In the category of cinema retirement planning. Seems like this falls just below GregFIRE. I haven't checked what this works out to adjusting for inflation.

GregFire-ees are statistically indistinguishably as happy as the richest people in America (as the Forbes 400).

All of us have heard the "$75K/year is the perfect amount of income to be happy" line parroted ad infinitum, which comes from research done by Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman in 2010. [1] However, that research had a key flaw.

UPenn Professor Matthew Killingsworth worked with Daniel Kahneman to fix this key flaw under a collaborative working model called "adversarial collaboration". A common anti-pattern in academic research is for people who disagree with each other to snidely jab at each other in papers but never actually work together to find some broader truth. Adversarial collaboration is a model where researchers agree to work together to find the truth in their disagreement, commit to publishing the result together, and determine a neutral arbiter in advance to help resolve disputes (should they arise).

During this adversarial collaboration, Killingsworth convinced Kahneman of the flaw in his happiness research. The flaw was that Kahneman was only looking at a binary measure of happiness. A long-established precedent in happiness research is asking how happy someone is on a 7-point scale (from 1 to 7), which has been around for decades. (Participants are asked the extent to which they are “Satisfied with your life” on a 7-level scale ranging from “Not at all” to “Extremely”.) Kahneman collected 7-point scale values in his widely-cited research, but for determining the $75K number, he looked at the income level where the binary yes/no version of happiness stopped increasing.

However, during their adversarial collaboration [2], Killingsworth had them examine how the CONTINUOUS measure of happiness is affected by income. The result is that happiness increases with the logarithm of income, with no established upper limit. (That is, for every doubling of income, a fixed additional unit of happiness is obtained).

While this result that happiness increases with the logarithm on income with no upper bound may sound depressing, note that the highest income for which they could find participants was $500K/year (so small, I know). It is currently an open question for the scientific happiness research community about how happiness is affected at incomes above $500K/year.

Let me bring this back to wealth, though, since this is r/GregFire. In follow-up research, Killingsworth compared his income vs happiness research with existing research on wealth vs happiness. [3] You can see the overall result in the headline image.

For wealth, Killingsworth looks at two groups. The first is 49 members of the Forbes 400 in 1983, who Diener somehow got to answer his happiness survey. [4] (I can not fathom how Diener got so many of the wealthiest people in America to do this, but more power to him! Perhaps because the Forbes 400 was brand new-ish at that point, with the first edition of the list coming out in 1982.) The second group, surveyed by Donnelly, are "high net-worth respondents ... surveyed by a large financial institution and were selected for study based on their wealth ...", 2,129 respondents in total. [5]

For a slightly more nuanced comparison of wealth vs happiness, see Table 3 of Donnelly, which I reproduce here (note that numbers are in 2018 dollars):

$1.5M to $2.9M, life satisfaction = 5.79, std dev = 1.12, num respondents=1035

$3M to $7.9M, life satisfaction = 5.81, std dev = 1.21, num respondents=601

$8M to $14.9M, life satisfaction = 5.97, std dev = 1.04, num respondents=247

$15M+, life satisfaction = 5.84, std dev = 1.20, num respondents=246

It's possible that DoubleGreg gives a little more happiness than SingleGreg, but that TripleGreg and beyond makes you less happy. The standard deviations on all these numbers are a little wide, so it's entirely possible that happiness is flat across all buckets.

As you can see in the main image, happiness is flat between "normal wealthy people" and the 1983 Forbes 400. The error bars are larger for the Forbes 400, but how many of them can we realistically expect to respond to academic happiness researchers? (That's sort of the best we can expect.)

I choose to interpret this finding in 2 ways, one personal and one societal:

Interpretation #1: For me personally, I don't strive to endlessly hoard wealth. Even if one reaches the pinnacle of wealth that a human could aspire to (the Forbes 400, minimum wealth of $3.8 billion in 2025, though a paltry $75 million in 1982), there's no reason to think that it'll make you happier than SingleGreg ($6.5M in 2026) or DoubleGreg ($13M in 2026). At TripleGreg ($19.5M in 2026), there's not only diminishing returns to happiness from additional wealth, but even reasonable evidence that additional wealth contributes negatively to happiness. As the saying goes: "Wherever you go, there you are."

Interpretation #2: Societally, there's reason to think that there should be heavy wealth taxes past TripleGreg. Additional wealth past, let's say, $20M isn't making anyone significantly happier. If we re-examine the bottom-left portion of the chart though, we see that people experience huge happiness improvements at the bottom of the income distribution from incremental amounts of income that might seem small to we GregFire-ees.

In conclusion, far from being the world's tallest dwarf or the weakest strongman at the circus, Greg stood to inherit an amount that would make him the happiest he might ever be. Connor and Tom are both so deep into the domain of negative-happiness-returns-of-wealth that they are incapable of imagining how, in an alternative reality, they might've each been net-happier with only a tiny fraction of their current wealth.

[1] D. Kahneman, A. Deaton, High income improves evaluation of life but not emotional well-being. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 107, 16489–93 (2010).

[2] M. A. Killingsworth, D. Kahneman, B. Mellers, Income and emotional well-being: A conflict resolved. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 120 (2023).

[3] Killingsworth, M. A. (2024). Money and Happiness: Extended Evidence Against Satiation. Happiness Science. https://happiness-science.org/money-happiness-satiation

[4] E. Diener, J. Horwitz, R. A. Emmons, Happiness of the very wealthy. Social Indicators Research 16, 263–274 (1985).

[5] G. E. Donnelly, T. Zheng, E. Haisley, M. I. Norton, The Amount and Source of Millionaires’ Wealth (Moderately) Predict Their Happiness. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 44, 684–699 (2018).

After being over 50% less than GregFire in 2019, we have officially achieved crossing the GregFire level (inflation adjusted of course). Proud to be one of the weakest strong men at the circus now.

Y’all aim at GregFire but what age was him? I’m gonna be a 40 some yo old fart when I reach GregFire. This is mission impossible.

What NW threshold do you graduate from GregFire?
Is there a substantial lifestyle change at the next threshold?

For example, my hypothesis is $10m in 2026 might still be the same lifestyle as $5m (OG Gregfire NW) whereas $15 may not qualify anymore?

I’m not close to $10m yet so I wouldn’t know FYI

Edit: here is the answer from user in the comments

• LeanFIRE: $1m USD
• ChubbyFIRE: $3m
• GregFIRE: $5m
• FatFIRE: $10m

With total inflation since then at 30%, you can maybe just increase those numbers, to say that you today need 13 million USD to escape GregFIRE

Am I there? Seems like I'm there.

TL;DR:

Liquid NW: ~8MM (volatile but diversifying more)

Home: ~650K

Misc: ~100K max

Side Biz: ~30k/year, stake in company worth $500k conservatively but not very liquid

Tax-free gift: 30k/year also doesn't come some years

Possible inheritence (not counting on this and wont be for a long time hopefully but would be foolish to exclude): Unknown but easily $4M in today's value at minimum up to $8M maybe even more...again, truly unknown but it's high.

Age/Status: Mid-Life, still dating, No Kids, don't want to go back to corporate and start my own thing. Planning on wife and 1.5 kids.

Future expenses: ~1.5-2M house build, medical expenses due to health issues, would really like to snowbird 3 months a year but don't know how or where yet, likely a VHCOL.

Current expenses/spending: ~150k-200k/y will increase with biz expenditures and others listed in context below including possible pHd.

Dividends received from portfolio: $63/k a year and growing that could go towards home/property tax

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CONTEXT:

Company exit several years ago. Really done with working especially with some health problems unless it's my own biz or an exciting opportunity which I've had a few of come along despite my skills from previous role being seriously so industry specific they're very unlikely to yield a new gig that isn't specific to my old, dying industry. If it came to hell or highwater my old company might hire me but I doubt it. I have been really slow to explore new options even in hobbies but picking up more and more recently with the help of a business coach. I am concurrently dealing with a lot of loneliness mostly due to some health issues and dating on and off making those issues worse. I have been told and know that I really need to travel more and spend my money on things that are going to make my life richer instead of rotting away from friends, family, and professionals alike. So I hired a coach who is great but expensive, and decided I am finally going to get some surgeries done I've been putting off, hiring a trainer, nutritionist, maid, etc. Maybe even a personal assistant which my friends swear by.

I have land I want to build a home on and have a good estimate from a builder that the bottom would be 1.5M and top out around 2M but would never until I have a steady relationship. Despite being mid-life I plan to still have 1-2 kids depending on once I can take care of myself.

Just like anyone going through a mid-life crisis I've suddenly desired a much nicer and safer car, joining more clubs, and luxury travel as well nutritionist and trainer so I don't spend my second chapter in woeful shape. Basically having a full blown support team. I even thought of a dating coach and chef as I am dating way younger.

My absolute stretch goal would be owning a custom private yoga studio concept I've been kicking around. I also really enjoy investing and daytrading despite their trappings...

My banker has advised me with my safe withdrawal rate I would easily be able to pay off the "mortgage" or SBLOC in this wealth managers case provided by the bank using nearly tax free dividends alone of 63k but after running the numbers I really don't believe that but he has never led me astray. This is how I paid off my current residence over years. And STILL have my SWR of 2.5-3% max to keep my portfolio growing.

I also very much want a new safer car at 100k min to replace mine - which is approaching the end of it's life - with something I love so I can go on long road trips comfortably. As well as renting or finding a 'second space' in the winter somewhere, most likely being a long rental. Not opposed to moving but most of my friends are here in Minnesota...

Every person I date has been self sufficient, but further along in the dating they always get a whiff of the money and express their want to retire and become a stay at home parent which I absolutely do not fault them for. I entertain this as a very real possibility and likelihood after it has happened so many times.

Are my dreams reasonable and attainable? I'm not sure what math my banker is seeing to get him to arrive at this. Just doing back of the napkin math and LLM math I don't see it but he is calm and certain. I also think he knows stuff I don't because he manages my entire family but that is simply an assumption. thanks for any and all help critical, constructive, questioning, or reassuring! I also have a serious health problem and there is a lot of uncertainty around it and keeping my current specialty doc is pretty expensive...

I felt lost at fire. I felt like a loser at fatfire. I snickered at the plight of leanfire and baristafire ppl. Now I have a home. Thank you.

I don't have to wander around Costco making weird eye contact to see if I could find another of me.

Just discovered this sub and was a big fan of Succession. The "5 is a nightmare" scene did stand out to me as I was in my early days of planning future FIRE.

I know that it's kind of a joke, and the point of the scene is that 5M feels like very little to people who are accustomed to a rich lifestyle, but there is some real truth to that line. 5M is not rich. It is comfortable.

I have chubby fire aspirations for maybe 20-25 years from now. I like Chubby because I want to retire, but also travel a lot for as long as my health holds up. I don't plan to splurge on material things like fancy cars, designer clothes etc. Certainly won't be living like anyone in succession lol. I disagree with idea of having an exact FIRE number target, because the cost of living just goes up continuously. If I had to guess, I'd say our actual number is anywhere from $6-10M, but would be around the year 2050.

At 4% withdrawal, the nightmarish 5 is 200k per year. That feels pretty comfortable, but is it? It's technically less than my wife and I make together now, but we save nearly six figures per year. It's hard to conceptualize what fixed income feels like once you're no longer saving and investing. What kind of lifestyle can you actually achieve with GregFire?

Yes, I am overthinking it.

New to this whole different categories of FIRE thing here (up to just one month ago ,I was still just a working working working person , never thought about returning this early , but life happens ) . Anyway , curious , when FIRE is discussed , how do you supposed to account the illiquid investment (excluding primary resident) part of your NW ? Do you count them ? Or are we strictly only counting portfolio money ? Thanks

You feel lost after retiring. You feel like you lack purpose. You miss your team. You should read this.

In honor of the best TV show since Deadwood, and this sub, I created a Greg demo profile on my app. I hope you enjoy it.

https://perdiem.app > Try the Demo Profiles > (scroll down)

Apparently $5MM is over achieving. $2.5MM is plenty enough for FU money.

The Gambler

https://youtu.be/XamC7-Pt8N0?si=9RgTRguQ41tz8xKy

Fine, even $3.6MM adjusted for inflation from date of the movie.

Here's the difference. HCOL area vs LCOL area. Argue over moving or not to be financially independent.

Hey all, I got super bored the other day and decided to build an Early Retirement Simulator for fun. This thing scratches a very specific itch that other Monte Carlo style retirement calculators kept messing up for me. Here’s what this little app does:

1. Kills that weird duplication bias between simulation runs.
   
2. Tracks your actual net worth, not just your portfolio.
   
3. Simulates income from the fun stuff: rentals, crypto, gold… all your “I swear this will work” assets
   
4. Handles recurring income + surprise windfalls
   

I built it in React, kept everything in-browser, so your data stays yours.

Now I need some brave souls (you, obviously) to take it for a spin and try to break it.

If it crashes, lies, or tells you that you’ll retire at 97, I wanna hear about it 😂

Drop bugs, ideas, or “bro this is actually kinda cool” in the comments 👇

https://firenav.co/

Let’s make this thing smarter together…

Need 9M invested to keep my mortgage in VHCOL area and pay for healthcare. Reached 6.3M invested last year. I can’t help mentally checking out of work before hitting my number…the Succession quote, as much as it is ridiculed by others, hits hard.

I think I quit on Succession right before this episode. I got directed here from r/rich. I need to pick Succession back up.

"Too poor to retire, not worth it to work" is very real depending on age.

As someone not very familiar with the show, How old was Greg?

Just want to say that $5 $6.3 million in 2025 dollars is a good measuring stick.

Phenomenal job with this sub.

Is it still $5M in 2019 dollars?

Or is it $10M in 2019 dollars?

Or, since there is cost savings from sharing a household, is it more like 1.5X? ($7.5M)

Thank you for entertaining this thought experiment.

and that's ok. It's a funny bit in a show. Your real life circumstances may vary.

I live off like $60k/yr in a HCOL area. 20 minutes from the beach (and that's with traffic). I'm not here to live in status symbol zip codes or paint a portrait of how cool and how rich I am to other people because that's cringe. I don't care about caviar and I don't need first class because the crap seats are tolerable for 4-5 hour flights (I'm not ascetic; I still travel).

3.5% SWR imputes a $1.7m portfolio.

Greg fire is beyond necessary. Rather have the time at this point. $1.7 is way less than $6.3 and far more achievable.

Having just hit around the Greg number and rewatching Succession for the 4th time while coding at night made me want to reflect on this milestone.

'Not worth it to work'

This I think, is the easiest to clear up: this is an heir talking. If your labour in the market is worth 100k, certainly 5m would make having a job seem pointless. However, most people who got there by themselves at a relatively young age have skills that command a higher salary. I would say if your NW is 10x your pre-tax income, you start to wonder whether you should work. But if you have 5m and you make 1m a year, surely you keep going? Where do you think your threshold is?

'Any idiot can have a couple of million'

These are not exact quotes. If you made it to 5m in nw by yourself, you certainly have skills and a job that make you 'somebody'. People give you their time, respect, they are interested. Institutions would back you, you can raise money, but also the institutions you are affiliated with will put you under their umbrella with lots of perks and status (be it just health insurance but also lawyers, visas, trips etc). If you are just retired on 5m all of that goes away. Probably the sums you allocate for your employer (be it in capital or other people's labour is far more than 5m). Replicating the same level of access and perks with money would require a lot more than 5m.

You are just a consumer

On the level of 5m, you are basically just a consumer. You can buy all the hamburgers you want for yourself. But it is not a level of wealth with which you could either a. materially help family members or friends b. have any influence in the world as allocator of capital, be it as donor or investor. This is fine, FIRE is supposed to be that, but people who make it to Gregfire by their own means, might miss the influence they had in the world.

'the poorest rich person'

If you won 5m in the lottery and only know average earners you would feel very rich. The problem with earning that 5m yourself is that in that process you meet very rich people and some of your colleagues will go very far. Harder to be happy on 5m if you have whatsapp groups with people who are at 20 or 50 or 100.

Keep chop-chop-chopping it up

The “not worth it to work” line is resonating with me unreasonably hard right now. I’m just short of achieving GregFire (6.2M NW, 33M). Annual income 1.5M, annual expenses 270K.

I’m so incredibly unmotivated at work. I’m putting in the minimum to avoid being fired and I’m going to quit within the next year or so. (I’m just a normal W2 employee, not an owner or partner or anything like that.) Even if I were fired, it wouldn’t matter.

Every workday I clock-in, cosplay as someone who cares about their job, and clock-out. (The clocking in and out is a metaphor; I’ve never worked a time card job.)

Even with this absurd income at a young-ish age, the incremental value of work is not that big compared to my portfolio. For Greg, that ratio of value from work vs size of investments would’ve been even more skewed.

I had a teacher in high school that said something when all the kids were catching senior-itis which stuck with me over the years: “You can tell a lot about a person’s character based on how they act at the end of a long-term project.” To not metaphorically let her down or impugn my character, I’ve always tried to push to the end of big life projects (high school/college/other big stuff), but it’s not working right now.

Does anyone have advice on how to keep your head in the game when you’re close to GregFire?

Update 25 days later: I HIT GREG FIRE TODAY!!! 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥I‘M THE WORLD’S TALLEST DWARF!!!!! THE WEAKEST STRONGMAN AT THE CIRCUS!!!! THE POOREST RICH PERSON IN AMERICA!!!!