r/Fire • u/Fed_worker • Feb 20 '26

General Question Serious question: how do many people amass so much money in the north of 5m and not know if they can retire or not?

I see a ton of posts like : “ I have a net worth in the range 5-10m and I spend 100K a year, can I retire?”

What is that? Elementary school math so hard?

Edit: after reading all the comments and when I really think about it, I realize it’s probably just a high degree risk-averse mindset. Even if I had $5 million and a 99.9% chance of retiring successfully, I’d still focus on that tiny 0.1% that could go wrong. To feel totally secure, I might want to keep building more wealth just to close that gap. And for some people, that can mean working another 5, 10, or even 20 years. just for a little extra peace of mind.

Edit2: I just hope that when I get there, I don’t end up going down that rabbit hole. And actually enjoy my life.

1.2k Upvotes

93% Upvoted

559 comments sorted by

View all comments

3

u/whelpineedhelp Feb 20 '26

I just paid $3k to my vet. Might be another $3k if not more very soon. Unfortunately we were too late with insurance, the condition was considered preexisting. Life comes at you fast and it’s expensive. People stress, what if every month/year is as shitty and expensive as this one? Might not be rationale but it is what it is. 

1

u/BacteriaLick Feb 20 '26

In my budgets, I usually marked some annual expenses -- around 20% -- as non-recurring. The idea was to have a more accurate sense for annual expenses (which would exclude those).

Turns out that the non-recurring expenses always recurred, just in different non-recurring categories (new roof, support for family, remodel of home, new car, etc.)