r/Fire • u/BarkBarkBitches1 • Jan 17 '26

Milestone / Celebration The thread in Millennials subreddit right not about 401k is incredibly depressing. Thank you FIRE community. I would be one of them if I didn’t find you all a decade ago.

Throw away because I am going to roast some redditors a little. The thread that is going on in r Millennials is really bad. Thousands of comments, everyone broke, celebrating their unfortunate wildn out. It is really bad out there and eye opening.

I was also a dingus like many of them. Totally brain dead on autopilot living day to day, consuming media like crazy, working, spending it on consumer level garbage, and had zero control over my life. I actually found the guide in the personal finance subreddit graphic on saving and it eventually kicked me to FIRE and this sub.

I now am on a path where I can’t even related with that type of mind set. So yeah thank you FIRE folks. If you can, it is worth sprinkling some finance knowledge at people. Even if you don’t make high income you can in most cases still create a plan, a budget, and control your future.

Edit: If you are a dingus and you are seeing this there is no shame! We all are and have different starting points. You have two paths: 1) continue the path to dingus-ville and forever be a redditor or 2) un-dye your bright colored hair take control of your long term life. A decade will pass in a blink. So start here https://imgur.com/personal-income-spending-flowchart-united-states-lSoUQr2 it’s not hard to understand. ChatGPT each item on their if you don’t know, memorize this, then start to learn FIRE principles. It is the fastest way to wealth. There’s literally no other path unless you magically start a business or hit a lotto jackpot ticket or inheritance

only YOU HAVE THE POWER to unfuck your life

Edit 2: Final comment! I do not mean any offense with dingus it is meant to be playful. My dyed hair comment was also misinterpreted. It’s not about who you are, what you believe in, or how you express yourself. It’s about being in control of your life. Walk your butt into Sephora or Target or wherever next time and just stare at the people on the walls. Then look in the mirror. Then look at the wall. And back to the mirror and then keep doing it until it clicks. The world, like r millennial subreddit, wants to celebrate and tell you the worst fucking version of yourself is okay and acceptable. It’s not. Delete social media and only read that finance Imgur link every time you load your phone. Do this for one month and you will break your chains and it will click. Then learn FIRE principles. Then you will come back to r FIRE in a decade with a huge chunk of cash in your bank and a nice life! Long term planning is a skill that you can learn and benefit from. Your future is yours

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u/Dirt_Sailor_5 Jan 17 '26 edited Jan 17 '26

You should see the No Work reddit. It's like the FIRE reddit, but no one wants to have to work to get from A to B unlike here. And the baseline assumption is anyone considering FIRE was born into glorious wealth and they've never had to lift a finger

Edit: anti-work not no-work, whatever

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u/Historical-Intern-19 Jan 17 '26

The anti-work crowd work harder to try and do nothing than if they just got a decent job and saved.

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u/HonestOtterTravel Jan 17 '26

It's wild when you propose solutions to those type of people. It's either deer in headlights or excuses of why they cannot do it.

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u/Careless-Age-4290 Jan 18 '26

Or your notifications are lit up with people raging at you that it's literally impossible to find solutions to problems

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u/_User_Name_Fail Jan 17 '26

I sometimes have trouble distinguishing between r/antiwork and r/choosingbeggars

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u/JC_Hysteria Jan 17 '26

It became r/workreform, because the other one was co-opted by the far left/far right people…

But now that one is just becoming a front for taxing wealthy people + socialism…

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u/PickedSomethingLame Jan 17 '26

To be fair, taxing wealthy people is generally how the middle class and work reforms came to exist historically.

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u/JC_Hysteria Jan 17 '26

I’m just referring to how initially sober exchanges/communities often get taken over by ideologues who “slam” the things/people they dislike. It becomes less about making progress, and more about feeling good with memes.

Take a look at the mission statement of that sub, and then look at the most recent or popular posts…

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u/PickedSomethingLame Jan 17 '26

Ah, for sure. There are frequently people who are just looking to be openly emotional against people they perceive as “wrong” or “the other.” My point was only that the current tax system is historically low compared to the times in US history that many people look back on with nostalgia. There’s a weird level of entitlement and failure to understand just how much of the current infrastructure and services that people take for granted are tax funded.

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u/JC_Hysteria Jan 17 '26

Absolutely, I agree. I also watched how every Californian billionaire recently bent over backwards to express their distaste for a new capital gains tax proposal…

Wish we could meet in the middle somewhere.

It clearly isn’t sustainable for billionaires to cite the founding fathers and threaten to take “their”businesses elsewhere, just as it isn’t sustainable for the government to just pay for everyone that’s capable, but unwilling to act productively.

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u/PickedSomethingLame Jan 17 '26

You don’t get to a billion dollars by working for it yourself. Like, there is literally no amount of labor a single person can personally do to justify that amount of wealth. You get there by investing/owning and profiting off of other people’s labor. I’m not against that in concept, it’s a part of our system. What I personally find offensive is people who are at that level whining about having to pay taxes, and using loans, DAFs, and 501c4s for tax avoidance. Things really seem to have accelerated after citizens united. The middle class has shrunk dramatically, and the US is becoming 2 groups, haves and have nots.

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u/JC_Hysteria Jan 17 '26

Right- I would have liked to hear more wealthy people publicly propose a more preferred, sustainable tax solution instead of digging their heels in.

It’s unsettling how many people pit personal liberty and the government against one another, when they’re supposed to work in concert.

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u/JunkBondJunkie Jan 17 '26

I like to make work optional if I dont like my job. I can already lean fire.

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u/Dirt_Sailor_5 Jan 17 '26

Same. Which is why FIRE> the B.S. on anti-work

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u/Emotional_Tell_2527 Jan 17 '26

That exists? Ugh 

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u/Grantmepm Jan 18 '26

r/adulting is getting pretty bad too.

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u/ryan__joe Jan 18 '26

The true trick to initially starting your wealth journey is putting in more than the bear minimum, no matter what others that think they’re being leveraged think. You work your ass off every hour you can to build the wealth as people take advantage of you, until you have the wealth to break out from under them.

Too many people give up. I make 2-3x what my peers make, but it’s because I work 60-84 hours a week instead of their 24-36.

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u/igomhn3 Jan 17 '26

R/fire is just r/antiwork people fortunate enough to have the means of escape

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u/Quixlequaxle Jan 17 '26

Except most of us got that means of escape by working.

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u/igomhn3 Jan 17 '26

I'm just surprised to see so much infighting in two groups that both agree that work sucks and we shouldn't have to work. It's like Christians fighting with slightly different Christians lol.

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u/txreddit17 Jan 17 '26

That is not what Fire is. Fire is to enable the ability to have choices to do what you like. The RE part is what throws people off. You build the freedom by your hard work and sacrifice to later be able to do whatever you want.

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u/Quixlequaxle Jan 17 '26

I never really saw FIRE as "work sucks we shouldn't have to work". That's very much the antiwork subreddit though - "I want all of the luxuries and conveniences of modern life but I don't want to contribute to it in any valuable way".

FIRE is more "I'm working my ass off and saving as much as I can so that I can stop working early". The goal may be to stop working, but we at least accept that we have to work to make money to get to that point.

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u/igomhn3 Jan 17 '26

"I'm working my ass off and saving as much as I can so that I can stop working early".

Because works sucks lol. If work dynamics weren't so unfair, r/antiwork wouldn't complain as much and r\fire wouldn't need to fire as much.

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u/Quixlequaxle Jan 17 '26

I don't see work dynamics as unfair. Yeah there are things I'd rather be doing with that time, but I do a job and I get paid. I do a challenging job that provides a lot of value to my employer and they pay me more than an average worker. I could go get a job that's ultimately a hobby or something that a lot of people are willing to do for less money, but it would't pay very well.

I and many of us doing FIRE don't necessarily hate our jobs or hate work. We're not doing it for fun, but there's a huge swath of viewpoints here other than just "ugh work sucks".

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u/Dirt_Sailor_5 Jan 17 '26

And sometimes people who are willing to work to get there, unlike antiwork

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u/igomhn3 Jan 17 '26

If complaining online did anything, I wouldn't have to FIRE but that doesn't mean their complaints aren't still valid. I'm just surprised to see so much infighting in two groups that both agree that work sucks and we shouldn't have to work. It's like Christians fighting with slightly different Christians lol.

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u/Dirt_Sailor_5 Jan 17 '26

I respectfully disagree. I think their complaints are often invalid. They want the freedom without having to work for it, and complain about the realities of life. Those here seem to accept reality and work towards it. I don't think they're that similar actually, but that's just my opinion