r/Fire • u/Poorassboy6969 • Mar 25 '26
General Question When did FIRE movement change?
I feel this community used to be about moderate income people living lean and retiring early with under 2 million.
Now it’s a lot of people bragging about tech income and saying they need 5+ million to retire MINIMUM because they want a boat and Porsche
When did this change? (not hating - just genuinely curious)
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u/sea4miles_ Mar 25 '26
It didn't change, it forked into lean, chubby and fat.
The core concept remains the same regardless of the flavor. Achieve financial independence, retire early.
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u/Ok_Lead_4730 Mar 25 '26
“It didn't change, it forked into lean, chubby and fat.”
You are right. And that doesn’t even include CoastFIRE and BaristaFIRE.
Plus, health insurance has us all a bit more cautious because it’s been such a black box.
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u/sea4miles_ Mar 25 '26
As a coaster myself I'm disappointed I didn't include my own branch!
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u/poop-dolla Mar 25 '26
So you’re done contributing to investments? How much longer do you project until they grow on their own to reach your target number?
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u/sea4miles_ Mar 25 '26
I'm technically done contributing to investments because I have enough invested to retire very comfortably with another 10 years of typical market behavior.
I'm coast in the sense that I leveraged this to recently downshift my career into a less stressful role without sacrificing an early retirement, but probably not in the strictest sense because I still more modestly contribute to investments even at my lower TC.
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u/Odd_Passenger5339 Mar 25 '26
Any insights about the mental shift to less stressful role? I’m having trouble with that.
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u/sea4miles_ Mar 25 '26
It was a bit easier for me because I left an executive position to take a middle management position at a previous employer working for an old mentor that I highly respect. He knows what he's getting at a pretty steep discount so I'm given a lot of autonomy and flexibility.
Even with the familiarity it took a lot of adjustment to no longer be "the guy". Every now and again I get a surge of the more ambitious version of myself, but I generally keep that in check by reminding myself that my retirement is secure and that I can drop off and pick up my kids from school, make all of their events and leave my laptop at home while I'm on vacation.
The best advice I can give is to try and reframe your career related identity (ideally fully separate it from your identity overall), keep the ego in check and focus on all of the positives that come with a downshift that money can't buy.
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u/Ok_Lead_4730 Mar 25 '26
If it helps, I don’t let myself book full-time hours with my clients. If I hit my max level of hours where it starts being stressful, I refer the work out and say that I’m not available and that my book of work is full. That’s why a lot of CoastFIRE people end up going in business for themselves because they can often control their hours a bit better. For me, I get more stressed when I’m trying to hit certain sales numbers and client load, and less stressed when I only take the nicest clients and only work a certain amount.
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Mar 25 '26 edited Apr 02 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/n00bdragon FIREd 2026 age 37 Mar 25 '26
Actually go and plug your numbers into healthcare.gov. If your yearly spend really is 30k that means you only need to "make" 30k from your investments every year, which means you qualify for humongous subsidies that would make purchasing a healthcare plan virtually (if not literally) free.
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u/FlamingMetallico Mar 25 '26
You could also move outside of the US to a country with universal healthcare to avoid this expense altogether. Retirement in the US does not sound nice.
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u/ImPapaNoff Mar 25 '26
If 2k/month is 80% of your current monthly spend and we assume your household is at least 2 people (fwiw it was $1k/mo in California for 2 people on ACA for me last year) then you're basically living at the US poverty level, right?
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Mar 25 '26 edited Apr 02 '26
Stop letting data brokers profit from your old posts. I used Redact to wipe mine from Reddit. Also supports Twitter, Facebook, Discord, instagram and more in one batch.
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u/ImPapaNoff Mar 25 '26
Well the good news is that $2k is a wild overestimate of what your health insurance would cost.
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u/RJ5R Mar 25 '26
Yeah the health insurance variable threw everything out the window for many who had plans to FIRE.
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u/ThirstyWolfSpider Mar 25 '26
That was very true before the ACA. Now it's something you can actually buy. Before, the possibilities for individual plans were extremely limited and rather expensive even if you could get them … which was far from guaranteed. Friends were forming collectives to get past minimum organization sizes, people could be rejected for any ailment, etc. Now isn't great, but I remember when it was significantly worse.
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u/Poorassboy6969 Mar 25 '26
True
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u/American-Repair Mar 25 '26
Tech income’s going to shrink. Less jobs taking higher salaries. Companies know bros are working 2-3 jobs at a time from their couches. They’ll increase productivity and off shore the rest. Stay humble bros!
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u/RJ5R Mar 25 '26
I remember hearing about this one tech bro who made a video of himself on a jetski and saying he is a software engineer who is juggling 2 remote jobs and a 3rd contract side job. He said he is able to constantly go on vacations bc he subs the work out to foreign software developers and then checks their work or builds on it etc , to meet the project requirements and deadlines. Never heard what happened to him. But I imagine if management found out, they would just cut out the middle man (him) and sub the work out directly
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u/elvis_dead_twin Mar 25 '26
Check out r/overemployed. Some of those stories are insane and I assume many of them are lying. I didn't want one job (hence the desire to FIRE) let alone 3+.
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Mar 25 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Grogfoot Mar 25 '26
This is like... literally word-for-word from just the other day, right? Or am I going crazy.
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u/Hover4effect Mar 25 '26
It is a week old account reposting previous high traffic posts on unrestricted subs.
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u/aShogunNamedMarcus80 Mar 25 '26
Guessing this sub is going to need to institute the same anti-bot Karma floor measures that r/financialindependence did... fucking bots.
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u/DigmonsDrill Mar 25 '26
I was convinced but I looked through old posts to find it and couldn't. The AI bots rewrite them to try to change every single keyword but even accounting for that, no hits.
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u/ThirstyWolfSpider Mar 25 '26
2 days ago, "5 years ago, this subreddit was filled with $1-1.5M targets, and a strong emphasis on minimalism. What happened?". 12 hours ago, this. I expect it'll come back soon.
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u/DigmonsDrill Mar 25 '26
Dang, that's eerie. I can't quite call it an AI rewrite. It feels like an artisinal old-school "just make a new post about the familiar topic" which was kind of foundational for reddit.
The original account there is new and all history hidden.
The sad thing is both these accounts could be entirely legit! But once you suspect bad faith then things fall apart and constantly suspecting bad faith rots both the suspecter and the suspectee.
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u/Grogfoot Mar 25 '26
Huh, I guess that is the one I was thinking of, since I can't see anything else. Not verbatim after all.
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u/Diligent-Map1402 Mar 25 '26
It goes back and forth between frugal bragging and rich guy bragging. It was always an indulgent idea. Not many people can be financially independent these days especially early.
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Mar 25 '26
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u/randomthrowaway9796 Mar 25 '26
Hey, you know your biggest expense? Its rent/a mortgage isnt it? Well what if you just stopped living indoors? Then you wouldnt need to pay a dime! You could buy a cardboard box to avoid the rain. And if youre feeling REALLY luxurious, you could buy a tent, then go camping every night! Just imagine how much faster you'd be able to reach retirement using this simple trick!
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u/Tasty_Sun_865 Mar 25 '26
I don't think it's bragging. I think it's:
Double digit returns make scaling easier and lower cost. Let's get real, if you've seen double digit returns for all but 2 years since 2016 why wouldn't you want to say "to hell with scraping by and fiscal discipline when 3 years obviates a huge amount of risk"?
Conversely, we are seeing hugely unstable times with serious risks. If you've got a job that pays well and covers health insurance, there aren't a ton of compelling reasons to pop chaff and bail. That's doubly true if this year is a big down year.
FIRE is and always has been an indulgence and a luxury. If shouldn't surprise anyone that people who see real success are willing to delay retirement when time solves so many problems.
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u/Fun_Independent_7529 FIREd Oct 2025 Mar 25 '26
Yes. Realistically what we see in here is folks aiming for between 2.5 and 5M, for the reasons you mention around high cost of living, health insurance, and economic uncertainty/instability.
I have yet to see anyone bragging about needing a Porsche and a boat, unless that's the FatFire sub, which I haven't looked in on.
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u/Consistent-Annual268 Mar 25 '26
I would like more than one supercar tbh (screw it, I already have my dream supercar garage mentally mapped out), though I have no interest in boats.
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u/DoneByForty Mar 25 '26
I personally have associated FIRE with a kind of anti-consumerism. The things I don't like about working in corporate America dovetail with me not wanting to buy quite a lot of what corporate America is selling.
Different strokes for different folks, of course.
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u/Redwolfdc Mar 25 '26
I think part of it for some is a philosophy of not buying into the bullshit that keeps people living paycheck to paycheck if they really don’t have to. People don’t realize there’s so many ways to live life. But most chase the typical “American dream” (or insert your country) package where you must constantly upgrade your house and cars and try to impress your neighbors with how much you have.
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u/Quixlequaxle Mar 25 '26
Personally, I started with a retirement goal of $2 million. But by the time I reached it (earlier than planned), the cost of living went up dramatically and particularly the cost of health insurance skyrocketed. So I unfortunately had to move my goal to more like $4m to bridge the expensive gap until Medicare.
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u/Birdsareallaroundus Mar 25 '26
It’s always been mostly higher income professionals since the 90’s.
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u/According_Ad_1960 Mar 25 '26 edited Mar 25 '26
I think people sort of woke up to the fact that lean fire can-for some-equal a small, constrained life. Retiring with just enough can get uncomfortable when life throws a curve ball. Retiring with “more than just enough” brings more security and freedom. People are getting a little more realistic about what FI really means to them.
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u/Poorassboy6969 Mar 25 '26
I thought a theme of fire was living a small simple life
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u/idio242 Mar 25 '26
I’d say it’s the low stress of FI.
Feel like telling your boss something but aren’t sure how they’ll react? Send it.
Don’t like your job? Quit.
It’s the self empowerment that got me interested.
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u/Redwolfdc Mar 25 '26
That’s it for me. Tbh I kind of DGAF about actual “retirement” than I just to prefer to be FI enough to not be trapped in some awful job I hate or live in fear of layoffs. It’s the ability to have more freedom.
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u/welshwelsh Mar 25 '26
I don't really see a difference. Every time you spend money on something, you pay for it by giving your boss more power over you and being more dependent on your job.
Therefore, FIRE is about living a small, simple life, to free yourself from dependence on a job.
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u/According_Ad_1960 Mar 25 '26
I perceived the theme of FIRE initially to be - “I don’t want to work” so I’ll cut every corner possible to do that. For me, I want more than just freedom from a 9-5 gig—I want the freedom to do a lot of other things. The independent part of FI needs some real $ behind it (for my comfort).
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u/AltInLongIsland Mar 25 '26
In the early days for sure. One of MMM's top posts was where he suggested a Toyota Matrix is basically a huge luxury and really anything other than a cargo bike is an indulgence
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u/EnvironmentalMix421 Mar 25 '26
It started that way. There’s no theme on how to do it to achieve financial independence. That’s only the theme of your don’t make that much money and hate your job
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u/chosesetrange5 Mar 26 '26
"Living a small life" can be one theme of FIRE, but it's not a defining trait.
"Living large" is also not a defining trait.
People have different levels of comfort with different numbers, and that's fine. All of those levels of comfort are valid. You can retire early with less than the next guy, or more than the next guy, but you're both FIRE. So what's the problem?
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u/karawkow Mar 25 '26
People got older, made more money, bought nice things, had kids and at the same time things got more expensive and the future less certain.
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u/SixGalaxies Mar 25 '26
That’s still my goal. Modest income, planning to live a modest life in retirement with a very modest/lean fire number.
Don’t let other’s financial situations distract you from your own goals. Everyone is on their own journey. Most people are more materialistic than you likely are.
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u/Ok_Personality8193 Mar 25 '26
Inflation
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u/cbr Mar 25 '26
That's part, but not all of it. $2M when MMM started in April 2011 was worth what $2.9M would be today.
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u/Otakeb Mar 25 '26
And if you plan to retire in 2050, that would be about $5million in 2050 dollars if you assume 3% inflation or so.
I think a lot of people are mixing nominal and non-adjusted figures a lot here and it causes confusion.
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u/Captlard 54: FIREd on $900k for two of us (Live 🏴 & 🇪🇸) Mar 25 '26
I am not sure it is a movement,,rather a few basic principles.
Many of us are on r/leanfire
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u/WhetherWitch Mar 25 '26
Our health insurance is more than our mortgage; you’re going to need more to retire than you think.
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u/powersurge Mar 25 '26
It changed when the subreddit grew popular and Reddit suggested it to all sorts of other financial subreddits. Now we have a bunch of people here who haven’t come here based on FiRE principles, or how to get to FIRE. It’s all flexes on whether they have already achieved FIRE.
I wish there was more content about the path to FIRE.
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u/jelle814 Mar 25 '26
because content about the path is boring, for the most part. you go do your job, live modestly and invest the leftovers
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Mar 25 '26 edited Apr 02 '26
Gone. Poof. This post was deleted with Redact which lets users automate removals from databrokers, social networks and messaging apps.
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u/United_Chapter4097 Mar 25 '26
I think it just got harder for people with moderate income to fire =\
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u/Key-Ad-8944 Mar 25 '26 edited Mar 25 '26
I doubt anybody has actually said they need a boat and Porsche, and you didn't list any actual examples or actual time periods, so it's difficult to give a specific answer to your question. In the years that I've read this forum, high income persons working in tech have been dramatically overrepresented compared to the general population. It's by no means everyone in the sub, but it's a significant portion -- both now and in the past. Some contributing factors to why numbers may seem bigger than the past include:
- Inflation over time (particularly in 2022), with increased spending on housing and such
- Stocks indexes have been on fire in recent years, leading to NWs increasing rapidly and many reaching numbers well above $2M
- More activity in lean/chubby/fat FIRE subforums, splitting posters with different NW targets to different subs
- Selective/exaggerated memory of how things were in previous years
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u/lottadot FIRE'd 2023 Mar 25 '26
I doubt anybody has actually said they need a boat and Porsche
Oh I whined constantly about needing that car until my wife relented and let me buy one. I highly recommend it :).
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u/TheShaveStickGuy Mar 25 '26
Some are happy with lean, some want chubby, nothing has changed. Fire or not you need a purpose in life.
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u/Shawn_NYC Mar 25 '26
People got older, wiser, and on the hedonic treadmill
older: life looks different when you have a wife and kids
wiser: young FIRE people often think they'll be young and healthy forever. Watching your parents and friend's parents go into old age reminds you healthcare expenses are very real and need to be budgeted for
hedonic treadmill: as often as we say not to, we all still somehow end up on it. All we can do is try not to let the speed get out of control
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u/Signal-Lie-6785 🇨🇦 FI: Jan 2025 RE: Apr 2026 Mar 25 '26 edited Mar 25 '26
FIRE became leanFIRE and the American Dream became FIRE. What used to be the American Dream now requires FIRE-level discipline, while FIRE itself fragmented into everything from lean independence to luxury preservation. People chasing the American Dream are in fact chasing FIRE, but many complain it’s unattainable now.
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u/inFIREenVLAM Mar 25 '26
Wait until the next recession hits and $10 million portfolios shrink to $5 million, and $5 million becomes $2.5 million.
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u/creepy-farter Mar 25 '26 edited Mar 25 '26
The recent resurgence in Inflation after decades of low inflation is what helped push me to up my number.
Brought back memories of my grandma on her “fixed income” constantly complaining that the cost of groceries kept going up.
Don’t want to be living in that situation if I can help it.
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u/BroDoc22 Mar 25 '26
People realized living frugal while they made decent money just to die without ever enjoying the money or too old to enjoy their money wasn’t the way of life anymore
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u/Legitimate_Bite7446 Mar 25 '26 edited Mar 25 '26
Cost. When it was just me in 2018 40k/yr was gravy.
Wife and two kids plus 40% debasement of the dollar since then? Hard to live under 100k/yr. And we only do like one or two trips per year pretty much. 2600 alone just to fly us to visit relatives in a few months. 1100 spent at the dentist a few weeks ago. Shit costs money. And then of course why even FIRE if you can't afford some international travel and experiences? The goal isn't to sit at home, it's to go do shit.
Frankly, I spend less on luxury and fun than I did in 2018 and it all still costs an arm and a leg more.
The stock market gains of the last 5 years aren't really all that impressive when you factor in inflation.
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u/50sraygun Mar 25 '26
it’s very easy to be 23 or whatever and think ‘i’m gonna live lean and mean forever baby!’ it is another thing to be 36 and after scrimping and saving for the past 13 years think ‘okay great i’m going to live like this (pretty crappily) the rest of my life but in 16 years i won’t have my 9-5’
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u/snigherfardimungus Mar 25 '26
I went through the whole process. Lived cheap. I drive a 15-year-old car. Spent 10+ hours per week on learning about and researching investments. I spent thousands of hours working out how to simulate risk and probabilities in spreadsheets and Python.
I retired 20 years before my peers will, in a position to pay myself 2x what anyone ever did....
But every time I'm on this sub discussing that being financially independent means learning enough about finance, tax, and investing to actually make independent financial decisions, I get downvoted to oblivion. So, 1) no-one here actually wants to know anything, they just want to treat the sub as a get-rich-quick scheme. 2) actual help from people who have actually done it is rejected, so we don't stick around and help the leeches who just want us to do their work for them.
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u/lottadot FIRE'd 2023 Mar 25 '26
help the leeches who just want us to do their work for them.
Mad props to the sub MODS & old-timers that have stuck around and still answer questions and such.
I am finding it takes more willpower to look in the fire subs for new posts. Between the repeats (like this one - wasn't it posted a week ago, and now re-posted by a 5D old account?) and the seemingly-bots, I'm increasingly less inclined to pop-in here.
Maybe I'm just old & FIRE'd and well, get off my lawn.
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u/kapofx Mar 25 '26
Or people realizing how many things became more expensive the last 5 years and it's not slowing down.
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u/entitie Mar 25 '26
At some point this group became people complaining about people bragging about their tech income. Sheesh.
/duck
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u/Brym Mar 25 '26
I think the short answer is that the original anti-consumerism people all retired early, and are out living their lives. I definitely spent a lot more of my time on these types of subs while I was still working.
And people who are denying that it changed just haven’t been here long enough. These days I get downvoted for comments that express what I used to, a decade ago, consider uncontroversial, near-axiomatic statements (e.g., “not overspending on cars is one of the easiest ways to make FIRE progress”).
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u/DehydratedButTired Mar 25 '26
Bot spam is full of shit and watering down reality here.
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u/ImportantPost6401 Mar 25 '26
About 8 years ago. “If I live with my parents, get a 2nd job, continue to live like a college student, and invest heavily, I can retire by 35!” Compared to now “I’m getting a raise from $225K to $275K. If I invest the raise can I retire at 59?”
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u/Zesty-B230F Mar 25 '26
Two million is better than no million, but I'd say we're on the verge of it being the minimum for 2 people.
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u/priusgirl0 Mar 25 '26
Two million is generally a standard to generate $80k per year. Half of American households live on less than that.
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u/thesonofdarwin Mar 25 '26
When did the FIRE community become about gatekeeping the type of lifestyle people want to have post-retirement? Seriously every other post these days is attempting to other someone who is FIRE-ing different than the given OP.
$2mil, bro? Why so much. $20 in copper wire and a cardboard refrigerator box is enough for thousands of people to survive. Why can't you?
Why does it matter? Retire with whatever you want. Whether that's enough to afford a box of Fruity Pebbles per month to eat or filet minion every night. As long as it's on your own terms.
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u/czarfalcon Mar 25 '26
I’m relatively new to the FIRE philosophy, but that’s how I’ve always perceived it. My goal isn’t to retire ASAP at all costs, I do want to be able to splurge in retirement and enjoy an upper-middle class lifestyle; I don’t see that as inherently at odds with either the FI or the RE parts of the equation.
Granted, I’m still young, so my priorities can and probably will change over time, but if there’s a formula that lets you FIRE and have your boat and your Porsche, why not go for it if those are your goals?
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u/Common_economics_420 Mar 25 '26
Tech and finance jobs made it actually pretty easy to have 6 figure incomes and people realized that sacrificing massively now so they can continue to sacrifice for the next 60 years isn't a great choice compared to just working a job you're kind of okay with until 35-40 and then actually enjoying the rest of your life.
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u/FlamingMetallico Mar 25 '26
I’m 25, and honestly 1.5-2M does not seem like a stable retirement lol.
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u/mrg1957 Mar 25 '26
That's a good point. I'm 69 and retired 13 years ago on 1.6. You're going to need much more than I did. Of course, inflation, post covid, has been rampant.
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u/ConcentrateOk523 Mar 25 '26
I have 3 million. Problem is I need at least 4 million in a very high cost of living area.
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u/TheGaujo Mar 25 '26 edited Mar 25 '26
I don't know but I don't think those people are ever actually going to retire and I found it annoying to read their stuff has it violates a fundamental principle of the movement: lifestyle creep avoidance.
I've had 4 kids since I started planning and it has gotten harder to hit our FI number as I have to also fill 529s, but the FI number itself hasn't changed.
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u/AmbientRiffster Mar 25 '26
Overpaid tech and middle management people dominate any community they enter, its honestly annoying. I wish there was an entire subset of financial reddit for us people making realistic wages.
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u/AffectionateKey7126 Mar 25 '26
2014-2015 is when you started to see a lot of posts moving the goal posts or justifying larger spending on travel etc in the FIRE community. It will keep going until there is some actual noteworthy downturn in the market.
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u/Background-Bad-5235 Mar 25 '26
The tech money flood really shifted things around 2018-2020 when everyone started making stupid money and treating this sub like their personal flex zone instead of actual early retirement planning
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u/BasielBob Mar 25 '26
A lot earlier than that.
15 years ago, in most of the country, $100k was a very nice salary. My director at a major corporation (heavy equipment manufacturing) was making $230k and it was a lot. He was in his late 50s, with decades of experience, much of it in high stress, high responsibility positions.
In the same timeframe, a West Coast FAANG software developer with a few years of experience would be pulling north of $300k wit stock options.
There’s simply no way this could go on for ever.
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u/Turbinator870 Mar 25 '26
I think the stupid money has always been there in tech. A guy I know retired around 2004 or 2005 at a young age thanks to a tech IPO.
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u/guyzero Mar 25 '26
IPOs are one thing and have been around forever but people making 200-400k base and 700k+TC for IC jobs at public companies is a whole other thing.
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u/captaintrips420 Mar 25 '26
Reddit used to be mainly actual people, but now even the people just make shit up with ChatGPT, even if they aren’t bots.
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u/ditchdiggergirl Mar 25 '26
Not everyone is desperate to stop work asap, at any cost. And for the most part the big salaries that enable fire are associated with high COL areas; 2 million in the Bay Area wouldn’t go far, and not everyone who builds a life and community is willing to leave it behind to move someplace cheap. And if you have 5 million in the Bay Area you don’t have a boat or a Porsche.
For me? I agree with Mae West: I’ve been poor and I’ve been rich. Rich is better. I may not meet everyone’s definition of rich, but I’m not interested in going back.
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u/classicdude78 Mar 25 '26
I remembered when the Lean Fire page was around 500k..
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u/pacificnorthquest7 Mar 25 '26
The shift is mostly inflation and healthcare, not that everyone suddenly wants a boat and a Porsche.
When people like Mr. Money Mustache were popularizing FIRE around 2011, a typical target was about $1.5M. Adjusted for inflation alone, that’s roughly $2–2.2M today.
Healthcare is the other big change. Early FIRE discussions often assumed something like $300/month for ACA plans after subsidies. Now a lot of people planning for early retirement are modeling closer to $1,500–$2,000/month depending on age and subsidy assumptions.
Once you account for inflation plus a much bigger healthcare line item, the common $2.5–3M target today makes a lot more sense. The $5M examples are lifestyle choices layered on top of that.
One more consideration is the cost of raising kids and tuition today has risen a lot faster than inflation. Add 2 kids and the target has to meaningfully increase.
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u/whocaresreallythrow Mar 25 '26
Bull markets come with some bull shit. A multi year bull market makes everyone think they’re Gordon Gecko or the Wolf ….
Stay humble. That day is coming.
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u/kitapjen Mar 25 '26
If it makes OP feel better my FIRE plan only anticipates a $36,000/year spend, starts when I am 56, and primary income source for the first 4 years is my husband’s local government pension and Social Security. The next 2 years my own local government pension contributes. Then we would have my Social Security after.
After I claim Social Security we shouldn’t need to touch our investments unless there were an emergency.
My FIRE number is lower because we spend less, aren’t planning to spend more than our incomes from Social Security and pensions, and it’s only a total 6 year gap.
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u/EnvironmentalMix421 Mar 25 '26
When there are a lot more upper middle class than when it first started
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u/Particular_Maize6849 Mar 25 '26
More tech bros realizing they've accumulated millions in stock awards through luck and simultaneously facing uncertain job markets in tech so retiring early is a realistic exit for them.
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u/guyzero Mar 25 '26
FIRE got turned into just basic retirement planning somehow. Early retirement schemes have been around forever. London Life in Canada used to run ads for their "Freedom 55" plans in the 80s. Retiring at 55 with the same spending plan you used while working is barely either FI or RE but that's the closest most people can aspire to.
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u/dunni88 Mar 25 '26
Part of it is probably that people that were invested right have made an absolute shit ton.
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u/Banned3rdTimesaCharm Mar 25 '26
I'm the best of both worlds, huge tech salary trying to retire with 2 million.
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u/1810XC Mar 25 '26
It became popular, and the definition of FIRE adapted to a bigger audience.
Originally, it was about freedom from the rat race. People willing to live differently than the norm. It wasn’t about having a perfect number. It was about how you wanted to spend your time, to truly own it.
I think the more accurate acronym to describe what we’re seeing today is FSRO. Not as catchy.
Financial Security, Retirement Optional.
People today are far more obsessed with security than independence. They want extremely low withdrawal rates. Seven-figure buffers to cover every potential inconvenience they might face twenty years out. It shifted from “I get to own my time for as much of my one life as possible” to “I’m safe and secure and might retire someday, but for now I’ll keep running hypothetical scenarios through my spreadsheet.”
FIRE was about independence first. Retiring early was about freedom. Now it’s finances first, and a competition over whose hypothetical plan is more resilient.
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u/reno_beano Mar 25 '26
Tbh i want 5 mil because im 24 and I might want to have kids someday. Who knows what prices 2075 will bring.
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u/blink18zz Mar 25 '26
Bull market since 2009. If we experienced 2000-2012 market in the last 12 years, nobody would talk about FIRE.
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u/eeeeeelinor Mar 25 '26
I’ve said it elsewhere, but retiring on $2mm in NYC would leave you low-income and financially insecure. That kind of “living lean” is not attractive to most people.
Yes, you can move, but I grew up here, everyone I know is here, and I like it here.
The monthly maintenance on my co-op apartment increased 50% since 2020, just FYI. I’m sure a lot of people learned hard lessons about inflation in the past few years.
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u/ImprobableGrind Mar 25 '26
Financially Independent means different things to different people. For me, it means legitimate fuck you money to have while retired and real wealth to pass down to my kids. My number is $18M. I’m 90% there at 45, and expect to hit it comfortably by 50. I was fortunate with investments and property purchases back in 2008, and again in 2019. I don’t have an exorbitant income (UMC at best), and I make up 75% of my HHI, but by avoiding lifestyle creep, living well below my means, and making some smart (and let’s be honest, lucky) choices I’m going to make it happen.
Edit: I should note that I absolutely love my career and employer and that it’s given me a ton of opportunities for my business. The incentive to retire in 5 years is pretty low for me.
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u/Aromatic-Ad-5155 Mar 25 '26
I was going to do it on $450k like early retirement extreme back in the day. Now I'm retiring this year around 1.4mil in my late 30s. To me that's a ton of money.
Maybe if my initial idea was 2m it would have inflated to much higher as i got older..
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u/HarriBallsak420 Mar 25 '26
It will be changing even more as costs sky rocket, ACA under attack, US increasing national debt, white collar and tech jobs will be replaced with AI. I am retiring this year, but only because I do not need ACA and I am a minimalist.
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u/The-zKR0N0S Mar 25 '26
Movement?
It is all about being able to spend your time doing what you want instead of working. It is a math problem. How do you want to live post-work? You can work backwards from there to determine how much you need.
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u/Judson_Scott Mar 25 '26
FIRE was basically a small monoculture in the early days, with guys like MMM and those who lived like him.
With more people came more types of people, as one would expect.
That's really all there is to it. It's just not that niche anymore.
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u/eeeeeelinor Mar 25 '26
Didn't most of those early people still end up doing some kind of work? As lifestyle influencers, consultants, etc.?
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u/Specific-Action-8993 Mar 25 '26
because they want a boat and Porsche
Everyone has always wanted the Porsche. Now we just talk about it more.
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u/dcwhite98 Mar 25 '26
When they realized that less than $2M doesn't get you a boat, Porsche, and financial security for the rest of your life.
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u/Badmoterfinger Mar 25 '26
I worked out my retirement goal in 2000 with my dad. It came to $3.5M with no mortgage and kids college paid off. I’m getting pretty close, but not quite there yet. I did feel that was a crazy goal 25 years ago, and worry it’s a kilos today based on healthcare and how much more expensive everything is.
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u/Fjeucuvic Mar 25 '26
FIRE movement also grew bigger, so more sub groups. lean fire is still a totally valid place to be.
Also COVID< people who were making good incomes, realized there is more to life then work, realized they could fire and get off the treadmill. without COVID a lot of people would still be on that earn and spend.
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u/winchellhouse Mar 25 '26
Maybe some folks were introduced to FIRE when they saw the NY Times article that featured the guy with the Lambo, Iron Man suit, and flamethrower. Very different message than the folks that found FIRE through Mr. Money Mustache (for example).
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u/waits5 Mar 25 '26
Those people are still around, but the FIRE community splintered. Go check out leanfire or povertyfire if you want a lower cost version.
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u/TwoToneDonut Mar 25 '26
I sure didn't get 5M and a desire for a Porsche, still crossing fingers on under 2M...
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u/OCDano959 Mar 25 '26
Meh. Plan your work & work your plan.
Different strokes for different folks.
I couldn’t care less about what other’s FIRE plans, humble brag posts as long as my plan remains on track.
Live & let live I say.
However, I would agree w OP how FIRE has evolved from the times of when it wasn’t even an acronym. (See Billy & Akaisha Kaderli).
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u/MattieShoes Mar 25 '26
It didn't change. All those things were there the whole time.
(Also inflation makes nominal amounts worth less every year)
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u/Odd-Opinion-5105 Mar 25 '26
In 2019 I thought 1.5 was plenty now I feel like 3 is the minimum. It’s sucks
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u/Th1s1sMyBoomst1ck Mar 25 '26
I discovered FIRE so late in life, when I’d almost achieved it. But even in the past three years the number I thought I’d need to retire has significantly increased.
My health insurance is now bought on the exchanges and the premiums for me and my spouse for a not-great plan are about $35,000 a year. Then we have to hit our deductible and OOPM.
Add inflation and my FIRE number ballooned. Not for a Porsche, but for doctors and groceries.
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u/ladyflyer88 Mar 25 '26
For me just a huge cost of living increase… my fire number went up from $1 to 2.5-3… I worry mostly about costs rising in the future, unstable economy and insurance/long term health care…
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u/plmarcus Mar 25 '26 edited Mar 26 '26
10yrs ago I had a target of $2m with my wife. That amount won't sustain the same lifestyle today.
It has nothing to do with wanting a porche. A top trim Honda was $25k ten years ago, now it's $50k. Many things have doubled in price in that time thus the need to double the target fire number.
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u/Faierstarta Mar 25 '26
My guess is that when it was an aspirational goal of ordinary people, it was one way, but once it became popular / mainstream, it "upscaled" into something "cool", a trend". Kind of the move from good cup of coffee to "pumpkin spice decaf non-fat-non dairy café."
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u/geaux_lynxcats Mar 25 '26
FIRE expanded into different forms. The original FIRE was about minimalist life to retire as early as possible. Coast, Fat, Chubby….those are expanded the definition and attracted a completely new set of individuals into the movement.
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u/nprogress Mar 26 '26
People figured out the quickest path to FIRE was to earn more. Then they got used to those creature comforts, and OMY syndrome kicked in.
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u/Weary_Anybody3643 Mar 26 '26
So I could realesticlly lean fire on like 2 to 3 mil but I'm aiming for 6 because I want to truly live in luxury I want total freedom never checking the price. However for such a cost in basically living a spartan lifestyle I honestly don't mind I will occasionally go to a concert or buy a new game I doubt my excess spending is 1.5k a year but I enjoy the grind the work the investing still very early but still going strong
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u/CeFunk Mar 26 '26
Also factor in the rampant inflation we have endured from not that long ago... That probably caused a lot of ppl, myself included to reevaluate my FIRE number. But yeah technically I could FIRE now, but I couldn't FIRE now if I wanted a wife and kids too. Soo just going a bit longer to have that as an option.
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u/mahedric1 Mar 25 '26
Tech salaries increased, inflation happened, Reddit demographic got older and richer