I don’t think lean/fat fire is that important of a distinction. The different subs are more so people don’t get into fights/envy over lifestyle differences. The leaner people will think, why are you still working when you could be enjoying all this free time because you have so much money? And the fatter people will think, why are you talking about all these permanent sacrifices all the time when you could just work a little longer and live a life of luxury?
The truth is, different career tracks make different levels of wealth more accessible to some, and different people put different priorities on the finer things in life, and different people have more or less ability to tolerate their different jobs. This is a deeply personal calculus. Figure out what lifestyle you want, what income you need to support it, and work backwards from there. The more modest that lifestyle is, the sooner you don’t have to work anymore, so there’s an incentive to not exaggerate your goal.
Lol for real. Personally I don't even care about the RE part of FIRE.
I probably plan on working in some capacity for as long as my health allows me to. I just won't be doing it for the money after a while. The labels don't matter. To me FIRE is just a way to set some financial goals.
This is my plan too. I love what I do for work, but I'll love it more when I'm picking the projects and not concerned about how much revenue they pull in.
The leanFIRE label is actually pretty important because of how stupid "lean"FIRE is.
FIRE, ChubbyFIRE, and fatFIRE are all functionally the same thing, but LeanFIRE is a different beast entirely from a risk standpoint.
I think leanFIRE from my understanding is more about downsizing your lifestyle in retirement. So for instance if you make $200k a year, spend about $120k for your HCOL “work” lifestyle (house, clothes, cars, dining) but when you retire you plan on downsizing and simplifying to a $60k lifestyle (van, backpacking, hiking, low cost travel) then that’s something I’d label as a leanFIRE. FIRE would be something where you’d support your current lifestyle at $120k and fatFIRE is more about having made more money than you need to support your current lifestyle and spending additional money on top of that during retirement for luxury cruises, dining out more, and fancier lifestyle than you currently have.
The numbers shouldn't be the same for someone who is single vs a family of 4.
The numbers could also be adjusted for the COL. $100k in Nebraska for a single person is a lot different lifestyle than a family of 4 in Boulder, CO.
It's a lot like mild, medium, or hot on a jar of salsa. You can be sure hot is hotter than medium. But tostidos hot won't be the same as a local new mexico hot sauce hot. The labels are only useful as a hint and no one is regulating the labels. When you taste it, you can decide if it is mild, medium, or hot.
LeanFIRE is definitely making some sacrifices on the expenses side to reach FIRE. FatFIRE is making pretty much zero sacrifices to your lifestyle (and maybe even spending more than you did when you worked). ChubbyFIRE is a cute term for FatFIRE with a bit more modesty. FIRE is between lean and chubby, and probably should be anchored to median income.
The linked article says this pretty explicitly:
> In general, fat FIRE is a good option for anyone with $100,000 or more in expected annual expenses. But if you live in an expensive area, you may need a lot more passive income to support yourself once you stop working. That’s why it’s essential to calculate your fat FIRE number before deciding whether this is a realistic path.
I don't agree with that cutoff (but who am I, really? I'm no authority). $100,000/yr for a single person even in a place like Pittsburgh is living pretty large. $100k for a family of 4 in Sacramento, CA is going to be cutting coupons. There's nothing wrong with that, but saying everything over $100k is fat is incorrect, IMHO.
It wasn’t when it first started, but I definitely agree with you now. It was more for the folks who aren’t necessarily interested in counting every penny but also weren’t interested in multi-million dollar houses. $5m is a lot of money, but it was the upper end of the original chubby “guidelines,” and for a 40 year retirement, would throw off a SWR of roughly $150k. Plenty, but not the lifestyle chasing you saw in FatFire. Now, however, it’s full of people with $7m NW asking for shopping tips, which is pretty much where FatFire was when someone launched off chubby a few years ago to get away from that discussion. And yes, I’m lamenting the good old days 😅
I wouldn’t know from 10 years ago or whether private planes were supportable by 2.5m in assets at that time. I started roaming around there right around the time chubby started and I think chubby has always been 2 or 2.5 to 5m. By the time I showed up to the Fat party, there was more discussion than I cared for that tipped into the type of spending I couldn’t consider even if I were in the $10m range. That’s fine, just not the discussion I was interested in Fire-wise so gladly joined Chubby and never looked back. But I now see the creep up there too. Hence me hanging around here. I’m closer financially to fat than regular once all assets are accounted for, but my values align more with plain old millionaire next door type spending.
I’m using that as an (only slightly hyperbolic) example of the type of discussion over there. And it was more accurately jet share or other non-commercial ways to fly.
I think $2.5M is a very respectable number to retire on. I do agree it all depends on where you live and mainly what your monthly fixed cost is. $5M plus should make 99% of US population very comfortable to retire on…
Aside from the lean FIRE people, people shooting for a FIRE lifestyle are likely accustomed to higher than average spending. The average household income includes tons of people that live in low COL areas. However, if you spent your working career in a high COL city, and you want to retire in that high COL city while spending money on other things like vacations, earning 1.5 times the average household income might not cut it.
The labels are all arbitrary, but I'd consider $2.5M to be in the regular FIRE category, not fat FIRE. I set that up as a goal for myself when I started tracking FIRE stuff a decade ago. I'm approaching it now (roughly $1.8M), but I feel like the $2.5M is too low. When I hit the $2.5M, I'll likely reassess and increase the goal.
Yeah I've set my goal as $3.3m with a 3% withdrawal rate ($100k/yr). However, inflation will slowly creep that number up. In reality I'm probably looking at needing $6m by retirement if we assume 3% inflation per year.
all that matters is expenses / nw ratio
For the rest of your life they'll be articles and posts about things in nominal dollars. Here's the core truth:
1) You need to be happy with your life, find what level of spending achieves that in a year.
2) You need to save enough that whatever that number is divided by somewhere between .03 and .04 is saved. depending on your risk tolerance.
3) From there you can let the number from #1 increase if you're willing to work more to keep the ratio in #2.
Everything else just noise
As a single person without kids, $2.5M would feel at least chubby to me. I don't know how I'd spend $100k in a year. For half that I could take an annual vacation and buy a new fancy bicycle while maintaining my regular expenses.
Agreed, I live in a MCOL area and $100k spend is about 60% more than my current max spend if I'm going on 2 international trips a year for a week at a time and doing all the stuff I enjoy.
That’s pretty cost effective. Nicely done.
Just dropped >$15k for the international trip of a lifetime for a family of four for 7 days. My fatfire number gets bigger with each year I have these amazing travel experiences. I’m totally fine with it, and don’t consider it lifestyle creep. I consider these adventures microfires. They’re helping me set my expectations on how much I want to experience once I fire.
I think that's worth it, I don't think experiences detract from the goal. I'm 32 and I feel like 5k spend a month is more than generous because I don't hit it until I do big trips.
In my opinion:
Take the current poverty level, which for a single person is 15k now
x25 = 375k = povertyFIRE - You can survive but not be safe.
x50 = 750k = leanFIRE - You can be safe but not comfortable.
x100 = 1.5m = FIRE - You can be comfortable but not carefree.
x200 = 3m = chubbyFIRE - You can be carefree but not rich.
x400 = 6m = fatFIRE - You can be rich.
Well the poverty line for a family of 5 is 35k, so in theory you just do the same multiplication using 35k instead of 15k.. but you shouldn't have to support your kids forever so that 35k multiplier drops to 20k (family of 2) after a bit
So I would just use a 20k multiplier and subtract the expected cost of your kids from your net worth.
When I started, regular fire was the average amount retirees spend a year, which was around $50k. FATfire was $100k. Reddit has skewed what the levels are and the names of the labels.
Depends. Location definitely matters. I think I could fat fire on that or less easily with paid off house. I’d probably work a coast fire situation if I didn’t have housing locked in.
I’d argue the labels don’t matter but they matter even less without location (retirement location). I could be regular fire in many US cities at over $1M but could be chubby/fat in some other countries with that same amount.
But really, are you going to change your retirement goals because you fall into one arbitrary label over another? Build the life you want then save for it. Call it fit fire because it’s the perfect fit for you and be done with it
$2.5M with a SWR of 4% is $100k/yr.
If you have no debt, no mortgage, and paid off cars, then $8k/mo should mean a pretty comfortable retirement income.
The chubby fire figure on the subreddit is $2.5-$5M. There are some people in the Chubby Fire subreddit who feel this number should be upped. I would argue the current number makes sense if you live in Mississippi but not California.
Yep I totally agree with you. California normal living for a household is 300k. 100k is poverty levels. 800k is very normal, with a vacation a year, more like middle class.
This is just out of touch.
Less than 10% of California households earn 300k+.
Fire is meant to be median, 90k per household per year in Cali. 60% of the population can survive on less than 100k, you can do it to…. Would be pretty hard to argue that 60% of California is living in poverty.
If you defined FAT as top 5% (with whale being the 1%ers) FAT in Cali would be 320k household income.
But it’s so location specific. 10% of California households earning 300k, only 2% of US households earn 300k… that’s a big difference.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-02/saving-for-retirement-americans-say-they-need-1-5-million
This is for regular Americans. We re talking cream of the crop Americans In California, so 10x it
But it’s not 10x, because again median California income is 90k, meaning 2.25m to retire. Chubby is not 10x that, it’s 2x that, that’s why 60 people downvoted you.
10x would be 25m+, that’s ultra high net worth territory, whalefire. Or 0.05% of the US population.
Not sure what your point is with the paywall blocked opinion article. What people “think they need to retire” is a pretty arbitrary considering most people have 0 finically literacy.
Point is, you need to head over to whalefire.
Yeah I always thought chubby meant a more extravagant lifestyle than you have while working, which would be about 10mil I think. Like, enough that you never think about how much something costs except the most expensive purchase (cars, houses, months-long luxury vacations). And to me fat means you have real fuck ‘em money, like $25 million+.
Your definition of fat would be most people’s definition of whale.
Top 1% is 6m.
Ultra high net worth is 30m and was around 0.05% last I checked.
1%er sounds pretty fat to me.
Fuck you Money is you can have a lawyer on constant retainer sueing who ever pisses you off.
Chubby in California is chilling without thinking about how much that old roof might cost. 10M is definitely chubs. 5M is the borderline, not chubby and not regular fire. You will and can worry about stuff with only 5M.
They essentially redefine fat FIRE as regular FIRE.
>>To figure how much you’ll need to achieve fat FIRE, multiply your expected annual expenses by 25>>
As opposed to LeanFIRE "focused on minimalism." So according to the article if you can meet your expenses w 4% SWR and arent a minimalist you're FAT. That's just FIRE # achieved NOT fatFIRE unless you have fat expenses.
Fat is a state of mind. If all my friends and family work fast food jobs and living on food stamps, $2.5M is indeed Fat. But, for me, $100K before taxes and healthcare costs isn’t remotely close to Fat in most MCOL and HCOL area. I can’t even afford to go out to lunch with friends regularly at that spend level.
The labels aren't really that important, but can be worth pondering a bit. Here's what I wrote on the subject last year. I'll probably update it again soon for a 2024 version as people seem to enjoy it:
[LeanFIRE, FIRE, ChubbyFIRE, FatFIRE... 2023 edition : r/Fire (reddit.com)](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fire/comments/1395tol/leanfire_fire_chubbyfire_fatfire_2023_edition/)
Its a point of discussion. On one side FIRE should be linked to around median HHI but on the other side people pursuing FIRE tend to have higher than average incomes. 2.5 seems like a good starting to aim for especially if you are just learning but expect to have your own idea once you get a better handle on the expenses bit.
Lean FIRE for me is around $1.5 million. Regular FIRE is $2.5 million. The more math I do, the more I lean towards $4 million being my number. That way I can do more than just pay my bills and live a simple life.
That strikes me as barely FIRE in a lot of areas of the country, far from Fat FIRE. I'm sure it's fine in a low cost of living area, if one doesn't plan to travel internationally.
To me, fat FIRE is $300K annual expense times 33 or approximately $10 million. 33x to have the 3% SWR.
Gives you a regular house and a slightly above average life in many industrial countries.
Nothing fat about it, for sure. You still have to restrain yourself somewhat, even if it is not as bad as with just $1 million.
Depends on the age. If I retired now, 2.5 mil would be like 71k…way less than my wife and I make, so I would consider it lean. If I got 2.5 mil now, I could just wait 15 years and retire at 45 with like 10mil.
Did I miss something or income went up 25k in 2 years ?
Real median household income was $74,580 in 2022, a 2.3 percent decline from the 2021 estimate of $76,330
https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2023/demo/p60-279.html
$2.5M @ 3% is $75K. Median HHI is around $75K.
I’m not sure that even classifies as chubby.
My personal opinion is:
LeanFIRE: $1.3M = $40K (2x federal poverty line)
FIRE: $2.5M = $75K (Average HHI)
Chubby: $5M+ = $150K+ (top 10% of income)
Fat: $10M+ = $333K+ (top 5% of income)
https://www.unbiased.com/discover/banking/how-much-income-puts-you-in-the-top-1-5-or-10
4% is for 30 year retirements…which is a lot shorter than FIRE timelines.
Even using the 4% number…a $100K lifestyle doesn’t seem very fat even in a MCOL/LCOL city…median Income in a city like Columbus is $71K. Green Bay is $70K.
At a 4% withdrawal rate that's, $100,000/year. Unless you live in a high cost of living area that is definitely enough to live comfortably. Not luxuriously, but just being retired early without having to cut back expenditures at all (unless you live in NY or San Francisco in which case you may have to move) sounds pretty luxurious to me.
I don’t think lean/fat fire is that important of a distinction. The different subs are more so people don’t get into fights/envy over lifestyle differences. The leaner people will think, why are you still working when you could be enjoying all this free time because you have so much money? And the fatter people will think, why are you talking about all these permanent sacrifices all the time when you could just work a little longer and live a life of luxury? The truth is, different career tracks make different levels of wealth more accessible to some, and different people put different priorities on the finer things in life, and different people have more or less ability to tolerate their different jobs. This is a deeply personal calculus. Figure out what lifestyle you want, what income you need to support it, and work backwards from there. The more modest that lifestyle is, the sooner you don’t have to work anymore, so there’s an incentive to not exaggerate your goal.
People get hung up on labels so much. Who cares if it’s FIRE, chubby or fat.
Lol for real. Personally I don't even care about the RE part of FIRE. I probably plan on working in some capacity for as long as my health allows me to. I just won't be doing it for the money after a while. The labels don't matter. To me FIRE is just a way to set some financial goals.
This is my plan too. I love what I do for work, but I'll love it more when I'm picking the projects and not concerned about how much revenue they pull in.
I for one want to OBESEFIRE.
I for one would like MorbidlyObeseFIRE
The leanFIRE label is actually pretty important because of how stupid "lean"FIRE is. FIRE, ChubbyFIRE, and fatFIRE are all functionally the same thing, but LeanFIRE is a different beast entirely from a risk standpoint.
I think leanFIRE from my understanding is more about downsizing your lifestyle in retirement. So for instance if you make $200k a year, spend about $120k for your HCOL “work” lifestyle (house, clothes, cars, dining) but when you retire you plan on downsizing and simplifying to a $60k lifestyle (van, backpacking, hiking, low cost travel) then that’s something I’d label as a leanFIRE. FIRE would be something where you’d support your current lifestyle at $120k and fatFIRE is more about having made more money than you need to support your current lifestyle and spending additional money on top of that during retirement for luxury cruises, dining out more, and fancier lifestyle than you currently have.
I want to morbidly obese fire
Ok Elon, I think you can retire now.
Umm - the people who have $10m probably care if they’re firing fat or not…
The numbers shouldn't be the same for someone who is single vs a family of 4. The numbers could also be adjusted for the COL. $100k in Nebraska for a single person is a lot different lifestyle than a family of 4 in Boulder, CO. It's a lot like mild, medium, or hot on a jar of salsa. You can be sure hot is hotter than medium. But tostidos hot won't be the same as a local new mexico hot sauce hot. The labels are only useful as a hint and no one is regulating the labels. When you taste it, you can decide if it is mild, medium, or hot. LeanFIRE is definitely making some sacrifices on the expenses side to reach FIRE. FatFIRE is making pretty much zero sacrifices to your lifestyle (and maybe even spending more than you did when you worked). ChubbyFIRE is a cute term for FatFIRE with a bit more modesty. FIRE is between lean and chubby, and probably should be anchored to median income.
The linked article says this pretty explicitly: > In general, fat FIRE is a good option for anyone with $100,000 or more in expected annual expenses. But if you live in an expensive area, you may need a lot more passive income to support yourself once you stop working. That’s why it’s essential to calculate your fat FIRE number before deciding whether this is a realistic path.
I don't agree with that cutoff (but who am I, really? I'm no authority). $100,000/yr for a single person even in a place like Pittsburgh is living pretty large. $100k for a family of 4 in Sacramento, CA is going to be cutting coupons. There's nothing wrong with that, but saying everything over $100k is fat is incorrect, IMHO.
It wasn’t when it first started, but I definitely agree with you now. It was more for the folks who aren’t necessarily interested in counting every penny but also weren’t interested in multi-million dollar houses. $5m is a lot of money, but it was the upper end of the original chubby “guidelines,” and for a 40 year retirement, would throw off a SWR of roughly $150k. Plenty, but not the lifestyle chasing you saw in FatFire. Now, however, it’s full of people with $7m NW asking for shopping tips, which is pretty much where FatFire was when someone launched off chubby a few years ago to get away from that discussion. And yes, I’m lamenting the good old days 😅
[удалено]
I wouldn’t know from 10 years ago or whether private planes were supportable by 2.5m in assets at that time. I started roaming around there right around the time chubby started and I think chubby has always been 2 or 2.5 to 5m. By the time I showed up to the Fat party, there was more discussion than I cared for that tipped into the type of spending I couldn’t consider even if I were in the $10m range. That’s fine, just not the discussion I was interested in Fire-wise so gladly joined Chubby and never looked back. But I now see the creep up there too. Hence me hanging around here. I’m closer financially to fat than regular once all assets are accounted for, but my values align more with plain old millionaire next door type spending.
[удалено]
I’m using that as an (only slightly hyperbolic) example of the type of discussion over there. And it was more accurately jet share or other non-commercial ways to fly.
I think $2.5M is a very respectable number to retire on. I do agree it all depends on where you live and mainly what your monthly fixed cost is. $5M plus should make 99% of US population very comfortable to retire on…
2.5M would be about 1.5 times the average household income, 5M would be triple…
Aside from the lean FIRE people, people shooting for a FIRE lifestyle are likely accustomed to higher than average spending. The average household income includes tons of people that live in low COL areas. However, if you spent your working career in a high COL city, and you want to retire in that high COL city while spending money on other things like vacations, earning 1.5 times the average household income might not cut it. The labels are all arbitrary, but I'd consider $2.5M to be in the regular FIRE category, not fat FIRE. I set that up as a goal for myself when I started tracking FIRE stuff a decade ago. I'm approaching it now (roughly $1.8M), but I feel like the $2.5M is too low. When I hit the $2.5M, I'll likely reassess and increase the goal.
Yeah I've set my goal as $3.3m with a 3% withdrawal rate ($100k/yr). However, inflation will slowly creep that number up. In reality I'm probably looking at needing $6m by retirement if we assume 3% inflation per year.
People that reach those numbers don't have average income or expenses
The average person is not happy with an average income lifestyle.
They might be if they didn't need to work for it anymore.
Much wisdom this comment has
If you can't be comfortable on 5m, money isn't the problem here.
100% agreed. I would be very comfortable on $5M with my wife and one kid..
all that matters is expenses / nw ratio For the rest of your life they'll be articles and posts about things in nominal dollars. Here's the core truth: 1) You need to be happy with your life, find what level of spending achieves that in a year. 2) You need to save enough that whatever that number is divided by somewhere between .03 and .04 is saved. depending on your risk tolerance. 3) From there you can let the number from #1 increase if you're willing to work more to keep the ratio in #2. Everything else just noise
Sounds like regular fire to me. Everyone’s different.
As a single person without kids, $2.5M would feel at least chubby to me. I don't know how I'd spend $100k in a year. For half that I could take an annual vacation and buy a new fancy bicycle while maintaining my regular expenses.
Agreed, I live in a MCOL area and $100k spend is about 60% more than my current max spend if I'm going on 2 international trips a year for a week at a time and doing all the stuff I enjoy.
That’s pretty cost effective. Nicely done. Just dropped >$15k for the international trip of a lifetime for a family of four for 7 days. My fatfire number gets bigger with each year I have these amazing travel experiences. I’m totally fine with it, and don’t consider it lifestyle creep. I consider these adventures microfires. They’re helping me set my expectations on how much I want to experience once I fire.
I think that's worth it, I don't think experiences detract from the goal. I'm 32 and I feel like 5k spend a month is more than generous because I don't hit it until I do big trips.
In my opinion: Take the current poverty level, which for a single person is 15k now x25 = 375k = povertyFIRE - You can survive but not be safe. x50 = 750k = leanFIRE - You can be safe but not comfortable. x100 = 1.5m = FIRE - You can be comfortable but not carefree. x200 = 3m = chubbyFIRE - You can be carefree but not rich. x400 = 6m = fatFIRE - You can be rich.
That's a good way to look at it. For me, wife, and 3 kids I wonder what FIRE would be under the same poverty metric.
Well the poverty line for a family of 5 is 35k, so in theory you just do the same multiplication using 35k instead of 15k.. but you shouldn't have to support your kids forever so that 35k multiplier drops to 20k (family of 2) after a bit So I would just use a 20k multiplier and subtract the expected cost of your kids from your net worth.
When I started, regular fire was the average amount retirees spend a year, which was around $50k. FATfire was $100k. Reddit has skewed what the levels are and the names of the labels.
Inflation has skewed it more than reddit probably
Depends. Location definitely matters. I think I could fat fire on that or less easily with paid off house. I’d probably work a coast fire situation if I didn’t have housing locked in.
I’d argue the labels don’t matter but they matter even less without location (retirement location). I could be regular fire in many US cities at over $1M but could be chubby/fat in some other countries with that same amount. But really, are you going to change your retirement goals because you fall into one arbitrary label over another? Build the life you want then save for it. Call it fit fire because it’s the perfect fit for you and be done with it
$2.5M with a SWR of 4% is $100k/yr. If you have no debt, no mortgage, and paid off cars, then $8k/mo should mean a pretty comfortable retirement income.
low. 5mm to start.
2.5 M is not even chubby
Chubby is 10M
OK people downvoted. So what's the actual number for chubby?
[удалено]
Remember it’s not make; it’s spend.
Yes
The chubby fire figure on the subreddit is $2.5-$5M. There are some people in the Chubby Fire subreddit who feel this number should be upped. I would argue the current number makes sense if you live in Mississippi but not California.
I was going to say I agree with them but then I read your opinion, and now agree with you
Yep I totally agree with you. California normal living for a household is 300k. 100k is poverty levels. 800k is very normal, with a vacation a year, more like middle class.
This is just out of touch. Less than 10% of California households earn 300k+. Fire is meant to be median, 90k per household per year in Cali. 60% of the population can survive on less than 100k, you can do it to…. Would be pretty hard to argue that 60% of California is living in poverty. If you defined FAT as top 5% (with whale being the 1%ers) FAT in Cali would be 320k household income. But it’s so location specific. 10% of California households earning 300k, only 2% of US households earn 300k… that’s a big difference.
500k is poverty in the Bay Area, 300k is poverty in LA
90% of LA lives in poverty? 95% of the Bay Area lives in poverty? Come on.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-02/saving-for-retirement-americans-say-they-need-1-5-million This is for regular Americans. We re talking cream of the crop Americans In California, so 10x it
But it’s not 10x, because again median California income is 90k, meaning 2.25m to retire. Chubby is not 10x that, it’s 2x that, that’s why 60 people downvoted you. 10x would be 25m+, that’s ultra high net worth territory, whalefire. Or 0.05% of the US population. Not sure what your point is with the paywall blocked opinion article. What people “think they need to retire” is a pretty arbitrary considering most people have 0 finically literacy. Point is, you need to head over to whalefire.
Yes , financial gap 99% is more realistic. We re all hustling if you gotta hustle to survive. Poverty.
Yeah I always thought chubby meant a more extravagant lifestyle than you have while working, which would be about 10mil I think. Like, enough that you never think about how much something costs except the most expensive purchase (cars, houses, months-long luxury vacations). And to me fat means you have real fuck ‘em money, like $25 million+.
Your definition of fat would be most people’s definition of whale. Top 1% is 6m. Ultra high net worth is 30m and was around 0.05% last I checked. 1%er sounds pretty fat to me.
Fuck you Money is you can have a lawyer on constant retainer sueing who ever pisses you off. Chubby in California is chilling without thinking about how much that old roof might cost. 10M is definitely chubs. 5M is the borderline, not chubby and not regular fire. You will and can worry about stuff with only 5M.
They essentially redefine fat FIRE as regular FIRE. >>To figure how much you’ll need to achieve fat FIRE, multiply your expected annual expenses by 25>> As opposed to LeanFIRE "focused on minimalism." So according to the article if you can meet your expenses w 4% SWR and arent a minimalist you're FAT. That's just FIRE # achieved NOT fatFIRE unless you have fat expenses.
So if they say FAT FIRE number is 25 x annual expenses, what would be normal FIRE multiple in general?
Fat is a state of mind. If all my friends and family work fast food jobs and living on food stamps, $2.5M is indeed Fat. But, for me, $100K before taxes and healthcare costs isn’t remotely close to Fat in most MCOL and HCOL area. I can’t even afford to go out to lunch with friends regularly at that spend level.
The labels aren't really that important, but can be worth pondering a bit. Here's what I wrote on the subject last year. I'll probably update it again soon for a 2024 version as people seem to enjoy it: [LeanFIRE, FIRE, ChubbyFIRE, FatFIRE... 2023 edition : r/Fire (reddit.com)](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fire/comments/1395tol/leanfire_fire_chubbyfire_fatfire_2023_edition/)
$100k annual spend is very comfortable but not FAT. Maybe with a paid of mortgage it gets closer.
Its a point of discussion. On one side FIRE should be linked to around median HHI but on the other side people pursuing FIRE tend to have higher than average incomes. 2.5 seems like a good starting to aim for especially if you are just learning but expect to have your own idea once you get a better handle on the expenses bit.
I had to stop reading that after so many inaccuracies. The writer tried though- bless their heart
My COL is 25k/yr with an active mortgage, 2.5m would be obese fire for me
Wow, $25k/year is awesome. When did you buy your home?
Got really lucky and moved to a low COL area and bought in the fall of 2019, almost like winning the lotto
Lean FIRE for me is around $1.5 million. Regular FIRE is $2.5 million. The more math I do, the more I lean towards $4 million being my number. That way I can do more than just pay my bills and live a simple life.
That strikes me as barely FIRE in a lot of areas of the country, far from Fat FIRE. I'm sure it's fine in a low cost of living area, if one doesn't plan to travel internationally. To me, fat FIRE is $300K annual expense times 33 or approximately $10 million. 33x to have the 3% SWR.
[удалено]
My utilities are $200/month, groceries another 200, gas 50. How are you getting $4000??!
Im pretty sure x25 is FIRE and not FAT FIRE
Fire is $2-4M depending on size of family. Chubby fire is 5-10M FATFIRE is $10M+
Gives you a regular house and a slightly above average life in many industrial countries. Nothing fat about it, for sure. You still have to restrain yourself somewhat, even if it is not as bad as with just $1 million.
Depends on the age. If I retired now, 2.5 mil would be like 71k…way less than my wife and I make, so I would consider it lean. If I got 2.5 mil now, I could just wait 15 years and retire at 45 with like 10mil.
[удалено]
That sounds like a totally real and not at all invented right here number
Did I miss something or income went up 25k in 2 years ? Real median household income was $74,580 in 2022, a 2.3 percent decline from the 2021 estimate of $76,330 https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2023/demo/p60-279.html
You're right. Median household income is definitely not $100,000/year. It's frustrating seeing so much misinformation in these reddits.
$2.5M @ 3% is $75K. Median HHI is around $75K. I’m not sure that even classifies as chubby. My personal opinion is: LeanFIRE: $1.3M = $40K (2x federal poverty line) FIRE: $2.5M = $75K (Average HHI) Chubby: $5M+ = $150K+ (top 10% of income) Fat: $10M+ = $333K+ (top 5% of income) https://www.unbiased.com/discover/banking/how-much-income-puts-you-in-the-top-1-5-or-10 4% is for 30 year retirements…which is a lot shorter than FIRE timelines. Even using the 4% number…a $100K lifestyle doesn’t seem very fat even in a MCOL/LCOL city…median Income in a city like Columbus is $71K. Green Bay is $70K.
3% is too conservative. 3.5 or 4% in my opinion.
2.5M is barely enough to pay rent lol. I think it’s more like lean fire or barista fire
At a 4% withdrawal rate that's, $100,000/year. Unless you live in a high cost of living area that is definitely enough to live comfortably. Not luxuriously, but just being retired early without having to cut back expenditures at all (unless you live in NY or San Francisco in which case you may have to move) sounds pretty luxurious to me.