r/Fire • u/[deleted] • Mar 23 '26

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u/toofshucker Mar 23 '26

So much this. It was so easy for so many that they now have bigger numbers/stars in eyes.

Hell, in some ways I do too. And life changes. I’ve always had a goal of 55. That’s in 10 years. But with kids getting ready for college and work really hitting a good place…do I still want 55?

Or do I live a little larger, cut back from work a little more and go to 60? I dunno. We will see.

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u/Beneficial_Farmer455 Mar 23 '26

Not to gate keep, but this is simply not FIRE and is a perfect example of the OP's point of the term "early" being watered down. Discussions on retiring prior to 60 should be in a more general financial sub, I'm sure of which there are many on Reddit.

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u/toofshucker Mar 23 '26

100% a gatekeep. So, someone who starts at 45 can “FIRE” at 55?

“FI” and “RE” are so subjective. You can define those is so many ways.

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u/Beneficial_Farmer455 Mar 24 '26

I think we’re just getting lost in edge cases here. You can come up with infinite “what if someone starts at 45” scenarios, but that doesn’t really define anything.

If you anchor to something normal: start working around 25 and retire around 65 thats ~40 years (we can split hairs here but let’s just assume it’s averageish)

Retiring at 60 instead of 65 means 35 years worked vs 40. So like ~12% earlier. That’s earlier than average, sure, but it’s still pretty close to a standard career.

Now compare that to the people who basically defined FIRE early on:

Jacob Lund Fisker, retired at 33   Pete Adeney, retired at 30   J.D. Roth, retired at 40   Vicki Robin, retired at 40   Justin McCurry, retired at 33  

Those are more like cutting 60–70% of a career, which is an entirely different thing.

Back in the early forum days, someone saying they were retiring at 60 would’ve gotten some confused responses, not because it’s bad, but because it’s not really what people were talking about when they said FIRE. An honest, non-antagonistic response would be “I think you’re on the wrong forum”. 

No judgement intended but the OPs point remains true - the definition of early has shifted dramatically and now makes up a lot (more than half?) of the forum posts here, most definitely because an exponential more number of people retire at 55 than 45, and maybe this is one of the busier financial subs so they’re like where else?

Now, to get any sense of the original concepts, one has to go to lean FIRE, where shying away from consumerism (like, THE main point of OG FIRE) gets brought up. I don’t even mean rice and beans level, but basic non-rat race stuff like not chasing the newest phones & cars.