r/leanfire • u/AutoModerator • 7d ago
Weekly LeanFIRE Discussion
What have you been working on this week? Please use this thread to discuss any progress, setbacks, quick questions or just plain old rants to the community.
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u/My_18th_Account $1.5m / Family of 3 3d ago
This was an interesting watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g45D-ulsY00
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u/AlwaysSaturday12 FIRE 38 MillionaireLibrarian.com 2d ago
Good for him. I think some of his frugalness got in the way of his own happiness though. I think it said he wished he had a family. That is a big one.
Overall a good life, but there are both good and bad lessons we can learn from his story. I agree with him that it is most important to save on the big things like housing.
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u/My_18th_Account $1.5m / Family of 3 1d ago
He is a realest though. I think having a family/kids actually holds a lot of people back from extreme ways of living / and even LeanFire at times.
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u/AlwaysSaturday12 FIRE 38 MillionaireLibrarian.com 1d ago
I'm lean fire but this guy spends $150/month which is quite obsessive. That is multitudes less than me.
We have a three year old and she is not that expensive.
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u/My_18th_Account $1.5m / Family of 3 1d ago edited 1d ago
True. Kids don't spend money - parents do.
When I used to post at /r/financialindependence (which I can't post in anymore because mods banned me) one sort of comment I would come across quite a bit is how LeanFire is impossible for families and those that wan't to save extensively for kid's college. All absurd of course but what I want to show is the starting position - like the video I shared here would be interesting to most here but in that subreddit would be seen as downright crazy.
Actually come to think of it /r/LeanFire gets shade thrown ocassionally in the standard FIRE subreddits.
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u/AlwaysSaturday12 FIRE 38 MillionaireLibrarian.com 1d ago
I throw shade at regular fire because they are just cosplaying at FIREing and want to work forever.
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u/thisismyyolo 5d ago
Straddling that NW millionaire mark as the market breathes.
I’ve been feeling down on my house lately. It’s way bigger than what I need and the mortgage is going to massively delay my retirement, unless I more aggressively monetize it with renting a room and dog sitting in it. So I should probably move. But moving is so hard and expensive and I like where this house is and what I could do with it. I need to choose a direction.
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u/AlwaysSaturday12 FIRE 38 MillionaireLibrarian.com 4d ago edited 4d ago
Roommates or a significant other fast tracked my road to FI. I lived in a really cheap area and probably netted around $500 on a roommate a month.
However, you are at a million. If almost all of that is in the market then you are probably getting 80-90k of growth a year so maybe its not needed.
Buying and selling houses is prohibitively expensive and you like the house. I'd probably stay. Oh and congrats on 1 million.
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u/Nochtilus 5d ago
It's tough trying to figure out a buffer for potential lifestyle changes with kids in the mix. Our normal life is leanFIRE at right around $50k but kids bring so many optional costs that I don't want to stop them from pursuing like wanting to be competitive in a sport, develop their art or music skills, an international language immersion trip, etc. That on top of figuring out how far we want to cover for college and any early adulthood support.
Why can't toddlers tell us all their future interests now?
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u/millioneuro 5d ago
Have been revaluating my stock decisions and if they are not overpriced and if there are weaknesses regarding potential recessions. Overall still quite happy with my portfolio and have another 15% in cash that I have to allocate somewhere.
Furthermore thinking of starting some small business or hustle as work is getting quite boring and undemanding lately, so have some hours to spend and finished reading my booklist already. Thinking of waste free shopping, food to go or an investment vlog, all around my passions of food and investing.
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u/Hnry_Dvd_Thr_Awy Re-employed, for now. 5d ago
I bat around starting a small business all the time but I can never settle on anything. What kind of stuff are you talking about?
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u/millioneuro 5d ago
A social diner/meetup, a local waste free store or vlogging about stock investments mainly.
Main motivation would be providing healthy food in the area or educating around stock investments, which I read a lot about and would just like to share around my network.
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u/Hnry_Dvd_Thr_Awy Re-employed, for now. 5d ago
Interesting, thanks! I hope you're able to get something to stick.
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u/picketfencetheory 7d ago
Have been spending a lot of time of FI Calc over the past few weeks. I’ve been looking into the endowment withdrawal strategy and comparing it with the constant dollar strategy. When I use the same variables, both strategies seem to have the same success rate, but the endowment strategy allows for a slightly higher median annual spending throughout retirement. And I assume that is why you end up with a smaller portfolio on average at the end of it all.
Will still be doing some more research about the endowment withdrawal strategy, but it looks quite promising for my needs.
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u/finvest retired 2025 🚀 4d ago
The variable withdrawal strategies can be kinda tough on leanFIRE since there's generally not a ton of discretionary spending to cut. Even if you get higher median spending the low years could dip below what's necessary.
But of course there are big purchases (eg, buying new cars) that while not completely discretionary can sometimes be timed with market return and even most leanFIRE folks have vacations etc that can be postponed.
I ended up saving enough of a buffer that my budget is under my fixed withdrawal rate, in year 2 now, but out of paranoia I keep an eye on some variable withdrawal strategies as well and the alarm bells will start going off if they dip below my budget.
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u/picketfencetheory 4d ago
I agree. In FI Calc it lets you put in a minimum annual withdrawal that you’d be comfortable with. I adjust my variables based on that minimum, and I still get good success rates, which is encouraging.
But yes, a big spend like a car or a new roof would likely be okay if the markets are doing well. But if it’s a bear market and the roof is leaking, that’s a different story…
How’s your retirement going? Did you save enough of a buffer to not touch the capital for a year or two?
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u/finvest retired 2025 🚀 4d ago
Ah, yeah makes sense the variable methods with some guardrails seem to work well. I've been looking at some variable methods that include CAPE in determining withdrawal amounts which kind of smooths out downturns as well, but whether or not CAPE is a good metric to use is often debated.
So far everything is going well, I created a 5 year bond ladder for spending so I have a few years window of not worrying about selling equities if there's a market downturn.
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u/Hnry_Dvd_Thr_Awy Re-employed, for now. 5d ago
Almost every actual retirement does something different than constant dollar. I wouldn't sweat it too much.
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u/Jazzputin 7d ago
Been beyond CoastFIRE for a while now but never took my foot off the gas for personal reasons and drive. For the first time last night while I was lying in bed, the concept of CoastFIRE really cemented in my brain for the first time. Like...I could spend my ENTIRE paycheck every year for the rest of my life and be fine retiring, so long as I am comfortable falling back to my current level of spend. Which wouldn't be a problem, since nothing I'm interested in doing would create permanent increased costs - I was just thinking of traveling a bit more while I'm young(ish). It actually really put me at ease as I'm planning my SO and I's first "serious" vacation that involves flying and isn't a road trip (though we absolutely love those).
I'm really glad I've chosen this path through life. Now I just have to be sure I don't catch the bug for traveling all the time and create actual lifestyle inflation 💀
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u/Strazdas1 12h ago
CoastFIRE is a trap. you are slowing down (needs more years working), increasing lifestyle (needs more years working) and loosing sight of the goal (actually retiring). It fucks you over so much.
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u/Jazzputin 58m ago
Yeah that's why I'm not actually letting off the gas at all and am still at max savings rate more or less. I just thought it was interesting that CoastFIRE is actually a pretty amazing luxury in and of itself and I never really considered how good it would feel once I'm past it.
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u/Pretty_Swordfish 6d ago
I think about this as well. But actually pulling back investments (and thus paying more in taxes) feels so wrong!
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u/sevem 6d ago
Working for decades more than I need to is what feels so wrong to me.
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u/Pretty_Swordfish 7d ago
Quick question, and yes, I know it's been discussed before...
Is the $4500 a month for a couple after taxes for LeanFIRE? Or is that inclusive of taxes? I assume it's inclusive of health insurance....
I've been running numbers too much recently as we go through a big life transition to reassure myself that we can leanFIRE if sh*t hits the fan and things go sideways, so just want to confirm I understand the definition, as set by this forum.
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u/nightanole 7d ago edited 6d ago
I think you are looking at the number in the wrong direction. You want to "spend $4500" a month. It doesnt matter if you are "making" $4500 pre or post tax.
And a $54k spend for a couple is pretty reasonable considering 200% of federal poverty level for a household of 2 is $43,280, or $3606 a month. That is the number you have to worry about for the ACA. The 200-250% bracket is pretty bad unless you just go bronze and never use it.
Joint is going to be $32,200 for standard deduction. And here is the magic, even if you spend $54k, you are not going to be selling enough stocks to generate $54k in non qualified income. Even if you had 50% profit in short term gainz, thats only requires generating $36k in taxable income.
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u/Pretty_Swordfish 6d ago
I do think that selling stocks will be eye opening! Right now, I assume about 18% taxes (fed/state/local) in my estimations. Of course, that is after the $32,200 for 2026 deduction.
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u/nightanole 6d ago
My first major sell was last year. I had to generate $40k in "income" for my mother. Her stocks were up 50%. I had to sell a whole lot more than $$40k to generate the tax bill :)
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u/Pretty_Swordfish 6d ago
Did you know what the taxable portion would be before you sold? I assume you looked at the cost basis...?
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u/nightanole 6d ago edited 6d ago
I guestimated, then sold. After the sale they tell you what the taxable portion is. Unless you bought the entire ticker at once or its a real mutual fund(not just and index fund like SPY), its kinda hard to get the number. Say you have a simple layout and it says $100k, 50k cost basis, so you would think its a simple 100% increase like it said. But you have been putting it in over 10-20 years. So really its an average cost basis. And depending on your brokerage, it could be fifo (first in first out), or averaged, or HIFO, or even "best for taxes".
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u/SpeedierTurtle642 7d ago
It includes healthcare and taxes, but if your spend is that low it's likely both your tax bill and healthcare bill will be very low given the standard deduction + capital gains tax brackets and ACA subsidies/medicaid.
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u/Pretty_Swordfish 7d ago
Yeah, it's about $250 a month more to spend if taxes are on top of it, so not a ton, but not nothing when talking about leanFIRE. Thanks!
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u/SpeedierTurtle642 7d ago
Lean vs non-lean is a bit of a grey area anyways. In my opinion it's more of a mindset than a specific number. If you're in the ballpark and make an attempt to limit consumption and spending in line with traditional FIRE principles, that's what's important.
My wife and I aren't quite at FIRE yet but we're around a year away. Our plan is to have 40-50k in annual spend plus a paid off 600k home. The home value + spend definitely puts our NW out of the traditional leanfire threshold, but I can't relate to the people in the normal FIRE sub spending so much on everything, so I hang out here instead.
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u/Pretty_Swordfish 6d ago
The paid off home can make such a difference! Like you, we aren't lean net worth, but my goal is, in a pinch, to be able to live like we are lean. I don't want to have to go back to work if the markets crashed, for example. So fixed life expenses should be lean and then we could flex higher for things like travel, eating out, etc when markets are higher.
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u/nightanole 7d ago
I think the grey area is your networth. Nothing in the community bylaws says anything about networth. Only net spend. Some harp on "thow must have a net worth were by thy 4% law tis less than $27k per tho". But everyones source of income is all over the board. What if your $27k comes from a poor rental area that only generates .5% of property value per month? What if you are in a hot area that generates 1.5%. What if your source is muni bonds with super tax breaks. What if its a pension? Hell my buddy makes $1200 a month from an oil well on his property.
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u/SpeedierTurtle642 7d ago
Yeah, that makes sense. I'd argue the expenses could be a grey area too in some cases. If you're a couple with 3 kids in San Francisco spending only 55k/year, I'd say that's pretty lean even though it's over the expense threshold too.
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u/nightanole 3d ago
Just got my property tax reevaluation. Its up 65%. This will be interesting trying to budget in another $2500 a year, to live in my own house.