"Advocating for the obscene hoarding of wealth for a tiny minority."

[theninthwall]

I read this article on Vice today. Yes, I still sometimes visit their website, though there isn't much to see there these days. https://www.vice.com/en/article/m7b4qy/retiring-young-how-early-retirement-is-going

The article catches up with people who have FIRE'd from a previous article five years ago. In general, they are happy with their lot.

Towards the end of the article comes this line from the author: "Personally, I can’t help seeing the FIRE movement as advocating for the obscene hoarding of wealth for a tiny minority."

Now look, there is no doubt that a large segment of the FIRE community is people who have a relatively easy road. If you make $500k a year and you live a $200k lifestyle while saving the $300k, you're not a martyr. There's a lot of privilege associated with that position.

But I think Mustachianism is way more relevant to the Vice audience. Mindless consumerism is keeps so many people from achieving their financial goals. Further, you could take the view that the Mustachian sect of the FIRE movement is about making only as much wealth as you need and then getting out of the way so the next person can have their lot. Far from obscene, it's about making sure you acquire/consume only just enough. Again, even that is a privileged position, but the opposite to Mustachanism would surely be consuming excessively and working ourselves into an early grave without time for life...anyway, that's my rant.

[Chris Pascale]

That's an odd conclusion when you see all these people living modestly.

Also, who's hoarding when 1 group will make/spend way more over 40-50 years while keeping a death grip on their job?

[JAYSLOL]

Yeah, that’s a weird conclusion for the author to jump to.  There’s nothing morally superior about working through your whole life and wasting away all those earnings on consumerism rather than working a bit less and saving a lot more.  Now sure, if someone was to instead live frugally and work their whole life while giving away their wealth to the poor or whatever and have just enough for a normal retirement, that’s commendable, but a personal choice and not a moral necessity.  I could be more inclined to see the author’s point if that’s what he was doing, but since he’s writing clickbait for Vice, I highly doubt he bringing much value to society or being very generous himself. 

[Askel]

Well when the first paragraph has the line "As someone of a generation for whom the idea of a comfortable retirement is an utter fantasy, it was the easiest decision of my life.", you know you're in for a ride.  Also, 'utter fantasy' links to https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkbjzm/does-the-gig-economy-mean-were-going-to-work-forever

[Log]

It's just audience capture - once you've cultivated an audience of people with a certain worldview, then you have to pander to that worldview or your audience gets angry at you.

Writing positively about FIRE is not compatible with the Vice audience, so the writer has to throw in apologetic disclaimers like that to not spark a riot of complainy-pants responses.

[charis]

"Personally, I can’t help seeing the FIRE movement as advocating for the obscene hoarding of wealth for a tiny minority."

This point is nonsensical.  What does the author think that people who keep working are doing with their continued income?  Giving it all away? 

So now saving a chunk of one's income and investing it instead of spending it is called "hoarding"?

[Freedomin5]

That conclusion doesn’t make sense. So if I keep my current job and keep my current spending the same and keep growing a stash way beyond what I need, but *don’t* FIRE, then I am *not* hoarding my wealth? But if I only take what I need to survive and then give my job to someone else who may need the money more, then I’m hoarding? Makes no sense at all.

I also hate it when people/authors just complain about a situation but don’t give a solution. Like, it’s easy to be critical of others, but what would you do differently, and why is your position perhaps better? Coming up with solutions requires more brain power than just judging others. I don’t see the author offering a solution and a rationale for their solution.

[Telecaster]

Writing positively about FIRE is not compatible with the Vice audience, so the writer has to throw in apologetic disclaimers like that to not spark a riot of complainy-pants responses.

I doubt it is as sinister as that.   I think it is safer to say general audiences don't understand FIRE, and that includes the author.   I see a couple common misconceptions about FIRE in popular media:

1a. FIRE is impossible for normal people because normal people can't save more than a trivial part of their income
1b.  Even if they could, no would want to live on that small of an income in retirement
2a.  People are bored in FIRE because normal people need the structure of a workplace to direct their time.
2b.  People are defined by their careers, so if you don't have a career you feel unfufilled. 

The first explains why articles by that dipshit Financial Samurai are so popular.  He claims to have a huge amount of money and still can't make it work.   But it also explains the author's comment.  Obviously, normal people don't horde obscene amounts of wealth, so there must be something mentally/morally off with FIRE folks.

The second explains why the author asked each of the subject if they were bored (they gotta be, right?) or if they had regrets.    The answers were all pretty much the same:  Don't have time to be bored and should have retired sooner!

Overall, I thought the article was pretty good, at least compared to most general interest articles about FIRE.    The author only asked gotcha questions, but got positive responses back.   Despite her snarky comment, she admitted being around to care for a sick relative was a good thing and maybe office work isn't all it is cracked up to be.  She could have spun it a lot harder to the negative but to her credit just wrote the story, despite not really understanding it. 

[Freedomin5]

Overall, I thought the article was pretty good, at least compared to most general interest articles about FIRE.    The author only asked gotcha questions, but got positive responses back.   Despite her snarky comment, she admitted being around to care for a sick relative was a good thing and maybe office work isn't all it is cracked up to be.  She could have spun it a lot harder to the negative but to her credit just wrote the story, despite not really understanding it.

I don’t really read other negative articles about FIRE, but this author didn’t just write the story, she was pretty biased with a dismal conclusion.

In the first paragraph, she plants the seed that FIRE is linked to the words “utter fantasy”. Then she calls it “wild schemes and dreams”. She ends by saying FIREees are hoarding their wealth, and then, because she didn’t get any negative responses from the FIREees, she took a super positive evidence of being able to care for sick relatives and pursue your passions, and generated her own gloomy complaints and conclusion about the work world being sick. And ends on a totally negative note. Perhaps the article speaks more to the author’s pessimistic worldview than an actual criticism of FIRE.

[Sanitary Stache]

Personally, I think you need to get to 50 million before the wealth hoarding becomes obscene. Over ten million and it is just ugly. The numbers that this author objects to, between 1-10 million is good looking wealth hoarding to me. It’s the kind of wealth everyone should be given.

[Metalcat]

Wait...what??

By their logic any degree of saving is "wealth hoarding."

The alternative is that folks waste more money on conspicuous consumerism and make A LOT more money over a longer period of time.

It's absolute gibberish logic.

Even if we're just looking at high earners and complaining about inequality, how can a high earner who chooses to indulge in extreme consumerism better than one who doesn't and therefore doesn't have to work as long?

I had colleagues buying Ferraris and helicopters while I was buying a used Corolla. And I'm somehow the wealth hoarding asshole??

[ixtap]

Wait...what??

By their logic any degree of saving is "wealth hoarding."

The alternative is that folks waste more money on conspicuous consumerism and make A LOT more money over a longer period of time.

It's absolute gibberish logic.

Even if we're just looking at high earners and complaining about inequality, how can a high earner who chooses to indulge in extreme consumerism better than one who doesn't and therefore doesn't have to work as long?

I had colleagues buying Ferraris and helicopters while I was buying a used Corolla. And I'm somehow the wealth hoarding asshole??

We can only have trickle down economics if the obscenely wealthy spend their money; preferably, all of it so that they aren't wealthy anymore!

[Metalcat]

Wait...what??

By their logic any degree of saving is "wealth hoarding."

The alternative is that folks waste more money on conspicuous consumerism and make A LOT more money over a longer period of time.

It's absolute gibberish logic.

Even if we're just looking at high earners and complaining about inequality, how can a high earner who chooses to indulge in extreme consumerism better than one who doesn't and therefore doesn't have to work as long?

I had colleagues buying Ferraris and helicopters while I was buying a used Corolla. And I'm somehow the wealth hoarding asshole??

We can only have trickle down economics if the obscenely wealthy spend their money; preferably, all of it so that they aren't wealthy anymore!

Everyone knows that rich folks spending obscene amounts on watches, cars, vacations and booze is the best way for them to support poor folks, it's just so obvious.

[ixtap]

Wait...what??

By their logic any degree of saving is "wealth hoarding."

The alternative is that folks waste more money on conspicuous consumerism and make A LOT more money over a longer period of time.

It's absolute gibberish logic.

Even if we're just looking at high earners and complaining about inequality, how can a high earner who chooses to indulge in extreme consumerism better than one who doesn't and therefore doesn't have to work as long?

I had colleagues buying Ferraris and helicopters while I was buying a used Corolla. And I'm somehow the wealth hoarding asshole??

We can only have trickle down economics if the obscenely wealthy spend their money; preferably, all of it so that they aren't wealthy anymore!

Everyone knows that rich folks spending obscene amounts on watches, cars, vacations and booze is the best way for them to support poor folks, it's just so obvious.

FIRE is the only reason Reaganomics failed!

[ChpBstrd]

It's just audience capture - once you've cultivated an audience of people with a certain worldview, then you have to pander to that worldview or your audience gets angry at you.

Writing positively about FIRE is not compatible with the Vice audience, so the writer has to throw in apologetic disclaimers like that to not spark a riot of complainy-pants responses.

So the next question is why would VICE cultivate an audience of people who think it's unfair some people save their paychecks and get FI? After all, MMM became one of the most popular blogs on the internet many years ago by offering a highly optimistic worldview that flew in the face of the mainstream culture. And here we have VICE dooming and conforming to mainstream internet culture. Are they missing out?

I suspect it has something to do with self-accountability. Self-accountable people like MMM was speaking to do not buy dumb shit to cheer themselves up or feel like a part of a herd. They see through excuses and facepunch themselves for whinyness and shiny object disease. They are an extremely hard demographic to market dumb shit to, which is a description of most of the ads on the internet.

No clicks on the ads selling dumb shit eventually means no revenue for content creators. So content creators compete to earn the clicks of people who are
1) competent enough to earn money and complete the buying process, but
2) not self-accountable enough to know whatever the hell they're buying isn't going to help them be happier in the long run.

MMM does referrals for things like the cheapest cell phone plans, but that's low-margin stuff. It is unlikely anyone from his audience would click the ads from Temu or WTF ever that finances most "journalism" today. That means the low-accountability crowd is steering the direction of the internet. The people who make excuses for why they can't be happy or why they need a new F-150, electronic device, fashion object, gadget, etc. are everyone's target audience and so all we see are a repetition of their values, excuses, slogans, etc.

One endgame is for the internet to affect popular culture and make most people less self-accountable than they'd otherwise be. Another is that the internet starts turning off the most successful people, who note the negative tone, apply self-accountability to understand they shouldn't be there, and re-engage with the reality-based world.

[getsorted]

1a. FIRE is impossible for normal people because normal people can't save more than a trivial part of their income

I mean, depending on how low the income threshold is for "normal people," this may be true. I make around 50 grand a year and I have struggled, even in a LCOL area, to keep up a 15% savings rate. There is absolutely a bottom for being able to FIRE. There is a bottom for being able to meet basic life expenses.

That said-- I am 100% familiar with the attitude of the VICE article author and it is probably the predominant attitude among people in my circle, people I date. I have an ongoing Facebook feud going with a woman about a decade younger than me who is an academic in an extremely HCOL area. In her mind it is impossible for millennials like she and I to 1. buy a home 2. retire, ever 3. have families. I am doing 1 and 3 and am (marginally) on track to do #2, albeit not early, but that's really only because I had a complete financial disaster in 2019.

The attitude behind it is sort of like: "If I had to move somewhere outside my HCOL area, I would die. Literally die. There is not a single place on earth I could live safely or with any happiness at all, apart from my current HCOL city. Similarly, I can never work any job that isn't this extremely specific one, and it is underpaid and so I am not even going to try to save."

I've told people about my plans to eventually own a rental house; what I hear from dates, friends, and colleagues is: Landlords are evil bastards who are ruining the world. If I talk about wanting to eventually own a business, they talk about how the profession I want to enter shouldn't be a business and people should go into it for altruistic reasons.

I keep trying to find new and more friendly ways to say, "Hey, it can be true that capitalism is rigged, it can be true that many vital jobs are drastically underpaid, it can be true that fundamental injustices are occurring and significant structural impediments are working against you. But it can also be true that you can do some things to dramatically better your own situation?"

[ChpBstrd]

1a. FIRE is impossible for normal people because normal people can't save more than a trivial part of their income

I mean, depending on how low the income threshold is for "normal people," this may be true. I make around 50 grand a year and I have struggled, even in a LCOL area, to keep up a 15% savings rate. There is absolutely a bottom for being able to FIRE. There is a bottom for being able to meet basic life expenses.

That said-- I am 100% familiar with the attitude of the VICE article author and it is probably the predominant attitude among people in my circle, people I date. I have an ongoing Facebook feud going with a woman about a decade younger than me who is an academic in an extremely HCOL area. In her mind it is impossible for millennials like she and I to 1. buy a home 2. retire, ever 3. have families. I am doing 1 and 3 and am (marginally) on track to do #2, albeit not early, but that's really only because I had a complete financial disaster in 2019.

The attitude behind it is sort of like: "If I had to move somewhere outside my HCOL area, I would die. Literally die. There is not a single place on earth I could live safely or with any happiness at all, apart from my current HCOL city. Similarly, I can never work any job that isn't this extremely specific one, and it is underpaid and so I am not even going to try to save."

I've told people about my plans to eventually own a rental house; what I hear from dates, friends, and colleagues is: Landlords are evil bastards who are ruining the world. If I talk about wanting to eventually own a business, they talk about how the profession I want to enter shouldn't be a business and people should go into it for altruistic reasons.

I keep trying to find new and more friendly ways to say, "Hey, it can be true that capitalism is rigged, it can be true that many vital jobs are drastically underpaid, it can be true that fundamental injustices are occurring and significant structural impediments are working against you. But it can also be true that you can do some things to dramatically better your own situation?"

I've observed the same about financially-stressed HCOL people. It's apparently a privilege and luxury to live in a way that leaves one on a constant treadmill just to make ends meet. When pressed on why they live in a place where housing costs 4-5X what it costs in other places, they cite various "amenities" that apparently don't exist elsewhere, like culture, weather, and parks. So their choice of locale is a lifestyle decision to buy a very specific luxury they perceive to exist in only their place. 

You'd think they would be self-aware of the tradeoff between financial well-being and these perceived luxuries. No, actually. The same people who will have the above conversation with you will immediately pivot to saying "FIRE is impossible for normal people because normal people can't save more than a trivial part of their income."

What about those of us who aren't paying for the supposed luxury of living in a HCOL area?

It is explained to us - without actually looking up facts on sites like salary.com or a hundred COL calculators - that "there are no jobs" in places where big houses can be bought for less than $250k, or that the jobs all pay minimum wage. This conversation can go on for a while because you can drag out all sorts of data, links, facts, whatever and show that the unemployment rate is low, salaries are a lot higher than costs of living, etc. and you'll just see this wall of denial go up.

That's when you realize you're not talking to a person who is lacking information or can't find information on the internet, you're talking to a coping mechanism.

It's not that they need your help finding the simple solution to everything they want - a home of their own, ability to start a family, financial security, free time. It's that their vision of an acceptable life is so narrow that they cannot imagine being happy having all those things if they also cannot live in their HCOL area. If you try to disassemble that assumption, the rationalizations pile up like a brick wall to protect them.

So back to your first paragraph @getsorted , we too must be careful not to construct too narrow a vision. If we say there is absolutely a bottom to be able to fire, which of the following housing situations are we thinking about?
1) living alone in a 3BR suburban SFH
2) living alone in a 2BR modular home
3) living alone in a 1BR apartment
4) living with a roommate in a 2BR apartment
5) living with two roommates in a 3BR apartment
6) living in an old RV that you own outright on a lot you own outright (see earlyretirementextreme.com)

I'm not even sure if #6 is the actual bottom. People in lifestyle #1 often call their lifestyle the bare minimum way to live, when in fact there are lots of people living on each of 5 layers below them in terms of expensiveness.

We'll sometimes cite our budget as the bare minimum to possibly survive, without applying any imagination about how we could configure our lives differently in terms of housing, transportation, energy usage and production, food usage and production, entertainment, data fees, or the other unquestioned bills and purchases that comprise our lifestyles.

If thinking this way causes us to raise our own wall of rationalizations and denial, we can understand how people in HCOL areas fall into the same trap.

[Metalcat]

1a. FIRE is impossible for normal people because normal people can't save more than a trivial part of their income

I mean, depending on how low the income threshold is for "normal people," this may be true. I make around 50 grand a year and I have struggled, even in a LCOL area, to keep up a 15% savings rate. There is absolutely a bottom for being able to FIRE. There is a bottom for being able to meet basic life expenses.

That said-- I am 100% familiar with the attitude of the VICE article author and it is probably the predominant attitude among people in my circle, people I date. I have an ongoing Facebook feud going with a woman about a decade younger than me who is an academic in an extremely HCOL area. In her mind it is impossible for millennials like she and I to 1. buy a home 2. retire, ever 3. have families. I am doing 1 and 3 and am (marginally) on track to do #2, albeit not early, but that's really only because I had a complete financial disaster in 2019.

The attitude behind it is sort of like: "If I had to move somewhere outside my HCOL area, I would die. Literally die. There is not a single place on earth I could live safely or with any happiness at all, apart from my current HCOL city. Similarly, I can never work any job that isn't this extremely specific one, and it is underpaid and so I am not even going to try to save."

I've told people about my plans to eventually own a rental house; what I hear from dates, friends, and colleagues is: Landlords are evil bastards who are ruining the world. If I talk about wanting to eventually own a business, they talk about how the profession I want to enter shouldn't be a business and people should go into it for altruistic reasons.

I keep trying to find new and more friendly ways to say, "Hey, it can be true that capitalism is rigged, it can be true that many vital jobs are drastically underpaid, it can be true that fundamental injustices are occurring and significant structural impediments are working against you. But it can also be true that you can do some things to dramatically better your own situation?"

I've observed the same about financially-stressed HCOL people. It's apparently a privilege and luxury to live in a way that leaves one on a constant treadmill just to make ends meet. When pressed on why they live in a place where housing costs 4-5X what it costs in other places, they cite various "amenities" that apparently don't exist elsewhere, like culture, weather, and parks. So their choice of locale is a lifestyle decision to buy a very specific luxury they perceive to exist in only their place. 

You'd think they would be self-aware of the tradeoff between financial well-being and these perceived luxuries. No, actually. The same people who will have the above conversation with you will immediately pivot to saying "FIRE is impossible for normal people because normal people can't save more than a trivial part of their income."

What about those of us who aren't paying for the supposed luxury of living in a HCOL area?

It is explained to us - without actually looking up facts on sites like salary.com or a hundred COL calculators - that "there are no jobs" in places where big houses can be bought for less than $250k, or that the jobs all pay minimum wage. This conversation can go on for a while because you can drag out all sorts of data, links, facts, whatever and show that the unemployment rate is low, salaries are a lot higher than costs of living, etc. and you'll just see this wall of denial go up.

That's when you realize you're not talking to a person who is lacking information or can't find information on the internet, you're talking to a coping mechanism.

It's not that they need your help finding the simple solution to everything they want - a home of their own, ability to start a family, financial security, free time. It's that their vision of an acceptable life is so narrow that they cannot imagine being happy having all those things if they also cannot live in their HCOL area. If you try to disassemble that assumption, the rationalizations pile up like a brick wall to protect them.

So back to your first paragraph @getsorted , we too must be careful not to construct too narrow a vision. If we say there is absolutely a bottom to be able to fire, which of the following housing situations are we thinking about?
1) living alone in a 3BR suburban SFH
2) living alone in a 2BR modular home
3) living alone in a 1BR apartment
4) living with a roommate in a 2BR apartment
5) living with two roommates in a 3BR apartment
6) living in an old RV that you own outright on a lot you own outright (see earlyretirementextreme.com)

I'm not even sure if #6 is the actual bottom. People in lifestyle #1 often call their lifestyle the bare minimum way to live, when in fact there are lots of people living on each of 5 layers below them in terms of expensiveness.

We'll sometimes cite our budget as the bare minimum to possibly survive, without applying any imagination about how we could configure our lives differently in terms of housing, transportation, energy usage and production, food usage and production, entertainment, data fees, or the other unquestioned bills and purchases that comprise our lifestyles.

If thinking this way causes us to raise our own wall of rationalizations and denial, we can understand how people in HCOL areas fall into the same trap.

I agree, I had these insane conversations all the time with over-leveraged, high income colleagues.

They always had a million justifications for why the spending had some kind of important benefit, but when I pointed out to them that overall their stress levels and quality of life were generally horrible, they would double down on why that makes it so much more important to keep all of these amenities in their lives.

They actually believe that *more* over extension is better to pull as many of these luxuries as possible into their lives because those are what makes life worth living.

So they're stressed and unhealthy, their kids are stressed and unhealthy, but the solution is to extract as much luxury out of their lifestyle as possible. Get the kids into the most elite schools and activities, take even more elaborate vacations, renovate with even more expensive finishes.

The more overstressed they are, the more they feel they need these things to make the stress worthwhile. It's a horrible cycle where giving them up feels like admitting failure.

It's atrocious.

[getsorted]

So back to your first paragraph @getsorted , we too must be careful not to construct too narrow a vision. If we say there is absolutely a bottom to be able to fire, which of the following housing situations are we thinking about?
1) living alone in a 3BR suburban SFH
2) living alone in a 2BR modular home
3) living alone in a 1BR apartment
4) living with a roommate in a 2BR apartment
5) living with two roommates in a 3BR apartment
6) living in an old RV that you own outright on a lot you own outright (see earlyretirementextreme.com)

I'm not even sure if #6 is the actual bottom. People in lifestyle #1 often call their lifestyle the bare minimum way to live, when in fact there are lots of people living on each of 5 layers below them in terms of expensiveness.

We'll sometimes cite our budget as the bare minimum to possibly survive, without applying any imagination about how we could configure our lives differently in terms of housing, transportation, energy usage and production, food usage and production, entertainment, data fees, or the other unquestioned bills and purchases that comprise our lifestyles.

If thinking this way causes us to raise our own wall of rationalizations and denial, we can understand how people in HCOL areas fall into the same trap.

We must also be careful not to construct too broad a vision. When we are applying our imagination, it's important to allow reality to intrude. We can certainly imagine lifestyles that require no income at all, or point out someone on the Internet who is living that way. But it is truly fantastic to posit that literally every person in the world could, with a little elbow grease, FIRE.

The existence of people who overstate their basic needs or overinflate their basic budget does not negate the existence of basic needs or basic budgets. People need food, shelter, health care, education, and social fulfillment. Those things come at a cost in either money or labor.

[FireLane]

This is a bizarre article.

It reads like the author hated the idea of FIRE and wanted to write a column proving it was impossible. She really wanted to find out that people who retired early had crashed and burned.

But when she asked early retirees, she found they were doing great and had no complaints. So she put their positive quotes in, but kept the original, pessimistic intro and conclusion. She says that for her generation, "the idea of a comfortable retirement is an utter fantasy," but quotes people who did just that!

I try to empathize with doomers and not just dismiss them as bitter losers. I can admit they have some good points. It's true that capitalism is heavily tilted in favor of the rich and against the poor. The costs of housing, health care and education are increasing beyond any rational justification. Climate change is going to be disastrous for humanity.

But you don't get to choose the world you're born into. At the end of the day, you only have two choices. You can try to create the best life you can for yourself within the system as it exists. Or you can throw up your hands and say that life is unfair and there's no point trying. It's the ultimate sour-grapes mentality. If you believe happiness is impossible, then it's not your fault if you're unhappy, and you have no responsibility to change your circumstances.

People who've chosen that path don't like successful FIREes, because we undermine their protective armor of cynicism. They view our existence as a criticism of the choices they've made. Their hostility is a natural defense mechanism from people whose egos are threatened.

To your point, @getsorted, there's no way to spread the FIRE message that everyone will accept. Some people just want to be validated. But it could help to present FIRE as one possible goal, not the only goal. We can say, "Not everyone can retire early, but being frugal and building up a savings stash will make your life better, whether you retire early or not."

[ChpBstrd]

...there's no way to spread the FIRE message that everyone will accept. Some people just want to be validated. But it could help to present FIRE as one possible goal, not the only goal. We can say, "Not everyone can retire early, but being frugal and building up a savings stash will make your life better, whether you retire early or not."

Excellent point. To me this is a lesson: We're on the wrong track if we ever have a conversation with a goal to "be validated". This is NOT an open-minded, problem-solving, or even emotionally productive way to think. It's usually whining about the consequences of our own choices while defending those same choices. It's asking for a pat on the back when what one needs to do is recognize failed assumptions and strategies so that one can move on.

Regarding the idea that not everyone can retire early, I think that's true but to a much more limited extent than generally recognized. People with severe disabilities or addictions, serving prison sentences, living in failed countries, people without enough time left until normal retirement, and maybe people determined to give their entire lives to charity are perhaps excluded. For everyone else there is a pathway. The pathway generally involves a radical lifestyle change, but the decision to reject that change doesn't mean the option didn't exist.

Almost everyone in the US who is under 55 and can earn money is eligible to FIRE. The lower-income people who could never imagine themselves living in a modular home or with roommates or without a car are making a choice. The Californians who could never imagine themselves living in West Virginia or Alabama are making a choice. Those of us who are reluctant to skill up for a new career direction are making a choice. Possible is always within the bounds of what we want, and what we think is impossible is often just shorthand for what we don't want.

[getsorted]

Almost everyone in the US who is under 55 and can earn money is eligible to FIRE.

But this is quite silly. It's an oversimplification to the point of absurdity. You would have to assume that everyone has absolutely no other values or goals in life but financial independence.

My widowed neighbor with 8 school-age children, whose entire life savings was exhausted by her late husband's medical bills? You think she can FIRE? She already has 8 kids in a two-bedroom house, sharing beds. Should they move into an RV? Here in tornado country? Should they take in some roommates in their RV? Come on.

All of us have standards and values for living beyond simply becoming financially independent. We want to provide opportunities for our offspring, enjoy the activities that make us feel that life has a purpose, and maybe have hot shower now and then.

There's a difference between opening up space for creative problem-solving and insisting that everyone else's problems aren't real. 

[farmecologist]

Interesting look back on folks that have FIRE'ed.  However, it seems like the author truly doesn't understand what is going on ( and I hope the author isn't AI..haha ).   And they used the "entire generation" cliche...that turned me off right there.
 
Frankly, a large part of the FIRE movement are "millionaire next door" types that have worked hard, lived frugally, and saved tremendously.  I think many of us FIRE types question the conventional (lack of) wisdom regarding consumerism, consumption, etc... and are all the better for it! 

We are GenX'ers in our early 50s and are currently seeing many friends, family, former friends, and acquaintances that didn't play the long game complaining...loudly about their situation.  And it is quite sad.  Look, I don't like to see anyone approaching their senior years being in a bad situation, but you reap what you sow.  And unfortunately, there are a LOT of them.

 

[Fomerly known as something]

Well as someone who likes CA having moved here 2ish years ago, and I’m staying.  It’s way better than when I lived in BFE Georgia but was “rich”.   Of course the people I hang out with tend to buy a reasonable sized place, rent a studio or have roommates. 

[clarkfan1979]

Interesting look back on folks that have FIRE'ed.  However, it seems like the author truly doesn't understand what is going on ( and I hope the author isn't AI..haha ).   And they used the "entire generation" cliche...that turned me off right there.
 
Frankly, a large part of the FIRE movement are "millionaire next door" types that have worked hard, lived frugally, and saved tremendously.  I think many of us FIRE types question the conventional (lack of) wisdom regarding consumerism, consumption, etc... and are all the better for it! 

We are GenX'ers in our early 50s and are currently seeing many friends, family, former friends, and acquaintances that didn't play the long game complaining...loudly about their situation.  And it is quite sad.  Look, I don't like to see anyone approaching their senior years being in a bad situation, but you reap what you sow.  And unfortunately, there are a LOT of them.

I'm seeing this in my 40's.

I had a professor in undergrad explain exponential growth to us when I was 22 years old (2001). He was in his late 60's and told us he was worth about 10 million because he was frugal. His salary was not impressive, but he did write a textbook.

He also told us that when he started accumulating wealth, mostly due to being frugal, he started to lose friends. He said that after about 10-15 years of saving and investing, his best friend at work stopped talking to him. They were similar age, position and salary. His friend would buy a new car every 3 years and he wouldn't. After listening to his comments, I was like, that doesn't make any sense. That will never happen to me. Well, it has definitely happened.

I haven't had any negative experiences from close friends. However, I definitely got some push back from co-workers when they found out that I bought a house in Hawaii, when living in Hawaii. I was specifically told by my best friend at work to not tell anyone, so I didn't. However, the word eventually got out. I was approached by people on campus asking me questions on how I could afford it and then ended with "must be nice" comments at the end.   

I guess the solution is to get new friends with similar resources? However, you can't really do that at work if you stay at the same college for 30 years. What is the solution? I have found the solution to be to not talk about it. Among my group of ski buddies, I'm the poorest, so I have fun with that role. I'm the frugal millionaire driving a crappy car.
 



   

[Metalcat]

Interesting look back on folks that have FIRE'ed.  However, it seems like the author truly doesn't understand what is going on ( and I hope the author isn't AI..haha ).   And they used the "entire generation" cliche...that turned me off right there.
 
Frankly, a large part of the FIRE movement are "millionaire next door" types that have worked hard, lived frugally, and saved tremendously.  I think many of us FIRE types question the conventional (lack of) wisdom regarding consumerism, consumption, etc... and are all the better for it! 

We are GenX'ers in our early 50s and are currently seeing many friends, family, former friends, and acquaintances that didn't play the long game complaining...loudly about their situation.  And it is quite sad.  Look, I don't like to see anyone approaching their senior years being in a bad situation, but you reap what you sow.  And unfortunately, there are a LOT of them.

I'm seeing this in my 40's.

I had a professor in undergrad explain exponential growth to us when I was 22 years old (2001). He was in his late 60's and told us he was worth about 10 million because he was frugal. His salary was not impressive, but he did write a textbook.

He also told us that when he started accumulating wealth, mostly due to being frugal, he started to lose friends. He said that after about 10-15 years of saving and investing, his best friend at work stopped talking to him. They were similar age, position and salary. His friend would buy a new car every 3 years and he wouldn't. After listening to his comments, I was like, that doesn't make any sense. That will never happen to me. Well, it has definitely happened.

I haven't had any negative experiences from close friends. However, I definitely got some push back from co-workers when they found out that I bought a house in Hawaii, when living in Hawaii. I was specifically told by my best friend at work to not tell anyone, so I didn't. However, the word eventually got out. I was approached by people on campus asking me questions on how I could afford it and then ended with "must be nice" comments at the end.   

I guess the solution is to get new friends with similar resources? However, you can't really do that at work if you stay at the same college for 30 years. What is the solution? I have found the solution to be to not talk about it. Among my group of ski buddies, I'm the poorest, so I have fun with that role. I'm the frugal millionaire driving a crappy car.

The solution is to have excellent boundaries with people and make it clear that you will not be held accountable for their discomfort with your financial situation.

When someone says to me "must be nice" I always reply with a big, unapologetic smile and say "Actually yeah! It really is!"

I establish clearly that I have nothing to apologize for and nothing to justify. They're not entitled to know how I did it unless they express genuine curiosity from a place of interest in me and my life, not a place of bitter judgement.

People have reactions, it's fine, I don't take them personally, but I do make it clear that those reactions aren't going to be rewarded or encouraged.

I'm friends with plenty of people who have a lot less resources than I do. It's not actually hard, I just understand where their reactions come from, I have compassion for them, but I make it very clear that they are absolutely not my responsibility.

I'm disabled and constantly have feelings of envy when people talk about doing sports or travel that involves long walks around beautiful cities. But no one is doing anything wrong by having working legs, so I can express that envy in a way that I make it clear that it's *my* issue, but I cannot blame them for it.

Likewise, someone who is not as financially secure as me is welcome to share with me their insecurities and envy from a perspective where they own that it's their problem to deal with and all I can offer is compassion or advice if they want it. But I absolutely will not be subjected to shame/guilt.

Make your expectations of people clear and they will either comply or move on. What doesn't work is getting butthurt and then feeling the need to justify your wealth, which is, unfortunately, what most people do, which just worsens the dynamic and eventually erodes the friendship.

Why? Because it subscribes to the presupposition that you having wealth *is* something that needs to be justified, which actually validates the person's initial reaction in the first place. The conflict then becomes around whether they agree with your justification or not, not about whether their reaction was acceptable in the first place.

Because I have solid boundaries, people know they are welcome to express their feelings of envy or insecurity from a place of vulnerability, but not from a place of hostility. I just won't have it, and because of that, they learn very quickly not to do that.

People have all sorts of friendships with people who have what they want. People with fertility issues are friends with people who have multiple kids. People who have terrible marriages are friends with people who have wonderful marriages. People who have lost their parents are friends with people who have all of their parents and grandparents still alive. We are *perfectly* capable of being close with people who don't share the same fortunes. It's just a bad social habit people have picked up to be hostile about money fortunes, but it can easily be trained out of people.

[ChpBstrd]

Interesting look back on folks that have FIRE'ed.  However, it seems like the author truly doesn't understand what is going on ( and I hope the author isn't AI..haha ).   And they used the "entire generation" cliche...that turned me off right there.
 
Frankly, a large part of the FIRE movement are "millionaire next door" types that have worked hard, lived frugally, and saved tremendously.  I think many of us FIRE types question the conventional (lack of) wisdom regarding consumerism, consumption, etc... and are all the better for it! 

We are GenX'ers in our early 50s and are currently seeing many friends, family, former friends, and acquaintances that didn't play the long game complaining...loudly about their situation.  And it is quite sad.  Look, I don't like to see anyone approaching their senior years being in a bad situation, but you reap what you sow.  And unfortunately, there are a LOT of them.

I'm seeing this in my 40's.

I had a professor in undergrad explain exponential growth to us when I was 22 years old (2001). He was in his late 60's and told us he was worth about 10 million because he was frugal. His salary was not impressive, but he did write a textbook.

He also told us that when he started accumulating wealth, mostly due to being frugal, he started to lose friends. He said that after about 10-15 years of saving and investing, his best friend at work stopped talking to him. They were similar age, position and salary. His friend would buy a new car every 3 years and he wouldn't. After listening to his comments, I was like, that doesn't make any sense. That will never happen to me. Well, it has definitely happened.

I haven't had any negative experiences from close friends. However, I definitely got some push back from co-workers when they found out that I bought a house in Hawaii, when living in Hawaii. I was specifically told by my best friend at work to not tell anyone, so I didn't. However, the word eventually got out. I was approached by people on campus asking me questions on how I could afford it and then ended with "must be nice" comments at the end.   

I guess the solution is to get new friends with similar resources? However, you can't really do that at work if you stay at the same college for 30 years. What is the solution? I have found the solution to be to not talk about it. Among my group of ski buddies, I'm the poorest, so I have fun with that role. I'm the frugal millionaire driving a crappy car.   

This seems to be an example of how culture punishes whoever refuses to conform. Not spending one's entire paycheck today is like dying your hair green in the 1950s, driving a Japanese car in the 1970s, or refusing to go to church in the 1700s. People will literally despise you for not conforming.

So when I said earlier that FIRE is an option for anybody who is young enough, healthy enough, and can earn an income, maybe I missed another qualifier: willing to live as an outcast.

...People have all sorts of friendships with people who have what they want. People with fertility issues are friends with people who have multiple kids. People who have terrible marriages are friends with people who have wonderful marriages. People who have lost their parents are friends with people who have all of their parents and grandparents still alive. We are *perfectly* capable of being close with people who don't share the same fortunes. It's just a bad social habit people have picked up to be hostile about money fortunes, but it can easily be trained out of people.

This is a very ideal vision of the world, and a pragmatic one too. Life is rather arbitrary to reject friends based on their or our luck. Given time, differences in luck would exclude almost everyone.

Plus, diverse friends give us the option to learn from people who have the aspects of life we want or need. Lazy people like me need friends who like to exercise. Spendthrifts need frugal friends. People with trashy habits need clean-cut professionals. Artists need practical concrete thinkers, and vice versa. Unmotivated people need friends who are leaders and leaders need unmotivated friends to practice their craft. Pessimists need optimists, and so on.

In practice, the opposite occurs. Our culture's concept of friendship is that our friends are supposed to be like us, so that we can enjoy doing the same things together. That means consuming the same products (cars, restaurant meals, vacations, clothes, entertainment, hobby products...). This is most people's internal schema for achieving social contentment. This vision, the polar opposite of what @Metalcat said, is sold to us with advertisements showing people enjoying the use or consumption of products together, implying that if we buy a thing we will fall into a close-knit group of BFFs who also consume the thing.

The esteem of those friends in the ad is what we really want, but we never realize it is our own narrowness which precludes getting what we want, and instead puts us on a consumer treadmill.

[Psychstache]

...People have all sorts of friendships with people who have what they want. People with fertility issues are friends with people who have multiple kids. People who have terrible marriages are friends with people who have wonderful marriages. People who have lost their parents are friends with people who have all of their parents and grandparents still alive. We are *perfectly* capable of being close with people who don't share the same fortunes. It's just a bad social habit people have picked up to be hostile about money fortunes, but it can easily be trained out of people.

This is a very ideal vision of the world, and a pragmatic one too. Life is rather arbitrary to reject friends based on their or our luck. Given time, differences in luck would exclude almost everyone.

Plus, diverse friends give us the option to learn from people who have the aspects of life we want or need. Lazy people like me need friends who like to exercise. Spendthrifts need frugal friends. People with trashy habits need clean-cut professionals. Artists need practical concrete thinkers, and vice versa. Unmotivated people need friends who are leaders and leaders need unmotivated friends to practice their craft. Pessimists need optimists, and so on.

In practice, the opposite occurs. Our culture's concept of friendship is that our friends are supposed to be like us, so that we can enjoy doing the same things together. That means consuming the same products (cars, restaurant meals, vacations, clothes, entertainment, hobby products...). This is most people's internal schema for achieving social contentment. This vision, the polar opposite of what @Metalcat said, is sold to us with advertisements showing people enjoying the use or consumption of products together, implying that if we buy a thing we will fall into a close-knit group of BFFs who also consume the thing.

The esteem of those friends in the ad is what we really want, but we never realize it is our own narrowness which precludes getting what we want, and instead puts us on a consumer treadmill.

It goes along that most people are looking for affirmation, not information. Having friends who are more alike is comforting, and most people don't like to be uncomfortable.

[ixtap]

It goes along that most people are looking for affirmation, not information. Having friends who are more alike is comforting, and most people don't like to be uncomfortable.

I am far too boring to only have friends who are like me. I need a few extroverts around and appreciate other cultures and...

[getsorted]

It goes along that most people are looking for affirmation, not information.

You say that like it's a bad thing, but it's an essential part of being human that we seek care from others when we are distressed.

And why would anyone take information from someone who doesn't care, trivializes their problems, or who derides them for having those problems in the first place? Why take information from someone who is clearly seeking to feel superior rather than offer mutual aid? That's a black mark against the quality of the information.

[Metalcat]

...People have all sorts of friendships with people who have what they want. People with fertility issues are friends with people who have multiple kids. People who have terrible marriages are friends with people who have wonderful marriages. People who have lost their parents are friends with people who have all of their parents and grandparents still alive. We are *perfectly* capable of being close with people who don't share the same fortunes. It's just a bad social habit people have picked up to be hostile about money fortunes, but it can easily be trained out of people.

This is a very ideal vision of the world, and a pragmatic one too. Life is rather arbitrary to reject friends based on their or our luck. Given time, differences in luck would exclude almost everyone.

Plus, diverse friends give us the option to learn from people who have the aspects of life we want or need. Lazy people like me need friends who like to exercise. Spendthrifts need frugal friends. People with trashy habits need clean-cut professionals. Artists need practical concrete thinkers, and vice versa. Unmotivated people need friends who are leaders and leaders need unmotivated friends to practice their craft. Pessimists need optimists, and so on.

In practice, the opposite occurs. Our culture's concept of friendship is that our friends are supposed to be like us, so that we can enjoy doing the same things together. That means consuming the same products (cars, restaurant meals, vacations, clothes, entertainment, hobby products...). This is most people's internal schema for achieving social contentment. This vision, the polar opposite of what @Metalcat said, is sold to us with advertisements showing people enjoying the use or consumption of products together, implying that if we buy a thing we will fall into a close-knit group of BFFs who also consume the thing.

The esteem of those friends in the ad is what we really want, but we never realize it is our own narrowness which precludes getting what we want, and instead puts us on a consumer treadmill.

It goes along that most people are looking for affirmation, not information. Having friends who are more alike is comforting, and most people don't like to be uncomfortable.

That's the thing though, a hell of a lot of human experience is pretty universal.

We tend to think people are similar to us according to certain social metrics, when really, it's actually deeper shit that makes us most similar to others.

I've spent a lot of my life around folks with the exact same career, similar income, and identical education and have found them to be varied from me as much as any other group I've encountered. Being ostensibly similar doesn't necessarily make us meaningfully similar. It just gives us similar superficial shit to talk about.

Take any two people and they're likely to have many differences and profound things in common if they can get to a point of exploring those things. But yeah, if you want to stay surface level, it's more comfortable to be around people whose lives share features that are easy to talk about.

[Fomerly known as something]

Interesting look back on folks that have FIRE'ed.  However, it seems like the author truly doesn't understand what is going on ( and I hope the author isn't AI..haha ).   And they used the "entire generation" cliche...that turned me off right there.
 
Frankly, a large part of the FIRE movement are "millionaire next door" types that have worked hard, lived frugally, and saved tremendously.  I think many of us FIRE types question the conventional (lack of) wisdom regarding consumerism, consumption, etc... and are all the better for it! 

We are GenX'ers in our early 50s and are currently seeing many friends, family, former friends, and acquaintances that didn't play the long game complaining...loudly about their situation.  And it is quite sad.  Look, I don't like to see anyone approaching their senior years being in a bad situation, but you reap what you sow.  And unfortunately, there are a LOT of them.

I'm seeing this in my 40's.

I had a professor in undergrad explain exponential growth to us when I was 22 years old (2001). He was in his late 60's and told us he was worth about 10 million because he was frugal. His salary was not impressive, but he did write a textbook.

He also told us that when he started accumulating wealth, mostly due to being frugal, he started to lose friends. He said that after about 10-15 years of saving and investing, his best friend at work stopped talking to him. They were similar age, position and salary. His friend would buy a new car every 3 years and he wouldn't. After listening to his comments, I was like, that doesn't make any sense. That will never happen to me. Well, it has definitely happened.

I haven't had any negative experiences from close friends. However, I definitely got some push back from co-workers when they found out that I bought a house in Hawaii, when living in Hawaii. I was specifically told by my best friend at work to not tell anyone, so I didn't. However, the word eventually got out. I was approached by people on campus asking me questions on how I could afford it and then ended with "must be nice" comments at the end.   

I guess the solution is to get new friends with similar resources? However, you can't really do that at work if you stay at the same college for 30 years. What is the solution? I have found the solution to be to not talk about it. Among my group of ski buddies, I'm the poorest, so I have fun with that role. I'm the frugal millionaire driving a crappy car.
 



   

I’m in a similar spot (government vs academics).  Luck for me I’m single, being not divorced with no kids is an easy excuse for them.

[dang1]

Vice gotta click-bait cuz it's not doing so hot

"Vice Media, the one-time digital media darling that has seen its value and influence greatly diminish in recent years, moved on Thursday to further hollow out its once prestigious news division, shutting down several shows and laying off dozens of staffers."
https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/09/media/vice-end-news-shows-layoffs/index.html

[MrGreen]

I thought I was hoarding one of the good jobs so getting out of the way would allow someone else to make that money? No?  Ah well, I guess I'll go back to what I was doing.

[ChpBstrd]

I thought I was hoarding one of the good jobs so getting out of the way would allow someone else to make that money? No?  Ah well, I guess I'll go back to what I was doing.

If you had a heart or a conscience you would quit your job and also not have any money. That way other people could have those things. Got it?!

[Metalcat]

I thought I was hoarding one of the good jobs so getting out of the way would allow someone else to make that money? No?  Ah well, I guess I'll go back to what I was doing.

If you had a heart or a conscience you would quit your job and also not have any money. That way other people could have those things. Got it?!

Then we would be those lazy unemployed poor good for nothings who are costing taxpayers money.

Whether you make money or don't make money, save it or spend it, someone is going to be pissed off at you.

[uniwelder]

This is a bizarre article.

It reads like the author hated the idea of FIRE and wanted to write a column proving it was impossible. She really wanted to find out that people who retired early had crashed and burned.

But when she asked early retirees, she found they were doing great and had no complaints. So she put their positive quotes in, but kept the original, pessimistic intro and conclusion. She says that for her generation, "the idea of a comfortable retirement is an utter fantasy," but quotes people who did just that!

I've been following this thread but finally just read the article.  Good discussion so far, but I'm going to interject with a tiny nagging detail.  I just can't get over how the author misquoted one of the FIREees. 

From the article---- "...he’s not actually all that concerned about money “going”. “We have the reverse problem [to what] many FIRE people have,” he says. “We find it hard to spend. After saving and being frugal all your life it's hard to switch that around to spending more...""

In my mind, the person being interviewed clearly stated that many FIRE people have a common problem in that they remain frugal after retiring.  The author, being as biased as she is, then added brackets for what she thought was an incomplete phrase, which totally alters the meaning.  By adding [to what] in the quote, it is implied that many FIRE people start living lavishly with dwindling bank accounts and its the interviewees that are the exception.  Anybody else get the same interpretation?

[Metalcat]

This is a bizarre article.

It reads like the author hated the idea of FIRE and wanted to write a column proving it was impossible. She really wanted to find out that people who retired early had crashed and burned.

But when she asked early retirees, she found they were doing great and had no complaints. So she put their positive quotes in, but kept the original, pessimistic intro and conclusion. She says that for her generation, "the idea of a comfortable retirement is an utter fantasy," but quotes people who did just that!

I've been following this thread but finally just read the article.  Good discussion so far, but I'm going to interject with a tiny nagging detail.  I just can't get over how the author misquoted one of the FIREees. 

From the article---- "...he’s not actually all that concerned about money “going”. “We have the reverse problem [to what] many FIRE people have,” he says. “We find it hard to spend. After saving and being frugal all your life it's hard to switch that around to spending more...""

In my mind, the person being interviewed clearly stated that many FIRE people have a common problem in that they remain frugal after retiring.  The author, being as biased as she is, then added brackets for what she thought was an incomplete phrase, which totally alters the meaning.  By adding [to what] in the quote, it is implied that many FIRE people start living lavishly with dwindling bank accounts and its the interviewees that are the exception.  Anybody else get the same interpretation?

Good catch! Yeah, you're spot on, that's a pure bullshit edit on her part. Further evidence of her total failure to comprehend her subject matter.

[charis]

This is a bizarre article.

It reads like the author hated the idea of FIRE and wanted to write a column proving it was impossible. She really wanted to find out that people who retired early had crashed and burned.

But when she asked early retirees, she found they were doing great and had no complaints. So she put their positive quotes in, but kept the original, pessimistic intro and conclusion. She says that for her generation, "the idea of a comfortable retirement is an utter fantasy," but quotes people who did just that!

I've been following this thread but finally just read the article.  Good discussion so far, but I'm going to interject with a tiny nagging detail.  I just can't get over how the author misquoted one of the FIREees. 

From the article---- "...he’s not actually all that concerned about money “going”. “We have the reverse problem [to what] many FIRE people have,” he says. “We find it hard to spend. After saving and being frugal all your life it's hard to switch that around to spending more...""

In my mind, the person being interviewed clearly stated that many FIRE people have a common problem in that they remain frugal after retiring.  The author, being as biased as she is, then added brackets for what she thought was an incomplete phrase, which totally alters the meaning.  By adding [to what] in the quote, it is implied that many FIRE people start living lavishly with dwindling bank accounts and its the interviewees that are the exception.  Anybody else get the same interpretation?

"We have the reverse problem many FIRE people have" means many FIRE people have trouble spending, the reverse of non-FIRE people.  This would be the correct edit: "We have the reverse problem [that] many FIRE people have.”

[uniwelder]

This is a bizarre article.

It reads like the author hated the idea of FIRE and wanted to write a column proving it was impossible. She really wanted to find out that people who retired early had crashed and burned.

But when she asked early retirees, she found they were doing great and had no complaints. So she put their positive quotes in, but kept the original, pessimistic intro and conclusion. She says that for her generation, "the idea of a comfortable retirement is an utter fantasy," but quotes people who did just that!

I've been following this thread but finally just read the article.  Good discussion so far, but I'm going to interject with a tiny nagging detail.  I just can't get over how the author misquoted one of the FIREees. 

From the article---- "...he’s not actually all that concerned about money “going”. “We have the reverse problem [to what] many FIRE people have,” he says. “We find it hard to spend. After saving and being frugal all your life it's hard to switch that around to spending more...""

In my mind, the person being interviewed clearly stated that many FIRE people have a common problem in that they remain frugal after retiring.  The author, being as biased as she is, then added brackets for what she thought was an incomplete phrase, which totally alters the meaning.  By adding [to what] in the quote, it is implied that many FIRE people start living lavishly with dwindling bank accounts and its the interviewees that are the exception.  Anybody else get the same interpretation?

"We have the reverse problem many FIRE people have" means many FIRE people have trouble spending, the reverse of non-FIRE people.  This would be the correct edit: "We have the reverse problem [that] many FIRE people have.”

Yes, I suppose that makes sense.  In the original form, it might not have been grammatically correct, but its meaning is understandable and true to the interviewee's likely intention.  Adding 'that' to it probably follows proper English rules, but I'm an engineer.

[Metalcat]

This is a bizarre article.

It reads like the author hated the idea of FIRE and wanted to write a column proving it was impossible. She really wanted to find out that people who retired early had crashed and burned.

But when she asked early retirees, she found they were doing great and had no complaints. So she put their positive quotes in, but kept the original, pessimistic intro and conclusion. She says that for her generation, "the idea of a comfortable retirement is an utter fantasy," but quotes people who did just that!

I've been following this thread but finally just read the article.  Good discussion so far, but I'm going to interject with a tiny nagging detail.  I just can't get over how the author misquoted one of the FIREees. 

From the article---- "...he’s not actually all that concerned about money “going”. “We have the reverse problem [to what] many FIRE people have,” he says. “We find it hard to spend. After saving and being frugal all your life it's hard to switch that around to spending more...""

In my mind, the person being interviewed clearly stated that many FIRE people have a common problem in that they remain frugal after retiring.  The author, being as biased as she is, then added brackets for what she thought was an incomplete phrase, which totally alters the meaning.  By adding [to what] in the quote, it is implied that many FIRE people start living lavishly with dwindling bank accounts and its the interviewees that are the exception.  Anybody else get the same interpretation?

"We have the reverse problem many FIRE people have" means many FIRE people have trouble spending, the reverse of non-FIRE people.  This would be the correct edit: "We have the reverse problem [that] many FIRE people have.”

Yes, I suppose that makes sense.  In the original form, it might not have been grammatically correct, but its meaning is understandable and true to the interviewee's likely intention.  Adding 'that' to it probably follows proper English rules, but I'm an engineer.

Adding "which" would make it very clear.

"We have the reverse problem, which many FIRE people have"

[uniwelder]

This is a bizarre article.

It reads like the author hated the idea of FIRE and wanted to write a column proving it was impossible. She really wanted to find out that people who retired early had crashed and burned.

But when she asked early retirees, she found they were doing great and had no complaints. So she put their positive quotes in, but kept the original, pessimistic intro and conclusion. She says that for her generation, "the idea of a comfortable retirement is an utter fantasy," but quotes people who did just that!

I've been following this thread but finally just read the article.  Good discussion so far, but I'm going to interject with a tiny nagging detail.  I just can't get over how the author misquoted one of the FIREees. 

From the article---- "...he’s not actually all that concerned about money “going”. “We have the reverse problem [to what] many FIRE people have,” he says. “We find it hard to spend. After saving and being frugal all your life it's hard to switch that around to spending more...""

In my mind, the person being interviewed clearly stated that many FIRE people have a common problem in that they remain frugal after retiring.  The author, being as biased as she is, then added brackets for what she thought was an incomplete phrase, which totally alters the meaning.  By adding [to what] in the quote, it is implied that many FIRE people start living lavishly with dwindling bank accounts and its the interviewees that are the exception.  Anybody else get the same interpretation?

"We have the reverse problem many FIRE people have" means many FIRE people have trouble spending, the reverse of non-FIRE people.  This would be the correct edit: "We have the reverse problem [that] many FIRE people have.”

Yes, I suppose that makes sense.  In the original form, it might not have been grammatically correct, but its meaning is understandable and true to the interviewee's likely intention.  Adding 'that' to it probably follows proper English rules, but I'm an engineer.

Adding "which" would make it very clear.

"We have the reverse problem, which many FIRE people have"

I like it! 

[farmecologist]

Interesting look back on folks that have FIRE'ed.  However, it seems like the author truly doesn't understand what is going on ( and I hope the author isn't AI..haha ).   And they used the "entire generation" cliche...that turned me off right there.
 
Frankly, a large part of the FIRE movement are "millionaire next door" types that have worked hard, lived frugally, and saved tremendously.  I think many of us FIRE types question the conventional (lack of) wisdom regarding consumerism, consumption, etc... and are all the better for it! 

We are GenX'ers in our early 50s and are currently seeing many friends, family, former friends, and acquaintances that didn't play the long game complaining...loudly about their situation.  And it is quite sad.  Look, I don't like to see anyone approaching their senior years being in a bad situation, but you reap what you sow.  And unfortunately, there are a LOT of them.

I'm seeing this in my 40's.

I had a professor in undergrad explain exponential growth to us when I was 22 years old (2001). He was in his late 60's and told us he was worth about 10 million because he was frugal. His salary was not impressive, but he did write a textbook.

He also told us that when he started accumulating wealth, mostly due to being frugal, he started to lose friends. He said that after about 10-15 years of saving and investing, his best friend at work stopped talking to him. They were similar age, position and salary. His friend would buy a new car every 3 years and he wouldn't. After listening to his comments, I was like, that doesn't make any sense. That will never happen to me. Well, it has definitely happened.

I haven't had any negative experiences from close friends. However, I definitely got some push back from co-workers when they found out that I bought a house in Hawaii, when living in Hawaii. I was specifically told by my best friend at work to not tell anyone, so I didn't. However, the word eventually got out. I was approached by people on campus asking me questions on how I could afford it and then ended with "must be nice" comments at the end.   

I guess the solution is to get new friends with similar resources? However, you can't really do that at work if you stay at the same college for 30 years. What is the solution? I have found the solution to be to not talk about it. Among my group of ski buddies, I'm the poorest, so I have fun with that role. I'm the frugal millionaire driving a crappy car.
 

I’m in a similar spot (government vs academics).  Luck for me I’m single, being not divorced with no kids is an easy excuse for them.

Similar spot here as well....but I'm a "tech guy" that has worked for a tech megacorp for a long time.

I'm also the frugal millionaire that drives a crappy car.  I also don't attend very many sporting events ( too expensive ), don't have expensive hobbies ( that car thing again ), etc... In fact, I do all of my own car maintenance, and am am massive DIY'er. 

In short - I'm always the oddball frugal guy.  People don't know how much we have saved though...we take "stealth wealth" seriously.

Some of these responses hit hard though...as we have lost friends over our frugal ways.  Oh well, friends come and go...

[Telecaster]

In my mind, the person being interviewed clearly stated that many FIRE people have a common problem in that they remain frugal after retiring.  The author, being as biased as she is, then added brackets for what she thought was an incomplete phrase, which totally alters the meaning.  By adding [to what] in the quote, it is implied that many FIRE people start living lavishly with dwindling bank accounts and its the interviewees that are the exception.  Anybody else get the same interpretation?

Good catch!   FIRE is grossly misunderstood from those outside of FIRE.   The spendypants but perennially broke in-laws cannot understand why we don't spend more given our wealth (which is much larger than what they imagine).    But the reason we don't spend more is we don't want to be perennially broke.   

[Metalcat]

In my mind, the person being interviewed clearly stated that many FIRE people have a common problem in that they remain frugal after retiring.  The author, being as biased as she is, then added brackets for what she thought was an incomplete phrase, which totally alters the meaning.  By adding [to what] in the quote, it is implied that many FIRE people start living lavishly with dwindling bank accounts and its the interviewees that are the exception.  Anybody else get the same interpretation?

Good catch!   FIRE is grossly misunderstood from those outside of FIRE.   The spendypants but perennially broke in-laws cannot understand why we don't spend more given our wealth (which is much larger than what they imagine).    But the reason we don't spend more is we don't want to be perennially broke.

The reason we don't spend more is that we really like the lifestyle that our spending generates.

We actually had to run this analysis when I was in the midst of a business situation that would require me to do some work that I enjoyed, but that was turning out to be more frustrating than I had anticipated, but would have made me obscenely rich.

Almost anyone would say the work was worth it, I really only had to stick it out for a year or two and then it would have been mostly passive from that point on. Still, it didn't feel worth it. We spent weeks contemplating every possible luxury spend we could think of, we looked at the most expensive homes for sale in the city to see if we would fall in love with any of them to the point that they made the trade offs worthwhile, but seriously, we couldn't come up with much.

DH concluded that he wanted a new full suspension mountain bike, and I concluded that I would like to never fly coach. That was it. That's all we could come up with to inflate our lifestyle.

We've lived a life where we spent a lot more. We did the whole lifestyle inflation thing. It was boring and DH gained 30lbs. We only really started living well when we let frugality guide our lifestyle decisions. Frugality requires us to think more creatively, to really analyze why and how something will enrich our lives. We never deny ourselves anything that would make life substantially better, we just make sure to spend on it in the most effective way possible.

We get so much more out of what we spend now that our lives are richer and far, far more luxurious than they were before when we were spending a lot more. Frugality doesn't just save us money, it power charges the money we do spend.

[clarkfan1979]

Interesting look back on folks that have FIRE'ed.  However, it seems like the author truly doesn't understand what is going on ( and I hope the author isn't AI..haha ).   And they used the "entire generation" cliche...that turned me off right there.
 
Frankly, a large part of the FIRE movement are "millionaire next door" types that have worked hard, lived frugally, and saved tremendously.  I think many of us FIRE types question the conventional (lack of) wisdom regarding consumerism, consumption, etc... and are all the better for it! 

We are GenX'ers in our early 50s and are currently seeing many friends, family, former friends, and acquaintances that didn't play the long game complaining...loudly about their situation.  And it is quite sad.  Look, I don't like to see anyone approaching their senior years being in a bad situation, but you reap what you sow.  And unfortunately, there are a LOT of them.

I'm seeing this in my 40's.

I had a professor in undergrad explain exponential growth to us when I was 22 years old (2001). He was in his late 60's and told us he was worth about 10 million because he was frugal. His salary was not impressive, but he did write a textbook.

He also told us that when he started accumulating wealth, mostly due to being frugal, he started to lose friends. He said that after about 10-15 years of saving and investing, his best friend at work stopped talking to him. They were similar age, position and salary. His friend would buy a new car every 3 years and he wouldn't. After listening to his comments, I was like, that doesn't make any sense. That will never happen to me. Well, it has definitely happened.

I haven't had any negative experiences from close friends. However, I definitely got some push back from co-workers when they found out that I bought a house in Hawaii, when living in Hawaii. I was specifically told by my best friend at work to not tell anyone, so I didn't. However, the word eventually got out. I was approached by people on campus asking me questions on how I could afford it and then ended with "must be nice" comments at the end.   

I guess the solution is to get new friends with similar resources? However, you can't really do that at work if you stay at the same college for 30 years. What is the solution? I have found the solution to be to not talk about it. Among my group of ski buddies, I'm the poorest, so I have fun with that role. I'm the frugal millionaire driving a crappy car.   

This seems to be an example of how culture punishes whoever refuses to conform. Not spending one's entire paycheck today is like dying your hair green in the 1950s, driving a Japanese car in the 1970s, or refusing to go to church in the 1700s. People will literally despise you for not conforming.

So when I said earlier that FIRE is an option for anybody who is young enough, healthy enough, and can earn an income, maybe I missed another qualifier: willing to live as an outcast.

...People have all sorts of friendships with people who have what they want. People with fertility issues are friends with people who have multiple kids. People who have terrible marriages are friends with people who have wonderful marriages. People who have lost their parents are friends with people who have all of their parents and grandparents still alive. We are *perfectly* capable of being close with people who don't share the same fortunes. It's just a bad social habit people have picked up to be hostile about money fortunes, but it can easily be trained out of people.

This is a very ideal vision of the world, and a pragmatic one too. Life is rather arbitrary to reject friends based on their or our luck. Given time, differences in luck would exclude almost everyone.

Plus, diverse friends give us the option to learn from people who have the aspects of life we want or need. Lazy people like me need friends who like to exercise. Spendthrifts need frugal friends. People with trashy habits need clean-cut professionals. Artists need practical concrete thinkers, and vice versa. Unmotivated people need friends who are leaders and leaders need unmotivated friends to practice their craft. Pessimists need optimists, and so on.

In practice, the opposite occurs. Our culture's concept of friendship is that our friends are supposed to be like us, so that we can enjoy doing the same things together. That means consuming the same products (cars, restaurant meals, vacations, clothes, entertainment, hobby products...). This is most people's internal schema for achieving social contentment. This vision, the polar opposite of what @Metalcat said, is sold to us with advertisements showing people enjoying the use or consumption of products together, implying that if we buy a thing we will fall into a close-knit group of BFFs who also consume the thing.

The esteem of those friends in the ad is what we really want, but we never realize it is our own narrowness which precludes getting what we want, and instead puts us on a consumer treadmill.

I smashed my phone about one month ago. I'm pretty hard on my phone and they typically last about 12-18 months. I bought a $125 Moto G phone (2022) from Amazon. Because I'm hard on my phones, my wife took the lead and got me a better case and a screen protector. All-in, I think I"m around $140.

For the first time in my life I got snarky comments from two separate groups of friends for not buying an I-phone. For context, I think they both identify with higher social status, but are not annoying about it. These two separate friends have the means to enjoy the finer things in life without working themselves to death. I would consider them both wealthy. However, these two separate people genuinely seemed bothered by the fact that I didn't purchase an I-phone. My best guess is that I'm at the age now where an I-phone is the norm. If I'm the only one without an I-phone, then I guess I'm not conforming, which I know can make people upset. My dissertation was on social norms, so I am very familiar with the theoretical concept. However, I guess I never anticipated that there would be an I-phone social norm among my peer groups.

Going back to my previous post of people in their 40's complaining about their financial situation and then blaming other people, I want to say that it's mostly distant friends from high school who spent decades making poor choices. From my perspective, these people look for short-cuts and then are surprised that it didn't work out. Instead of taking ownership, they blame others. It's the President, Government or the Big Banks that are ruining their life. I'm 44 years old and this behavior really seems to be amplified since I hit 40. I don't like to hang out with these types of people, so I don't have any close friends that exhibit this behavior. However, they still exist in my distant social sphere.

[Metalcat]

I smashed my phone about one month ago. I'm pretty hard on my phone and they typically last about 12-18 months. I bought a $125 Moto G phone (2022) from Amazon. Because I'm hard on my phones, my wife took the lead and got me a better case and a screen protector. All-in, I think I"m around $140.

For the first time in my life I got snarky comments from two separate groups of friends for not buying an I-phone. For context, I think they both identify with higher social status, but are not annoying about it. These two separate friends have the means to enjoy the finer things in life without working themselves to death. I would consider them both wealthy. However, these two separate people genuinely seemed bothered by the fact that I didn't purchase an I-phone. My best guess is that I'm at the age now where an I-phone is the norm. If I'm the only one without an I-phone, then I guess I'm not conforming, which I know can make people upset. My dissertation was on social norms, so I am very familiar with the theoretical concept. However, I guess I never anticipated that there would be an I-phone social norm among my peer groups.

Going back to my previous post of people in their 40's complaining about their financial situation and then blaming other people, I want to say that it's mostly distant friends from high school who spent decades making poor choices. From my perspective, these people look for short-cuts and then are surprised that it didn't work out. Instead of taking ownership, they blame others. It's the President, Government or the Big Banks that are ruining their life. I'm 44 years old and this behavior really seems to be amplified since I hit 40. I don't like to hang out with these types of people, so I don't have any close friends that exhibit this behavior. However, they still exist in my distant social sphere.

I can't even fathom being upset by someone's choice of cell phone brand. That's deranged.

[Adventine]

Phones are status symbols. And nicer phones usually have nicer cameras and better editing tools, which are extremely important for people who are hooked on posting photos and videos on social media. Great socmed photos and videos are today's social currency.

I usually buy the cheapest Android phone that fits my needs (~$150) category. I used to work with a lot of people who had the latest phone models. It was kind of amusing to see who started complaining they were short of cash a few days before payday.

[By the River]

...
I can't even fathom being upset by someone's choice of cell phone brand. That's deranged.

I have an iphone so you would think I'm part of the "in-crowd" but some people have recently commented about how old my iPhone 8 is  (even including a friend of a friend that has the latest android phone).  Not sure what the oldest iPhone generation that is still "cool" but I'm not going to find out until this one dies completely,

[Louise]

...
I can't even fathom being upset by someone's choice of cell phone brand. That's deranged.

I have an iphone so you would think I'm part of the "in-crowd" but some people have recently commented about how old my iPhone 8 is  (even including a friend of a friend that has the latest android phone).  Not sure what the oldest iPhone generation that is still "cool" but I'm not going to find out until this one dies completely,

I finally upgraded mine because it was 3G and the phone company wasn't going to support it anymore. I don't really notice phones, so I couldn't tell you what people use.