FIRE: Financial Independence, Retire Early

FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) means accumulating enough invested assets that the returns cover your living expenses forever. The math: annual expenses multiplied by 25 equals your FIRE number (based on the 4% safe withdrawal rate from the Trinity Study). Spending $50,000/year means you need $1.25 million. Spending $80,000/year means $2 million. The path: maximize savings rate. At a 50% savings rate, you can retire in roughly 17 years regardless of income. At 70%, roughly 8.5 years. Three FIRE variants: Regular FIRE (standard 4% rule), Lean FIRE (minimal expenses, $25K-40K/year), Fat FIRE (comfortable lifestyle, $80K-150K/year). The key insight: FIRE is not about deprivation — it is about optimizing the gap between income and expenses. A $150K earner spending $50K reaches FIRE far faster than a $300K earner spending $250K. Geographic arbitrage accelerates FIRE: earn in a high-cost city, retire to a low-cost area.