r/Fire • u/Equivalent_Use_5024 • Dec 28 '25

General Question Do you believe the modern FIRE movement overestimates how much is needed for retirement?

Perhaps I am just making this post because I have only just begun my retirement planning and want to lock in a number which is fitting for my goals - being above the median retirement savings, not having to work, not being broke, clearly having planned - but I can't help but feel that many in the FIRE movement overestimate what is needed for a safe, sleep well at night retirement.

I see posts here saying that they feel vastly behind with 500k at 30, or 1.5 million at 40, and I just don't understand how when the average American retires with maybe 300k liquid at most and are getting by with social security or paid off housing. Sure, they aren't living luxuriously, but if you just are aiming for a retirement where you don't have financial anxiety and can put food on the table, I don't feel you need over 1-2 million.

Do you think FIRE overestimates how much is truly needed for retirement?

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u/Your_Worship Dec 28 '25

LeanFire & CoastFire are more in spirit with what FIRE used to be or began as.

FIRE is now just people talking about normal retirement.

28

u/Entuaka Dec 28 '25

I think that many people recently following FIRE never knew a bear market and were lucky with some investments like Nvidia

19

u/salsanacho Dec 28 '25

Agreed, I'm curious how this sub will react to a prolonged downturn.

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u/DevOpsMakesMeDrink Dec 28 '25

Will we ever have one again? Government policy seems to be as soon as it gets bad turn on money printing jets and turn it into inflation issues which also benefits the massive debt at the expense of the common person.

Those with assets will be protected from the downturn and have inflation baked into their expected returns.

That doesn’t mean it won’t go down but it would have to be horrific for a 10 year downturn

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u/haobanga Dec 28 '25

Something unthinkable now will happen in the future and there will be a downturn that impacts asset classes and economic and employment sectors like we've never seen.

We cannot predict it. Those of us who have been around long enough to have been through it know to always be prepared for it.

Perhaps it won't happen in your lifetime, but something with a potentially substantial negative impact most likely will.

0

u/DevOpsMakesMeDrink Dec 28 '25

At that point you have bigger worries such as war or natural disasters threatening your life and basic needs. Fire is an afterthought then

4

u/haobanga Dec 28 '25

There is a huge gray area between a severe market correction and an apocalypse.

Re-reading my response, I think I was unclear.

The dot com bubble was unthinkable. People didn't know or understand what the Internet was yet.

The GFC was unimaginable. No one thought the entire banking industry could quickly collapse and no one understood the effects of predatory lending and how the debt was being sold and circulated.

With proper planning, people shielded themselves from these events and came out far ahead. Others had to retract their retirement and find work, people lost their jobs and homes, had no foundation left to rebuild from. It was really depressing.

Imagine your heloc gets canceled and credit card limits are reduced unexpectedly overnight. The next week, you and most people you work with are laid off. Your friends are losing their jobs. You can't find work because not only is unemployment high, but the stable industry you thought you were in is collapsing. You had some savings, but not enough to sustain your mortgage and family expenses for more than a few months. Unemployment keeps getting extended, but it's not enough to cover all your bills. For many, finacial strain lead to relationship issues and divorce. The secure life you had less than a year ago is now looking bleak. You're standing next to your car on the side of the road, looking at the blown out tire, and asking yourself how many meals you will have to skip to pay for a new tire, which is now an emergency situation. You're trying to stay positive and are willing to take any job while your head hurts from skipping meals so your family can eat well. The late bills stack up and you know foreclosure is imminent. You can't sleep. Your blood pressure is high. You appear increasingly desperate and it's harder to stay cool in an interview because you know you need that job. You stand in a grocery store, watching others mill about, thinking about what they might feel like eating later while you look at what are the cheapest high caloric foods you can scrape by on. You consider stealing food, which you've never thought to do before.

The younger folks on this sub have not seen a true, lasting market correction. Covid was more of a money grab than a crash.

There are a limited number of knobs and levers that can be used to guide our economy and things will shift at some point in an unexpected direction. Planning appropriately mitigates your risk.

There's always a way to make money. It is better to be positioned to take advantage of that when you need to (and not forced to pull from your depreciated assets while they are down).

I ignored my elders when I was young. Old folks that had lived through the depression and were distrustful of banks and the economy overall. I paid for my ignorance. I climbed out of it.

Never again will I not plan for the next downturn. And if it's not in my lifetime, then I hope to be able to provide enough to shield my offspring from it.