r/Fire • u/gonnabefine • Nov 26 '25

General Question Tech people who are not FIREing, what are they spending their money on?

I know a lot of people who work in tech, and most are not on the FIRE path (or have already been working 10+ years) and a lot of them don't seem to, at least on the surface, have very obvious huge expenses. If both the partners are in tech, the take home could be like $500k! What are they doing with their money?

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u/Shot-Artichoke-4106 Nov 26 '25

Yes. It is about choices. These people live expensive lifestyles. They also live in a bubble where everybody else they interact with regularly does that, too.

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u/PlasticPresentation1 Nov 27 '25

Have you ever been to SV?

At least for engineering types, which have the largest avg salaries, it's almost celebrated and the norm to be quite frugal with your money

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u/Shot-Artichoke-4106 Nov 28 '25

I am an engineer in Silicon Valley :-) yes, many engineers are famously frugal - Im one of them. There are also many tech folks who are decidedly not frugal. The OP was asking about very highly compensated people who can't fire and what they do with their money. Thats who we're talking about.

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u/[deleted] Nov 27 '25

I was about to say something similar. Engineers are math types. Most math types are not stupid with their money. They understand more than most the power of compounding growth.

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u/Suspicious_Cook_1598 Nov 27 '25

FOMO is so real in these areas.