Poll

Which multiplier best fits relationship between Bare Bones spend and FIRE budget?

FIRE Budget equals Bare Bones expenses
14 (10.9%)
FIRE Budget is 2x Bare Bones expenses
80 (62%)
FIRE Budget is 3x Bare Bones expenses
18 (14%)
FIRE Budget is 4x Bare Bones expenses
12 (9.3%)
FIRE Budget is 5x Bare Bones expenses
1 (0.8%)
FIRE Budget is 6x Bare Bones expenses
1 (0.8%)
FIRE Budget is 7x Bare Bones expenses
0 (0%)
FIRE Budget is 8x Bare Bones expenses
0 (0%)
FIRE Budget is 9x or greater Bare Bones expenses
3 (2.3%)

Total Members Voted: 127

Author Topic: FIRE Budget relationship to bare bones expenses  (Read 9271 times)

CryingInThePool

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FIRE Budget relationship to bare bones expenses
« on: May 10, 2017, 08:28:03 AM »
For those that have pulled the plug and are successfully living the post FIRE life I’m wondering if there is any pattern to discern in the ratio between bare bones expenses and your actual FIRE spend?

I don’t care if your bare bones is $5k a year or $50k but what the relationship to actual FIRE budget is.  Or said another way how much of budget is discretionary.  Defining non-discretionary Bare Bones as shelter/health care/food/taxes/utilities costs. 

Example: Bare Bones expenses is 12k but Fire Budget is 40k so choose 3x.

Mr. Green

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Re: FIRE Budget relationship to bare bones expenses
« Reply #1 on: May 10, 2017, 10:21:24 AM »
Wow! Someone voted that their FIRE budget is 9x or greater their bare bones expenses? That's.....a ton of elective spending.

2Birds1Stone

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Re: FIRE Budget relationship to bare bones expenses
« Reply #2 on: May 10, 2017, 10:24:24 AM »
This poll is likely going to skew things.

My FIRE budget will be approximately 1.5X my barebone expenses.

I would imagine that most people will fall in the 1-3X range.

sirdoug007

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Re: FIRE Budget relationship to bare bones expenses
« Reply #3 on: May 10, 2017, 11:01:46 AM »
This poll is likely going to skew things.

My FIRE budget will be approximately 1.5X my barebone expenses.

I would imagine that most people will fall in the 1-3X range.

I agree.  I'm not FIRE'd yet but plan on about 50% over the bare bones number to cover travel/entertainment.  2x would be pretty extravagant and beyond that I can't even fathom!

I would think barebones FIRE for most people around here would be in the $20-40k range.  2x would be $40-80k, 3x would be $60-120k...  It gets out of hand pretty quick.

Mmm_Donuts

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Re: FIRE Budget relationship to bare bones expenses
« Reply #4 on: May 10, 2017, 08:28:44 PM »
Our FIRE budget is about 3x bare bones expenses as the OP defines them, but it's about 1.5x the "barebones" that I would consider spending if the SHTF and we needed to cut back drastically.

Gunny

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Re: FIRE Budget relationship to bare bones expenses
« Reply #5 on: May 11, 2017, 06:18:23 AM »
Tough to answer.  I'm FIREd and our bare bones living expenses is roughly 77% of my pension counting the mortgage.  Additionally, we pad our lifestyle with an additional 1.3% WR from our stash. We could increase our spending by nearly three times bare bones expenses by increasing WR to 4%.  We choose to continue our frugal(ish) lifestyle with plenty of fun money built in and let our stash grow.   

Greystache

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Re: FIRE Budget relationship to bare bones expenses
« Reply #6 on: May 11, 2017, 08:44:39 AM »
I found this kind of difficult to answer precisely. Our budget is 60K per year and what I consider core costs are around 25 K.  That includes taxes, insurance, utilities, and food.  However, if we really had to go into austerity mode, we could cut the beer and wine out of the food bill, we could reduce our tax bill by reducing our withdrawals from our accounts.  We could maybe get down to 20K  in survival mode. I don't really see that ever happening. I answered the survey with 2X. Most of our discretionary spending is travel, charity and recreation.

LAGuy

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Re: FIRE Budget relationship to bare bones expenses
« Reply #7 on: May 11, 2017, 10:06:38 AM »
Mine is also 1.5

soccerluvof4

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Re: FIRE Budget relationship to bare bones expenses
« Reply #8 on: May 11, 2017, 03:14:26 PM »
I would say ours is 1.5 x's as well.

daverobev

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Re: FIRE Budget relationship to bare bones expenses
« Reply #9 on: May 11, 2017, 08:07:14 PM »
It depends how bare bones your bare bones is, though.

And also, people's expenses change over time. Child in daycare? Paying off mortgage?

I mean, my *bare* bones - food, heat, electric - is a certain amount; but you have to add in mortgage for the next few years. You have to add in some daycare, though the less I earn, the more the government will end up giving which will cover that kind of stuff.

So nominally I'll say 2x my bare bones. But in truth it'll be less than that for the next while.

StetsTerhune

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Re: FIRE Budget relationship to bare bones expenses
« Reply #10 on: May 12, 2017, 06:58:39 AM »
I genuinely have no idea what "bare bones expenses" are supposed to mean. I'm probably a special case because I travel full-time and don't have  mortgage/utility/etc. payment.  But maybe I'm not because everyone here could sell everything they have and become like that. So what's bare bones? I buy a tent and go live in the desert somewhere on rice and beans? I have a comfortable house exactly where I lived last and eat the food I like to eat and do most of the things I like to do up to some arbitrary line of "discretionary"?

I guess the line I'll use is "how little would I be able to spend before I decide it's worthwhile to go back to work." But that's mostly just dependent on how I feel about work and what I could find, not really at all dependent on what my expenses are like, bare bones or otherwise.

MasterStache

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Re: FIRE Budget relationship to bare bones expenses
« Reply #11 on: May 12, 2017, 07:37:33 AM »
It depends how bare bones your bare bones is, though.

And also, people's expenses change over time. Child in daycare? Paying off mortgage?

I mean, my *bare* bones - food, heat, electric - is a certain amount; but you have to add in mortgage for the next few years. You have to add in some daycare, though the less I earn, the more the government will end up giving which will cover that kind of stuff.

So nominally I'll say 2x my bare bones. But in truth it'll be less than that for the next while.

+1. Our barebones now is nothing like what we think our barebones will be in 10 years. Kids will be gone. Our pets will pass away (and not being replaced). Moving from HCOL to LCOL area and dropping our mortgage. 

I can't answer the survey as we aren't FIRE yet, but would be curious to see the results.

markbike528CBX

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Re: FIRE Budget relationship to bare bones expenses
« Reply #12 on: May 13, 2017, 06:31:35 PM »
Not voting, dont want to contaminate the results as we are not RE yet. posting to follow.

Is there a way to see results without voting?

Herbert Derp

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Re: FIRE Budget relationship to bare bones expenses
« Reply #13 on: May 14, 2017, 12:43:14 AM »
I'm aiming for bare bones expenses of $6-10K on a FIRE budget of $60K. Not there yet, but making progress.

CryingInThePool

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Re: FIRE Budget relationship to bare bones expenses
« Reply #14 on: May 24, 2017, 10:42:21 AM »
I was somewhat surprised by how many people were in the 2X bucket. Though that also gives me hope that I have more safety margin than I thought.   

Not to mention all the bickering over the MMM 2016 budget which makes me feel like my 4X plan is in the right ballpark if you subscribe to the argument that his budget is 25k in expenses but his lifestyle is a 100k spend.  No judgement from me.  I'm just thankful for the forum and the guidance. 


markbike528CBX

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Re: FIRE Budget relationship to bare bones expenses
« Reply #15 on: May 24, 2017, 11:59:38 AM »
1.5x for a pretty fat laden budget.
2x or better for a bare bones

Not RE yet, so don't have a firm grip on every penny.

Cassie

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Re: FIRE Budget relationship to bare bones expenses
« Reply #16 on: May 24, 2017, 12:26:35 PM »
Our bare bones is 40k and most years we spend 65k. Have had a few years that we did big improvements to the house that we spent between 80-100k.

Rosy

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Re: FIRE Budget relationship to bare bones expenses
« Reply #17 on: May 25, 2017, 11:25:16 AM »
Didn't vote, since Mr. R. isn't there yet, but I am - bare bones 12K annual - incoming 36K annual. = 3x?


deborah

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Re: FIRE Budget relationship to bare bones expenses
« Reply #18 on: May 25, 2017, 10:44:19 PM »
Given the other people I know who are FIRE here, I suspect that most of the voters are actually not FIRE, because I would expect a somewhat different distribution in the answers.

arebelspy

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Re: FIRE Budget relationship to bare bones expenses
« Reply #19 on: June 21, 2017, 06:44:04 PM »
My bare bones expenses is stupid low (say, 5k/yr).

Our actual current spending I have no idea, but I'd guess maybe in the 30k/yr range? It may be as much as 40k, or as low as 20k.

So somewhere from 4x to 8x.
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mizzourah2006

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Re: FIRE Budget relationship to bare bones expenses
« Reply #20 on: June 22, 2017, 06:18:34 AM »
My bare bones expenses is stupid low (say, 5k/yr).

Our actual current spending I have no idea, but I'd guess maybe in the 30k/yr range? It may be as much as 40k, or as low as 20k.

So somewhere from 4x to 8x.

I'm not fire, but found this an interesting thought experiment and I guess I was thinking more along your lines when I think of barebones. To me this would include things like: no cable, no internet, no, or very cheap cell phones, one car, almost nothing on entertainment, limited new clothes or possessions every year, etc. For my family of 3, if we had no mortgage, I would think this could be done for $10-$12k. I would plan on 4-5x that as well.

arebelspy

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Re: FIRE Budget relationship to bare bones expenses
« Reply #21 on: June 22, 2017, 09:52:53 AM »
My bare bones expenses is stupid low (say, 5k/yr).

Our actual current spending I have no idea, but I'd guess maybe in the 30k/yr range? It may be as much as 40k, or as low as 20k.

So somewhere from 4x to 8x.

I'm not fire, but found this an interesting thought experiment and I guess I was thinking more along your lines when I think of barebones. To me this would include things like: no cable, no internet, no, or very cheap cell phones, one car, almost nothing on entertainment, limited new clothes or possessions every year, etc. For my family of 3, if we had no mortgage, I would think this could be done for $10-$12k. I would plan on 4-5x that as well.

Yeah, mine included all of that, plus being overseas in a very cheap location (Thailand or Cambodia, for example).

If we had to really cut back for a year, that'd be the easiest option.
I am a former teacher who accumulated a bunch of real estate, retired at 29, spent some time traveling the world full time and am now settled with three kids.
If you want to know more about me, this Business Insider profile tells the story pretty well.
I (rarely) blog at AdventuringAlong.com. Check out the Now page to see what I'm up to currently.

dude

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Re: FIRE Budget relationship to bare bones expenses
« Reply #22 on: June 22, 2017, 10:36:00 AM »
Not voting, dont want to contaminate the results as we are not RE yet. posting to follow.

Is there a way to see results without voting?

Yep, just click the gray "View Results" button below the poll.

markbike528CBX

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Re: FIRE Budget relationship to bare bones expenses
« Reply #23 on: June 22, 2017, 11:44:00 AM »
Not voting, dont want to contaminate the results as we are not RE yet. posting to follow.

Is there a way to see results without voting?
Yep, just click the gray "View Results" button below the poll.

Thanks dude!

BFGirl

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Re: FIRE Budget relationship to bare bones expenses
« Reply #24 on: June 22, 2017, 12:00:55 PM »
This poll is likely going to skew things.

My FIRE budget will be approximately 1.5X my barebone expenses.

I would imagine that most people will fall in the 1-3X range.

+1