House Hacker’s FIRE Projector

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Most FIRE calculators know exactly one asset: a stock portfolio. This one also understands rental property, monthly cash flow that grows with rents, a mortgage that eventually pays off, and the housing cost a house hack removes from your budget. It runs your numbers both ways, side by side: investing only, versus investing plus a house hack. Free, no account, and your scenarios save right in your browser.

You and your money

Your age

Annual spending you want covered in retirement ($)

Invested savings today ($)

Monthly amount you invest ($)

Expected return, after inflation (%)

Withdrawal rate (%)

The house hack (scenario B)

Monthly rental cash flow while you live there ($)

Housing cost the hack saves you, invested instead ($/mo)

Annual rent growth above inflation (%)

Years until the mortgage is paid off

Extra monthly cash flow once paid off ($)

Tip: for the rental cash flow field use the live-in figure, the other unit’s rent minus your share of the payment while you live there. For the housing-saving field, enter what you pay for housing now minus the House Hack Calculator’s effective housing cost.

When does work become optional

A, Investing only

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B, Investing + house hack

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Planning model, not financial advice. Uses real (inflation-adjusted) returns, so all dollars are today’s dollars. Rental income reduces the portfolio you need: at a 4% withdrawal rate, every $100/mo of durable rental cash flow replaces $30,000 of portfolio.

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<iframe src="https://vantovault.com/tools/fire-projector/widget/" style="width:100%;min-height:1300px;border:0" loading="lazy" title="House Hacker’s FIRE Projector by Van to Vault"></iframe><p>Tool by <a href="https://vantovault.com/tools/fire-projector/">Van to Vault</a></p>

Both paths start from the same invested savings, so treat this as a post-purchase comparison: if the down payment and closing costs will come out of that balance, enter what is left after the purchase, or the house-hack path starts with money it would not have.

The two inputs that matter most come from the property itself: run a candidate through the House Hack Calculator for the cash flow and effective housing cost, then sanity-check the long hold with the Long-Term Projection. For the strategy behind the shortcut, read house hacking your way to FIRE.

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