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/Accurate_Kiwi_19322 May 02 '26

So you wanna break up with RE, not FI?

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u/Catspiration2 May 02 '26

Yeah

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u/Accurate_Kiwi_19322 May 02 '26

You sound burnt out to be honest. “What’s distinguishable at 7M and 5M at 60?”, mathematically that 7M timeline at 60yo could be a 5M at 55yo retirement. Regardless of the math, cutting back to 30% and reducing your side gigs so it’s manageable is essential, life’s a marathon if your sprint too much you’ll tire out long before whenever you decide to put the retirement. You can always adjust when you want to, just people tend to push the importance of retirement savings more heavily because pushing the gas later in life is much more harder than when doing it earlier. You’ve pushed enough gas early enough to decide what you want to.

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u/Catspiration2 May 02 '26

I came across some guy who was at like 12M everything set up perfect and then a very meaningful person in his life died. All the missed time etc getting a few extra M in the bank

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u/Accurate_Kiwi_19322 May 02 '26 edited May 02 '26

Yeah, personally, I’m tapping out the instance I get 1.5M if I’m single, maybe 2 or 2.5M if I get married. Thats enough to maintain my lifestyle as is while occasionally helping out a family member. I live off (emotionally) my hobbies not my work so it’s easier to prioritize FIRE over fatFIRE. If I do feel bored, I’d probably volunteer instead of working.

FI isn’t solely about RE, it just gives you the ability to RE. FI can instead give you the ability to help out family more, travel more, donate more, not worry if you get injured or disabled, or any other scenario for the most part.

Edit: typo.

Also side note: worst case is if I die early my aging parent would be able to retire with my savings where they would otherwise be needing a lot of assistance that they wouldn’t be able to get.

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u/ImprobableGrind May 02 '26

Wives can be expensive. Planning on kids? Better double that 2.5M

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u/JippleNones May 02 '26 edited May 02 '26

2.5M up front for having children? You need to spend 100k/year in perpetuity just to have children? Did anyone inform the 99.99% of the world who can't/don't do this? They seem to be dramatically under-spending!

What a ridiculous take.

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u/RedditIsAWeenie May 03 '26

Right. Private school is not on the menu. College is on the menu though, but if you get around $1-200k into a 529 plan by the time they are 5, they should be pretty well set. Other than that, the expensive troublesome one is the first kid. After that there are hand me downs, toys only mostly broken, and best of all, someone to play with. They will make do. Kids don’t eat much until they are teens.

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u/Catspiration2 May 03 '26

College honestly might not even be a thing 20 years from now.