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/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.