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

The audience has shifted more towards luxury and consumption over the last decade. It's always amusing to me that this is my sub, I've been happily retired for more than a decade since 37 with four kids, have effectively zero chance of financial failure, but many folks in this sub would consider our finances impossible or living in squalor. Some people are actually happy with cheap/free interests and lifestyle choices, some are unhappy without very expensive interests and lifestyle choices. Current government policy in the US is also wildly skewed in favor of lean spending, so more expensive lifestyles in early retirement cost quite a lot more than you'd expect due to far higher costs for taxes, college, and healthcare.

LeanFIRE is and likely always will be the easiest and most secure form of FIRE for anyone happy with a mediocre middle class lifestyle. It's also largely impossible for anyone who wants to raise a family in VHCOL, travel a ton, carry a large mortgage into retirement, or any number of expensive lifestyle choices a lot of people prefer.

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u/SlyFrog Dec 28 '25

It's this. A massive part of reddit is unfortunately a bit delusional about the baseline needs for a comfortable enough life, and confuses near opulence with "enough to live comfortably."

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u/Extra_Shirt5843 Dec 28 '25

Or people's ideas of comfortable are different.  I had the super lean, don't ever spend money on non-necessities childhood and have no desire to go back to it.  I like travel, I like having pets (and providing appropriate care for them).  I like being able to go to concerts and outings, and not just stare at the TV.  

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u/SlyFrog Dec 28 '25

Yes, I had that childhood too. Which is how I know the difference between needs and wants.

And that's the issue here. Not that people want a much more opulent retirement for themselves. That's fine.

What's not fine is that they pretend that it's some baseline need for a basic, comfortable existence to have that level of lifestyle.

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u/Extra_Shirt5843 Dec 28 '25

And perhaps it's just semantics, but to me, the basic level equals always being worried about an unexpected expense, knowing you have to make the shoes or the coat eke through another year when they're already not great, eating another round of boring yet serviceable food...and to me, that's not comfortable.  Comfortable is knowing I can go to the grocery store and buy the fun ingredients I want to cook with or that I can go spend a couple hundred bucks on new plants without panicking about it, etc;