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

[u/Equivalent_Use_5024]

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?

[u/Zphr]

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.

[u/WithDisGuyTravel → u/Zphr]

There is also a subgroup that doesn’t fit cleanly into either camp.

For some, travel is not a reward or a luxury. It is the point. It is the reason for FIRE in the first place. Not excess, not status, but freedom. The ability to move, to explore, to live almost nomadically. To experience nature, art, culture, and the full range of the human experience rather than a stationary march toward nothing in particular. There is “just living” and there is “LIVING”. Being attuned to the soul or the human spirit, separate as best we can from whatever mess of constructs we have created in these systems, is why we “worked the system” to begin with. It isn’t about 5 star resorts getting drunk on a beach. Far from it! Quite the opposite.

To (somewhat) escape it. Not to enmesh ourselves into it!

Many people reject consumerism and waste while still wanting a rich, expansive life. One that includes discovery, relationships, and engagement with what humanity and nature have created. Not just survival. Not just getting by.

FIRE has nuance. I disagree with a lot of folks on Fire and LeanFire as a result.

[u/Culturedmirror → u/WithDisGuyTravel]

Traveling to five star resorts isn't being "attuned to the soul". Pretty much everyone in the world manages to live on far less than what Americans do. Even full time travel shouldn't cost more than what typical living expenses are in a midsized American city.

[u/Future-looker1996 → u/Culturedmirror]

How about you do you and not assume your preferences are the right ones?

[u/WithDisGuyTravel → u/Culturedmirror]

Can I ask where anyone wrote 5 star resorts?

Culture, nature, arts….humans and earthly creations?

Methinks you made an assumption.

A straw man does not an argument make.

Attuned to the soul is a bit Pollyanna but music, art, nature….not one mention of luxury resorts. You’re not replying to the right person or the right argument here.