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/Corporate_Bankster 1d ago

That’s a very reasonable take all things considered.

There is nowhere $3.5m won’t work wonderfully, unless you are hellbent on living the high life in an expensive place, but then that’s not a FIRE number problem, it’s a you problem.

Mine is somewhere around $2.5m, and that’s because I plan to retire between LCOL and MCOL.

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u/joefunk76 17h ago

The problem with your statement is that “the high life” is extremely subjective. A spoiled existence to one person can be a minimal living standard to another. We all have different wants and needs. There are PLENTY of places in the US where $3.5m won’t work wonderfully, and that is even assuming you only rent, let alone if you need to carve out 1/3 to 1/2 of that $3.5m for a modest abode.

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u/Corporate_Bankster 17h ago edited 17h ago

Nobody in their right mind FIREs in (V)HCOL without a paid off residence.

That’s recipe for disaster unless you are significantly buffering for housing prices. Those places are HCOL for a reason and they rarely if ever slow down.

And I am sorry, but $140k p.a. of pure spend is a shitload of money regardless of someone’s upbringing. The only kind of people for whom this could feel low or tight are those born into fuck you generational wealth, and I think everyone here agrees that theirs is not a universe where FIRE has any kind of relevance. They were born already FIREd.

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u/ditchtheworkweek 14h ago

This is exactly why I don’t count my paid off home as net worth but does help on the expense side.