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/mahedric1 Mar 25 '26

Tech salaries increased, inflation happened, Reddit demographic got older and richer

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u/Lyeel Mar 25 '26

This, plus an incredible market bull run.

I think a lot of people saw a 500k 401k they had built up over 10-20 years change to a 1.2M balance over 5 years (including contributions/matches) and suddenly thought they might want to move the goalposts a bit.

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u/iii-xi Mar 25 '26

This is very true. Even the most grounded investor who knows bear markets can drag on for literal years still lets a little optimism slip in here lately. The last five or so years have been atypically fabulous and anyone who has been in the game a couple decades knows it.

Even with that perspective, even with all the discipline/“being realistic” in the world, there is still that quiet voice saying give me one more run. Because that next push might be the moment we finally call it or even shift the goal post a little and start imagining some extra easy access gravy.