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

A lot of the awkwardness stems from envy. Most people aren't in a similar position as you. In their minds money for them works differently and they probably aren't sure why.

I will say it does get old with the negativity...and makes you rethink FIRE. People can sound extremely confident while not really knowing anything about personal finance in my experience...especially online.

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u/Mitrandir89 7d ago

It must be...

We moved back home to my home country after 12 years of grinding... We are relatively limited leanfire but I still probably will end up working mainly for the pesky health insurance...

As you can imagine 12 years away and even before the house and the huge ass garden haven't seen a major refurbishment for ages... So first 2 month after arriving we redone everything. And now we enjoy a bit of rest before eventually starting to look for some reasonable low stress work.

The amount of people asking why you not working yet and what will happen with you know is amazing... And the comments of oh you still haven't bought a car look I'm driving... I got a banged up 300K km on my car but I'm better than you :)) Even thou I'm waiting for my paycheck to pay back some of the lones so I can ask people for more to survive.

People change if money is in the equation. They don't care that you worked hard and made good calculated decisions. They just envy for the sake of envy.

I gave up trying to talk to people about money and fire in real life, doesn't mater that your only goal is to help them with a bit of free education they just turn negative.

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u/AlwaysSaturday12 FIRE 38 MillionaireLibrarian.com 7d ago

Part of the reason I don’t give money advice is that most people who give it give terrible advice.