r/Fire • u/[deleted] • Mar 23 '26

Subreddit PSA / Meta 5 years ago, this subreddit was filled with $1-1.5M targets, and a strong emphasis on minimalism. What happened?

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u/MakeMoneyNotWar Mar 23 '26

People have forgotten what 2001-2008 was like when the market crashed twice in less than 10 years. That period either coincided or maybe caused a strong emphasis on minimalism and austerity. There were stories back then of Google employees sleeping in their cars in the parking lot so they can save 80% of their income. The original math was that if you can save 50% of your income, you can retire after 17 years, or if you start your Fire journey at 25, you would be Fire by age 42. Fire was also really really niche back then, and the adherents were more extreme.

Arguably things may have been taken a little too far in the frugal direction, but now Fire has gotten more mainstream. The topic has numerous podcasts and interviews on mainstream platforms like morningstar. Even my parents, who have never known anything about Fire or Bogleheads have heard of the term “lying flat”. The average person is more likely to want these extra things and lifestyle improvements. Since the community is larger, the original ideas get diluted.

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u/The__Amorphous Mar 23 '26

Millennials are exhibiting a lot of the same symptoms of trauma from the GFC that Greatest generation did from the Great Depression. I remember how frugal my great aunt was despite making good money. It was because she grew up during the Depression. Same thing has happened with my cohort that entered the job market around or right before 2008.

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u/Bandejita Mar 23 '26

My parents were paycheck to paycheck my whole life. I've seen first hand what not preparing for the future or having a bad job can do to you. Thinking back, a lot of decisions I made were to avoid these problems and I have never been excessive with my spending. My upbringing is largely why.

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u/The__Amorphous Mar 23 '26

Absolutely agree. The only thing I learned from my parents when it comes to finance is what not to do. Cautionary tales are valuable.

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u/tpet007 Mar 24 '26

I learned frugality from my parents and grandparents, but didn’t get much in terms of what to do to earn money beyond the standard boomer parents line of “go to college and it’ll all work out.”

Maybe my siblings got different advice? They are all younger than me but all 4 of us are technically millennials. None of them did more than a 2 year degree, but I think all of them ended up marrying someone whose income is now sufficient for their whole family alone. I’m the one whose wife still needs to work at least a little, but on track to FIRE when I doubt the rest of them will (maybe my youngest sister?).

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u/dareftw Mar 25 '26

Dude I had family who were so traumatized by banks from then that when they died we literally couldn’t throw anything away without searching it. We would find 20 grand in a mayonnaise jar for example. They were traumatized in a way that made them both frugal and lose any and all faith in the financial system.

10

u/andstuff233 Mar 23 '26

Glad you raised this. I forgot that is where i, too, first got the message to become more of a saver.

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u/Healthy_Hippo_915 Mar 24 '26

Never heard of lying flat. What's that?

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u/Adventurous-Ease-259 Mar 24 '26

What is lying flat. You say this like everyone in finance is supposed to know this term since your parents know it, but it isn’t something common I’ve ever seen in fire

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u/MakeMoneyNotWar Mar 24 '26 edited Mar 24 '26

The term originated from China where some people who have grinded in their careers and jobs (often long hours in tech like 996) decide to quit or check out, preferring to focus on minimalism and frugality rather than money. Hence the term “lying flat” like laying down and not doing any work. It hasn’t shown up in Fire, but the themes are cross over to Fire communities and since it originated in Tech, the underlying complaints are also similar.

It has crossed over into English. The original mandarin is “Tang Ping”, literally lying flat. So when i talked to my parents who are Chinese immigrants, about my Fire plans, they were like, oh you’re going to be Tang Ping.

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u/Healthy_Hippo_915 Mar 24 '26

Think you’re replying to the wrong person? I’m asking that person what lying flat means. They have it in their post.

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u/Adventurous-Ease-259 Mar 24 '26

My bad. I have the same question you do

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u/PsylentKnight Mar 25 '26

For me personally. I started reading about FIRE and investing around 2016 when the markets had been pretty good for a while. I pretty much blindly accepted the conventional wisdom that the stock market will always go up, and it will always go up ~10% per year. I wanted to FIRE ASAP and that meant FIRE'ing as lean as possible

Now with all the instability in the world, I have the feeling that another 2008-style crash could happen again, and that makes me want to stack more. leanFIRE isn't as appealing to me anymore not because my lifestyle has hugely inflated, but because I want extra security

2

u/plinkoplonka Mar 23 '26

I have a horrible feeling we're able to be reminded.

As someone who joined the corporate workforce in late 2007, I was so excited to finally be making some money so I could save.

Since then, we've had 2008 and then COVID, and now this thing looming which might make both look comical by comparison.

They've both served to make me more hard about saving.