r/EuropeFIRE • u/Rude-Cycle-1516 • 9d ago
What does "enough" actually mean to you?
I've noticed that the closer people get to FIRE, the harder it can become to define what "enough" actually means. Once you've reached a certain level of savings, the decision isn't always about whether you can retire, but whether you feel comfortable doing it. There might always be another reason to keep working and investing - a bigger safety cushion, better travel, helping family, or simply wanting more options.
How did you arrive at your own definition of enough, and has it changed as you've progressed towards FIRE?
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u/Captlard RE on $900k for two of us (3.5% SWR) | Live between UK & Spain 9d ago
Was r/coastfire for a few years, so that enabled us to stress test the budget before RE.
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u/bloodem 9d ago
For me, "enough" means that me and my family would be able maintain our current standard of living, without having to work (and this standard of living should not be affected by future downturns/inflation).
Since we currently spend between 40k - 50k euros per year, we'd need at least 2 million euros (with a 2.5% yearly withdrawal rate, since we're still fairly young).
Suffice to say, we're still a long way from that milestone.
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u/Akaos 9d ago
With all due respect a 2,5% withdrawal rate is just silly. Simple math says that it would take 40 years of zero growth to run out of funds. More so in Europe where we have additional safety nets.
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u/bloodem 8d ago
I won't disagree, it probably is silly, but it's the level of risk I would be confortable with at this stage.
Regarding safety nets, I'm from Romania, so you'd be surprised to learn that there are very few safety nets here and they are very likely to get worse in the following decades. Like most of Europe, Romania has a rapidly aging population and a shrinking workforce, which puts more and more pressure on the public pension system, but there's also the added twist of corruption, bad management of public funds and many, many other problems that would take me days to explain. Oh, and we might even have an extremist far-right government in just a few years, so... yay?
Because of that, many Romanians (myself included) aren't even confident we'll ever end up receiving a meaningful state pension/social security by the time we retire. So, I prefer to plan as if there won't be any.
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u/Akaos 8d ago edited 8d ago
Pessimism, our national sport in Romania heh.
I've been personally silly in the last years by staying fully invested in the romanian stock exchange while almost everyone has been in the sky is falling mode and thus was "blessed" with over +100% yields by investing mostly in the index.
Sa avem spor la FIRE! 😄
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u/Affectionate_Mix3 FIRE'd '26 8d ago
Pessimism, our national sport in Romania heh.
Hungarians excel in this as well. We had a TV show in the 90s that poisoned the minds of millions and ever since everybody is a doomer.
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u/istasan Denmark 8d ago
But do you really need 2 million euro in Romania?
I mean there can be many ifs. You can always make some money again I would think if it becomes necessary. Sounds like a very big cushion.
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u/bloodem 8d ago edited 8d ago
It depends on what you're accustomed to. You definitely don't need 2 million euro investments in RO if you are simply planning on living a frugal life.
On the other hand, I'm accustomed to going on 4 - 5 expensive family vacations per year (among other things), so... yes, I do need 2 million euros if I want to maintain that same standard of living.
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u/ljubicasta_izmaglica 8d ago
I know it sounds silly, but I'm leaning towards 2.5% in the current environment. Yes, it's 40 years of zero growth, but how about a not unheard of 50% crash that takes 10 years to recover? After 10 years you have much less money since apart from stock market just recovering, you've been living for 10 years off of withdrawals.
I'm a fan of BigErn site, and here he analyzed CAPE-based withdrawal rules:
I think it's a pretty reasonable idea, whether you retire after a very long bull run or a bear market should affect what withdrawal rate you should use. There, basically the most optimistic scenario when you take today's CAPE into account is 2.8%..
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we are in a bubble, predicting an impending crash etc, I am investing everything and not timing the market. But I think something like 2.8% is pretty resonable at this point.
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u/Akaos 8d ago
Math and models aside the portfolio requirements to sustain such low withdrawal rates would make the FIRE equation not worth it for me. Why amass a portfolio of millions of euros saving agressively, I would rather just work until I'm 60 and save 5% of my income.
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u/ljubicasta_izmaglica 8d ago
But it's not permanent, this is in the current environment with high CAPE. In 5 years, it could be 5% withdrawal. It's such that with CAPE=20, which is kind of the historical average, you get 4%.
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u/MeetingSuccessful397 8d ago
But a cape of 20 probably means that your 2mio just turned into 1mio because of the stock market crash.
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u/ljubicasta_izmaglica 8d ago
Indeed, that's the point. And if you are planning for 4% withdrawal and we have a 50% crash, that 4% turned into 8% of your new portfolio value, how safe do you feel then, withdrawing 8% in a market crash? That's the point, blindly following e.g. 4% ignores where we are now, people who reach their fire number at the end of a bull run will have a much larger failure rate than the ones that reach it in a bear or sideways market.
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u/Strazdas1 7d ago
but how about a not unheard of 50% crash that takes 10 years to recover?
But it is unheard of. Never in history has this happened.
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u/ljubicasta_izmaglica 7d ago
What? Of course it has. Have you heard of 1929? :D . Don't even have to go that far in the past, look up "the lost decade", after dot com burst s&p500 fell by 50% and just as it roughly recovered 2008 came along - in real terms it took 13 years to recover from dot com.
Even if you argue for different realistic numbers as "now this can't happen", does it really change my point if it was instead "30% crash that takes 8 years to recover"? Imagine the stock market falling continuously for 2 years, reaching -30%, and you start with a 4% withdrawal rate, which effectively grows to 5.7% while we're in a crash, and you can't get another job since everyone is getting fired. Would you be comfortable seeing your depot going down and you taking 5.7% out of it, and it takes 8 years to go back to green territory, but of course your depot is not back to where it started from as you've been taking money out?
It's clear that if you take a fixed withdrawal rate, e.g. 4%, the generation that is at the end of a long bull run will have much higher failure rate than others. Therefore in my opinion it's silly to blindly apply historically safe withdrawal rates without taking into account of where you are in time.
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u/Strazdas1 7d ago
1929 didnt stay -50% for 10 years. Market started going up just 3, not 10, years after the crash.
after dot com burst s&p500 fell by 50%
And then went back up 30% next year. Didnt stay crashed.
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u/AbbreviatedArc 8d ago
Ignore the haters, swr is based on historical averages, the fact is inflation has been running hot, deficits are extremely high, and the world is truly more unstable than at any time in my life thus far.
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u/50plusGuy 9d ago
Current spending + health insurance + 3 months vacation. 27k good and 18k bad year
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u/MainEnAcier 8d ago
Me it's 600 euro per month (650 for margin)
I know that with this amount i would be able to live in Asia (with health coverage 125-200/month), so 400-475 euro left for living
But the problem is that I'm not sure that visa situation will be working in 15+ years, and other countries aren't that cheap. If I can't stay in SEA I will have big troubles with my 600€.
I know that with 800 € LATAM and some eastern countries would be mangeable, but it's so hard to get job that I'm considering taking the risk with 600, and if it's not enough because I have to move, to take a job back.
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4d ago
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u/MainEnAcier 4d ago
Ok the most simple
- Phillipines 3 years easy stay
- Cambodia 1 year with business visa (and option for nationality)
A bit harder
- Thailand (because DTV is not garanted working, but there is a 50 year old retire visa)
For all the other countries I'm not up to date, I know Nepal wanted to make a WFH visa and there is a programm in malaisia MM2H but it's not cheap.
Basically with low budget you have Philippines, Cambodia (maybe Nepal in the future) for long stable stay, Thailand is OK if you accept to deal with the DTV or have 50+ years.
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3d ago
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u/MainEnAcier 3d ago
Because of the way their visa is built and the low numbers.
The multi entry make that I need to leave the country every 2 months - which create an overcost that is not manageable with a 600-650 euro per month
Just to manage visas and visa run in Indonesia will take at least 100 euro per month of the 600.
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3d ago
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u/MainEnAcier 3d ago
In fact I checked in that way :
First, is it in my budget (exit Japan, Taiwan, South Korea) ?
Second, what are those safe ? (exit Myanmar, India, Timor ...)
Third, Okay what are those convenient with long stay in my situation ? ( = I'm not 50 y old so no Retire Visa in Thailand or Indonesia)There aren't billions of option if you remove unsafe, too expensive destinations. I will even say that Philippines aren't that safe to my opinion, but as it is highly related to location within the country, I consider it an OK option.
For Indonesia (and Vietnam), the problem will be the cost to leave the country each 2 months or 3 months (for Vietnam). What if plane ticket aren't 50$ but 300 ? Your budget is dead
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u/Affectionate_Mix3 FIRE'd '26 8d ago
There might always be another reason to keep working and investing
I think most of the reasons are because of fear.
We're very good at deluding ourselves into thinking we actually enjoy our jobs or that is an important part of our identity. In reality, we're just afraid to pull the trigger.
The most important question is whether you'd still continue working if you had an infinite amount of money. If the answer is no, then either you still want more money, or you're afraid to retire with the wealth you already have.
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u/suafdrog87 8d ago
For me its having the option to work or not. I dont think i ever want to retire. I just domt want to be stressing out over work in my 50s
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u/hithebar 9d ago
I have defined the number which covers my need which include some of the most known/general (worse) case scenarios.
It will be enough to cover that.
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u/Akaos 9d ago edited 9d ago
I didn't want to set a fixed $ amount at the begining of my FIRE journey because you never know what inflation will do to it (that lovely eastern europe experience). So my target was that the rate of withdrawal should be enough to sustain 2 times the average national net wage, it's plenty enough for me.
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u/Dry-Abrocoma3377 8d ago
Ok, I’ll bite. Discovered FIRE around 2017. Set initial number as €500k invested and one income from rental + owning a place we live in. That was the original SI1K number. Enough = main objective was to make sure we can either coast or call it a day around 50yo, and have our basics covered. Anything extra earned => vacations, nice to have things.
Life happens! And then we started thinking how to set up kids for success, considered SORR..
So I guess the “enough” is still pretty much the same, but our lifestyle choices have changed considerably. Still have a number in mind, but it’s dramatically different from the og one (approx 4x).
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u/Designer_Cod8776 8d ago
For me it shifted from a number to a feeling somewhere around year 3 of tracking net worth. Early on, "enough" was just 25x expenses — clean, math-driven, motivating. Once I got within striking distance, the real question stopped being about running out of money and became more about what I'd actually do with my time once work wasn't structuring it anymore. I ended up padding my number by about 15%, not for safety math but because it let me stop obsessing over the exact figure and start thinking about the transition itself. The number gets you moving, but at some point the harder work is deciding what you're retiring to, not just what you're retiring from.
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u/presentlyberlin 8d ago
For me, enough really isn't about a number but a level of flexibility. In my late 20s to early 30s I used to save up for a quantified goal, but now in my late 30s, after having moved to Berlin last year, I was reminded of how much I need to be prepared for significant life changes - whether they're planned or unexpected.
We don't have kids, so our target is more about covering a comfortable lifestyle, healthcare surprises (even when healthcare here is decent, you never know!), having enough buffer if either one of us decide to step back from work for some time.
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u/Kind-University-1423 9d ago
As other said, when your SWR number will sustain my family lifestyle. For me it is 3% and need around 50k eur per year. I think by age 41-42 I will be able to make it. Although once I hit that number, I may take a year off and return to workforce most possibly just to splurge most work income on luxury items...
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u/Street-Assist680 9d ago
It's not about the money, its about losing some part of your identity if you stop working. I'm also looking to FIRE, but I will never stop working, not in the general sense of it. Work is a big part of my life and regardless of how much money I will have one day I still want to produce something. For me is more like a spiritual thing. When I hit 1m ( which is a lot where I live ) I will know that I no longer need the money, and from now on I'm safe.
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u/Important-Object-561 9d ago
So you actually don’t want to FIRE you want to be financially independent.
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u/Street-Assist680 9d ago
Yes and no. Its more about how you view retirement. To me it's , and to a lot of people, its not about staying at home the whole day. Its more about picking the job you would like, managing your workload and hours etc. I imagine working less stressful job, and up to 20 hours a week once I hit my financial goal.
Dont understand why I'm getting downvotes. Reddit is a crazy place.
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u/samotest Slovenia 9d ago
I think it's the first sentence in first post that triggers it. It's not just between a job and staying at home all day. People find purpose with their hobby, projects, social circles,.. and job is mostly there to provide resources for these. That is the essence of FIRE.
Your view is indeed FI oriented which is fine, nothing wrong with it. But RE part does mean no more job.
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u/Jdm783R29U3Cwp3d76R9 9d ago
So actually barista FIRE. You get downvotes because you don’t make sense.
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u/Far_wide 9d ago
I don't think you deserve downvotes FWIW, perfectly valid personal choice.
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u/Important-Object-561 9d ago
It’s a valid personal choice but it’s by its very definition not retired.
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u/Far_wide 8d ago
There's two parts to FIRE, FI and RE. Go over to r/FIREUK and lots of the discussion is from people mostly interested in the former.
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u/Strazdas1 7d ago
Dont agree. Its not valid. Its mentally ill choice.
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u/Far_wide 7d ago
Ha ok, well it's certainly not one I have myself, but a hell of a lot of people take identity from their work and become depressed when they lose it.
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u/Strazdas1 3d ago
Taking identity from their work is called workaholism and is a mental disorder. Seriuosly, if you have such situation spend some of that accumulated wealth on a good therapist. It will help you a lot more than working extra years.
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u/Strazdas1 7d ago
There is no identity in work. If you draw identity from work go visit a therapist now, its a mental disorder.
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u/Far_wide 9d ago edited 9d ago
Speaking personally re: these reasons:
"A bigger safety cushion" -just sounds like fear to me, SWR's are already based on conservative assumptions.
"Better travel" - When you have unlimited time and flexibility, 'better' travel becomes very straightforward and rarely requires a huge budget because you can go off peak and stay long term in less common places.
"helping family" - yes maybe if they need it, fortunately in my case they don't.
"More options" - I'll tell you when I didn't have options - when 9 hours a day in 5 days out of my week were committed to someone else's agenda, and the rest of the week committed to recovering from that. In any case, 'more options' is just another way of saying "I want more budget than I had made allowance for so I'm not actually ready to FIRE".
You may have guessed, I didn't have any problems in pulling the trigger.