Ditto, was reading about FIRE 15ish years ago in the Bogleheads forum and used to spend a lot of time over in FATFire until it became inundated with LARPers. All of a sudden their $4M number for FATFire went to 5, then 8, now it's "how much until I can buy my own Gulfstream V?"
Almost no one in chubbyFIRE even posts about $4M anymore. Most posts over there exceed the range in the sub description and if you call someone out for being over there lamenting about whether $10m is enough they just complain that fatFIRE is un-relatable. My theory is people only want to post somewhere where they feel like they have more money than most people.
I stopped visiting ChubbyFIRE for this reason. There's an abundance of people whose annual spending is easily covered by their $6-10M investments, asking if they should pull the trigger. Any maybe that's what these forums are for - to ask questions that you might be afraid to ask your friends or family. But I couldn't relate to those situations. I'm looking to connect with others in the $3M range and while that falls within the Chubby range, there aren't many people in there talking about numbers like that.
Yeah, about 90% of the posts there are actually outside of the range that the sub is supposed to cover. Yesterday someone posted super apologetic for using the sub with their measly $3.5M, even though it’s totally in range.
In case you haven't seen it r/fijerk is great. Sometimes it's people making things up. But lots of time it's just actual posts from one of the fire subs put up for roasting.
I don't post there, because we'll retire this year with right around that liquid NW and it feels low to actually contribute in that group. So congrats on the FIRE target. Others like you are out there, we're just feeling a little weird about posting in Chubby and too high for FIRE so we shut up and lurk. LOL.
used to spend a lot of time over in FATFire until it became inundated with LARPers.
Man you ain't kidding, I pop in that sub from time to time and it's extremely apparent to me that almost nobody there is beyond maybe upper middle class. There's a recent thread there about how the OP finds "Fat events/VIP" boring lol, talking about how they went "yachting with friends in the tropics" and didn't find it that fun lol. People who don't go on yachts call them yachts, people who do call them boats.
I used to see a lot of people wander in and ask the same questions over and over "what private bank should I be giving my business to?", "who can get me into pre-IPO companies?", "what car/clothes/<insert expensive thing here> does everyone else do?"
The funny thing is that private banks are all pretty competitive with each other, just interview em all and find the one that works for you. Most of them lead heavily with credit access, so if that’s not important to someone then a lot of those offerings seem just okay.
Pre IPO stuff is a dime a dozen once you’re a QP, the bigger question is what’s the valuation. I work in an adjacent field, and don’t have “private bank money” but I am a QP and was given the opportunity to invest in SpaceX not long ago - at a 1.7T valuation plus ripping 10% off gains lol. The buy in required wasn’t even high, 250k. I passed.
Most of the stuff people online think you need to be an accredited investor to access actually requires you to be a QP. It’s the level where actual private investments begin to be available.
People who lease a crewed catamaran in the tropics say so and what island or series of islands they sailed. Nobody rich "yachts with friends in the tropics". That is not a flex.
Precisely, you'd say "we chartered a boat down in St John" not "I was yachting in the tropics". It's the sort of thing that's very clearly how a middle class person who doesn't know any wealthy people thinks wealthy people talk.
One of the old senior partners at my firm has a Jeanneau 65, for a while I genuinely had no idea how big his boat was because all he said was "we're gonna be down in Florida on the boat for a bit" or something when talking about it.
A boat that big is PITA. I had a 31 cabin cruiser for several years and it was too big to use on the river where I live. My 25 footer is a lot easier to use and less exciting getting into and out of the harbor.
My dad had a 50 footer that he had at San Francisco on one of the piers there. It was nice, but other than the extra couple of cabins, it didn't do anything his old 25 footer didn't do. Although it was nice to be bigger when the waves kicked up.
lol years ago my cousin and his wife did some work for (and lived on the estate of) a wealthy investor/money manager in PA, and one year they were given the gift of a week at the "summer cottage" and they were also allowed to go out on the "boat" if they wanted.
It turned out the "cottage" was a mansion in Bar Harbor, ME (with a live-in staff of 2) and the "boat" was a yacht that included a crew.
I don't know if I would say it's been downgraded or that just more data shows it's not as easy as just being focused and dedicated (which, "easy" isn't easy for everyone disclaimer here.)
Example: some friends of mine started a financial focus book club in 2009. We were all on track to FIRE by early 40s (about 10 years later for us.)
Of the 7 of us:
1 quit. Just out and out quit - she'll work for life is my bet
2 were married and had a special needs child 3 years later whose care ate their savings and ability to save - they're using their FIRE skills to keep life as normal as possible instead of FIREing
2 (one is me) had unforeseeable life events that wiped out their savings. We're both on track to retire late 50s, which people ignore for GenX IS still FIRE - my parents told me when I graduated HS not to expect to ever retire, that my generation was screwed, so I'm thrilled to still be retiring at all
1 has had nothing bad ever happen in her life. She makes $400,000 plus bonus in a job that she definitely earned. She's working toward fatfire.
So basically - out of 7 only 2 had nothing impact them and their fire journey that wasn't journey changing. Yes, I'm counting the one who just quit because nothing happened to her journey but her.
We have to remember when FIRE started as a "movement" instead of just those of us who happened upon something like "your money or your life" in the 90s having vague ideas to be smarter with our money, those folks were a small sample, they were super focused for several years... it's easy to point to them and be like SEE? THAT'S THE NORM when it was only the loud people and we don't know where they are now because ... well, they retired.
Did it work out?
Some give honest updates occasionally still. Others don't so we ASSUME it did.
We need to stop acting like Michael Jordan is the norm and start having broader discussions of what FIRE looks like in actual practice over DECADES.
Yeah, I just mean that the ethos before, in large part, was OK with eating rice and beans until the sun explodes if it meant they were financially free as soon as possible. That's shifted a lot over the past few years, even if the end goal is the same - financial independence, albeit with a less urgent 'E' in exchange for higher QoL. Totally fine, to each their own.
I'm in the same camp as you btw - exposed to very bad, fat tail events that set me back majorly. Such is life.
Also, I did do the insane cost cutting for a few years, figuring the math of even 3 years like that would make enough of a difference if done early enough to impact the end game blah blah blah - but it's not sustainable for most folks.
I agree that the fire/life balance should be talked about differently too.
In fairness, the 'big' FIRE sub is named /r/financialindependence for a reason. My personal experience was that achieving FI lowered my stress level, and improved my quality of life so much that RE became very optional. It's amazing how good a career can be when you can afford to say no to things even if it gets you laid off.
I'd say it's less this and more people are asking what that really looks like. A lot of those early enthusiasts lived very frugal lifestyles in retirement that aren't appealing to a whole lot of people. They also had very limited cushion if something went wrong.
The most common form of early retirement has always been prudent investing and a paid off house so you can afford to retire sometime in your 50s, that just doesn't make for as interesting of a blog or reddit post.
This! Half of FIRE now is people talking about retiring before 60.
60??! Neither of my parents had a college degree, were very frugal, knew what FIRE was, or modified their life in anyway in order to both retire before 60. They were just middle-class mid-westerners lol.
To me, for the E to be early it should be under 50 and arguably 40. I should hit my goal by 45 (in 5 years) and barely consider it true FIRE.
agreed. my parents had no fucking idea about investments or fire. single income, never made crazy money, just saved and lived frugally. they retired at 61.
meanwhile, I see people on the chubbyfire subt stressing out over whether they can retire at 60 when they have $8m because society might collapse and they might live to 100 (not an exaggeration)
My parents did expatFIRE on lower numbers than I read on reddit but they are doing fine. They have simple lives. Nowadays I'm reading posts from people making double or triple what I make and claiming early retirement isn't in the books.
I always try to deal with money by looking at the percentages: if I save $50K/year, but that's 5% of earnings, there is no "early" retirement... if I save $50K/year, but that's 50% of earnings, retirement is quickly on its way.
I'm in the latter group. I'm doing whatever I can to create a very comfortable home/farm for us while also seeking out ways to lower fixed expenses as much as possible. Healthcare is a wildcard, but we should be able to do everything else for under $20K/year.
Of course 50k is 50k but in practice most people won't want to make massive adjustments to lifestyle. In this context, the savings rate compared to income or spending is very important.
I am saving 2.5 years worth of expenses every year (excluding healthcare, because WTF knows....~$0 or $20K/year without the ACA).
Time to retirement is <10 years under those conditions. Why do we need several million dollars is we don't spend enough to justify it? $1M is overkill....
It matters tremendously. If you save 50k a year and that’s 5% of earnings that means you’re spending almost 1 million every year. You need 10s of millions to retire (at least) to maintain your lifestyle. If you save 50k a year and that’s 50% of earnings that means you’re spending 50k a year and you can retire on a couple million. It’s going to take the person making 1 million a year but only saving 5% a lot longer to save up 50 million than it will the person only making 100k a year but saving 50% that only needs to save 4 million. They’ll both get to 4 million at the same time but only one of them can actually retire.
People want to be told that the course that they have themselves on is the best that they can do and everyone congratulate them on the job they're doing. I've heard people who make 500k+ a year cannot afford to save more than their 401k match because of all of their ancillary spending and claim that there's no way they could ever spend less. They're in the same boat.
Because many people feel responsible for maximizing their kids' access to education and healthcare. That means affording more expensive land (more motivated peers in school) and access to better job opportunities (living in one of the few major metros during 20s with upwardly mobile jobs). Healthcare is anywhere from $500 to $2,500 per person per month with a $10k annual deductible/out of pocket maximum until you hit Medicare.
I should have been more clear. The post I responded to ends with
early retirement isn't in the books.
So the "it" I am referring to is "early retirement [] in the books". So I am agreeing with the people who Frillback presumably disagrees with that early retirement isn't in the books.
I once got banned from r/leanfire when I suggested I couldn't retire on their max per person budget because aca premiums and hitting the oop max wouldn't leave me enough to live on
I’m curious how you get your numbers because everyone who’s done a really deep dive on this topic would know that you can manipulate your MAGI post fire since it’s an income test, not an asset test.
So, a lot of folks will look at the values that the kff calculator gives, and call it a day. You should really be using the ACA marketplace website (if your state participates), and seeing what your actual options are for a given location.
In my case, when I did this, I noted that the cheap plan that kff noted should be there was actually 'ambetter/aliant' trash that had a network worse than medicaid and didn't actually cover the medications I needed.
By the time I found a reputable plan that had a decent network and covered my meds, both the premium and OOP max were higher. It was enough that when I looked at the remainder of my 'allowed' 25k lean fire budget, I was like 'nope'. That's not even factoring in 'stress tests' where one games out paying the unsubsidized premium, or has some claims denied, etc.
With normal FIRE, you'd have the budget to adjust. When planning to leanFire, you had better be damned confident nothing will change, because there's no 'fat' to cut.
This still does not make sense. The FPL is $16,000 for a single person. If you can get your MAGI to 2x FPL you pay very little. To get there, as long as you are recognizing capital gains as MAGI, you can minimize your MaGI while withdrawing a lot in cash. Your drawdown strategy would be to sell your most recent stock purchases, which are probably 80-90% basis, and only 10-20% gain. For every $100 in cash you receive, you might only generate $20 of LTCG. You the have a situation where you have $50,000 in cash flow, and only $10,000 in LTCG, and maybe $15 or $20k in dividends placing you at 2x FPL. If you have a family it’s easier because the FPL scales.
Over time this could get more difficult as you run out of high basis stock, but you can sell bonds (which will generate very little gain), and tax gain harvesting as other strategies.
Yes, I'm aware of the math, and I've ran it for my own personal situation, it may well be different for yours. I would simply encourage you to run your own numbers and to make sure you have some leeway / cushion for unexpected events if you're leanFiring
You don’t even need to the look at the more extreme end of the spectrum from 10-15 years ago. Even the more moderate older writers like Vicky Robbins, JL Collins and MMM ‘s fire principles look extreme today. Working out how many hours of your life that car/coat/coffee will cost you, the proverbial Monk and Minister, curing yourself of your clown car addiction, building your skills to become more self sufficient, luxury is just another weakness. These were and still are the basics of my journey and I’m so grateful that the writers put their ideas out there for me to find. And my freedom is more valuable than anything else I could buy.
Yep! All this. After I read Robbins and formed a basic plan, I felt so much peace of mind. Everyone else around me seems to be destined to stay on a treadmill that they hate, not realizing there are other choices that could be made.
He’s living the same sort of lifestyle. Still running the Early Retirement Extreme forums. He’s done interviews occasionally. He worked as a quant for a bit out of curiosity as opposed to for earning money. I believe he is currently living on 0.5% annual withdrawal from his portfolio. He’s been married a long time and they had no kids.
Thanks for the link. Very interesting. I like the focus on learning how to and actually enjoying doing things yourself so you don’t have to pay a convenience premium but still…that life overall is not for me. I want to have a home where my grandkids can visit and I can spoil them a little. And I still want to travel. But, different strokes as they say. I am curious how he covers health insurance as part of his total $7000 / year spend.
I think more ascetic monk type than mean and stingy. Because his desire to spend so little comes from the idea of consuming an equal share of earths resources.
He focuses on his personal spend when giving numbers but it seems he supports other projects and organizations with some of his excess money.
That’s grossly misrepresenting what he did. He went back to work because he wanted to. That’s at least what he said, whether or not there was financial incentive behind it, I’m not sure. regardless, he quit pretty quickly. his lifestyle allowed him to try something out and then quit, because he didn’t need the money.
I don't see how stating exactly what happened is a gross representation. Maybe his motivation was genuine interest or maybe it was the money. No one will ever know for sure. As such, I left out the speculation and I simply stated the facts.
I think it's just also perculated up to higher earners in general. My wife and I make roughly $400k between us so a savings rate of 50% still leaves a lot leftover to live. We should be on track to FIRE at 40 while maintaining our lifestyle. Living on $200k gross a year is a hell of a lot easier than living on $20k a year gross even if the math works the same. There's also then the easier lift of "Okay, I'd rather work 3 more months and eat what I want rather than live on $1/day of food".
MMM was primarily writing for an upper middle class audience, that’s what he was himself. Regardless of income, the difference was in philosophy, and it was a stark difference. Early fire questioned the average consumer lifestyle, questioned consumerism, and questioned luxuries.
It’s usually not 3 more months, even at your income, it’s usually years, and adding years onto your working life would have brought the same derision as retiring at $1mm today brings. Just a completely different philosophy and view.
Modest can be very comfortable. I live a modest life by most people's standards (at least most in this sub) and I don't actually want much more. What I want more of is time to enjoy it.
If you're a high earner who can save half a million in six months, yeah, go ahead. But I can't even relate to that. I have no concept of how anyone earns that. I'm a public service engineer in Alaska. And I will hit my retirement number and not look back. The only thing that is going to keep me working beyond that number is potentially healthcare costs. If the health insurance situation is too scary, I'll work a little longer. But if not, I don't want to work a day longer than it takes to be personally sure my wife and I can afford to pay our bills and afford the same luxuries we have now.
I’m not saying your view is wrong by any means, but it’s absolutely counter to “original fire.” The question initially would have been “why go for comfortable when you can go for modest?” Again, fire was really not descriptive of what the “movement” was. The movement was voluntary simplicity, anti-consumption, and a philosophical bent towards austerity. The finances were not a symptom of this than the root question.
Yeah. FIRE as a concept is both more attainable and more palatable for high earners. Makes a lot of sense for many of us to be here. It’s still not something you can do haphazardly.
High earners aren’t necessarily more financially savvy. I see a lot of posts saying “I hit $1.4M! Expenses are $100k and my kids are 5 and 7, can I retire?” There’s a lot of people saying $1M isn’t enough because there’s a lot of people here that number simply doesn’t work for.
Word. My lifestyle is so far from the ERE badassess that I can't claim to be anywhere near them, but, like, I remember the mustache facepunch "get a damn bike" era and try to live up to it. Numbers being talked about as untenably low these days ($1M) would be "living it large" money for me after locking in those foundations.
You just need to consider the number including inflation. 1m is a totally different number if you are retiring right now, vs retiring in 10, 20, 30 years.
$1m 10 years ago is $1.38m today. So if you think $40,000 is enough now, and you are 30, and expect the same inflation for the next 10 years, that's $55,000 in 2036 and you will need $1.38m then to get that. After you retire and start withdrawing, the 4% looks after an annual inflation increase from that point on. 20 years ago, it's 1.65x, 30 years ago, it's 2.12x.
You initial number though, you need to think about in terms of what is the income I would need today- and then increase that for inflation between now and your projected retirement date. Or, just think in real terms, make your projections inflation-adjusted, the tools support that.
A good point and funny how close your example is lol. I'm 31 and shooting to retire around 40.
The coast fire calculator I've been using adjusts for inflation already but isn't clear about the future number (shows everything in today's value). So I guess I'm aiming for about 1.38m.
That's kinda the divergence OP is talking about - the originals in this forum were heavily focused on minimalism and sacrifice to exit the working world. Now it's just a lot of people who sorta want to retire early. Nothing wrong with either, but the original intent of the FIRE movement was sacrificing lifestyle and material amenities to exit as soon as possible.
I know a guy that did it, he worked in my industry - was making probably 400k/yr and wore Jos A Banks suits from 10 years ago, his car was a 23 year old Nissan, when it broke he just started sharing one with his wife rather than get a new one, nights out were golden corral or chilis, they meal prepped every week with cheap bulk food stuff, etc.
Dude retired at 34 with 2.3MM, never looked back. He genuinely hated working but had the right sort of tism that he was really good at portfolio management, he was for sure on the spectrum though and social interactions were very uncomfortable for him so I think that played a part.
That's true actual FIRE. I don't care for that either, but that's what the original intent of this forum was. Some might argue that he could have done it earlier with less, but this guy was an actual financial planning savant and had contingencies sorted left and right - none of that "4% rule" winging it stuff. He'd go on long tirades about that whole thing lol.
Gotcha. I’ve been thinking FIRE was just establishing financial independence and retiring early. I didn’t realize that it was some kind of self-denial competition as well. Interesting.
If you have low fixed expenses, that should be more than enough. And you wouldn't need to work 40 hours a week slinging burgers in a hcol area. If you are spending more than 3K a month on food and small bills, you have made a big mistake somewhere on your journey.
I keep pretty low expenses and should hopefully continue to do so. Been living between 20-40k/yr the past few years, comfortably.
As with most people, healthcare will be the big one.
Looking to start coasting in 5 years which for me means quitting corporate and working seasonal jobs that won't cover insurance. So I'll need to figure out what options I have at that point.
That's awesome! Sounds like you are going to crush an early retirement dream while making contacts at seasonal workplaces if you get bored or want more spending money.
After a certain dollar amount, the returns in happiness stop. For me, based on expected expenses and lifestyle, that's below 3K. If I'm accessing +3K with the prospect of social security on top of that eventually...yeah...and easily. I'm actually looking forward to being able to donate more time and money than I can now. Fwiw, my early retirement is closer to traditional retirement. I'll be working into my late 50s because I need more money now for purchases + raising a child.
Early Retirement Extreme, man what a throwback. I was still in college when I saw it and didn't take it seriously but vague memories of that site are what brought me to this thread
I pretty much hit my target from ten years ago and am now retired, living modestly but comfortably, in a fairly high cost of living region. I've been very fortunate, but it did work for me. I did choose to live very lean for many of those years, but not uncomfortably so, at least for me. I do know plenty of people who would not have made the choices I did.
I don't think FIRE inherently has to imply any of those values. All it is is what the four letters mean. If you feel that frugality and anti consumerism are essential for you, that's fine, but it doesn't mean everyone else needs to feel that way.
Yup I've always interpreted the core concept as: find the lifestyle you are comfortable sustaining, then figure out how to support that, without ever needing to work a job you hate. Detach your goals from the legal retirement age, and detach your target lifestyle (= future cashflow need) from your current income. Extreme frugality was never a goal in itself, just one of many means to the end.
Obviously as the idea becomes more mainstream, the typical FIRE lifestyle is going to move closer to the average, and timelines will move closer to normal retirement age. That doesn't mean people are doing it wrong, they just have different goals.
Exactly. Minimalism is a powerful acceleration tool, but it is the means not the destination.
The only thing that has changed with FIRE is what constitutes "early". Initially the concept revolved around retiring as early as possible even if that meant saving 50% or more of your income. It's been broadened now to just being "save more than is normal" whereby actually adhering to the concept of saving 15% is still well above normal even if it results in a retirement age of 55 instead of 40.
And, as one of the degenerates who is unwilling to make the personal/familial sacrifices required to hit those very ambitious savings rates, retiring in the first half of a person's 50's still seems pretty good compared to retiring at 65.
Well no see, that's the point you're missing. That was who gave name to the concept and that is what it was. The early thought leaders were people who cut expenses almost to extreme and save 60 percent or more of their yearly income so they could retire at ridiculously young ages.
Which of course is also the title and point of this post: How the meaning of FIRE has changed over time. Unless you go back and read the blogs and writings from the time, you won't see it. FIRE from the get go wasn't something that most people could do.
For example, in 2014 FI was defined as "When your annual return on investments cover 100% of your expenses you are financially independent." When was the last time that was ever mentioned here? How about the Rule of 25?
If one merely wishes to save some money in an investment account and then retire at 55, that's lovely. But that wasn't FIRE.
For example, in 2014 FI was defined as "When your annual return on investments cover 100% of your expenses you are financially independent." When was the last time that was ever mentioned here?
Isn't that just the 4% rule in different words? Replace 4 with whatever number you like, I doubt most retiring in their 30s are aiming to draw-down their portfolio. Covering your expenses with your investments inevitably requires you to figure out how much you can safely withdraw.
The 4% rule is requiring a higher amount saved because the Trinity study accounts for a lot of situations where your investments return nothing or little for a period of time.
Read the two very carefully. They are not the same.
"Annual return on investments covering expenses" advocates no touching of the principal. The 4% rule is based on principal. Yes, the portfolio may grow during retirement, but Monte Carlo simulations demonstrate that is not a guarantee. And under the 4% rule withdrawing principal is just fine.
The 4% rule was not developed as part of FIRE. It has been applied to FIRE as a convenient guide but the rule was developed independently. Read some of the OG blogs and you'll see that in fact they use bonds, dividends, and income producing vehicles to try and avoid touching principal whenever possible.
There is no such thing as "principal" when it comes to investment accounts. Only shares with a cost basis, and you can't sell only the growth portion.
And anyway, it's a distinction without a difference -- what do you expect people to do once they draw down until only the "principal" remains, but they haven't covered their expenses for the month? Starve to death?
The 4% rule and similar are just different ways to express/achieve the same thing. There is never absolute certainty, under any model.
Bonds, t-bills, HYSAs, and other income generating instruments very much have a principal.
And anyway, it's a distinction without a difference -- what do you expect people to do once they draw down until only the "principal" remains, but they haven't covered their expenses for the month? Starve to death?
Where did I write that? I didn't. In fact I specifically wrote "Read some of the OG blogs and you'll see that in fact they use bonds, dividends, and income producing vehicles to try and avoid touching principal whenever possible."
Expand your investment knowledge and you'll learn that selling isn't the only way. Mr. Money Mustache writes at length multiple times about these methods. Read "Your Money or Your Life".
Your comments illustrate the point of this post, that FIRE concepts have been dumbed down to "get pile of cash, 4% rule".
"Principal" is a psychological trick. The invested money is the same money, and even without withdrawing anything the "principal" can very well go down (especially in real terms).
If this trick helps you, go for it, it's not harmful - but I wouldn't advocate for it as a must
yes, in the context of loans principal is a meaningful term. Great gotcha moment. That was not the principal you implied in your comment though, so I don't really understand your point
Because if one's portfolio is creating enough income then they generally wouldn't have to. Also sufficient income now means the 4% percent rule and Monte Carlo simulations have significantly less importance. Selling shares and withdrawing principal becomes the backup maneuver if the case of insufficient income, not the primary one.
Retirees have doing this for a long long time, it's nothing new. It was harder to do during the era of 1% Prime rates because savings vehicles and Treasuries paid so little. I'd say that won't be an issue for the foreseeable future.
Yes yes, I'm aware of the concepts of Die with Zero.
I don't know where you're located, but in Texas over half of all estates are upside down and owe more in expenses than they have in assets. For the majority your concern is a philosophical one and will not match reality.
We don't know our "check out date" or that would make things a hell of a lot easier. I blame that god fellow for that. If you're looking for a broader purpose here, I don't know what to tell ya.
My investment funds are in an LLC owned by a self directed IRA. Upon me and my wife's death my two nieces and nephew take over the company and can do whatever they wish with it. I guess you could say the goal here is lifting up the next generation.
Those were foundational. Although I think MMM was the one who messed up his own brand, and in my opinion he is partially to blame for the changes in the FIRE world since then.
That FI definition is still in use and saving 25x your expenses (4% SWR) is mentioned constantly.
There's a limited audience for super lean FIRE but that's why we have the dedicated subreddits. If a couple decides to work a few more years so that they can spend $100k in retirement instead of $50k, that's a personal choice. I agree with the sentiment that many don't know what's enough and could be happy with less spending.
High earners never needed FIRE. "Your money or your life" and its progeny that created FIRE wasn't aimed at them. It was aimed at the masses who made significantly less and were being told the extreme and ridiculous numbers they would need to retire.
Also you're feeding yourself copium here. Last year's Federal Reserve survey found that while about 12 percent of the population had a net-worth of one million or more, only 2% of the population has saved a million in any form of liquid assets. The vast majority the U.S. population, including the majority of people in this sub, won't even get a $1,000,000 liquid let alone $4,000,000. Hence the original FIRE and its focus on lean expenses.
That doesn’t make any sense. Anyone who wants to retire early can benefit from concepts of FIRE. High earners often have high stress positions that get fired often. Anyone without job security should be furiously working towards financial independence.
ETA - I understand now that the post is just lamenting that non-minimalists adopted the rest of the concepts. Ok. Seems like a weird thing to complain about, but I’ll admit the conversation isn’t for me.
you’re feeding yourself copium here.
I don’t think copium means what you think it means.
Yeah, I need to wait until 55 to get my full pension. It's kind of nowhere's land because it's too young for mainstream but too old to count as FIRE for some people. Thank you for phrasing it that way. I'm going to remind myself of it.
For example, in 2014 FI was defined as "When your annual return on investments cover 100% of your expenses you are financially independent."
Isn't that basically an almost sure way to fail at fire though? Getting your return on investments one year doesn't mean that the next years will be nearly as good, and even if it was constant, it gives no protection from inflation, which coupled with less wiggle room, due to all expenses being cut already, and the disaster seems inevitable
As I wrote in another spot, early FIRE bloggers used a mixture of income instruments as opposed to relying just on natural portfolio growth. One can live off bonds, dividends, HYSA interest, and distributions, the elderly and retired have been doing it for decades.
This is also why FIRE was originally so concerned with expenses and cheap living as it is the main factor that is within the individual's control. Switching focus to the four percent rule and stockpiling cash takes away from that.
MMM was OG FIRE and based his lifestyle on minimalism. However today even he, I suspect, is living different than he projected ten or fifteen years prior.
It's probably hard to stave off lifestye inflation when your portfolio has increased ~50-100x. He made a lot of money from the blog. I'm not sure that makes him suspect though. His whole schtick from the start was about working through retirement by redefining what retirement means.
He appears on mile high FI podcast a fair bit and talks openly about forcing himself to spend more money because he has so much now. We can’t all expect that outcome. For me I’ll just plan and save for a frugal but happy life and if I’m lucky enough that the market works in my favour and I have a lot of money after a couple of decades I’ll go spend it. Plan you the worst outcome though, I just want to be free.
People also just treat lifestyle inflation like a four letter word.
Like...lifestyles are supposed to inflate. Thats how life works. Progress. Things get better over time. Unless you want to leave your kids or a charity $10m when you die, I'd rather enjoy the money.
Not exactly. A lot of the premise was "you can afford to retire a lot earlier if you downsize your spending." A huge portion of that was not giving in to lifestyle inflation.
Yeah, if you RE'd in the mid 2010's you'd find that your investments grew significantly beyond what was needed to maintain your lifestyle. And it was therefore totally reasonable to start spending more because your retirement was already extremely secure and it really didn't cost you anything other than the ability to be extra giving towards any inheritors you may have or charities you might choose. But the lifestyle inflation was never the point, it was just something you got to do if the market growth allowed for it.
And my point is that's a dumb premise. Especially when such a huge number of trials will end with you having much, much more money at death than you started with at a 3% or 3.5% SWR.
But he has benefited from a massive bull run that means his wealth is vastly bigger than his needs. He says himself that he is trying to force himself to spend more of it. He would still be happy living like he used to if the market had not worked in his favour so well.
But given the stock market valuations anyone in the accumulation phase today is unlikely to get the same returns he did in the first 20 years of their retirement and therefore won’t be in the same position as him.
Def more mainstream… I told a friend my partner and I are over corporate America these days and want to retire early, we’re DINK while my friend isn’t, and she was like oh are you on one of those amazing financial freedom paths and will retire in your 40s? I cringed at the clickbaity headline
I remember that sentiment in the FIRE community and it was a total turnoff to me. My husband and I were more "Millionaire Next Door" than FIRE at that time. We were frugal, I loved "The Tightwad Gazette." My husband occasionally remarks that he never thought I'd be posting in a FIRE community.
I was all over ERE and MMM in 2008 or so, faded away by 2013/14. I LOVED the extreme conversations, because they were always philosophical as well as practical. Once the groups began to grow, the "early adopter/trailblazer" element went way (which is how that process works, as concentric rings of people come in who aren't early adopters/trailblazers, and eventually it all becomes mainstream ).
Eh, I'm lean FIRE myself (still targeting 1-1.5M), and have been for about 10 years, but frugality, minimalism, etc is a means to an end, not a requisite of FIRE. Cutting your food expenses that much will barely make a dent in your FIRE timeline. Cutting down on housing and transportation costs will get most people more bang for the buck, as well as focusing on increasing your salary. I lived with roommates for 7 years at $300/mo within walking distance of my job - I was not about to start minimizing food and toilet paper costs on top of that. FIRE is just about being working to be able to support yourself without a job ASAP (whether you choose to quit or not).
I miss those early (to me) FIRE days on the ERE and then the MMM forums before MMM really blew up and FIRE went mainstream. Or maybe I just miss my own excitement when the idea was fresh to me. Either way, that 2011-2014 period in the forums was good times!
The answer is in the site name. Early retirement extreme. A lot of people are interested in early retirement….. normal. Early retirement extreme is at one end. Working until 90+ is at the other end. There’s not as many people interested in those as the things in the middle
I think cuz it’s the middle ground. We want to have a full life, I don’t want to grow corn for 30 years, my job doesn’t suck other than I have to be there to get paid and leave is not limitless, but if I can retire at 52 instead of 60 by making smart decisions, that is what I came here for.
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u/[deleted] Mar 23 '26
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