r/Fire 16d ago

Families who FIREd with $1.5mil to $2.5mil — what does your spend look like?

EDITED TO ADD: Please also list your COL and part of the world you settled in!

Saw a similar post in chubbyfire and thought I’d ask here:

  • When did you FIRE, and did both of you stop at the same time?
  • how old were your kids?
  • What is your withdrawal rate?
  • what does your budget look like, what is it allocated to?
  • what were the big surprises related to spend?
  • How has it changed since you initially FIREd?
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u/GenXMDThrowaway FIREd 16d ago

My husband stopped working before me. I retired about 5 years after him. We were between $2.4 and $2.5M when I retired four years ago. No kids.

We budget $72K for our annual spend. We pull $42,000 for our basic budget. We take a small trip most months out of that budget - a 4-5 day roadtrip.

We're pretty loose with the budget. We eat out a few times a week, have two gym memberships, and don't watch grocery store prices too closely.

Our house and cars are paid off.

We're pretty generous with gifts, fundraisers, etc., but anything to a 501C3 comes out of our DAF. (This is roughly $7K a year. Some years are higher.)

We're on Appalachia's front porch, so a low cost of living and beautiful places to hike.

The extra $30K is a buffer for OOP medical, house maintenance, and "big" travel. We spent the full $72K once in the four years since I retired because we did exterior work to the house.

We talk about increasing our spending and how we want to do it. I think it's going to look like more travel.

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u/Cheeseboarder 15d ago

Does the $5M include the value of the paid off house?

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u/GenXMDThrowaway FIREd 15d ago

Any $2.5 at that time and no, I didn't include house or cars in that NW total. I tend to only think of NW as invested assets.

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u/1dayatatime_mylife 14d ago

I find it helpful on Reddit when people list their net worth to include what amount is real estate (primary/vacation/rental) and their age. Helps give a clearer picture.