The arithmetic of walking away.
Traditional FIRE assumes you’ll live to ninety-five. Build a portfolio that survives forty years of 4% withdrawals, factor in inflation, sequence-of-returns risk, healthcare costs, and a margin for the unexpected. The number is enormous. The runway to get there is decades.
The SuicideFIRE framework starts somewhere else. It asks: how many years do you actually want to live, given what you’re trading to get them?
If the honest answer is fifteen — fifteen good years with money to spend, before the body slows and the world gets smaller — then the number is dramatically smaller. So is the runway. And the math, suddenly, makes sense for a lot more people than the FIRE forums admit.
This section is the math.
What you’ll find here
Understanding FIRE
- The 4% rule, and why it was designed for a problem you may not have
- The difference between infinite withdrawal (traditional FIRE) and finite withdrawal (SuicideFIRE)
- Why your terminal value can — and arguably should — be zero
- Sequence-of-returns risk over a 15-year horizon vs. a 40-year horizon
- Modeling longevity as a choice instead of an assumption
Strategies
- The barebones SuicideFIRE portfolio: stocks, cash, and nothing clever
- Geographic arbitrage as a force multiplier
- The “one big year” — front-loading the bucket list before the body refuses
- Healthcare without a job: an honest accounting of the options
- Tax-efficient drawdown when you’re not optimizing for heirs
Case Studies
- Lena, 42, software, $310k — fifteen years in Lisbon, walking away from FAANG
- Marcus, 51, construction, $180k — modest but enough, given his honest horizon
- Anya, 38, finance, $620k — the rare case where traditional FIRE wins
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