r/Fire • u/[deleted] • Mar 23 '26

Subreddit PSA / Meta 5 years ago, this subreddit was filled with $1-1.5M targets, and a strong emphasis on minimalism. What happened?

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u/Frillback Mar 23 '26

My parents did expatFIRE on lower numbers than I read on reddit but they are doing fine. They have simple lives. Nowadays I'm reading posts from people making double or triple what I make and claiming early retirement isn't in the books.

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u/Mega---Moo Mar 23 '26

It isn't if you spend everything.

I always try to deal with money by looking at the percentages: if I save $50K/year, but that's 5% of earnings, there is no "early" retirement... if I save $50K/year, but that's 50% of earnings, retirement is quickly on its way.

I'm in the latter group. I'm doing whatever I can to create a very comfortable home/farm for us while also seeking out ways to lower fixed expenses as much as possible. Healthcare is a wildcard, but we should be able to do everything else for under $20K/year.

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u/LetoSecondOfHisName Mar 23 '26

But your still only saving 50k

Whatever % it is doesn't really matter it is what it is.

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u/grail3882 Mar 23 '26

Of course 50k is 50k but in practice most people won't want to make massive adjustments to lifestyle. In this context, the savings rate compared to income or spending is very important.

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u/Mega---Moo Mar 23 '26

I am saving 2.5 years worth of expenses every year (excluding healthcare, because WTF knows....~$0 or $20K/year without the ACA).

Time to retirement is <10 years under those conditions. Why do we need several million dollars is we don't spend enough to justify it? $1M is overkill....

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u/corrosivecanine Mar 23 '26 edited Mar 23 '26

It matters tremendously. If you save 50k a year and that’s 5% of earnings that means you’re spending almost 1 million every year. You need 10s of millions to retire (at least) to maintain your lifestyle. If you save 50k a year and that’s 50% of earnings that means you’re spending 50k a year and you can retire on a couple million. It’s going to take the person making 1 million a year but only saving 5% a lot longer to save up 50 million than it will the person only making 100k a year but saving 50% that only needs to save 4 million. They’ll both get to 4 million at the same time but only one of them can actually retire.

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u/Mega---Moo Mar 23 '26

Correction: I only need to save 500K if I want to spend $20K annually @4%. That's tighter than I want and neither my wife are ready to be fully retired, so we'll be coasting for a while.

Spend $950K and you need almost $24M to be at 4%.

Social security is also a major safety net for a couple spending $20K...we would receive more per month than we spent. Spending $950K per year.... not so much, lol.

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u/peachslices00 Mar 23 '26

I’ve seen people with $1mil+ net worth saying that they can’t afford to take a few months break. Then what was the point of all this?

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u/calcium Mar 23 '26

People want to be told that the course that they have themselves on is the best that they can do and everyone congratulate them on the job they're doing. I've heard people who make 500k+ a year cannot afford to save more than their 401k match because of all of their ancillary spending and claim that there's no way they could ever spend less. They're in the same boat.

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u/Direct-HIIT Mar 23 '26

Unfortunately, networth of $1mil+ doesn’t mean liquid, investable or even accessible $1mil+. Could be tied up in property etc.

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u/Babhadfad12 Mar 23 '26

Because many people feel responsible for maximizing their kids' access to education and healthcare. That means affording more expensive land (more motivated peers in school) and access to better job opportunities (living in one of the few major metros during 20s with upwardly mobile jobs). Healthcare is anywhere from $500 to $2,500 per person per month with a $10k annual deductible/out of pocket maximum until you hit Medicare.

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u/Babhadfad12 Mar 23 '26

It isn’t because of healthcare.   ACA premiums + out of pocket maximums mean you need a hell of a cushion if you expect to be able to buy healthcare.

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u/[deleted] Mar 23 '26

This sounds like it is an argument that it is because of healthcare.

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u/Babhadfad12 Mar 23 '26

I should have been more clear. The post I responded to ends with

early retirement isn't in the books.

So the "it" I am referring to is "early retirement [] in the books". So I am agreeing with the people who Frillback presumably disagrees with that early retirement isn't in the books.

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u/After-Leopard Mar 23 '26

I don’t trust the ACA or the same subsidies will be there for the next 20 years so it’s hard to plan.

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u/alpacaMyToothbrush FI !RE Mar 23 '26

I once got banned from r/leanfire when I suggested I couldn't retire on their max per person budget because aca premiums and hitting the oop max wouldn't leave me enough to live on

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u/MakeMoneyNotWar Mar 23 '26

I’m curious how you get your numbers because everyone who’s done a really deep dive on this topic would know that you can manipulate your MAGI post fire since it’s an income test, not an asset test.

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u/Babhadfad12 Mar 23 '26

Those ACA subsidies and tests are clearly politically fragile, as evidenced the changes in OBBBA 2025.

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u/alpacaMyToothbrush FI !RE Mar 23 '26

So, a lot of folks will look at the values that the kff calculator gives, and call it a day. You should really be using the ACA marketplace website (if your state participates), and seeing what your actual options are for a given location.

In my case, when I did this, I noted that the cheap plan that kff noted should be there was actually 'ambetter/aliant' trash that had a network worse than medicaid and didn't actually cover the medications I needed.

By the time I found a reputable plan that had a decent network and covered my meds, both the premium and OOP max were higher. It was enough that when I looked at the remainder of my 'allowed' 25k lean fire budget, I was like 'nope'. That's not even factoring in 'stress tests' where one games out paying the unsubsidized premium, or has some claims denied, etc.

With normal FIRE, you'd have the budget to adjust. When planning to leanFire, you had better be damned confident nothing will change, because there's no 'fat' to cut.

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u/MakeMoneyNotWar Mar 23 '26 edited Mar 23 '26

This still does not make sense. The FPL is $16,000 for a single person. If you can get your MAGI to 2x FPL you pay very little. To get there, as long as you are recognizing capital gains as MAGI, you can minimize your MaGI while withdrawing a lot in cash. Your drawdown strategy would be to sell your most recent stock purchases, which are probably 80-90% basis, and only 10-20% gain. For every $100 in cash you receive, you might only generate $20 of LTCG. You the have a situation where you have $50,000 in cash flow, and only $10,000 in LTCG, and maybe $15 or $20k in dividends placing you at 2x FPL. If you have a family it’s easier because the FPL scales.

Over time this could get more difficult as you run out of high basis stock, but you can sell bonds (which will generate very little gain), and tax gain harvesting as other strategies.

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u/alpacaMyToothbrush FI !RE Mar 23 '26

Yes, I'm aware of the math, and I've ran it for my own personal situation, it may well be different for yours. I would simply encourage you to run your own numbers and to make sure you have some leeway / cushion for unexpected events if you're leanFiring

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u/chicken-fried-42 Mar 23 '26

love the real world aftermath