My FIRE Path: 2025 – Turning 40: From $0 to $4M in 10 years

Happy New Year everyone!

I turned 40 this year. Ten years ago, I was rebooting my career after a failed startup with essentially $0 to my name. Today, my net worth just crossed $4 million – a milestone I never imagined possible when I started my FIRE journey in Singapore back in 2016.

WHAT. A. YEAR. (And what a decade!)

But 2025 specifically? Let me tell you – it was another exceptional year that reminded me once again why staying the course works.

The Year in a Nutshell

I’m basically running out of vocabulary to express my surprise and bewilderment at this point. We’ve just wrapped up three spectacular years in a row: 2023, 2024, and now 2025.

Despite widespread negative sentiment and doom-and-gloom predictions when Trump unveiled his reciprocal tariffs on Liberation Day, 2025 turned out to be another exceptional year for investors who stayed fully invested in stocks (I guess gold and silver as well.)

When we last caught up during my mid-year post in June, the market was just recovering from the massive Liberation Day crash, climbing back above its previous all-time highs.

As of this writing, nearly every major index is hovering near new all-time highs:

• S&P 500
• Nasdaq 100
• FTSE All-World Index
• MSCI World Index
• MSCI Emerging Markets Investable Market Index
• Gold and Silver
• Even Singapore’s Strait Times Index!

Here’s the kicker: With the weakening USD and relative US market underperformance this year, international indexes actually outperformed the S&P 500. This was the year that ex-US diversification truly paid off.

“Just Keep Buying” Wins Again

The same story we’ve seen time and again has repeated itself – through Trump Tariffs Part 1, the Covid-19 Crash, and Ukraine War + QT Bear Market in 2022.

While the Liberation Day crash was terrifying in the moment, investors who held tight or kept buying – staying the course – are way ahead today.

Conversely, those who panicked, sold, and stayed out of the market due to fear missed the massive recovery and potentially locked in significant losses. It’s a tale as old as time.

This highlights a crucial truth: Predicting short-term market movements is extremely difficult, and letting fear dictate investment decisions is a dangerous pitfall.

The long-term investor’s mindset

As long-term investors with investment horizons measured in decades (as everyone in the FIRE community should have), there’s one simple truth we need to remember:

Over the long term, the market will invariably trend upward.

We should ignore short-term market noise and stay the course, unbothered by constant panic and endless reasons why “now is not the right time to invest.”

Critical Reality Check: Crashes and corrections are normal, healthy parts of financial markets. They will happen – we just don’t know when. It could be next week, next month, next year, or five years from now.

Our investment approach should account for this certainty and include a systematic way to invest through volatility while staying the course.

Now let’s see how I fared in 2025.

How I Invested in 2025

How I Invested $430,600 in 2025: Complete Breakdown

Category	Amount
SRS	SGD 15,300
CPF-IS	SGD 22,500
Cash	SGD 143,000
Leverage	SGD 249,800
Total	SGD 430,600

Here’s the breakdown of my 2025 contributions:

1. Smallest portions: SRS and CPF-IS contributions
2. Second largest: Cash contributions
3. Largest contribution: Funded by leverage

SRS & CPF Investment Strategy

CPF-IS: As mentioned in my previous post about selling our property, since our current home is entirely in my wife’s name, I’ve completely deployed my CPF Ordinary Account into the Amundi Index MSCI World Fund via Endowus. I continue adding to this position monthly.

SRS: I maxed out my annual SRS contribution and fully deployed it into the same Amundi fund for global developed market exposure.

Cash Contributions

All cash contributions went toward purchasing VWRA throughout the year, maintaining my consistent investment approach.

Leverage Strategy

Obligatory Warning: Using leverage for investing is extremely risky and can wipe out your portfolio if you don’t know what you’re doing. This post is not intended to be a recommendation for anyone to use leverage. If you’re considering leverage, ensure you’re fully informed about the risks and have a clear plan before jumping in.

On this note, I only use leverage for my own portion of the investment portfolios. While I also invest for my wife, her portfolio is invested in similar global indexes but is leverage-free (and thus lower risk).

If you’d like to read how I started using leverage, my reasoning, and how it’s performed so far, you can read these posts in chronological order.

Why Most Contributions Came from Leverage

While it may seem surprising that the majority of 2025 purchases were made using leverage, this is completely expected during periods of market growth when maintaining a target leverage ratio.

Here’s the math: As the market rises and I continue contributing cash, the total portfolio value increases, but the leverage balance stays the same. Without deploying additional leverage, my ratio would gradually drift from 1.5x down to 1.4x, reducing my portfolio’s aggressiveness.

To maintain my 1.5x leverage ratio, I need to add more leverage as the portfolio grows.

My 2025 Leverage Deployment

Beyond the exceptional series of risk management trades made before, during, and immediately after Liberation Day, my leverage deployment throughout the rest of 2025 was straightforward and mundane.

I simply kept buying to maintain my ~1.5x leverage ratio, typically adding to positions on days when the market dropped from all-time highs. All leverage purchases went to VWRA for maximum diversification.

Portfolio Review: $3.37M Breakdown

Given all the contributions, leverage deployments, and rebalancing, here’s what my portfolio looks like at year-end:

Portfolio Overview

Major Portfolio Changes from 2024

Comparing my 2024 and 2025 allocations, there are two major changes:

1. IWDA reduction, VWRA increase: This shift resulted from rebalancing during Liberation Day crash.
2. QQQM addition: I added a small allocation to QQQM during the Liberation Day crash when prices were dropping. This turned out to be a good call. Since it’s a tiny portion of my portfolio, I’ll likely just hold it as a fun sector bet.

Important Highlight for New Readers: The vast majority of my holdings (~95%) consists of boring, globally diversified index funds. No stock picking required. I also don’t time my contributions – I buy when I receive my salary and bonus. That’s it. (Why this works in simple terms.)

Portfolio Performance: How My $3.37M Portfolio Grew 30% in 2025

Yearly change

Table Format:

* Some contribution numbers changed from previous years as I adjusted my spreadsheet formula to stop counting interest charges as part of contribution (as they should never have been counted as part of contributions. Total change for the year should remain pretty much the same.
** Less one-time contribution from the sale of my home.

Key Takeaways from 2025 Performance

1. Nearly $770K increase: The portfolio started at $2.6M and ended at $3.37M, representing almost 30% growth.
2. Market gains dominated: This year’s market gains were more than 3x my combined cash, SRS, and CPF contributions.
3. Strong but not record-breaking: While impressive, we didn’t quite match 2024’s insane performance – but I’m not complaining. That level of growth was unlikely to repeat two years in a row.
4. The tipping point in action: For the first six years (2016-2021), portfolio growth came primarily from my contributions. It was only in 2022 (year 7) that market gains began contributing more than my own deposits (excluding the one-time home sale contribution.)

The Power of Compounding: Critical Lessons

Early Years Reality: In the beginning, it feels like you’re doing all the work – because you are. That’s why focusing on earning more, saving more, and investing consistently matters far more in early years than chasing returns.

No matter how impressive your returns, a large percentage of a small amount will always be small. You’ll make the most impact through your ability to save and invest consistently. The compounding will show itself later – but it’s working behind the scenes.

Reaching the Inflection Point: This marks the third consecutive year where my portfolio grew passively by more than I earn at my full-time job. In fact, it made almost twice my annual salary.

As my portfolio continues growing, this will become the norm rather than the exception. Once you reach this tipping point, contributions from your full-time job become less significant as a percentage of total portfolio growth.

You can see this diminishing contribution significance by comparing the red line (contributions) to the blue line (total value) in the chart above. The contribution increase looks relatively flat compared to total portfolio growth.

A Profound Shift: It’s a surreal feeling to make twice as much money completely passively compared to what I earn spending 40-60 hours per week at work. Additionally, seeing my active contributions slowly diminish in significance as the portfolio grows makes it crucial to find more value in my work beyond just money – because the money itself isn’t making much of a dent anymore.

Gains Chart & “Scary” Drops

Here’s a look at all the “scary” market drops that felt extremely significant at the time, marked on my gains chart with links to my posts about them:

• A (End 2018): Trump Trade War Part 1
• B (Early 2020): Start of Covid-19 Crash, During the Crash and Recovery
• C (Mid 2022): Ukraine War, Inflation & Fed Quantitative Tightening
• D (End 2022): Bottom of the Rate Hike Cycle
• E (Early 2025): Trump Trade War Part 2 and Recovery

Why This Matters

Each post was written in the moment, and you can see that each situation felt dire at the time. There’s always a narrative about why “this is the end” and why “the market can always go lower.”

However, looking at the chart clearly shows:

1. Trump Trade War Part 1 is barely visible today.
2. Covid-19 Crash briefly took my portfolio negative in 2020, but it’s also barely a blip today
3. Ukraine War and rate hikes created the longest bear market shown here. It felt endless. as the market kept dropping – but it was also the best time to invest. By continuing to buy on the way down, I caught the massive recovery that followed.
4. Trump Trade War Part 2 created the biggest canyon in my gains chart, but once again, the recovery rewarded those who stayed the course. I expect this too will become a tiny blip within a few years. Stay tuned.

The Timeless Lesson: Staying invested (or even continuing to invest) through market panic and crashes has always paid off.

Internal Rate of Return (XIRR)

I’m ending the year with an inception-to-date XIRR of 18.6% after approximately 9.5 years of investing.

The XIRR for 2025 alone is approximately 22% (calculated by treating the year-start portfolio as the initial cash flow, adding all contributions throughout the year, and assuming I sold the entire portfolio at year-end).

Not too shabby, if I do say so myself!

Given that VWRA increased about 17% in SGD terms and the S&P 500 increased about 12% in SGD terms this year, my portfolio performed considerably better.

Why the outperformance? The additional growth comes from leverage, which amplifies returns as long as borrowing costs remain lower than the equity risk premium over the measured period.

As I maintain a 1.5x leverage ratio and borrowing costs stay below market returns, I should continue outperforming the market – because I’m simply leveraging a total market portfolio. Of course, this comes at the cost of taking on margin risk, which requires effective management.

How I Reached $4 Million Net Worth at Age 40

In terms of net worth, I’ve reached another major milestone to conclude the year. I’ve finally broke through the $4M mark.

The breakdown

I’ve reached another major milestone to conclude the year: I finally broke through the $4M mark.

The majority came from portfolio growth, but our home value also increased (based on recent comparable sales), helping push me over this milestone.

Mind-blowing fact: I started the year at approximately $3.25M and ended at $4.04M – an increase of almost $800K in one year alone. It took me more than 5.5 years to accumulate my first $800K when I started this journey. Now that’s the growth in a single year.

While this year’s increase pales compared to last year’s $1M+ growth, it demonstrates that this level of net worth movement is becoming the norm rather than the exception as portfolio size grows.

Time to Each Million Dollar Milestone

Given this new milestone, here’s how long each million took:

1. 1st Million: 73 Months (6 years)
2. 2nd Million: 29 Months (2.4 years)
3. 3rd Million: 17 Months (1.4 years)
4. 4th Million: 14 Months (1.2 years)

The 4th million arrived 5x faster than the 1st million and 2x faster than the 2nd million.

That’s the magic of compounding: At first it feels like nothing is happening, but then it suddenly explodes and sustains itself.

This is because at first all the growth comes from my own contribution, but at a later stage the portfolio grows significantly on its own on top of contribution.

Key lesson: You’ve got to be patient, stay the course, and keep investing to give compounding time to show its power.

FIRE Journey Progress

Let’s examine where I stand compared to my original projections and my 2023 updated projections.

Progress against original projection

Original targets:

• Monthly withdrawal target: SGD 5,000
• Safe Withdrawal Rate: 3.25%
• Portfolio required: ~ SGD 1.9M (Green Line)
• Projected timeline: 12 years to reach target (Where green line intersect red dotted line)

What actually happened:

• I was on track to reach this number after less than 8 years – more than 4 years ahead of schedule.
• As I approached that number, due to lifestyle creep, desire for a better FIRE lifestyle, AND the fact that I’d reached the original number early, I decided to double my FIRE number at the end of 2023.

Updated targets (set in 2023):

• Monthly withdrawal target: SGD 10,000
• Safe Withdrawal Rate: 3.25%
• Portfolio required: ~ SGD 3.7M
• Original projection: 17 years total
• Revised projection from 2023 position: 4.5 additional years

Current status (end of 2025):

• I’ve made 4 years of progress in just 2 years
• Current projection: 5 months to 1 year to reach my new target
• If I hit the target in the next 6 months, I’ll be 7 years ahead of the original projection and 2.5 years ahead of the 2023 projection

That’s remarkable progress, and the FIRE number is genuinely within reach now.

Lifestyle Affordability Lens

There’s another way to view my FIRE number that provides more nuanced decision-making capability (explained previously in this post).

What this lens tells me today:

1. At 3.25% withdrawal rate: I can comfortably cover up to “Condo FI” level expenses, but I won’t have the extra $1,000 monthly buffer for “Comfort FI.”
2. At 4% withdrawal rate: If I’m willing to take slightly more risk by using a 4% withdrawal rate instead of the more conservative 3.25%, I can already cover up to “Comfort FI” monthly income.
3. Decision point: I can make a meaningful choice about whether I’m comfortable with that additional risk, or whether I should work a little longer to get my 3.25% SWR income line to cross the “Comfort FI” mark – which shouldn’t take much longer anyway (barring major market downturns.)
4. Risk-reward tradeoff: Alternatively, if I stick to the safer 3.25% withdrawal rate, I can decide whether the additional comfort from the extra $1,000 per month is worth working a bit longer.

This approach helps me make trade-off decisions between working longer and the lifestyle it would enable.

Visual FIRE Budget & Progress Tracker Lens

While the previous view is helpful, it’s sometimes too high-level and doesn’t always keep me motivated, since each step change is quite far from the next. What if I want to track progress against more granular expenses and “check them off” as my portfolio grows?

That’s where my Gamified FIRE Budget & Progress Tracking Spreadsheet comes in! (You can make a copy and try it out on your own budget.)

What this granular approach shows:

1. Customizable withdrawal rates: I can adjust the withdrawal rate for each expense item based on how safe or long-lasting I want the cash flow to be.
2. More accurate requirements: Using this granular approach (rather than applying a blanket 3.25% withdrawal rate to everything), I need higher monthly income but can achieve it with less total portfolio size – since some items can use withdrawal rates higher than 3.25% because they won’t be needed “forever.”
3. Gamification element: I’m currently working through my last few budget items, with “Vacation & Fun Budget” being next. This lets me choose whether to continue working to fund this category or forego it.
4. Optional buffers: The last two items exist as safety buffers, and I can decide whether to fund them or skip them in favor of reaching FIRE sooner.

Bottom line: Regardless of which lens I use to view my FIRE progress (traditional projection, lifestyle affordability, or granular budget tracker), I’m extremely close to my FIRE number now. I should hit it within the next year.

What’s Next: Reaching FIRE as a Family

The numbers I’ve shared in my blog have always been just mine (so I don’t need to reveal my wife’s numbers if she’s not comfortable) – but this means these figures don’t represent the full FIRE picture for our family.

Once I reach my personal FIRE number, I can start contributing toward my wife’s FIRE target, accelerating our progress toward joint FIRE plans.

Update 2026H1: Personal FIRE number reached!

We’re one team after all: I want both my wife and me to FIRE as a family so we can both spend more time with our children and pursue passion projects without financial worries. That will be the next objective!

Turning 40: From $0 to $4M in 10 Years

This is a huge and unbelievable milestone. Looking back honestly, I never expected to be where I am today.

2009: Graduation & Early Career

When I was in university, I thought making SGD 4,000 was a high starting salary. However, graduating in the aftermath of the Great Financial Crisis in 2009, I counted myself lucky just to land a full-time job—let alone one earning anywhere near SGD 4,000.

Fortunately, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) launched the Finance Graduate Immersion Program (FGIP) to keep the job market from freezing completely. The program required:

• Minimum salary: SGD 2,000
• MAS contribution: SGD 1,500
• Financial institution contribution: “At least” SGD 500

While the SGD 500 was the minimum and firms could contribute more, nobody did.

I was one of those graduates who landed a job through this program. While it was far from the SGD 4,000 I’d hoped for, I was thankful to have any job at all.

Life-changing decision: This job got my foot in the door and kickstarted my career—which has continued paying dividends to this day. My life would be dramatically different had I not taken this opportunity.

2010: Career Progression & Meeting My Future Wife

One year in, I’d built a reputation for being hardworking, reliable, resourceful, and a great team member – proving myself to my hiring manager and team.

Through negotiation, I was promoted and finally got my salary bumped to the SGD 4,000 I’d hoped for, plus an annual bonus of SGD 12,000 (which wasn’t mandatory in the FGIP program).

This was also when and where I met my now-wife.

As I said, this job was pivotal to my life in multiple ways. The bosses from this role would also continue influencing my career at later stages.

2011-2016: Starting My Own Startup

After another year, I received the highest possible performance review and was promoted again, with my salary increasing to SGD 4,500 plus an annual bonus of SGD 15,000.

I was excelling in the company and on the team. My career was taking off.

However, I’d always had an itch to start my own company and work on my own ideas. Since I had a concept I was passionate about and the space was emerging, I decided to take the risk and left my job.

My reasoning: It would never feel like the “right time,” and I’d never have as few personal responsibilities as I did then (no kids, minimal commitments). The best time to take risks was right then.

I took my savings and dove headfirst into the startup, spending 4.5 years trying to build the company and product. During those years, I had essentially zero income and was burning through my savings.

Unfortunately, the startup didn’t take off. We bit off more than we could chew and ran out of runway before finding product-market fit and profitability.

Dark times: Those years were terrifying. I often laid awake at night wondering if I’d completely destroyed my career and future. I wondered whether I’d ever get a job again after being out of the market so long – with a failed startup to boot.

It felt like I’d wasted 4.5 years with nothing to show for it.

2016: A Career Reboot & Start of FIRE Journey

When I folded the startup in 2016, my then-girlfriend-now-wife was still working with the same boss I’d worked for in 2011.

That boss had moved to a new opportunity and was building a team he could rely on. My wife was one of the people he brought along. Knowing I was shutting down my startup and remembering me as a dependable, capable team member, he asked if I’d join his team.

Of course I said yes. That’s when my career rebooted – with a salary of SGD 7,000 after a 4.5-year hiatus. I certainly counted my blessings.

Key lesson: It’s important to both be great at your job and build a strong network and work relationships. As your colleagues and bosses move up in their career, they always want someone they can trust and depend on with them.

Start of FIRE Journey

Given the financial trauma of the startup years, when I started earning a salary again, I swore I’d never let myself get into that financial situation again.

I was determined to:

• Build a strong financial foundation
• Create a clear financial plan
• Set myself and my family up financially for the future
• Not waste this second chance

I started reading and consuming financial content, devouring as many investing books as I could.

That’s when I learned about passive index investing and discovered the FIRE movement. The rest is history.

2017-Present: Strong Career Progression & Consistent Investing

Here’s my salary progression to date:

When I first graduated, I never imagined I’d make more than $10,000 a month – let alone more than double that – especially after four years of earning absolutely nothing. I count myself extremely fortunate – but there’s also some lessons that others may find valuable in managing their own careers.

Key milestones:

1. Getting Married (2018): When Spending Aligns with Values
   We’re both frugal and maintain a high savings rate, but made an exception in 2018 for a memorable wedding with family and friends. Money is a tool to buy happiness!
2. Big Pay Jump #1 (2019): How to Negotiate Salary Without Burning Bridges
   While I loved my job and team at the time, I felt underpaid and informed my boss and HR, who agreed to increase my salary and bonus to retain me. Salary negotiation doesn’t have to be adversarial—you can be firm, polite, and positive while seeking a win-win. If they don’t agree, you can decide to walk away.
3. Big Pay Jump #2 (2020): The Power of Your Professional Network
   A work friend and colleague jumped to a bigger role at a different company and needed people he could trust, so he asked me to join him.
4. Big Pay Jump #3 (2021): Another Example of the Power of Professional Network
   I didn’t quite like the work culture of the new place. While contemplating my next move, another friend and ex-colleague was taking on a big new role and (again) wanted someone he could trust and rely on to join his team. He reached out and I decided to join him.

The Career Lesson You Can’t Ignore: Trust and Relationships Trump Expertise

It’s clear that I owe my current career to having a strong network of friends and colleagues who know I can be trusted, relied upon, and easy to work with to deliver results.

Yes, being good at your job and being an expert in your field is important—that’s a given. But that alone is not enough.

People also need to like working with you and know they can depend on you. When bosses, colleagues, and friends progress in their careers, they want people they can trust on their team—especially when joining a new environment where they’ll manage a large team and don’t yet know who they can rely on.

While I certainly had a strong career trajectory and salary progression, that alone does not explain my rapid progress on the investment front.

Key Factors Behind My Rapid Accumulation

Reflecting on what contributed to my rapid wealth accumulation aside from just growing my income, these are the critical factors:

1. High Savings Rate

I grew up in a relatively frugal family, was easily contented, and got used to living cheaply (especially during the startup days). I could save a large portion of my income while remaining quite happy.

Throughout this journey, I’ve never felt like I was depriving myself—which made it easy to stay the course.

2. Avoided Lifestyle Inflation Until much later

Whenever I got a raise in the early years, I channeled most of the increase into more investments rather than immediately increasing my spending.

3. Disciplined and Consistent Investing

I always invested as soon as possible with as much as possible whenever I received my salary and bonus. This ensured maximum money was invested and working for me immediately.

4. Focused on Performing at My Main Hustle

I know it’s popular these days to talk about multiple income streams and side hustles. However, I don’t believe in splitting my focus and energy into side projects – I think it just distracts from truly performing in my main career.

My philosophy: It’s fine to explore side hustles while searching for something that could become your main hustle. But once you find what that might be, there’s more upside in focusing completely on performing well in it.

5. Deploy Leverage in a Disciplined Way with Strong Risk Management

Leverage certainly helped, but only in the last 2-3 years. The leverage approach would not have been a viable tool without a strong capital base that was built up in the first several years.

The knowledge and discipline I learned after the first several years of investing is also invaluable in ensuring I maintain disciplined deployment with robust risk management that makes this strategy so successful for me.

Conclusion: Looking Ahead to 2026

There’s always going to be a reason to stay on the sidelines. If you look for them, new narratives are already circulating about why the market “can’t possibly” keep up this momentum:

• The K-Shaped Economy: Concerns about deepening wealth inequality.
• The AI Bubble: Fears that the tech-driven rally is overextended.
• Labor Market Shifts: Rising unemployment and mass layoffs potentially cooling consumer spending.

But here’s what I’ve learned over the past decade—through trade wars, a global pandemic, aggressive rate hikes, and now another round of tariff fears:

The “end of the world” is a terrible investment strategy.

What Actually Works

Ten years ago, I was 30 years old, rebooting my career after a failed startup, with essentially nothing in my investment portfolio. Today, at 40, I’m standing at $4 million in net worth and within striking distance of financial independence.

This didn’t happen because I timed the market perfectly. It didn’t happen because I picked winning stocks or avoided every crash.

It happened because I:

• Stayed the course through multiple market crashes.
• Kept buying when everyone else was panicking.
• Focused on what I could control: my savings rate, career growth, and consistent investing.
• Let compounding do its work over time.

My 2026 Plan

My plan for 2026 remains boringly consistent: Keep my head down, ignore the doom and gloom, and continue to “just keep buying.”

Whether 2026 brings another massive growth year or a market correction, the goal is to stay the course until the numbers take care of themselves.

Your Turn

If you’re early in your FIRE journey, remember: the first few years feel like you’re doing all the work. That’s normal. That’s how it’s supposed to feel.

Keep saving, keep investing, stay consistent. The compounding will show up – I promise. It just takes time.

Here’s to a healthy, disciplined, and prosperous 2026 for all of us!

Until next time,
FPL