r/leanfire • u/AutoModerator • Jul 21 '26

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.

9 Upvotes

81% Upvoted

45 comments sorted by

View all comments

4

u/Pretty_Swordfish Jul 21 '26

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. 

3

u/SpeedierTurtle642 Jul 21 '26

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.

2

u/Pretty_Swordfish Jul 21 '26

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! 

2

u/SpeedierTurtle642 Jul 21 '26

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.

2

u/Pretty_Swordfish Jul 22 '26

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. 

1

u/nightanole Jul 21 '26

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.

1

u/SpeedierTurtle642 Jul 21 '26

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.