Fat Fire Question

[pacergal]

I feel blessed to be retired and able to maintain the same standard of living we had while working, plus extra to gift to kids and afford better accommodations when traveling.
I don't care what label it is, as long as we are able to pay the bills, enjoy life and not need to work!

 

[anothercog]

I'm 50 and at lean FIRE now. I'm hoping to hit Obese FIRE by 56 so I guess I'm in the several more years syndrome but I want to be sure I have the financial freedom to do whatever I want in retirement. That will include lots of travel and likely helping out my young adult children at that time (currently in grades, 6,8 and 10).

 

[Koolau]

I'm 50 and at lean FIRE now. I'm hoping to hit Obese FIRE by 56 so I guess I'm in the several more years syndrome but I want to be sure I have the financial freedom to do whatever I want in retirement. That will include lots of travel and likely helping out my young adult children at that time (currently in grades, 6,8 and 10).

Relayed elsewhere, this is sort of what happened to me. I was FI at 51 but stayed to 58 since the j*b had become enjoyable. I quit when that changed. I realized that in those 7 years, a lot had happened to my portfolio. I had continued maxing out the 401(k), added to the Roths (hers and mine) and had fairly good portfolio performance - even though I've always been a bit light on equities. Don't know how I would have described my FIRE status (the words more-than-adequate come to mind). In any case, I could never have imagined I would start to worry about how to deal with "getting rid" of my stash 15 years into FIRE. It's a good "problem" to have. Of course, end-of-life care could rear its ugly rear and spoil everything, but I'll worry about that tomorrow (just saw Gone With The Wind again yesterday.) YMMV

 

[TheWizard]

I didn't retire all that early (age 63, 2013) but I did strive to have roughly the same net income (AGI) as my last few working years when I was maxing out retirement account contributions.

I was definitely watching my financial numbers the last five years before retiring but don't really think I was in the OMY rut. Maybe one year at the most.

In my case, that income was more than double my basic expenses, thus allowing for lots of discretionary spending and travel.

In the past few years I've both paid off my refied mortgage and started age 70 SS, so even FATter now.

But that doesn't mean I SPEND all current income left and right. I still fly coach (when travel happens again) and stay in good lodgings, not top shelf.

 

[steveark]

In our case they were throwing money at me and I received a big inheritance at the same time so I blew way past fat FIRE. But I also enjoyed my job so I didn't want to retire real early, I left at 60.

 

[dheb]

Planning to retire next year. I currently spend about $3000 per month, and I've given myself a budget of $4000 per month. My employer will cover most of my health insurance cost as a retiree. I've got it worked out to pay pretty much 0 federal tax for the first few years, until I start SS or have to take RMDs. Right now my savings are around 1.2 million. I'm not counting the equity in my house in that, although I do plan to sell the house & move, dropping a big chunk of my equity into investments. I guess I'm budgeting for FatFIRE, but I probably won't actually spend a lot more than I do now.

 

[sanfanciscotreat]

Theres Lean Fire, Fire, Fat Fire and Hell Fire.

 

[oiseux]

Bare bones, well guess that's in the eye of the beholder, and my eye tells me this is pretty arrogant. You couldn't pay me enough to live in one of the most expensive cities in the world.

Each person has their ideals, and his list isn't for everyone. But his example budgets are not off, given his definition. Each person has their own definition, but even with people with different priorities I bet there is a more desirable (and more expensive) version of that priority.


Anyways, to the OP, I can't comment as I've stuck in OMY and we're jetting past FatFire to MO FIRE. But in many areas, 100K isn't even FIRE, depending on a person's circumstances. Health care takes a big chunk of that.

 

[Perryinva]

I think the point of Fat FIRE is you CAN live virtually anywhere, not an amount higher relative to your expenses. Whether you want to is moot. I’m with the “I don’t see 100k (in the US) as Fat fire, more like $150k” camp. Isn’t it like 15% of US households make $100k and 5% make $165k? Certainly the top 5 has to be considered VERYFat, if not SLIGHTLY Obese. Top 15%? Solid FIRE for sure, but FAT?

 

[Bigdawg]

I think the point of Fat FIRE is you CAN live virtually anywhere, not an amount higher relative to your expenses. Whether you want to is moot. I’m with the “I don’t see 100k (in the US) as Fat fire, more like $150k” camp. Isn’t it like 15% of US households make $100k and 5% make $165k? Certainly the top 5 has to be considered VERYFat, if not SLIGHTLY Obese. Top 15%? Solid FIRE for sure, but FAT?

This got me thinking. I would take 100K/yr living where I live (Chesapeake Bay) before I would take 200K/yr in say San Fran. But, I guess if I had 200K/yr in San Fran I could always move to Chesapeake Bay area. I have buyers remorse with almost every purchase so doubling my yearly spend would not make me feel any better.

 

[bonvoyage]

This is really the wrong forum to ask questions about fatFIRE. I would suggest checking out this subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/fatFIRE/

 

[ncbill]

This got me thinking. I would take 100K/yr living where I live (Chesapeake Bay) before I would take 200K/yr in say San Fran. But, I guess if I had 200K/yr in San Fran I could always move to Chesapeake Bay area. I have buyers remorse with almost every purchase so doubling my yearly spend would not make me feel any better.

Yep, IMHO it's what you have to spend over your normal level of spending.

In a LCOL area with a paid-off home, our normal level of spending is only around $50k/year.

So actually going out & spending $100k/year would be FatFIRE for us.

Though not so much in a HCOL area for a homeowner paying ~$20k of that annually in property taxes...versus only ~$2k here.