How I plan to die with more than zero

I keep seeing posts on r/Fire like: “I have $2M. Am I good?” or “I saved only $50k. I’m feeling behind”. I understand that people want approval or support. But why? Because they don’t have a plan. That was me too.

I’m 34. I earn a decent income, have an investment portfolio (growing ~13%), and I don’t splurge. I thought I was saving enough. When I calculated an actual plan, I discovered that I should expect to retire around never…

With planning, I moved it to 58 without destroying my current lifestyle.

“Enough” is not a feeling. It depends on:

• When do you want to stop working?

• How much do you want to spend afterward?

• Do you want to leave an inheritance?

Until you answer them, saving whatever remains at the end of the month is just hoping your current lifestyle accidentally produces the future you want. And it’s not always “not enough minerals”, you can also be saving too much and skipping fun for no reason.

The result of going by feelings

Planning doesn’t lower your quality of life. If you’re not living paycheck to paycheck then you can probably find a solution. I used my free financial advisor (yes, I’m lazy). I asked Claude to analyze my spending. Most of its advice was cringe and generic, but the final budget wasn’t. The surprising part is that half of the changes were increases, not cuts.

I expected a diet. Instead I got a system with more fun and more stuff

Then I asked it to build a retirement calculator. Claude took my holdings, savings, expenses, and income from finerd and built me a projection. To be honest, I don't plan to leave any inheritance. But on my numbers, the difference between keeping a stable portfolio and draining it to zero before the planned game over is just a couple of years, so it's not worth it. I'd rather keep the buffer.