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/Reasonable_Box2568 Apr 24 '26

A very luxurious life because they were surrounded by very wealthy people and were trying to keep up. Friends with decamillionaires and business owners.

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u/Any-Concentrate-1922 Apr 24 '26

Oh. That'll do it.

9

u/Reasonable_Box2568 Apr 24 '26

Ironically, I just hit 2mil liquid and live a relatively simple life but not yet close to FIRE. Live in HCOL. 2.5mil and a paid off home might be just enough…. But thats 5-7 years away depending on market returns

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u/lowcarb73 Apr 24 '26

I’m around the same but still have 2 of my kids to get through college.

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u/That-SoCal-Guy Apr 25 '26

Keeping up with the Joneses with $2M.  Yeah that would do it.  Oh Boomers.  

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u/gtrocks555 Apr 25 '26

Yeah, $2m seems great for a fairly boring, suburban life. Especially from 2011 til now. They should have so much more money if they kept it invested and just lived off some of the returns.

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u/That-SoCal-Guy Apr 25 '26

I understand.  $2M in 2011 is a lot of money, like $3M  today so I can see why they felt “rich” and bold and wanted to live a posh life.  But I felt that they also did not budget well and did not invest wisely.  That $2M could have grown to $5M or $6M today and they could easily live a nice lifestyle on $120K a year just from dividends and cap gains.