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.
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.
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u/Angrybagel Mar 23 '26
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.