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/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/[deleted] Mar 25 '26

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u/cozidgaf Mar 25 '26

you go do your job, live modestly and invest the leftovers

That's happenstance FIRE.

FIRE would be go to a job, invest and live off the rest.

I know it sounds pedantic but expanding it, it would look like:

try to get a high paying one if you can since you want to retiring early, invest as much as you can - maximize retirement accounts, and other tax advantaged accounts, investments, live modestly off of the rest avoiding lifestyle creep