💸fire glossary for people who just found the subreddit

the nine terms i wish someone had defined for me before i lurked r/financialindependence for six months. definitions only, not financial advice

FI number - the amount invested that lets you stop needing a paycheck

multiply your annual spending by 25, that's the back-of-napkin version. do the math with your real number, not a round one

4% rule - the withdrawal rate a portfolio is expected to survive roughly 30 years on

Trinity Study - the 1998 paper that tested withdrawal rates against real historical market returns

three professors at Trinity University, hence the name. everyone quotes the 4 percent, almost nobody's read past the abstract

Coast FIRE - having enough invested early that compound growth alone gets you to a normal retirement without adding more

you still work, just for cash flow, not for the number anymore. do the math on your own timeline before you assume this fits

Barista FIRE - coast FIRE plus a part-time job that covers health insurance and spending money

Lean FIRE - retiring on a tight, deliberately minimal budget

gets thrown around as under $40k a year in spending, there's no official line though

Fat FIRE - the opposite. retiring at a spending level well above lean, six figures a year

Safe Withdrawal Rate (SWR) - the general term for how much a portfolio can pay out a year without running dry

4% is the most famous SWR, not the only one. some newer models argue for a bit less now

FU money - enough saved that you could walk away from a bad job or situation tomorrow, short of full FIRE

not a technical term, just the one everyone actually says out loud (not financial advice, just definitions)

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