I’ve been FIRE’d for three years. During that time, we’ve gotten a lot of the desire to spend out of our systems, and plowed a lot into our house (I’m an architect in all but legal status so I know what I’m doing... not only do I want this place to look great, I want to get it published in the shelter magazines which will get it a significantly higher price bump up than it otherwise would have had), but we’ve still made some money. My magic number is $5 million. Today’s the first day in over a year that our accounts closed above it. Whoopie, it’s time for a celebration (and we are going to a huge snowstorm in the Sierras to celebrate). I‘ll sleep better tonight. Do you have a magic number?
What the fuck is a "magic number"??
I didn't get that the OP was asking for our FIRE number but some other number beyond that. I got the idea they were already FIREd but still wanted to reach a higher number via house improvement/sale for some reason. Most of us don't understand what that reason was.What the fuck is a "magic number"??
Typically it is a target net worth number that you need to reach to be FI. A few years ago one of the big financial institutions ran an add campaign that used the "What's your number?" tagline.
42, of course.
42, of course.42 of course but only if you have your towel stock invested in Vanguard so you'll always know where it's at.
ETA: Seriously I hope the OP comes back and explains what he/she means. Would be interesting to know.
Yeah, me too! I've been trying to come up with ideas of how to explain what it might mean based on the their post, but nothing is a really perfect fit. The best I have is a Lean FI vs. Fat FI type situation, for those that FIREd on a smaller stash, maybe? I know when I was approaching FIRE I had about 6 different benchmarks I was tracking, resulting in various numbers between a 3% and 4% WR. I ended up FIREing at 3.25%, but none of them were particularly magic for me. They all just feel pretty arbitrary.
Seems like a drive-by humblebrag by the smoghatted one to me. There is a segment of the forum multi-millionaires that appears to need to tell everyone how many millions they have at every opportunity. Perhaps the OP didn't want to slum it in the "Race to 3M" thread...which in my opinion is plenty humblebraggy as it is IMHO.
Oh gosh, well I went on vacation with the family and left the internet behind. Isn’t that what FIRE is really about? Guess I wasn’t clear enough in what I was asking so the peanut gallery did it’s thing...
Do you have a magic number?
Why is that number (any high number really) magic if someone is already FI on less? Is it just to reach a certain amount for fun or is there a more practical reason for it like to leave a large amount to charity?
Magic number is simple: for the country that you choose to live your post FIRE life, figure about 80x the per-capita GDP in that country. That would be a solid magic number.
Reason being is that labor share of GDP (the % of GDP that's paid out as wages to workers) is typically at around 60%. A two-income family earning medium wage in that country would earn about 1.2x per-capita GDP per year in wages. If you have accumulated wealth of 80x per-capita GDP, even a 3% long run average return on capital would give you 2.4x per-capita GDP a year, meaning you will have 2x of disposable income as the average household - very well living indeed - and you can do so indefinitely.
For the US with per-capita GDP of ~$60k, that's $4.8M. Incidentally that's very close to that $5M number that someone just mentioned.
The researchers, from Purdue University, also found that it may be possible to make too much money, as far as happiness is concerned. They observed declines in emotional well-being and life satisfaction after the $95,000 mark, perhaps because being wealthy — past the point required for daily comfort and purchasing power, at least — can lead to unhealthy social comparisons and unfulfilling material pursuits.
When I was in junior high, we did some project where we drew a design and then carved it in clay, made four identical tiles and painted them. I don't remember much except that I came up with "Lotus 37" as part of the design. And decided that 37 was the "perfect number." I wasn't sure if it was my favorite number, but it was perfect. (Of course, 42 is also near and dear to my heart.)
If I had to apply it to math and money, it would be that I retire by 37. (Shoot, I have missed that age, and will likely miss it by nearly a decade!)
3.7 million (USD) would be way too much to retire on... I'd have retirement income higher than what I make now. Nonsense!
3.75% is the rate of the mortgage on my primary residence.
(3.375% is the rate of the mortgage on my rental.)
3.7% might be a good target for a safe withdrawal rate, though. But I'm less conservative, so I might go with 4.2% (or even higher, gasp!)
Somewhat related, I was listening to the FM radio while commuting, and noticed that the artist name was "Foghat (https://foghat.com/band/band-bio/)."