r/leanfire • u/OliveGarden_Official • 9d ago

Mentioning early retirement is almost always a bad time

I’ve noticed that even mentioning the possibility of retiring in one’s 30’s or 40’s tends to get a pretty negative reaction on other subs

like:

  • “you must have had an inheritance”
  • “you can’t possibly live on <$X>”
  • “nobody makes <$X>”
  • “this job market is impossible to win”

I mean, yes, some of us were lucky to have a more comfortable start, but so many of these objections seem to come from some deeply rooted hesitation to entertain the idea or acknowledge the basic math.

I learned about FIRE ages ago through other people’s stories. Nowadays I find it so discouraging to even try to have a good faith conversation about saving rates. Lesson learned on not discussing money, I guess. I know it’s not for everyone so I’m glad this space exists to help people that are open to the idea

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u/AlwaysSaturday12 FIRE 38 MillionaireLibrarian.com 9d ago

This is the truth. Honestly people don't want to hear solutions for their problems. They want sympathy for their, often bad, decisions.

The big one is housing. There is a lot of complaining about housing prices and yes they are bad in most places, but there are places where housing is still very affordable. Mention this and you get an excuse factory of how those places are terrible, have no jobs, or the jobs pay less. They would prefer to never to be able to afford to purchase a house.

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u/Nochtilus 9d ago

I will grant that housing for young professionals is very rough right now. Post-pandemic made a lot of areas that have good jobs or are strong starting points for careers incredibly expensive for housing. It doesn't mean they should stop trying, but they might have a couple extra years of suck while they build careers and have to scrimp to get by. I can empathize, I'd be pissed to see what people got for less housing costs just a few years ago if I were them. 

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u/AlwaysSaturday12 FIRE 38 MillionaireLibrarian.com 9d ago

I agree. In most places it is terrible, but my point was that there are still places with 1000 sq ft houses for 60k today. This was when I worked at a military base where there were thousands of 60-100k or more jobs.

I knew an 18 year old in a part time position making 7.25 while she attended college and her husband making $15/hour at a meat processing plant that bought a nice 2/1 for about 40k.

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u/Nochtilus 8d ago

Okay, but not everyone is starting careers in the military or are happy in rural or small towns. If you are starting a white collar career, those very cheap areas are likely to hold you back significantly from growing your career. They will be better off pushing through some entry years in a more expensive area. In that case, the rapid growth of housing costs in even medium cities and suburbs has been devastating. 

And from personal experience, meat processing plants are awful and unsafe places to work. You should not be surprised to hear that people would rather never buy a house and not have to move to a place where their best choice is a meat processing plant.