FIRE Stages
Freedomwise maps your financial state to one of seven FIRE stages. The stage is displayed prominently in the FI Intelligence wedge and drives the AI's planning context.
The seven stages
| Stage | What it means |
|---|---|
| Foundation | Basic financial hygiene incomplete — emergency fund or insurance missing |
| Building | Investing regularly; corpus < 10% of FI target |
| Accumulation | Strong SIP discipline; corpus 10–40% of FI target |
| Momentum | Corpus 40–70% of FI target; compounding is clearly working |
| Pre-FI | Corpus 70–99% of FI target; FI is within sight |
| FI Achieved | Corpus ≥ FI target; passive income can cover expenses |
| Fat FIRE | Corpus ≥ 2× FI target; comfortable margin beyond basic FI |
Stage vs Score
Stage and Score measure slightly different things. Stage is primarily driven by FI Progress (corpus as % of target). Score also incorporates Compounding Quality and Resilience.
You can have a high score but be in Building stage — if you're young, investing well, and your corpus is small but growing fast. You can also be in Pre-FI stage but have a mid-range score if your portfolio is FD-heavy and your resilience is thin.
Pathfinder patterns
Within each stage, the platform matches you to one of seven FIRE path patterns (Lean FIRE, Barista FIRE, Coast FIRE, Regular FIRE, Fat FIRE, FI-then-entrepreneurship, Semi-retirement). These patterns appear in the FI Intelligence → Patterns tab.
Pattern matching uses your age, corpus, expenses, income, and asset allocation. The match algorithm scores each pattern and shows the top 3, with a "why this fits you" explanation.
Using stages in conversation
When you chat with the AI assistant, your FIRE stage is injected as context. The AI adjusts its advice accordingly — someone in Foundation stage gets different advice from someone in Pre-FI stage, even if they ask the same question.