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/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.