One more year is the most expensive product the FIRE movement buys without checking the price. The financial benefits are real: another year of contributions, another year without withdrawals, another year for assets to move, and one fewer year for the portfolio to fund.
Calculate the full benefit
Add expected net savings, employer contributions, and benefits you would otherwise purchase. Then estimate the reduction in required portfolio from shortening the retirement horizon. Do not count an assumed market return as if it were salary; it may arrive negative.
Now calculate what the extra year changes. Does it raise success from 82% to 84%, or from 70% to 91%? Does it create two years of cash, eliminate a mortgage, or merely turn an already adequate plan into a prettier number?
Price flexibility directly
Instead of buying safety only with time, price the alternatives. What spending reduction would create the same improvement? How much part-time income? Could one optional trip pause after a market crash? Would moving the exit by three months capture a bonus or vesting date without surrendering the entire year?
Flexibility is often cheaper than employment. A plan with adjustable spending and a small income option can survive scenarios that a rigid high-spending plan cannot, even with a larger starting balance.
Then price the year
The cost is not one generic year at the end of life. It is this specific year, at your current age, in your current body, with the people who are alive now. The year at 44 cannot be refunded as a year at 84.
Read Why Your FIRE Number Should Shrink Every Birthday and How Long Are You Actually Alive?. One more year is rational when it purchases a material capability. When it purchases only emotional permission to want another year, the product has no delivery date.
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