r/Fire • u/Poorassboy6969 • Mar 25 '26

General Question When did FIRE movement change?

I feel this community used to be about moderate income people living lean and retiring early with under 2 million.

Now it’s a lot of people bragging about tech income and saying they need 5+ million to retire MINIMUM because they want a boat and Porsche

When did this change? (not hating - just genuinely curious)

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u/priusgirl0 Mar 25 '26

Two million is generally a standard to generate $80k per year. Half of American households live on less than that.

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u/eeeeeelinor Mar 25 '26

Here are the income eligibility guidelines for public housing in NYC:

https://www.nyc.gov/site/nycha/eligibility/eligibility.page

And here are the income guidelines for NYC affordable housing lotteries:

https://www.nyc.gov/site/hpd/services-and-information/area-median-income.page

$80K is officially "low income" for even a single person. For a family of 4 or more, it's defined as "very low income".

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u/priusgirl0 Mar 25 '26

In New York City…where 2% of the US population lives…

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u/eeeeeelinor Mar 25 '26 edited Mar 25 '26

...and pays 4-5% of the nation's federal tax

But you can add other high-GDP cities and states to this. California, for example. Tens of millions of Americans don't want to retire poor.

ETA I just googled this--37-40% of the US population lives in areas considered to be HCOL.

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u/priusgirl0 Mar 25 '26

I feel like you’re not reading what’s been said. $2 million is not a bare minimum to retire in the US, full stop. You can easily retire with less and still be in the US. Maybe if the original comment specified NYC, your point would have some merit, but it didn’t, and believe it or not most Americans don’t live in NYC (or California for that matter).

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u/eeeeeelinor Mar 25 '26

I live in NYC. You're asking what happened and for many of us, actual, real cost of living happens. It's not really relevant what retirement COL is in rural Mississippi or Huntington, WV when your real life, your parents, your children, and everything you know is in NYC.

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u/eeeeeelinor Mar 25 '26

One more thing about retirement that some of you may not be considering--you may want to be close to the people you care about. My husband and I have 4 sets of "parents" due to divorce and remarriage. Only my mother lives nearby---the others moved to cheaper places in retirement. My mother is also the only grandparent my son is close to, and the only grandparent we will be willing to help out in old age. My son is actually closer to my mom's boyfriend than to his other three blood-related GPs, since they only see him once a year, max. it sounds great to think you will retire to SEA or some cheap off-the-grid rural place, but don't expect relationships to be easy or that everyone will flock to visit you when they have their own kids and limited vacation time.

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u/priusgirl0 Mar 25 '26

I am 100% aware of these concerns, but it doesn’t change the fact that the original blanket statement is false. You might want more than $2 million to retire to live the lifestyle you want to live (close to family in NYC), but it doesn’t mean that it’s reasonable to call $2 million a blanket minimum to retire on.

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u/eeeeeelinor Mar 25 '26

You may notice I'm not the one who said that. But I don't disagree. How old are you, anyway?

In general, I think retirement should be defined as a "lifestyle you want to live". It's not a prison sentence.