Slow FI: getting there without giving up your thirties
Slow FI targets the same full number on a longer timeline, on purpose. You keep a savings rate you can hold for twenty years instead of one you can hold for one, and you spend money on your life while you build.
The formula
Annual spending ÷ withdrawal rate. The target is the same. The timeline is longer.
Assumptions: 4% withdrawal rate, 8% growth before inflation, age 35 targeting 60. Stated in full in the methodology.
Worked example: €3,500 a month
This is not a round number. It is what my own living costs were at the point passive income covered them, which is the moment I would call being free.
Full annual spending at a 4.0% withdrawal rate.
And here is how long that takes, by what you put in every month.
| Invested each month | Time to Slow FI |
|---|---|
| €1,000 | 26 yr 3 mo |
| €2,000 | 19 yrs |
| €3,500 | 13 yr 9 mo |
Look at what changes between those rows. The gap between them is a pay question, not an investing question, and that is the whole argument of this site. The calculator works out how much more you could be putting in without changing job.
Who it suits
Anyone who has tried an extreme savings rate and found out what it costs.
What I think of it
I saved 80% of my income for a year. It nearly broke me, and the year after that I saved less than if I had never tried. A savings rate you abandon is worth less than a smaller one you keep. Wealth should improve your life while you build it, not afterwards. That is one of the seven rules, and it is there because I learned it the expensive way.
Questions
How much longer does Slow FI take?
Look at the savings-rate curve rather than guessing. Going from 10% to 20% removes fourteen years. Going from 60% to 70% removes three. The sacrifice at the top of the range buys much less than people think.
The other eight
- Traditional FIREI never have to work again
- Lean FIREI need very little
- Fat FIREFreedom and a great lifestyle
- Coast FIREWhen can I stop needing to save?
- Barista FIREI only need to work a little
- Flamingo FIREThe halfway strategy
- FI, not REWork because you want to
- Geoarbitrage FIRESame portfolio, cheaper life
None of this is financial advice and I am not an adviser. Read what this is and what it is not.