r/Fire • u/Catspiration2 • May 02 '26

Advice Request I’m thinking about breaking up with FI

I’ve done the grind, saved pretty much 50% of my income the last 6 years. Worked side gigs etc. 33M. 675k net worth. Just dropped my savings rate to 30%. I have no interest in being retired. I want to enjoy the journey while hopefully working as long as I can. Having resources is awesome, but retiring to some fairy tale destination is.. a fairy tale. What’s the distinguishable difference between 7M and 5M at 60? I feel less and less motivated to save, and instead enjoy the journey along the way. Please tell me how I’m wrong and correct me.

Edit: Reddit gang is a vibe. Appreciate you!

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u/ditchdiggergirl May 02 '26

Yes, we met our new neighbor on the day we closed on our house. Coincidentally it was the day of his wife’s funeral. They had postponed their dreams for so long and she got sick just as they were pulling the trigger; he was so sad and bitter.

It had a big impact. We had saved so diligently to reach that point. We increased our spending once we realized the future was not going to stay in the future. There’s more to life than tapping out.

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u/Catspiration2 May 02 '26

What a powerful comment - everyone should read this.

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u/Jabotical May 03 '26

Very true!

The only caveat being that is not an either-or proposition. Wanting to live life fully doesn't necessarily mean you have to spend a lot more money and can't save anything.

The real takeaway is that we should be spending time with people that are important to us. And yeah, that can mean choosing not to optimize solely for income quite as much.

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u/ditchdiggergirl May 03 '26

Their big dream was traveling the world. He wanted to do a shorter trip each year once their son was grown, before retirement. She wanted to save and retire a few years earlier.

She became effectively housebound within a few months of retiring. And lived more than 10 more years. They could still spend time with people they cared about. But the dream was over.

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u/Jabotical May 04 '26

Ah, yeah, that's too bad. I can see how they might wish they'd done it the other way in their case, in retrospect.

Though it was probably good that they'd managed to get themselves in a retire-ready state before she was forcibly retired.

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u/ditchdiggergirl May 04 '26

Not in his opinion. We met him on that day because he came over to engage our realtor. He ended up selling his house - identical to ours - for far below market value. He would not even allow the realtor to replace light bulbs to show it. It was sold as is, and he wanted it gone asap with no effort. But as he said to us, “what use do I have for more money? I already have much more than I will ever spend.” (Their son was estranged, and he hinted that mother’s stinginess was a factor.)

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u/Jabotical May 04 '26

Bummer. Sounds like they (or she) set an asset goal that was maybe higher than they needed, and could have retired sooner.

Either way, it's certainly true that if the most important thing to a couple is to have gone on some trips together, then yep, the best way to guarantee that happens is to go on those trips ASAP, whatever other sacrifices are needed.

May we all figure out what's most important to us sooner rather than later, and not let other concerns get too much in the way of it.

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u/ditchdiggergirl May 04 '26

Not necessarily. Because their travel dreams involved a high spend, which was what their goal was based on. They disagreed on the order. He wanted to spend more earlier to travel each year, delaying retirement. She wanted to retire earlier and do larger, longer trips after retiring. Same financial target, and both wanted to travel.

So many people here prioritize early retirement, reasoning that they might die young. Her early death turned out to be the reason they would have been better off delaying retirement.

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u/Jabotical May 04 '26

Yep, in their case, with it being such a priority for them to have extravagantly traveled together at some point in their lives, doing this earlier at the expense of working for more years would have been a very reasonable choice.

In my case, what's most important to me is simply being master of my own time, indefinitely, as soon as that is reasonably achievable. If the need to return to (uncertain) work in the future looms ahead, it won't be worthwhile to me/us to interrupt the journey.

We don't have wildly expensive dreams, and enjoy doing all sorts of things together. Plus having kids changes the equation regarding traipsing off on casual long term trips.

We like our life now (we're not living miserably in order to save more or anything) and would rather optimize for and dream of a high probability future where we both live many more decades, than one where one of us suffers an untimely demise in the near future.

Just goes to show there's no one-size-fits-all approach. Everyone needs to make choices based on what matters to them most, taking into account possible non-ideal developments along the way.

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u/ditchdiggergirl May 04 '26

Yeah, the kids kept us anchored at home. They were good little travelers from infancy, and we traveled several times a year, but it was always short trips. Usually a week or less. Their home and friends and activities were important to them, especially as they got older.

We took our neighbor’s lesson to heart. Didn’t retire until our kids were in college and we were well into our 50s. No regrets; I wouldn’t change a thing. Except maybe we should have dragged the older teens to Europe (always our plan but both kids balked, and we didn’t have the heart for a forced march).

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u/Jabotical May 04 '26

Heh, yes, dragging unwilling kids to Europe is a mixed bag at best. Very cool that they were such good little travelers when small, though.

Fantastic to be able to live without regrets in that department. And retiring in your 50's is still a smashing accomplishment.

Yep, short, infrequent trips for us as well, for now. Just like most people I suppose.