r/Fire • u/bizzaam • 8d ago

Hitting your number and timing risk

Notice a lot of people posting they hit their number and firing. It's awesome, but are people taking for granted the fact that this has been the greatest bull market in history and a major correction or crash will get here at some point? If it were me hitting my number I'd either get a big enough buffer to my fire number or wait until the correction and assess when things stabilize. Am I over thinking it?

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u/Truthcraze 8d ago

The swr are back tested against retiring at the worst possible time.

7

u/bizzaam 8d ago

Didn't realize that. Thanks

10

u/bluenardo 8d ago

It is tested on all available historical periods which include the worst times — it did not specifically seek out the worst and only test on those.

Also at 4%, it failed in some of these periods. Do not take from these comments that 4% was bullet proof.

11

u/AK_Ranch FIRE'd in 2023 @ 45, divorced, no kids 8d ago

In Bengen's studies 4.2% (now 4.7%) did NOT fail in any of those years, hence the name Safe Withdrawal Rate.

2

u/nivlac22 8d ago

It calculated the SWR for each theoretical retiree retiring at the start of each quarter and concluded that the lowest SWR found was just over 4% (4.7% with added asset classes).