Author Topic: Define FIRE? - fat, regular, slim, barista, etc.  (Read 3884 times)

mistymoney

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Define FIRE? - fat, regular, slim, barista, etc.
« on: July 28, 2019, 09:27:59 AM »
A lot of descriptors floating around! Hoping to get a little clarification.

What do these mean to you? And what is the number you personally attach to these levels?

The only one I've put a lot of thought into the past 5-10 years was what I think you all mean by fat fire.

For me it was $3,333,334, yielding 100k to live off/year at 3% draw. Could lower that to 2.5m at 4%, but worry about risk there.

But, although I've done a pretty good job in some ways, I've tripped up in others, and that isn't going to happen for me. Well, it could, if I work through to about 70.

Not sure how I feel about that! I do like my work, but - maybe not that much, ya know?

So - I am trying to look at other ways of thinking about FIR, maybe E and maybe not. But I'm hoping that getting a broader range of what that looks like for others can help me.

At the moment, it seems selling up everything, paying off all debts, getting a new hatchback something, and living in my car is my current option.

While it looks like this is a scenario many are doing! I wonder about my fortitude to do so in my mid-50's. Will be 53 in September, and even if I go that extreme route, would likely take me a year to get there. Getting property ready to sell being a primary force, and giving kids time to figure out other permanent digs. 2 years would give DD time to finish degree, so would probably look at a 2-year time frame.

So - I guess that is my slim fire? Seems extreme and depressing. And maybe a little exciting, roving about the country. N in summer, S in winter.

My current stache is less than 800k. At 3% I'd have about 20k/year. If I did go nomad, I would like to live as cheap as possible (10k/year?) for about 5ish years, and hope for growth, then settle down somewhere when I was at 1.5m.

It sounds good, but I don't think I could it, lol!



SwordGuy

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Re: Define FIRE? - fat, regular, slim, barista, etc.
« Reply #1 on: July 28, 2019, 10:10:46 AM »
You're all over the place, from a super-secure never feel any discomfort or concern level of funding to crammed in the back of a car living on pennies.

What the heck to you actually want out of life?

'Cause whatever you've got, I'm guessing it isn't much like it.

I suggest you check out Justin at www.RootOfGood.com for an example of a very pleasant, low stress, high level of fun and comfort life on $40k.   You might be surprised.


Second, you've got a "money is scarce and hard to come by" mindset or you wouldn't have these fears about needing over $3 million dollars and a 3% WR.

It's phenomenally easy to make money in this country.   With a big investment cushion and a willingness and ability to improvise, adapt and overcome, you just don't need that kind of worry.

Let's say you decide on a $40k spend after looking at Justin's lifestyle.  That's $1M at a 4% WR.   

He's got over 25% of his budget for pure luxury travel.   So, simply by deferring a few cruises and such he could cut to a 3% WR in a blink of an eye.  There's some safety.

Let's say the market tanks 50% so that $1M stash is now only $500K and it stays flat for awhile.   At a $30k spend you've got 15-20 years to come up with a plan before you run out of money.   Don't you think you could figure something out by then?  If you just made $10K in those bad years, you would have 25-30 years. 

RELAX!  This is easier than you are making it out to be.   Shed those fears that are driving you to make this too hard and too complicated.




mistymoney

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Re: Define FIRE? - fat, regular, slim, barista, etc.
« Reply #2 on: July 28, 2019, 11:19:28 AM »
You're all over the place, from a super-secure never feel any discomfort or concern level of funding to crammed in the back of a car living on pennies.

What the heck to you actually want out of life?



I want the 3.33m, but it's not going to happen. Now I'm trying to figure out what the other options are.

startingsmall

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Re: Define FIRE? - fat, regular, slim, barista, etc.
« Reply #3 on: July 28, 2019, 12:05:56 PM »
I was playing around with various scenarios on my spreadsheets this morning, so hopefully this helps (if I'm understanding your question correctly). FWIW, I'm currently 40 and my husband is 35.

The various scenarios that I currently track are:

Full FIRE: $1.4 million ($56k/yr at 4%) - this is what I feel that we would need to feel "comfortably" retired. (Also, this includes $1000/month for health insurance. If the ACA continues to stick around, I may eventually feel comfortable decreasing our requirements, but I still have some uncertainty around it so we'll keep it at this level.) We could cut back our spending a bit if the economy hit a crappy period, so I'm fine with 4% SWR. We could honestly make do on even less than this amount, but I think it would cause my husband some anxiety so this is what we're aiming for. On target to hit this number in roughly 10 years (give or take, depending on our savings intensity and the market).

Mostly FIRED: $1 million ($40k/yr at 4%). We could probably live on $40k/yr if necessary, so maybe I should instead call this Lean FIRE?. Realistically, though, I think it's very likely that we'll continue to do at least a small amount of work in FIRE, especially if we FIRED at only $1 million. We'd be able to continue our current lifestyle if we can bring in a little over $1k/month until I start collecting Social Security. Since I'm a freelance writer, it would be incredibly easy to dial back my workload to this level (or maybe instead a higher level, like $25-30k/yr, for a shorter period of time? who knows). This point is roughly 7 years out for us, depending on savings/markets.

Semi-FIRE: $750k ($30k/yr at 4%). If we hit this number, we'd only need to bring in roughly $2k/month in income long-term. I wouldn't feel comfortably "retired" at this level, but certainly would feel comfortable with a huge downshift. We're about 4.5 years away from this point, at our current savings rate and assuming 7% returns.

Coast FIRE: We're there!! WOOHOO!!  I could never add another penny to our accounts again and we should still be on track to FIRE by the time I'm 60 and my husband is 55. This makes me happy, even though I'm definitely not stopping here!

I guess you could argue that my Full FIRE scenario is somewhere between regular FIRE and fat FIRE, my Mostly FIRED scenario is Lean FIRE, and my Semi-FIRE is Barista FIRE, but I don't think of it that way. Instead of looking at labels/classifications, I just map out appealing ways that our future could someday look, think about what we'd need to get there, and then track our progress towards those possibilities.

At the moment, the "Mostly FIRED" ($1 million) scenario is most appealing to me... but that's definitely subject to change. We'll see what happens in the next few years!

« Last Edit: July 28, 2019, 01:08:34 PM by startingsmall »

FIRE 20/20

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Re: Define FIRE? - fat, regular, slim, barista, etc.
« Reply #4 on: July 28, 2019, 03:28:50 PM »
I like @SwordGuy 's post.  I think it captures some of the things that went through my mind when I read your post. 

First, why are you looking at a 3% withdrawal rate?  That's insanely low, and I can't think of many reasons why anyone would target such a low number.  Do you have some complicating factor that results in such a low number?  That's not to say 4% is right for everyone either, but wow - 3%!  If you haven't already, I really recommend the "Stop worrying about the 4% rule" thread in Investor Alley.  https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/investor-alley/stop-worrying-about-the-4-rule/

Second, I think that each term refers more to a lifestyle than a number because the numbers will vary depending on individual circumstances.  $1.0M could be Fat FIRE for a single person with military health benefits in a LCOL area.  $2.0M could be lean FIRE for someone with a large family, dependents with disabilities, or another unavoidable high-cost situation.  I think of the terms not relate to specific 'stache levels, but what they mean for the life one has the opportunity to live.  Lean FIRE to me means that you have a level of assets that could support a modest lifestyle without a need for any additional income.  Barista FIRE means that you have enough assets that you don't need to ever work a standard job again, but for one reason or another (necessity, enjoying work, whatever) you plan to pick up additional income after leaving regular full-time work.  Fat FIRE has nothing to do with withdrawal rate for me - it just means there's fat to cut in the budget if necessary. 

Your post made me think of another FIRE level that I hadn't considered before - Boggleheads FIRE.  It seems to me that anything over $3M in just about any normal circumstance is *way* beyond Fat FIRE.  Even at a crazy low 3.33% withdrawal rate that's still $100k.  I can't imagine how I would spend that much money unless I did something like buy a new car every year, start an endowed scholarship, take a first-class cruise to Antarctica, or something else extravagant.  I would think that spending that kind of money would take a lot of effort, although there are people out there who go through a lot more than that.

For my situation, and I don't think you can extrapolate this to other people directly, I would say that $800k would be lean FIRE, $1.2 would be FIRE, and $1.5M would be Fat FIRE.  YMMV.

« Last Edit: July 28, 2019, 03:31:13 PM by FIRE 20/20 »

2Cent

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Re: Define FIRE? - fat, regular, slim, barista, etc.
« Reply #5 on: July 29, 2019, 03:16:38 AM »
You're looking for 100k/year so I assume that is your current expenditure. Maybe analyse where all that money is going. If you reduce it to 50k you could easily save for FIRE. With a house or at least a nice RV. You already have a passive income of 32k at 4% so apart form your expenditure you're well on your way to FIRE and could probably already manage in a LCOL area.

mistymoney

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Re: Define FIRE? - fat, regular, slim, barista, etc.
« Reply #6 on: July 29, 2019, 07:35:55 AM »
You're looking for 100k/year so I assume that is your current expenditure. Maybe analyse where all that money is going. If you reduce it to 50k you could easily save for FIRE. With a house or at least a nice RV. You already have a passive income of 32k at 4% so apart form your expenditure you're well on your way to FIRE and could probably already manage in a LCOL area.

Not spending 100k/year! But I'd like to :P. It was a number I picked out about 15-20 years ago, long before my salary even crossed six figures, which just happened this year.

If we are saying that there is no need to worry at 4% WR, then my number is only 2.5m.  So - seems like if the market is willing and the taxes don't rise, I could get there in about 10 years or so. I guess that actually isn't too bad.....

my annual budget is about twice my current passive income, about 65-70/year. I was thinking it was 60, but have been tracking expenses and 65 or a bit more seems more likely.

2Cent

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Re: Define FIRE? - fat, regular, slim, barista, etc.
« Reply #7 on: July 29, 2019, 08:22:56 AM »
Retirement at 63 is definitely not bad, but of course you could retire much much sooner if you even just lived by your current budget, let alone reduce expenses to say 50k.
For me it's about having time. How many years do I sell to the company for extra income? So my FIRE is probably more lean. I don't dream of big retirement spending. I dream of spending time with my wife, kids and grand kids.

Metalcat

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Re: Define FIRE? - fat, regular, slim, barista, etc.
« Reply #8 on: July 29, 2019, 08:31:51 AM »
There's a difference between wanting the capacity to spend 100K in retirement, and actually spending 100K, without fail, every single year of retirement.

Are you really expecting to spend 100K, every single year, even in the event of a major market crash? Really?
Because that's what you would have to do in order to justify a sub-4% withdrawal rate.

If you really can't afford to save to your completely arbitrary "fat FIRE" target, then it's a nonsense target.

As for defining fat-FIRE vs FIRE vs leanFIRE vs barista-FIRE vs coast-FIRE, those are all basically personally defined according to the particulars of the people involved.

It's especially hard to define coast-FIRE/barista-FIRE because that depends entirely on how long the person wants to continue working part time.

DH and I can make solid incomes working very casually, so 10+ years of just letting our 'stache grow is highly probable. So whatever number we aim for, it will likely end up nearly double.

Though that's only because we love our work and our spending is much lower than 100K. It's also easy to love work when you only have to do it 1-4 days a month in order to cover your spend.

Pete has spelled this out pretty clearly, the greatest financial power you have is in lowering your spending. It gives you maximum flexibility on all fronts.

So if I were you and my desired arbitrary target was unrealistic, I would examine all of the factors involved and adjust accordingly
1: current spend- is it too high? Could you be saving more to reach your goal?
2: WR- 3% is absolutely nuts, especially at those higher spending rates where budgets can be drastically cut in bad market conditions.
I personally have a hard time believing that the kind of people who are conservative enough to plan for sub-4% WR are also the kind of people who won't cut back their spending during a crash...which makes the low WR moot, but whatevs...
3: planned future spend- again, are you *actually* wanting to spend 100K every single year??? Why??? If not, then see #2 about sub-4% WR and reexamine what you think actual risk is.
4: do you have any work you see yourself doing once you leave full time employment...this opens a HUGE mathematical can of worms, in a good way, but it definitely complicated things and gives you many more options.

Just because you asked for it, I'll give you my numbers
-WR: not really all that relevant as there's a FED pension, a rental, and a lot of flexibility in our spending. So let's use a basic 4% and consider that extremely conservative for our case

-leanFIRE: 1M condo not paid off, this would readily fund our lifestyle, but in a given year, things could be tight with a large unexpected expenses. That's as lean as we would ever possibly go, I would much rather work more than have less than this amount of security, so it's a bit high for a true leanFIRE.

-FIRE: 1.5-2M (mortgage is irrelevant at this point), if I had to stop working or decided to stop working, I would be rather comfortable rolling with large unexpected expenses and could readily adjust spending if needed while not compromising on happiness.

-fatFIRE: 2-3M at this level I would have to inflate lifestyle to not end up with a giant pile of cash when I die. These lifestyle inflations wouldn't actually change my quality of life, they would just increase the fanciness of aspects of the life I already have while failing to improve it in any kind of appreciable way.

coastFIRE: there isn't really a number for this, besides, I already only work part time. It's really a spectrum involving any level of income that lowers your WR, which can range from covering your entire annual spend to just reducing your WR in retirement.
Sustaining some level of income provides A LOT of flexibility to any plan, especially with a low spend.

barista-FIRE: basically coastFIRE, but doing low(er) skill/low(er) pay work instead of cutting back on professional level work. I wouldn't do this, but DH might take up personal training if he ever stops his professional work.

I have no idea if my personal numbers are of any use to you though.
« Last Edit: July 29, 2019, 08:37:21 AM by Malkynn »

remizidae

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Re: Define FIRE? - fat, regular, slim, barista, etc.
« Reply #9 on: July 29, 2019, 12:36:26 PM »
You're all over the place, from a super-secure never feel any discomfort or concern level of funding to crammed in the back of a car living on pennies.

What the heck to you actually want out of life?

'Cause whatever you've got, I'm guessing it isn't much like it.

I suggest you check out Justin at www.RootOfGood.com for an example of a very pleasant, low stress, high level of fun and comfort life on $40k.   You might be surprised.


Second, you've got a "money is scarce and hard to come by" mindset or you wouldn't have these fears about needing over $3 million dollars and a 3% WR.

It's phenomenally easy to make money in this country.   With a big investment cushion and a willingness and ability to improvise, adapt and overcome, you just don't need that kind of worry.

Let's say you decide on a $40k spend after looking at Justin's lifestyle.  That's $1M at a 4% WR.   

He's got over 25% of his budget for pure luxury travel.   So, simply by deferring a few cruises and such he could cut to a 3% WR in a blink of an eye.  There's some safety.

Let's say the market tanks 50% so that $1M stash is now only $500K and it stays flat for awhile.   At a $30k spend you've got 15-20 years to come up with a plan before you run out of money.   Don't you think you could figure something out by then?  If you just made $10K in those bad years, you would have 25-30 years. 

RELAX!  This is easier than you are making it out to be.   Shed those fears that are driving you to make this too hard and too complicated.

Caveat about the Root of Good guy—correct me if i’m wrong, but it looks like he has a paid off house. He’d be spending more like $60k if not for that asset.

Gremlin

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Re: Define FIRE? - fat, regular, slim, barista, etc.
« Reply #10 on: July 29, 2019, 05:38:08 PM »

Not spending 100k/year! But I'd like to :P. It was a number I picked out about 15-20 years ago, long before my salary even crossed six figures, which just happened this year.

When you've got your mustachian muscles fully flexed, you can focus on what you want to do not what you want to spend.  Regardless of what your 15-20 year younger self thought.  If you're living your best life spending $65k, then why would you not continue to live your best life in FIRE?  If not, then what are you not doing now and how can you change your "now" to live your best life?  'Cos almost certainly the answer isn't $35k to blow on being a consumer sucker or lifestyle inflation in FIRE.


ysette9

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Re: Define FIRE? - fat, regular, slim, barista, etc.
« Reply #11 on: July 30, 2019, 11:12:21 AM »
I have spent a lot of time modeling various versions of our situation using cFIREsim. That gave me insight into the safety factors available and how they influence success rate of a portfolio. For example, modeling a reverse equity glidepath and a 10% flexibility to reduce spending in down years add a lot of safety. Seeing in numbers how much extra you have to work and save to go from a 95% success rate to a 100% success date when the difference is probably meaningless in real life except for the extra years of your life you lost at work is revealing to me.

Now I am reading Living Off Your Money by McClung. It is an exhaustive textbook of a time with a tremendous amount of analysis. I highly recommend it because it has a lot of data-backed actionable advice on how to construct your portfolio and how to draw down. The thing that has struck me through the book so far is that his analysis and charts default to a 5% safe withdrawal rate and show moving that down to something like 4% for 40+ year retirements in bad markets. There is none of this fear monger ugh of 3% withdrawal rates or lower because his analysis of a number of independent data sets don’t back it up.

In summary: I suggest a heavy dose of data to quell your fears.

Buffaloski Boris

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Re: Define FIRE? - fat, regular, slim, barista, etc.
« Reply #12 on: July 30, 2019, 02:45:26 PM »
A lot of descriptors floating around! Hoping to get a little clarification.

What do these mean to you? And what is the number you personally attach to these levels?

The only one I've put a lot of thought into the past 5-10 years was what I think you all mean by fat fire.

For me it was $3,333,334, yielding 100k to live off/year at 3% draw. Could lower that to 2.5m at 4%, but worry about risk there.

But, although I've done a pretty good job in some ways, I've tripped up in others, and that isn't going to happen for me. Well, it could, if I work through to about 70.

Not sure how I feel about that! I do like my work, but - maybe not that much, ya know?

So - I am trying to look at other ways of thinking about FIR, maybe E and maybe not. But I'm hoping that getting a broader range of what that looks like for others can help me.

At the moment, it seems selling up everything, paying off all debts, getting a new hatchback something, and living in my car is my current option.

While it looks like this is a scenario many are doing! I wonder about my fortitude to do so in my mid-50's. Will be 53 in September, and even if I go that extreme route, would likely take me a year to get there. Getting property ready to sell being a primary force, and giving kids time to figure out other permanent digs. 2 years would give DD time to finish degree, so would probably look at a 2-year time frame.

So - I guess that is my slim fire? Seems extreme and depressing. And maybe a little exciting, roving about the country. N in summer, S in winter.

My current stache is less than 800k. At 3% I'd have about 20k/year. If I did go nomad, I would like to live as cheap as possible (10k/year?) for about 5ish years, and hope for growth, then settle down somewhere when I was at 1.5m.

It sounds good, but I don't think I could it, lol!

I read your post and to me it’s unduly pessimistic. And that’s saying something.

Your situation isn’t even close to worrisome. First off, it’s quite possible to live reasonably well even in the US on say $30-40K a year. Pick some exotic, very LCOL to live and you’ll be living like a prince on that. Your current level of wealth easily puts you in the top 15% in the US.

Get a plan and work it and you’ll be retiring surprisingly soon.

the_fixer

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Re: Define FIRE? - fat, regular, slim, barista, etc.
« Reply #13 on: July 30, 2019, 09:43:50 PM »
Your post made me think of a video I came across a while back.

https://youtu.be/Lg37Cbx-kak

I have struggled with finding a balance between the math and my brain as well. I think many people experience the same thing and that is why you see so many people that do the one more year thing.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk


mistymoney

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Re: Define FIRE? - fat, regular, slim, barista, etc.
« Reply #14 on: July 31, 2019, 07:08:17 AM »

Not spending 100k/year! But I'd like to :P. It was a number I picked out about 15-20 years ago, long before my salary even crossed six figures, which just happened this year.

When you've got your mustachian muscles fully flexed, you can focus on what you want to do not what you want to spend.  Regardless of what your 15-20 year younger self thought.  If you're living your best life spending $65k, then why would you not continue to live your best life in FIRE?  If not, then what are you not doing now and how can you change your "now" to live your best life?  'Cos almost certainly the answer isn't $35k to blow on being a consumer sucker or lifestyle inflation in FIRE.

good points, but I am not there yet. I have no budget line items for entertainment, travel, personal care, gym, clothes, etc. and no room in there for it, unless I stop 401k. I have only retirement savings, no EF, no home maintenance fund. COL has increased due to large property tax hikes, income tax increases, etc and raises were not fully compensating. Plus sending kids to school.

But I finally got a promotion and will be able to dig out of the CC debts soon.I am currently paying off some CC debts while contributing only 6% to 401k to get matching funds. I had done almost a year without 401k, then I tried for 10%, lasted only a month as I couldn't make any headway on the debt so dropped back down. So 100k would give all that back into the budget. OTOH, That does include student loan repayments, which will end some day! and my youthful self did not include SS.

So - if I factor in 20k in SS, using 4% I am down to looking for 80k from the stache, with 2m even in it. I think that is doable within 10 years, and perhaps could get there in 7 if things go well over the next few years.

but with my sell-up the house and live in the car scenario, now that I am in my 50s, with nothing like an EF except my Roth contributions, I do think I need to have an escape hatch for unexpected unemployment. Or - you know - unexpected mental health crisis that telling the man to suck it would cure.

 

mistymoney

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Re: Define FIRE? - fat, regular, slim, barista, etc.
« Reply #15 on: July 31, 2019, 07:11:03 AM »
There's a difference between wanting the capacity to spend 100K in retirement, and actually spending 100K, without fail, every single year of retirement.

Are you really expecting to spend 100K, every single year, even in the event of a major market crash? Really?
Because that's what you would have to do in order to justify a sub-4% withdrawal rate.

If you really can't afford to save to your completely arbitrary "fat FIRE" target, then it's a nonsense target.

As for defining fat-FIRE vs FIRE vs leanFIRE vs barista-FIRE vs coast-FIRE, those are all basically personally defined according to the particulars of the people involved.

It's especially hard to define coast-FIRE/barista-FIRE because that depends entirely on how long the person wants to continue working part time.

DH and I can make solid incomes working very casually, so 10+ years of just letting our 'stache grow is highly probable. So whatever number we aim for, it will likely end up nearly double.

Though that's only because we love our work and our spending is much lower than 100K. It's also easy to love work when you only have to do it 1-4 days a month in order to cover your spend.

Pete has spelled this out pretty clearly, the greatest financial power you have is in lowering your spending. It gives you maximum flexibility on all fronts.

So if I were you and my desired arbitrary target was unrealistic, I would examine all of the factors involved and adjust accordingly
1: current spend- is it too high? Could you be saving more to reach your goal?
2: WR- 3% is absolutely nuts, especially at those higher spending rates where budgets can be drastically cut in bad market conditions.
I personally have a hard time believing that the kind of people who are conservative enough to plan for sub-4% WR are also the kind of people who won't cut back their spending during a crash...which makes the low WR moot, but whatevs...
3: planned future spend- again, are you *actually* wanting to spend 100K every single year??? Why??? If not, then see #2 about sub-4% WR and reexamine what you think actual risk is.
4: do you have any work you see yourself doing once you leave full time employment...this opens a HUGE mathematical can of worms, in a good way, but it definitely complicated things and gives you many more options.

Just because you asked for it, I'll give you my numbers
-WR: not really all that relevant as there's a FED pension, a rental, and a lot of flexibility in our spending. So let's use a basic 4% and consider that extremely conservative for our case

-leanFIRE: 1M condo not paid off, this would readily fund our lifestyle, but in a given year, things could be tight with a large unexpected expenses. That's as lean as we would ever possibly go, I would much rather work more than have less than this amount of security, so it's a bit high for a true leanFIRE.

-FIRE: 1.5-2M (mortgage is irrelevant at this point), if I had to stop working or decided to stop working, I would be rather comfortable rolling with large unexpected expenses and could readily adjust spending if needed while not compromising on happiness.

-fatFIRE: 2-3M at this level I would have to inflate lifestyle to not end up with a giant pile of cash when I die. These lifestyle inflations wouldn't actually change my quality of life, they would just increase the fanciness of aspects of the life I already have while failing to improve it in any kind of appreciable way.

coastFIRE: there isn't really a number for this, besides, I already only work part time. It's really a spectrum involving any level of income that lowers your WR, which can range from covering your entire annual spend to just reducing your WR in retirement.
Sustaining some level of income provides A LOT of flexibility to any plan, especially with a low spend.

barista-FIRE: basically coastFIRE, but doing low(er) skill/low(er) pay work instead of cutting back on professional level work. I wouldn't do this, but DH might take up personal training if he ever stops his professional work.

I have no idea if my personal numbers are of any use to you though.

yes - seeing people numbers are helpful!

I do have skills that I could parlay in independent consulting. Going rates in that field are well over $100/hr. I did score one small side gig a few years ago but not sure how to angle for others. With my current promotion, I am really up against the wall with work most of the time, makes sid gigging harder to fit in. But, am always on the lookout in case anything comes up.

ysette9

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Re: Define FIRE? - fat, regular, slim, barista, etc.
« Reply #16 on: July 31, 2019, 07:28:06 AM »
Maybe what you need to start with is a case study with a detailed and accurate breakdown of your spending. Figuring that out will go a long way to estimating what will be needed down the line.

Metalcat

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Re: Define FIRE? - fat, regular, slim, barista, etc.
« Reply #17 on: July 31, 2019, 07:56:05 AM »

yes - seeing people numbers are helpful!

I do have skills that I could parlay in independent consulting. Going rates in that field are well over $100/hr. I did score one small side gig a few years ago but not sure how to angle for others. With my current promotion, I am really up against the wall with work most of the time, makes sid gigging harder to fit in. But, am always on the lookout in case anything comes up.

I have no clue how you got from my post that I was recommending a side hustle on top of your career. I'm actually not a big fan of doing that as I find that most people have a hard time managing just a full time job, plus kids,  plus proper nutrition, plus exercise, plus rest, plus time for hobbies, plus taking care of the house, plus time for friends and family, plus personal development, plus quiet alone time, all of which are basic pre-requisites of a balanced life.

You sounds pretty stressed and overburdened as it is. In your shoes, I would probably put a heavy focus on personal well being and creating a more immediately secure financial position. I wouldn't worry too much about 7-10 years down the road at this point if you are dealing with CC debt and no EF right now.