FIREMaster — Bridge Planning for Tech Professionals

The Story

Multiple Academy Award winner.
Laid off at 53.
No tools existed.

My well-planned lifestyle dream — confirmed by every app I tried — evaporated overnight.

Multiple Sci-Tech Academy Awards · The Matrix Bullet Time · Digital Human Imagery

Twenty-five years delivering groundbreaking visual effects and real-time experiences — from The Matrix to Epic Games, where I helped bring Darth Vader to Fortnite. I had a plan: retire at 56, bridge the gap to 59½, live deliberately. I'd been deep in the numbers — Boldin, ProjectionLab, books like Die with Zero that reframe wealth as a tool, not a scoreboard. I'd even started building FIREMaster as a weekend project — a better engine to model my own path.

Then the layoff email arrived. The weekend project became a lifeline. At 53, with a net worth within reach of financial independence, scattered across 27 accounts — retirement, brokerage, real estate with high-interest loans, private investments — and a checking account that wouldn't last one year.

Every retirement calculator assumes you're accumulating — saving steadily, decades from the finish line. None of them model what happens when the paycheck stops: the gap between now and 59½, retirement accounts you can't touch without penalties, real estate that looks like wealth on paper but burns thousands in carry costs, or the difference between what your net worth says and what you can actually spend.

So I built my own. FIREMaster is the planning engine I couldn't find — built with Claude Code in three months, it replaced certain panic with a plan. Designed for people who demand real answers.

The Engine

What FIREMaster does

The right question changes everything. FIREMaster is built to help you ask better ones.

Pool-Aware Wealth Modeling

Your net worth isn't one number. Liquid cash, taxable investment accounts, retirement accounts, illiquid assets, and real estate equity each have different rules. FIREMaster models them separately.

Scenario Planning

One plan is a prayer. Run multiple named scenarios with different assumptions — optimistic, conservative, crisis — and see how each changes your runway.

SEPP/72(t) Optimization

Access retirement funds before 59½ without penalties. FIREMaster calculates optimal dual-IRA splits to maximize early withdrawals.

International & Cross-Border

Did you work in Canada during VFX's golden era? FIREMaster models cross-border retirement — RRSP/RRIF, currency, tax treaties — because your career didn't stay in one country.

Built For

Not everyone. You.

Senior Tech IC / Manager

Late-career and navigating post-layoff financial planning. You've been optimizing systems for decades. Now optimize the most important one.

ChubbyFIRE Range

$2–5M net worth. Past the basic tools. You don't need another budget tracker — you need deep scenario analysis and withdrawal strategy.

Power User

You use Monarch, Claude Code, and spreadsheets. You're not looking for hand-holding. You want engineering-grade tools for financial planning.

Plan B, Now

Your "retirement plan" just became a "survival plan." You need bridge planning — the gap between layoff and 59½ — not a 30-year accumulation model.

Common Questions

Don't panic. The answers nobody else gives you.

Why do standard FIRE calculators fail after a layoff?

Most retirement calculators assume you're still saving — steady income, regular contributions, decades of compounding ahead. After a layoff at 50+, those assumptions collapse. You're spending down, not building up. Your timeline isn't 30 years — it's the bridge between now and 59½ when retirement accounts unlock. FIREMaster is built for the spending-down phase: it models burn rate against accessible assets, not hypothetical future savings.

What is pool-aware wealth modeling?

Your net worth isn't one number. A $2M net worth might be $200K in accessible cash, $800K locked in IRAs until 59½, $900K in real estate equity you can't spend, and $100K in illiquid private investments. Pool-aware modeling tracks each pool separately — with its own rules, growth rates, and accessibility timeline — so you know what you can actually live on, not just what Monarch says you're "worth."

What is SEPP/72(t) and how does it help access retirement funds before 59½?

SEPP (Substantially Equal Periodic Payments) under IRS Rule 72(t) lets you withdraw from an IRA before age 59½ without the 10% early withdrawal penalty. The catch: you must take fixed annual payments for 5 years or until you turn 59½, whichever is longer. FIREMaster calculates optimal dual-IRA splits — segregating a portion of your IRA specifically for SEPP withdrawals — to maximize early access while preserving the rest for later growth.

How does scenario planning work for early retirement?

A single set of assumptions isn't a plan — it's a guess. FIREMaster lets you create multiple named scenarios — optimistic, conservative, crisis — each with different assumptions about spending, investment returns, real estate decisions, and income sources. Change one variable (sell a property, pick up consulting work, delay Social Security) and see how it shifts your entire runway in real terms. You compare scenarios side by side, not guess which single projection is "right."

How do I plan the bridge between a layoff and age 59½?

Bridge planning covers the gap between losing income and reaching 59½ when retirement accounts open penalty-free. It involves mapping accessible vs. locked assets, modeling your real monthly burn rate (not just "expenses" — carry costs on real estate, insurance, taxes), identifying bridge income sources (SEPP/72(t), consulting, rental income, asset sales), and stress-testing whether your liquid reserves survive the gap. FIREMaster was built specifically for this analysis.

How is this different from another FIRE calculator?

Calculators give you one answer to a predefined question. FIREMaster + Claude Code lets you have a conversation with your financial model. Ask it anything. Challenge the assumptions. Model what you want, not just what's optimal. "What if I keep Miami and sell something else?" isn't a question any calculator can answer — but an AI with full access to your financial engine can.

Why $197 one-time instead of a subscription?

Because you own everything. Your data, your Claude Code subscription, your analysis — nothing sits between you and your financial model. The tool works the same in month 1 as month 12. You buy it once, pull updates forever.

Your net worth is
lying to you.

Multiple Academy Award winner.
Laid off at 53.
No tools existed.

What FIREMaster does

Not everyone. You.

The app is real.

Don't panic. The answers nobody else gives you.

Your net worth islying to you.

Multiple Academy Award winner.Laid off at 53.No tools existed.

What FIREMaster does

Not everyone. You.

The app is real.

Don't panic. The answers nobody else gives you.

Get the playbook.

Your net worth is
lying to you.

Multiple Academy Award winner.
Laid off at 53.
No tools existed.