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Well, mostly FI, but some RE. (FIRE standing for Financial Independence, Retire Early). Christine Benz from Morningstar recently attended a CampFI event in Spain, and wrote about her experience here.
She comments that “A lot of people have a caricatured perception of the FI community. They assume that everyone is trying to live on $10 a day in order to hang it up at age 35.” While she met some young people, she met older people as well. She concludes that she learned some valuable lessons from her fellow attendees. A recommended read.
I have redefined FIRE to mean “Financial Independence- Reimagine Everything”. For me the end goal wasn’t about escaping work, but instead having the professional freedom to pivot within my career in a way that would have been difficult had money worries still been top of mind. As we have approached our FI number, work feels like an option instead of a requirement, and we are able to deploy our income to a wide variety of enjoyable experiences and indulgences with the knowledge that our financial goals are met. For me FI is Freedom to Choose, not a mandate to quit!
Fair point. Absolutely freedom to choose is paramount. What I’ve found as I approached the FI number is that tolerance for the everyday enshittifications* around work has declined. It can reprogramme your relationship with work entirely.
FIRE is just noticing all the excess labor happening in this country and taking advantage of it. We have way more work than we need, so I’ll do some highly remunerative job for a relatively little while, and build up assets that rely on the labor of others, and then once that generates enough income I can work simply for pleasure rather than necessity. Or not work. It’s great when it works for you.
Finally tracked down the book I remembered reading way back when that could be considered an early FIRE text. Titled “Your Money or Your Life” it was originally published in 1992, and was most recently revised in 2018. So this movement has been around for a while. One of the authors died in 1997, the other is still active.
The movement gained significant traction and became more widespread internationally after 2010, particularly with the emergence of blogs like Jacob Lund Fisker’s “Early Retirement Extreme” (starting in 2007) and Mr. Money Mustache (starting in 2011).
Both were money making ventures. Fisker stopped blogging, but you can still buy his book for $24.95.
According to Wikipedia Fisker says he saved 80% of his income and became financially independent in less than five years. He considered himself retired when he left his astrophysics career in 2009 at the age of 33, having accumulated a net worth 25 times his annual expenses of about $7,000.
Not to mention living in a country with very strong social programs.
According to wikipedia, Fisker lives in Chicago. After he started working he lived on the same amount of money as when he was a student. Never heard of him, although I am vaguely aware of the other guy, who still seems to be active rather than disappearing.
He lived in Denmark when becoming FI.
FIRE is taking a lot of heat (ha ha), and I’ll step into the flames to defend it.
First of all, I don’t know who could argue that people shouldn’t be financially independent. But, as noted in other comments, it’s usually the “retire early” part that draws the most criticism.
My response: it’s none of anyone’s business how early anyone else retires. I’m failing to understand why another person has standing to object to how early someone else retires. I think a better approach is to be mindful of what is our business and attend to that. If I can control the guy in my mirror, that’s doing pretty good.
It’s not an objection to retirement. As you say, when a person retires is nobody’s business.
My objection is the creation of an illusion, which only applies to a very tiny percentage of people, that you can save like mad and then actually retire in your 30s and live as you like the rest of your life on passive income.
That is exactly what many of the FIRE bloggers imply – until they stop posting or disappear.
How is something an illusion if it’s actually happened? (even if it only happens infrequently)
Are you saying that if it takes someone 10 extra years to gain FIRE (so say 45) does that invalidate the process.
Your arguments read exactly like a straw-man on this. The bloggers are some new representation of FIRE that replaces the original philosophy so that you can attack it.
Maybe they stop posting because they have found something better to do. Some people in tech and finance make very large salaries (or acquire valuable stock options) at an early age.
How many blogs are out there, that aren’t businesses, that last over 10 years?
I think it’s a faux criticism that blogs go away as that’s the nature of that endeavor. People run out of things to blog about.
Amen!
I read the article. As I said before, nothing wrong with FI in fact highly desirable, but it needs to be viewed separately from RE.
Promotion of FIRE as it occurs on many blogs and some publications is a farce and mostly a money making, publicity seeking scheme.
What exactly are you complaining about? If people aim for FIRE and don’t make it, they’re still better off than if they hadn’t tried, and if they do make it they have options they didn’t have before. If some bloggers make money from offering advice, isn’t that what a lot of people do? How are they worse than Edward Jones advisors? If you are going to get upset about people making money from what you consider to be dubious premises you are spoiled for choice.
Yeah it’s been explained to you that to gain traction with younger generations and therefore encourage all the good habits there needs to be some sizzle.
Work hard, save all your life and with a fair wind you’ll be able to retire like grandpa at 67-70 isn’t that.
Not sure the point you are trying to make.
The point is – the people introduced to good financial habits by FIRE outweighs any “farce” real or perceived that you believe in.
What’s money making about it? There’s far more solid advice available for free than ever comes out of the traditional personal finance industry (let alone what they charge when they get an AUM fee)
Did you read the sentences I quoted? You are allowing your perception of a few people to color your view of a larger group. The bloggers you complain about (whom I have never encountered), are like the part of the iceberg above the water, or the froth on a cappuccino. Plus this movement, if it is a movement, is a lot older than bloggers. I read a book way back by a guy who was retiring early on the then 7.5% interest on government bonds (I think it was 7.5%, as I posted below my memory isn’t what it was).
What is it you have against RE? You chose differently, that doesn’t mean yours is the right choice for others.
Where did you ever read I wrote i was opposed to early retirement?
If you’re not opposed to it you sure are making a lot of fuss about people advocating it.
Oh my, all I said was in the context of people claiming to save to the max and then sometime in their 30s or early 40s claim to be retired and still living a super frugal life and doing so the next 50 years.
I’m not even opposed to that, I just think it is a farce.
As I recall you retired at 53. That is a lot different than 33 or even 43 and you have a pension.
But I didn’t start saving until my late 30s, after my first divorce and after I realized that that pension didn’t have a COLA.
Also, I wasn’t following FIRE, I didn’t think about retiring early until a couple of years before I quit.
Clearly it made a bigger impression on me the second time around! I found it interesting and balanced. Isn’t financial independence something everyone wants? With it, you have choices. If you love your job, great, be thankful and keep doing it. But what if you don’t? Maybe it was always just a way keep a roof over your head and food on the table, but maybe you changed, or the job changed. Maybe AI does it better and cheaper. On the other hand, maybe you really want to go round the world on the ground, or curl up in a comfy chair with a pile of books. Why not?
I’ve posted before about Richard Bolles’ book “The Three Boxes of Life”. He suggests we should mix education, work and retirement throughout our lives instead of making them three distinct phases. I didn’t do that, but I think it’s a great idea.
There’s an upcoming book from Dan Haylett which is probably worth reading for those on the run in to or newly executed in retirement
https://www.humansvsretirement.com/book
I know I’ve found his podcast valuable (he does get decent guests from around the world like Benz etc). What’s interesting is he’s a financial advisor who does everything but talk about the numbers because they are just maths.
His basic premise is that today’s retirement isn’t the one of your grandparents’ and parents’ generations. There’s way more scary stuff to deal with on the financial side but also way more opportunties to make it the best stage of your life by being intentional about it.
RDQ might want to steer clear, although he scarcely ever mentions FIRE clearly he is commercially trying to make a buck a two despite what he gives away.
It does seem rather un-American to complain about people making money. After all, what harm are they doing? If you follow their directions and don’t reach FI, you’re still better off, and if you do you have options you didn’t have before.
From what I’ve read over the years a lot of people who adhere to the FIRE philosophy don’t retire early. It is a lifestyle choice. I’m one of those and I chose to work longer. In her post Kristine noted that “When You Love What You Do” it isn’t work.
These lines were killer:
I’m glad you reposted this Benz article, I totally missed the comment that linked it in RDQ’s original post!
It has been observed that those who are chronic savers often have difficulty breaking this habit after they have formally retired and are drawing upon savings. I’m one of those. For example, we had decided upon a maintenance project. For step 1 the cost was $14,000. I had sufficient funds to do this but spending it just didn’t seem right. I’ve become comfortable with shrugging off these types of thoughts. We’ll do step 2 after the monsoon season.
It didn’t get much traction the first time it was posted. Congrats at trying again. Let’s see if people can attempt to empathise with the mindset rather than have a kneejerk reaction.
I missed it the first time! Or at least, I don’t remember seeing it…..
FYI, the CampFI link was in Joe Kiefer’s comment to RDQ’s “Going too far with FIRE.”
You’re right, I even commented on it. I’m getting a little worried about my memory.
No worries. I missed it as well. My thanks to you, and apologies to Joe and Dick.