Vimal Builds
Retired early after our journey to FIRE. Now traveling the world with my family and building things to solve real-world problems.
Travel
Slow family travel and travel blog.
FIRE
Practical roadmaps for early retirement and time freedom.
Apps
Digital tools designed to solve real-world problems.
Traveling with our Kids
Achieving Financial Independence (FI) and retiring early freed us from paycheck and location constraints. Now we slow-travel the world with our three daughters, turning the globe into our classroom. Here, we share our adventures, roadschooling insights, and the unforgettable family journeys made possible by early retirement.
Countries Traveled
Travel Chronicles
Transatlantic Cruise
Calm, chaos, and everything in between. Surviving a 12-day family crossing with three young kids.
Swiss Alps
Breathtaking peaks, cogwheel trains, and roadschooling in the shadow of the Matterhorn.
Cinque Terre
Navigating cliffside colorful villages, coastal trails, and local trains with children.
Algarve
Discovering hidden rock arches, low-tide coves, and the relaxed coastal rhythm of Portugal.
Hot Air Balloon in Cappadocia
Sailing over fairy chimneys and ancient valleys in a Cappadocia hot air balloon ride.
Pamukkale Thermal Pools
Stepping onto the white travertine terraces and ancient hot springs of Hierapolis.
Dalyan & Datça
Riverboats, ancient tombs, mud baths, and sailing the turquoise coves of Datça.
Baku, Azerbaijan
Futuristic flame towers, historic mud volcanoes, and exploring the Caspian seaside.
Ölüdeniz & Kayaköy
Paragliders in the blue lagoon and exploring the ghost town of Kayaköy.
Fethiye
Boat trips, vibrant local markets, giant sea turtles, and soaring coastal cliffs in Turkey.
Traveling Village
Finding post-FI connection on a 45-day European campervan road trip with 15 families.
Jaisalmer & Udaipur
Exploring our roots: desert forts, camel safaris, and lake palaces in Rajasthan, India.
Maldives on Points
Booking a $1,500/night overwater villa for free (and leaving the kids at home!).
Goa
South Goa: calm sandy shorelines, coconut palms, warm waters, and slow beach days.
Pai
Scooters, hot springs, misty canyons, and high-vibes in Thailand's bohemian mountain valley town.
Koh Lanta
Laid-back beaches, longtail boat adventures, sunset fire shows, and the quiet island pace of southern Thailand.
Hoi An
Lantern-lit ancient streets, tailor shops, beach rides, and floating paper wishes down the Thu Bon River.
Gili Air
Car-free horse carts, coral reef snorkeling with sea turtles, and swing sets in the shallow turquoise sea.
Ubud
Terraced rice paddies, playful forest macaques, sacred ancient temples, and the cultural heartbeat of Bali.
Cairns to Brisbane
A 1,700km epic East Coast campervan road trip through tropical rainforests, koala sanctuaries, and pristine islands.
Cross Pacific Cruise
Disconnecting from the world on a 17-day journey from Sydney to Seattle, crossing the equator and international date line.
The FIRE Philosophy
Financial Independence Retire Early isn't about restriction. It's about designing a life that aligns money with meaning.
Reclaiming the Ultimate Asset: Time
Achieving early retirement in eight years didn't happen by trying to skip out on coffee or clipping coupons. It happened by designing a simple roadmap, committing to it relentlessly as a family, and ultimately having the courage to "rebel" against the typical societal expectations of the 40-year career.
We embrace a "Fat FIRE" philosophy. We don't advocate for living in extreme frugality. Instead, we believe in building a robust nest egg that sustains high-quality travel, excellent education, and a comfortable lifestyle, without the daily stress of a corporate paycheck.
Our 3-Step Roadmap
Plan: Define Your "Why" First
Most people focus on the mathematical equations, but numbers without motivation fail quickly. You must identify exactly what you are retiring to—your purpose, family goals, and creative outlets—before planning the finances.
Read Roadmap BlogCommit: Keep Strategies Simple
Avoid speculative noise. We believe in keeping core investments extremely straightforward: low-cost, broad-market index funds, automated recurring savings, tax-advantaged accounts, and deliberate reduction of lifestyle inflation.
Read Roadmap BlogRebel: Reclaim Ownership of Life
Crossing your Financial Independence number is only half the battle. Stepping away from the validation structures of corporate jobs requires a rebel spirit—choosing freedom and family over prestigious titles and artificial routines.
Read Roadmap BlogLifestyle FI Calculator
Estimate your custom Financial Independence target instantly based on the traditional 25x safe withdrawal rule.
Note: This is a general mathematical estimate for lifestyle visualization and should not replace professional personalized financial planning.
Applications
Building clean, minimalist digital tools designed to solve real-world problems.
Live Builds
In Touch
A highly intentional, clutter-free relationship CRM designed to nudge you to stay connected with the people who matter most.
Unicorn Daycare
A whimsical virtual pet game. Care for a baby unicorn, feed it treats, monitor its health, and watch it grow into a majestic adult.
Mirror Painter
An interactive, kaleidoscope-style painting app. Draw intricate symmetrical designs in real-time with customizable mirror axes.
Vimal Builds
My personal digital sandbox and portfolio website. Built to showcase my projects, philosophy on early retirement, and family travel adventures.
Future Builds
Family Calendar
A unified scheduling hub to sync work, school, and family calendars. Integrates with Gmail, tracks conflicts, and optimizes vacation days to maximize family travel.
Health Tracker
A comprehensive health database for the whole family. Securely track blood biomarker trends over time, monitor key lab metrics, and sync directly with your wearables.
Guitar Tabs
A consolidated digital songbook to keep track of the songs you know or want to learn. Upload tabs and lyrics in a single view to pull up any song and start playing instantly.
YouTube to MP3 Downloader
A simple, distraction-free audio utility to rip MP3s from YouTube URLs. Convert video links to high-quality audio files instantly and load them onto your offline MP3 player.
Vimal Fernandez
Husband, Father, Builder, and Early Retiree
I followed the traditional path: college, master's degree, corporate job, buying a house, and settling down in Austin with my wife to raise our three daughters. For over 14 years, I lived the 9-to-5 grind: little sleep, long commutes, stressful corporate work, and balancing career with family life.
Then came a sobering realization: I still had 30 years until the standard retirement age of 65. That's when my wife and I decided to change our trajectory, refocusing on what truly matters: time freedom, travel, and personal projects.
Our journey led us to discover the Financial Independence Retire Early (FIRE) movement as the key to unlocking these dreams. We crafted a plan, committed wholeheartedly, and achieved FI in just 8 years—rebelling against standard corporate expectations.
Today, I have the absolute freedom to choose if, when, and how I work. Currently, my time is split between traveling, spending time with friends & family, and building things.
Professional Journey
Before choosing time freedom and travel, I spent over a decade leading product strategies and engineering systems for top-tier technology and financial firms.
Managing Director & Chief of Staff
Led Product Strategy for the digital advisory business unit, managing an $80M budget across ~130 product managers and 120 scrum teams. Formulated high-performance digital experiences that delivered $140M in annual organizational savings. Optimized stakeholder communication and data-driven executive decision-making to successfully secure a 20% budget increase for 2025.
Managing Director, Product Management
Directed a $24M business unit with 11 product managers and 12 scrum teams to digitize account opening and money movements, saving $45M annually. Defined the strategy and SaaS roadmaps supporting 16K independent advisor firms, managing over $5 trillion in assets with over 1M monthly platform logins.
Chief Operating Officer (COO)
Acquired an online business after evaluating 30+ potential companies on market fit and unit economics. Scaled supply chain, sourcing, and fulfillment operations. Implemented a streamlined business plan, successfully selling the company for a 5x multiple within 6 months.
Director, Product Management
Led a cross-functional team of 5 software engineers and a product manager to design and deploy Bluetooth/Wi-Fi in-store sensor analytics. Optimized contract manufacturing supply chains to cut sensor costs by 26% and reduce deployment response times by 50% for 100,000 sq-ft stores.
Principal Product Manager & R&D Applications Engineer
Managed a portfolio of 10 RF instrumentation products, increasing $80M revenue by 17% through custom wireless features. Served as a foundational design & test engineer on wireless instrumentation products that became NI's highest-volume top-grossing products, earning the R&D Engineering Excellence Award.
Education
Master of Business Administration (MBA)
University of Texas at Austin
McCombs School of Business • GPA: 3.98
Bachelor of Engineering (B.Eng.)
McGill University
Electrical Engineering • GPA: 3.1
Get in Touch
Have a question about FIRE, family travel, or building things?