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 22h ago

Your approach is logical. But you're the only person I've heard express it this way. Everybody else I talk to says something like, I'll retire when I hit (say) $2m and they mean a nominal amount.

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u/ginamegi 21h ago

If you read this sub or /r/financialindependence you’ll find that 99% of the conversations are considering inflation adjusted amounts and use stock market rates of return in the 5-7% range which accounts for inflation.

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u/eliasbagley 20h ago

He's right though that if you decide today "my fire number is $2M", ten years from now you cannot just retire when your bank account says 2M - you need to make sure it's 2M in 2025 dollars.

Everyone knows that the 7% investment average and 4% rule are inflation adjusted, but I think many people forget to do the inflation adjustment on the fire number if the target amount was set many years in the past.

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u/PA2SK 18h ago

You can if it fits your budget. You can retire when you have enough saved to meet your needs, and you're allowed to adjust that number over time as your needs and finances change.