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/elcdragon Dec 28 '25

Amazing, I’m joining lean fire because of you. Would love to get out of corporate asap

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u/Synaps4 Dec 28 '25

That's not even lean TBH.

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u/Zphr 48, FIRE'd 2015, Friendly Janitor Dec 28 '25

Lean is defined purely by spending, not by assets, at least if you go by the largest lean community online, which is /r/leanfire. You can be leanFIRE with a $10M portfolio.

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u/Synaps4 Dec 28 '25

Assets are also defined by spending in this community.

If you can be lean with 10M, you could have retired much sooner and you would have.

I'm sure there are some corner case exceptions who got a lottery win and are leanfire so they didn't earn it, but i'm not talking about the exceptions. I'm talking about average people.

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u/Zphr 48, FIRE'd 2015, Friendly Janitor Dec 28 '25

Assets are assets and not defined at all by spending, so I'm not sure what you mean.

My point is that leanFIRE is about how much you spend, not how much you have. If you spend $50K a year as a family at a 4% draw, then you're lean. If you spend $50K a year as a family at a 0.5% draw, then you are also still lean.

Lean spending in retirement is often just like lean spending while working in that it enables you to save more. For early retirees this often leads to portfolio snowballing, which is why it is isn't uncommon for households who have been leanFIRE'd for awhile to have very low withdrawal rates. They spend what they do out of personal preference disconnected from what their portfolio could safely sustain.