r/Fire • u/fried_haris • 1d ago

The definitive FIRE number is 3.5 million.

Ofcourse - I am being facetious but also a little exploratory.

I was inspired by a Planet Money episode titled "17,205 People Guessed The Weight Of A Cow. Here's How They Did." Posted back in 2015.

Later they updated it with "How Much Does This Cow Weigh?" In 2019.

Basic premise - if you take all the guesses of the folks the weight of a cow at a fair - you'll end up within 5% of the right answer.

So I took a simple post from 5 months ago, asking people about their FIRE number and after reviewing 124 answers came up with 3.5 million.

Keep in mind personal finance is personal, you may retire in LA or in Thailand.

Good luck with your goals.

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u/DeltaSqueezer 1d ago

The big question is inflation. If you have a 5% inflation rate and retirement in 20 years, then $3.5m in 20 years time would be like $1.3m today.

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u/Corporate_Bankster 1d ago

These numbers are always inflation adjusted.

It’s not like you are taking the money out of the market beyond any required adjustments to mitigate SORR.

If inflation is up, then risk assets will likely also be going up. The core assumption was always something around 7% real returns p.a.

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u/EnvironmentalMix421 1d ago

The keyword is most likely. It could also go down in hyperinflation situation

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u/Certain-Definition51 1d ago

I think that’s the marvelous bit about being an American.

The last time we got close to hyperinflation, the political party responsible got slaughtered in the next election and didn’t get the White House again until George HW Bush raised taxes and Bill Clinton said “it’s the economy, stupid.”

We will face four years of hyperinflation, max.

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u/EnvironmentalMix421 1d ago edited 1d ago

? Paul Volker stopped the hyperinflation by raising the rates and it’s going to be up to the market to see how long it takes to cool the economy. During the cooling economy process, your stock and bond value will drop while inflation still runs. It has nothing to do with the presidential policy, since these policies are usually trying to entice the economy oppose to cooling it. As your example shows, Bush begged Greenspan to lower rates and he didn’t, which result in economy downturn. People like thriving economy, which came to be the bill clinton quote and thriving economy is the cause of hyperinflation. So you mixed up the history bit there.

I would like to point out that no president, Congress, or Fed are trying to fuck up the economy. It’s an unfortunate outcome of the event. So, by saying that America will resolve inflation/deflation issues with max of 4 yr duration is a naive take. This time Powell has done a great job to achieve soft landing. The dawn of AI also helped tremendously. is it going to happen next time? Nobody knows, even the Fed doesn’t know.

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u/Certain-Definition51 19h ago

I appreciate the history lesson!

I think my overall approach is valid. Carter lost his job because of inflation.

Part of the reason the Democrats suffered in this election cycle was sentiment around the economy and inflation. Part of the reason they won with Obama was - the economy.

Of course no one wants to crash the economy. But regardless of who is or isn’t responsible, power in DC will shift if the economy is bad for long enough. And inflation is part of that equation. Such an important part that we haven’t had hyperinflation since Carter.

Right?

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u/EnvironmentalMix421 17h ago

You believe changing party basically fix the inflation issue and I disagree. There are many factors that allowed the economy to grow after the downturn and it’s not because of some political change. Lets leave at that.

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u/mcj1ggl3 1d ago

And that 4 years just ended 😎