatility is back, I thought it would be good to look at the best cities to buy real estate in America. Real estate continues to be my favorite asset class to build wealth due to its stability and income.

I already spent a ton of time analyzing the most attractive states to buy real estate based on migration trends and valuations. Now all I’ve got to do is identify the top cities from the top states.

Cities like San Francisco, New York City, Seattle, LA, and Washington DC are getting quite crowded. Prices are high and people are getting fed up with the constant traffic.

Thanks to technology, there’s no reason why employees have to always come to the office anymore. They can work remotely. The coronavirus pandemic may also accelerate the remote trend and the desire to work in a less densely populated area.

As a family man now, I’d personally love more space and safer streets for my kids. But to buy a 10,000 square foot lot in San Francisco would probably cost me over $20 million if one were ever available!

When I first started writing about achieving  financial independence early in 2009, I never thought the FIRE movement would reach such a huge level of interest a decade later. After all, only misfits decide to aggressively forgo material pleasures, save 50% or more of their incomes, and retire from well-paying jobs in their 30s and 40s.

Back in 2009, the “lifestyle design” movement was all the rage because people were getting blown out of their jobs left and right. Some people went back to graduate school to save face. Others decided to start lifestyle businesses after getting laid off. I figured there was a good chance my head would also roll, which is one reason why I started Financial Samurai that summer.

Thanks to a raging bull market that ensued, life turned out fine and the FIRE movement picked up steam. In 2020, we are at peak FIRE, as folks try and retire early with less than $1 million to live a spartan life with no kids, no expectations for health setbacks, and no sense of duty to take care of their parents or other loved ones.

Unfortunately, when you’re at the peak, there’s usually nowhere to go but down.

Coronaviruses are actually a group of viruses that cause diseases in mammals and birds. In humans, the virus causes respiratory infections, much like the common cold or flu. However, rarer forms of the coronavirus like SARS and MERS can be much more lethal. As of Feb 2020, there are no vaccines or antiviral drugs that are approved for prevention or treatment.

When I first started hearing about the Wuhan coronavirus, I immediately thought about buying stocks. I had worked in Asian equities during the 2003 SARS virus outbreak that started in Guangdong, China. SARS ultimately infected ~8,000 people and killed ~774 people across 26 countries.

Then one day, we stopped hearing about the SARS virus. Asian stock markets stopped going down and began to rebound. My thinking is that the same thing will probably happen again.

Before buying stocks across Asia and the U.S., I decided to do some research to give me some reasonable entry points as to when to buy. Whenever I decide to invest in equities, I like to do so in five tranches. The reality is, I’m always buying throughout the year because I’m always saving and investing at least 50% of my after-tax savings.

If you are an investor, let me share some information I learned about the coronavirus and past viral epidemics to help you make a more informed investment decision.

The following is a guest post from David, a Financial Samurai reader and ex-government bond strategist in his 60s. We had a fantastic exchange over e-mail and I invited David to share his wisdom about money. After all, the best way to learn is to learn from someone who has been there before. Take it away David!

I sent a long e-mail to Sam with various musings on aging, retirement, debt and all somewhat relevant to the Financial Samurai audience. As punishment for the missive, Sam asked if I’d be willing to write a guest column or, alternatively, do community service. I opted for the former.

I spent the bulk of my working life as a strategist for various investment firms, essentially forecasting the direction of US interest rates for institutions like central banks, pension funds and anyone else with a few billion in assets who would listen. I did that for better than 30 years. For a large chunk of that I was the top-rated strategist in the field, on financial news programs a hundred times, and getting around the world.

Business class had its advantages, like at the end of one trip that in the space of five days found me in Riyadh, Zurich, Rome, London and finally Reykjavik. Reykjavik was not on the schedule, nor was the heart attack I had on the flight home that forced my flight to land Mid-Atlantic. Still, I got to stretch out nicely on the bed in business class.   

Retirement moment came just past 60, not entirely by self-determination, but not unwelcomed either. I decided to take the career down a notch, writing from home versus commuting three hours a day, five days a week, for the equivalent of 16 weeks of vacation, to a job I’d grown tired of.

Don’t you know it, shortly after that I was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, an incurable blood cancer. There are treatments, and oncologists say I could go on for years and new treatments are coming that hold promise.  

Then there’s the dark side of 50% five-year survival rates. And to think my biggest retirement worry was my money lasting into my 90s. Myeloma puts things in perspective, especially the time I have. Maybe what follows will give others some perspective on that. 

Once the first dirty bomb detonates in San Francisco, fake news king Mark Zuckerberg has 700 acres of Kauai lands to retreat to. Mark’s plan to build a wall all along his property to keep the locals out is smart because you know they’ll pound the shit out of him at first sight for suing them for their own land.

Even Mark’s buddy, Facebook board member and early investor, Peter Thiel has a private jet gassed up and waiting to fly his family and friends to the most expensive place in the world, New Zealand, if World War III ensues. He got citizenship without evening visiting. Ah, how nice it is to be a billionaire!

But what about the rest of us poor saps who can’t afford to pillage indigenous people or cough up $20,000 an hour for a 12-hour Gulfstream 650 flight to New Zealand? Are we commoners screwed? Heck no!

We must stand our ground and fight for our freedom as the ungodly rich flee. If we emerge victorious, then we can rebuild our own empires and permanently ban those cowards who left us when we needed their resources the most.

Although, after eight years, I failed to stay retired, my plan is to return to early retirement glory with two kids by September 1, 2022.

From now until September 1, 2022, our plan is to accumulate either $1,500,000 in new capital or figure out a way to consistently generate $5,000 a month in additional gross retirement income.

As of now, according to data provided by the California Association of Realtors, my family has a ~$60,000 a year income shortfall to live a middle-class lifestyle in San Francisco.

Based on the median home price of $1,600,000, one real estate group estimates that a household needs to earn at least $310,000 a year to comfortably afford a median-priced home. The calculation is based on a 20% downpayment and spending no more than 28% of monthly gross income on a mortgage.

Is there any wonder why I’ve been aggressively investing in heartland real estate since early 2016? Affordability is an issue here. But given I’m unwilling to move to a lower cost area of the country, I best hedge by making sure I benefit from the obvious demographic shift.

If we can accumulate an additional $1,500,000 in capital or consistently generate $60,000 a year in additional gross retirement income, then my family should have the means to stay in San Francisco after September 1, 2022.

If we fail at achieving either financial goal, then we will admit defeat and banish ourselves to Honolulu, Hawaii where the median home price is roughly 40% cheaper. Based on the lower cost of living in Honolulu, a family with two kids should be able to live a comfortable lifestyle off less than $200,000 a year. Further, I’ll also be able to more consistently tan my cheeks.

If you want to retire early, feel free to emulate my early retirement master plan to get things going.