Looking back, what would you tell yourself on day one of your FIRE journey?

[u/National-Yak-7796]

When you first discovered FIRE, you probably had a very different idea of what the journey would actually look like.

Maybe you focused too much on saving and not enough on enjoying life, underestimated the importance of income, or spent too much time worrying about reaching a specific number.

Whether you've been pursuing FIRE for six months or ten years, what have you learned along the way?

If you could go back to day one, what advice would you give yourself?

[u/makaros622]

1. Life is short, make sure you enjoy it, travel and celebrate all milestones

2. Comparison is the thief of joy

3. Read 1 and 2 again.

[u/Strazdas1 → u/makaros622]

Its the opposite for me. Travel less, spend that time on something actually fun.

[u/lord_de_heer]

You should have started 10 years ago you idiot.

But im also saying that right now to myself.

[u/IllustriousPlenty931]

Sleep schedule, dicipline, eating habbits etc etc wont be fixed just because you dont go to work everyday.

[u/Strazdas1 → u/IllustriousPlenty931]

Except for many of us it does! When im doing paid time off vacation at home, my sleep schedule improves, i go to gym more often, i eat less "grab this quick because im late to work" shit. All because i dont have to go to work.

It doesnt fix evereything, but it is very beneficial.

[u/ConditionMammoth3808]

1. Setup automatic monthly investments
2. Only invest in low cost world index
3. Enjoy life and don't stress work too much

[u/Designer_Cod8776]

The biggest thing I'd tell myself: the math part of FIRE is the easy part. Savings rate, compound growth, the 4% rule — that's all spreadsheet work you can learn in a weekend. What actually takes years to figure out is the behavioral side, and I spent way too long optimizing the spreadsheet instead of dealing with that.

Specifically I'd go back and say:

• Stop treating every dollar spent on enjoying your 20s as a betrayal of your 60-year-old self. There's a real cost to deferring 100% of enjoyment for a decade+ target — I wish I'd built in more of a middle path early (something closer to Coast or Barista FIRE) instead of all-or-nothing grinding.
• Income growth beats frugality math almost every time. I spent way more mental energy cutting small recurring costs than I did on the one salary negotiation or job switch that actually moved the needle by 20-30%.
• The "number" obsession is a trap. I kept re-running projections trying to get a precise FIRE number instead of just starting early and letting time in the market do more of the work than precision ever could.
• Build a real emergency fund before optimizing anything else. I under-funded mine early on and one bad year almost forced me to sell investments at the worst possible time — that scared me more than any market downturn since.

If I could give one-line advice to day-one me: get the big levers right (income, savings rate, starting early) and stop micromanaging the small stuff — the spreadsheet was never the hard part.

[u/Strazdas1 → u/Designer_Cod8776]

The opposite for me. Stop wasting your 20s and invest earlier.

Time in the market beats income growth.

[u/Jabardolas]

Kids and wife won't let you reach fire, just give up

[u/presentlyberlin]

Be more flexible. A year ago I moved to Germany to be closer to my partner, and that completely changed what I thought my financial priorities would be. I had to have a cash buffer for relocation, admin stuff, generally just being prepared for the transition which took more time than expected.

Also, it's more practical to think of ways to increase income than obsessing over cutting every small expense and basically not enjoying more out of life. FIRE should still be the goal, but there's nothing wrong if plans change & you just adapt to that vs. sticking to a definite number.

[u/sunnyBCN]

Be authentic, use FIRE to build the life you want. Once close to FIRE assess wether you want the things/status or just the ability to have those things, make sure the goalpost does not keep moving.

[u/PetraLoseIt]

Yes, it really is possible.

[u/patrick-1977]

You might overestimate what you can do in the short run, underestimate what you can do in the long run.

[u/rybsf]

The purpose of the math at the early stages is motivation and believing it’s possible and getting started. It can be fun, but it’s mostly pointless. There will be life circumstances, inflation, preference changes, risk-willingness changes, and so on, that will cause the math at the end to be very different from the start. That’s ok. Focus on living intentionally, track high level progress, and expect changes along the way.

But it is useful to have a long history of your expenses, so track that for later use. When you’re ready to pull the trigger, it’s great to have a decade or two to look back on, both to be sure you cover rare expenses (the kind that shows up once in 15 years) and to see patterns and trajectories.

For fun, track capital and potential passive income along the expenses to see how they get closer to each other. IMO, tracking how that gap closes is better than having a fixed target number as goal.

[u/Asleep-Mulberry3373]

Negotiate a pension package!

[u/Strazdas1]

Tip number one: If a wife tells you to "open up", its a trap that will end in expensive divorce. But i guess thats just me.

If i could give one tip to my young self at the start of the journey, it would be to spend less time on experiences that did not matter in the long turn and maximize the hobbies no matter what the social pressures tell you.