Guides
Fat FIRE guides using historical returns.
Four guides cover spending targets, withdrawal rates, sequence risk and asset allocation. Each guide links to the calculator used for its examples.
What Fat FIRE costs
How annual spending and the withdrawal rate set the target, and why a larger target does not add years in a straight line.
Ends in: find your fat fire number
Where the 4% rule stops working
The research behind 4%, the assumptions it uses, and what changes when retirement lasts forty-five years instead of thirty.
Ends in: test a withdrawal rate against history
Why the first five years matter
Two retirements with similar average returns produced very different results because the bad years arrived in a different order.
Ends in: retire in the year that worries you
How much of a Fat FIRE portfolio belongs in stocks?
A comparison of stocks, bonds and T-bills across forty-year withdrawals, including the worst historical period for each mix.
Ends in: compare the allocations yourself
Figures in the guides and calculators use the same 97-year market dataset. See about and method for the data and its limits.