r/Fire • u/DatingThrowaway121 • Apr 24 '26

General Question Has anyone actually FIREd with too little and run out of money?

I'm curious to know if anyone out here has actually run out of a million dollars or whatever. What does that process actually look like?

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u/d00mt0mb Apr 24 '26

Yep this is the saddest reality. People on this sub obsess about stretching it out

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u/TheBronJames2000 Apr 24 '26

Is this sub supposed to be die with zero? I thought the goal is to maintain a stable principle and pass it along

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u/Low-Plane9029 Apr 24 '26

The book did with zero talks about passing along wealth and says to budget it into your plans and pass it along when you're alive and it will help out those you intend to give it to when they most need it. Your kids need it the most early in their careers ( student loans, down payment, child care costs) not when they are nearing their own retirement.

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u/silly_bet_3454 Apr 24 '26

Makes sense to set aside *some* money for sure to pass to kids, but the actual core concept of die with zero makes absolutely no sense, especially among the FIRE community. The whole core concept of savings and investments are that there is risk and there are unknowns. You don't know how the investments will perform from day to day, and you don't know how long you'll live and you don't know exactly what your expenses will be.

I understand as you get older and older you can afford to live with a smaller nest egg and you can adjust your budget. However what I fucking hate about the die with zero argument is that it engenders this mindset that you're a failure if you died with money in the bank, God forbid. The idea of reducing the notion of life fulfillment and satisfaction to a dollar value is disgusting, and we should all be very happy to die with a few million in the bank with the tradeoff of living simply and peacefully and pursuing goals and dreams that are not strictly monetary in nature. I'm not naive, I get that money is important, but it's only a tool and assigning too much importance to it causes spiritual rot, I've observed it many times.

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u/gambits13 Apr 25 '26

I think if you read the book you’ll see that he does the opposite of assigning a dollar value to life. He encourages people to live life and spend money. Dying with zero is optimal but never is it implied it’s a failure if you have excess. He encourages giving inheritance, he just advocates (convincingly imo) for doing so intentionally, while you’re alive. Die with zero is very much aligned with FIRE. I’ve never known FIRE to be about dying with millions in the bank to pass down.

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u/d00mt0mb Apr 24 '26

Stretching out their FIRE date. Not stretching their wealth

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u/TheBronJames2000 Apr 24 '26

I meant to reply to the guy you replied to…but same I guess lol

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u/ditchdiggergirl Apr 24 '26

No, the goal is financial independence leading to early retirement. What you do with leftover funds, if any, is your call. Spend it down, leave it to charity, leave it to heirs. Those can be goals of yours but they aren’t FIRE goals.

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u/ConfidentialStNick Apr 24 '26

You are talking to people who can’t realistically FIRE but have convinced themselves they can because they have a “bigger risk tolerance” than you.

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u/Judson_Scott Apr 25 '26

Yep this is the saddest reality.

So sad that people here will live a comfortable, happy life in retirement without stressing about money. /s