[Sam]

Curious what everyone’s fat fire number is? I’m thinking we exclude housing since that’s the one thing that will be very different depending on geography.

What’s your fat FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) number, excluding housing costs?

I’d love to hear how you calculated it and any factors you considered (like lifestyle, location, or inflation).

Feel free to share your thoughts and approach!

[Hin]

Comparing yourself to others is counter productive, especially for Fatfire. To FatFire, I would like at least $1 million a year.

Someone like Jeff Bezos has a Fatfire number in the hundreds of Billions.

Does my answer or anyone else’s answer mean anything to you and your particular situation?

Nope.

[Rick]

I feel I would have a hard time spending $200k a year but let’s dream big and say $500k per year.

At 5.5% WR that means a hair over $9m.

Hmm but sans housing? Let’s drop it to $350k a year so about $6.4m.

[Damaso]

Impossible question to answer because everyone’s financial situation is different. One persons fat Fi is another persons skinny FI.

So, your fat FI is unique to you.

[Jake]

About $25k per year spending in excess of my basic expenses is about what my target is, which should adjust for inflation.

This is travel and restaurant money essentially from other fi groups I’d say any number that includes enough for a few weeks of lavish spending a year falls into fat fire since many goals look like ramen noodles and stay at home to survive without working.

[Stelisa]

Too many answers. We don’t have to pay property taxes, our housing payment is low. I do like to spend on hiring a cleaning person, person to groom my pups, good food, and self care.

I prioritize paying for things that I don’t wanna do.

I’m not a big spender on clothes and material things. All these things can change in time.

I also do spend some now because I don’t want to save and not enjoy anything and wait for “that day” that may never come.

There’s a balance. Numbers wise I would say we could easily live off my hubbys lifetime military benefits which is around 56,000.

I could stop working now if I wanted to but not there yet!

[Jasmine]

I think this is so highly dependent on where you live. We’re in a pretty HCOL area and I feel like $100K/year would be quite comfortable, but certainly not enough to be extravagant, even though we are completely debt free.

So, our FatFIRE number would have to be over $100K/year.

[Mark]

U ask for ppls number and then dont give urs. Iplus fat fire, barista fire, coast fire. These are mostly just cute names that ppl attached. Do they really.mean much.

ts also completely unique to each invidual. All about expenses. Someone could be comfortable with 300k.

Another person 4m wouldn’t be enough. Too broad of a question

[Jasmine]

I exclude our primary residence. It’s worth over $1M and it’s fully paid, but I exclude it.

It only factors in to the extent that it reduces our necessary expenses (gotta live somewhere!).

We’re in a HCOL area, so we still pay pretty high amounts for property tax, insurance, HOA, etc., but at least there’s no mortgage on top of that.

[David]

It is in the eye of the beholder. But since you ask what everyone’s FatFIRE number is this to me is a personal question.
I consider myself FatFIRE.

-$115K-$120K in passive income

-All healthcare & dental covered for life so all my passive income can be spent lavishly

-Current expenses $40K/retired in 2023

I’m retired military so my pension/VA income increases each year with inflation and on top of that I have yet to touch investments as I can’t spend all the military retirement.

So, my investments keep growing.
To me, FatFIRE is all about the ability to spend lavishly without caring much about cost.

Which depends on one’s lifestyle and how much they make when working. I make more in passive income today than I did in the military before I retired.

[Brian]

We are solidly marching towards FatFire. Target is 10M by age 50, not counting home equity. Age 40 now and on track, closing in on 4M.

Strong corporate incomes, no debt other than 3% mortgage.

Goal to be fully work optional by 50 if we want to walk away and SCUBA dive the rest of our life lol.

[Peter]

Isn’t there a chart somewhere of the basic barista / normal / fat fire? Figure 10 million is fat.

Figure fatfire is more along the lines of living extravagantly for the rest of your life.

[Mitch]

You mentioned stripping out housing which helps level the playing field. Based on that probably about $90k is my best estimate.

And someone else how much higher this number is over their needs which its about $12-18k over lean-fi.

[Eric]

I may need to think about this. I used to think I wanted to have like 10 mil.

As I get older I realize I set my sights way too high. And I mean way. Maybe a few mil or 100k a year.

If I don’t get there I’ll figure something out

[Author]

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