At what Age do MMMers actually FIRE?

[avrex]

At what age do the MMMers on this forum actually FIRE?

To get some raw data for this question, I decided to look at this year's 2018 FIRE cohort to get an answer.


Answer: The median age of FIRE is 49. 


Other notes:
- 23% have FIREd in their 30s.  Good for them.  They've gone ahead and cashed out of their high paying jobs to do what they love.
- There's a fairly even distribution of people FIREing in their 40s and 50s.  I'm sure many of us FIRE as soon as we are able to.
- At the tail end, two respondents FIREd at age 60.  That's still great news and well before society's standard retirement age of 65.

The data isn't very surprising.  It's great to see that many people have personally implemented the ideas behind MMM and have achieved their goals of FIRE.  Congratulations.

[Linea_Norway]

At what age do the MMMers on this forum actually FIRE?

To get some raw data for this question, I decided to look at this year's 2018 FIRE cohort to get an answer.


Answer: The median age of FIRE is 49. 


Other notes:
- 23% have FIREd in their 30s.  Good for them.  They've gone ahead and cashed out of their high paying jobs to do what they love.
- There's a fairly even distribution of people FIREing in their 40s and 50s.  I'm sure many of us FIRE as soon as we are able to.
- At the tail end, two respondents FIREd at age 60.  That's still great news and well before society's standard retirement age of 65.

The data isn't very surprising.  It's great to see that many people have personally implemented the ideas behind MMM and have achieved their goals of FIRE.  Congratulations.

Is true for DH as well and me slightly younger. I guess that is how long it takes to save up a bunch of stash if you are not aware of super saving all the time. And in our case, we couldn't have afforded to FIRE earlier, because we can't afford to cover more years than that.

Edit: Disclaimer: if all goes well and we FIRE later in 2019...

[nereo]

Interesting -
It looks like there might be a bi-modal distribution in the data, with one peak occurring around 40 and a second right around or just past 50; a simple median age may not be the best metric if this is true. 

I also wonder how representative these data are to the broader MMM community. I have no idea how many people who have recently hit FIRE are posting within the 2018 FIRE cohort.  I suspect there are number of individuals who have hit their FI number but for various reasons either a) haven't pulled the plug or b) haven't joined that particular thread. In particular I tend to think those who are much older (60s and above) might be under-represented as they are falling into more traditional retirement with perhaps just a few 'gap years' to bridge between them and pensions/SS.

It would be great to keep this data-set going and see how it changes under various economic conditions.  We've had quite the market run-up lately.

[marty998]

49 median! Wow, think of it this way....

- 16 years of additional life clawed back from having to work.
- A reduction in the proportion of working life devoted to working of 34% (16 of 47 years).

I do wonder if this median age will start coming down as the forum matures and more younger people start getting to their target dates.

[Zikoris]

Really interesting! It seems high to me given where we are, but I guess a lot of people either a) still spend a lot even though it's against the rules (/s), or b) got a late start.

[DS]

Really interesting! It seems high to me given where we are, but I guess a lot of people either a) still spend a lot even though it's against the rules (/s), or b) got a late start.

They could also be using conservative figures with lower withdrawal rates than 4%. Would be more consistent to see the median for reaching 4%, but harder to find that data in such a neat way.

[avrex]

@nereo I accidentally made two threads for this topic, so I made sure to include your comment in this thread before I deleted the duplicate thread.  thanks.

Interesting -
It looks like there might be a bi-modal distribution in the data, with one peak occurring around 40 and a second right around or just past 50; a simple median age may not be the best metric if this is true. 

I also wonder how representative these data are to the broader MMM community. I have no idea how many people who have recently hit FIRE are posting within the 2018 FIRE cohort.  I suspect there are number of individuals who have hit their FI number but for various reasons either a) haven't pulled the plug or b) haven't joined that particular thread. In particular I tend to think those who are much older (60s and above) might be under-represented as they are falling into more traditional retirement with perhaps just a few 'gap years' to bridge between them and pensions/SS.

It would be great to keep this data-set going and see how it changes under various economic conditions.  We've had quite the market run-up lately.

[nereo]

@nereo I accidentally made two threads for this topic, so I made sure to include your comment in this thread before I deleted the duplicate thread.  thanks.

Interesting -
It looks like there might be a bi-modal distribution in the data, with one peak occurring around 40 and a second right around or just past 50; a simple median age may not be the best metric if this is true. 

I also wonder how representative these data are to the broader MMM community. I have no idea how many people who have recently hit FIRE are posting within the 2018 FIRE cohort.  I suspect there are number of individuals who have hit their FI number but for various reasons either a) haven't pulled the plug or b) haven't joined that particular thread. In particular I tend to think those who are much older (60s and above) might be under-represented as they are falling into more traditional retirement with perhaps just a few 'gap years' to bridge between them and pensions/SS.

It would be great to keep this data-set going and see how it changes under various economic conditions.  We've had quite the market run-up lately.

Cool, thanks.  I was wondering why no one else had commented on your post.
Don't get me wrong, I like what you've done.  I'm also a biostatistician of sorts, so I can't help but micro-analyze data.

Cheers
~n~

[limeandpepper]

Thank for putting the data together, interesting stuff! I also wonder what percentage of people go back to paid work of some form, as this seems reasonably common, especially for those who retired pretty young. I think there is also an increasing number of us here in these forums who are not so much interested in "traditional FIRE" which is going full-tilt to fully retire as early as possible, but exploring other options such as semi-retirement (working part-time), mini-retirements (taking extended time off), etc.

[jim555]

I'm in the 49 club.

[avrex]

Interesting -
It looks like there might be a bi-modal distribution in the data, with one peak occurring around 40 and a second right around or just past 50; a simple median age may not be the best metric if this is true. 

Good point. 

I was also wondering about this.  My hypothetical guess is that this is based on salary distribution.

Those with 'high' salaries are able to FIRE by age 40. 
Those with 'regular' salaries, need to save longer and hence FIRE later, in their 50s.

[G-dog]

Interesting -
It looks like there might be a bi-modal distribution in the data, with one peak occurring around 40 and a second right around or just past 50; a simple median age may not be the best metric if this is true. 

Good point. 

I was also wondering about this.  My hypothetical guess is that this is based on salary distribution.

Those with 'high' salaries are able to FIRE by age 40. 
Those with 'regular' salaries, need to save longer and hence FIRE later, in their 50s.

I think the dataset is too small to draw many conclusions. But it’s a lot of work to extract this info from the forum. I don’t know if a poll would get a good enough response to add much data to the set.

[EnjoyIt]

I don't think anyone can deny that the last few years of market gains have hastened FIRE dates for many of us.

[DreamFIRE]

At what age do the MMMers on this forum actually FIRE?
That's still great news and well before society's standard retirement age of 65.

Even better than the "full" social security retirement age of 67 for many of us in the U.S.

[PhilB]

Interesting -
It looks like there might be a bi-modal distribution in the data, with one peak occurring around 40 and a second right around or just past 50; a simple median age may not be the best metric if this is true. 

Good point. 

I was also wondering about this.  My hypothetical guess is that this is based on salary distribution.

Those with 'high' salaries are able to FIRE by age 40. 
Those with 'regular' salaries, need to save longer and hence FIRE later, in their 50s.

I think the dataset is too small to draw many conclusions. But it’s a lot of work to extract this info from the forum. I don’t know if a poll would get a good enough response to add much data to the set.

My instant thought of a driver for a bimodal distribution was kids / no kids...

[Linea_Norway]

Not having kids is still relatively rare, but that could definitely be a factor. 

I would think that age of discovering MMM would be far more predictive of FIRE age than almost anything else. Many people don’t even arrive here until their 30s/40s.
I also think that the median age is going to continue to rise as the community becomes more and more mainstream and the median will get closer and closer to traditional retirement age.

We are a pair without children. That probably contributed to saving a lot, but we were also frugal since living in Norway (1998). After paying down our mortgage and saving for some additional years in index funds, we found out we had become pretty rich for people of our age. Much richer than our peers, just because we hadn't fallen for the usual lifestyle inflation. When DH and I discussed what we could do with this money, DH suggested that we might use this richness for retiring at 50, like his parents did. So we have had this losely in our minds for over a decade. But we had no idea how much we needed for that and we didn't do anything to save more than before as we thought we would arrive there as long as we continued to live like we did.

Only recently, 1,5 years ago or so, I looked up early retirement on the internet and found the MMM site. Since that time, we are saving more than before and I was able to make my own excel sheet to calculate what I really need to FIRE. We found out that we could shave off some years from the planned age of 50. At least, I hope that I, as the slightly youngest of us two, can FIRE at 46 or 47. DH will be 49 or 50 at FIRE.

[Hirondelle]

Interesting -
It looks like there might be a bi-modal distribution in the data, with one peak occurring around 40 and a second right around or just past 50; a simple median age may not be the best metric if this is true. 

Good point. 

I was also wondering about this.  My hypothetical guess is that this is based on salary distribution.

Those with 'high' salaries are able to FIRE by age 40. 
Those with 'regular' salaries, need to save longer and hence FIRE later, in their 50s.

I think the dataset is too small to draw many conclusions. But it’s a lot of work to extract this info from the forum. I don’t know if a poll would get a good enough response to add much data to the set.

As this is data from the 2018 cohort, wouldn't the easiest thing be to add the ages from people who FIREd in the 2017 and 2016 cohorts to ramp up data numbers?

[Metta]

I think the peak around or just past 50 may be the result of financial incentives to stick around. I know that I chose to FIRE at 55 rather than at 53 when I easily could have or at 50 when it would have been just possible but not ideal. Why? Waiting gave me a pension and the option to be an official “retiree” to get benefits from the company, including the pension, health insurance, free or greatly reduced travel opportunities, and so forth.

[arebelspy]

Let's compare to the other relevant data: Average retirement age for Americans*



If the stats in the OP are right, a median age of 49 would put the half of Mustachians below that in the very first bubble (<50), and in the top 1% of Americans. The median MMMer ERing in 2018 and reporting in that thread is in the top 1% of Americans retiring. Nice.

In fact, except for the two people who reported 60+, everyone else falls below that giant bubble, which means they're in the top 18%. Let's round to 20. The vast majority of MMMers retiring this year and reporting in that thread are in the top 20% of Americans, even if they are in their late 50s.

Aka, even your late 50s is still a very early retirement. :)

Pretty awesome.

*I understand this site has a broad international demographic, but the majority are still American, and American retirement age is likely more relevant than worldwide retirement age, which doesn't happen for most people worldwide, still.

(Image credit to recent Financial Samurai article agreeing with Suze Orman that 5MM+ is needed to retire early.)

[nereo]

I appreciate the perspective you bring, arebelspy

According to that chart, if you retire before your 60th birthday you're retiring earlier than 82% of Americans. 

[chasesfish]

36 here.  I'm a bit more spendy than the regular mustachian

[PhilB]

I was feeling ancient at 52 compared to most on here, so that diagram has cheered me up no end!  Anyone have a link to the original data to work out what's going on with the two lots of 50 to 54?  I'm guessing it should be a <45 and 45 to 49.

[Loren Ver]

At what age do the MMMers on this forum actually FIRE?

...snip...

Answer: The median age of FIRE is 49. 

...snip...

Thank you for pulling this together, interesting data set.

Arebelspy - thank you for the bubble graphic, I am totally gonna use it!

LV

[whitewaterchica]

I paid off 20K of misc debt in my late 20s and have been saving steadily since. I then found MMM around 40 and really picked up the speed. I am targeting 50 so this made me feel as though I am in good company. Thank you for taking the time create this thread!

[PizzaSteve]

Nice post.  It would be equally interesting to poll for when folks hit FI.

My DW noted a typo in the graph, with two bubbles for 50-55.  I wonder how that was actually split.

[Vegasgirl]

I'm right in there - FIRE'd this year at age 49.  Pretty interesting.

[2Birds1Stone]

Look forward to being an anomaly in a year or two =D

[Dancin'Dog]

A great thread to help inspire young people to start saving. 

[beer-man]

Good goals but life can throw you serious curveballs and the best plans can get thrown to the wayside after one phone call. Divorce, kids, kid problems, job kids, identity crisis, spouses identity crisis, personal health problems.
 Working in medicine I’ve seen a lot of people’s life trajectory change suddenly.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Loren Ver]

Good goals but life can throw you serious curveballs and the best plans can get thrown to the wayside after one phone call. Divorce, kids, kid problems, job kids, identity crisis, spouses identity crisis, personal health problems.
 Working in medicine I’ve seen a lot of people’s life trajectory change suddenly.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

All great reasons to save early and often.  It doesn't fix the issues, but puts you in a better position.

LV

[Fomerly known as something]

I will likely be just below the median mainly for reasons others have mentioned.  I found MMM in 2016 in my late 30s.  Like Linda, I've always been a saver/inverter but without much direction.  I followed the "wise old co-worker" advise from my first year, there are these things known as retirement accounts put as much money as you are allowed into them.

At the same time due to my career, I can retire with full benefits at age 47.   I'd be aiming for FatFI because I do play a little what if a la Suzy Orman.   FATfi will happen probably 3-4 years out from my minimum retirement age for benefits so I will likely stay and become overly FIRE'ed. 

[nereo]

Good goals but life can throw you serious curveballs and the best plans can get thrown to the wayside after one phone call. Divorce, kids, kid problems, job kids, identity crisis, spouses identity crisis, personal health problems.
 Working in medicine I’ve seen a lot of people’s life trajectory change suddenly.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

All great reasons to save early and often.  It doesn't fix the issues, but puts you in a better position.

Absolutely. I've written about a few ways that having savings and a surplus of cash has allowed us to mitigate Really Bad Stuff (RBS) over the years, but I think it still gets the short end of the conversation around here. Most focus on how being FI gives you options, lets you quit your job and spend your days doing what makes you happy.  But an equally important effect (and one that is realized much, much sooner) is surviving RBS and bounding back whereas the broader public just goes into a debt spiral they can't escape from.

[SwordGuy]

I'm one of the people who FIRED at 60.

I learned about MMM at age 54, or six years earlier.   Before that, my best hope was to retire at 70.
We could have pulled it off 2 years earlier but we decided to play it a bit safer.

If I had known about this at age 30 when we reached median family income, we could have FIRED by 45 at the latest. 

[mizzourah2006]

Really interesting! It seems high to me given where we are, but I guess a lot of people either a) still spend a lot even though it's against the rules (/s), or b) got a late start.

Or C. hit FI, but don't RE.

[davisgang90]

Another person who retired at 49.  Yeaaaa!  I'm Average!

[nereo]

Another person who retired at 49.  Yeaaaa!  I'm Average!

better to be the average person in a world for of thge great than the champion in a world of the pathetic.

[sol]

To get some raw data for this question, I decided to look at this year's 2018 FIRE cohort to get an answer.

Answer: The median age of FIRE is 49. 

This may be the first time in my life I am thrilled to have worked so hard to be below average.

[BioLawyer]

36 here.  I'm a bit more spendy than the regular mustachian

Also 36 and “spendy” (only relative to MMM). I’m aiming to be 50-55 when FIRE.

[happy]

I am about to FIRE at 60 more or less - not yet announced on the 2018 thread.
I found ER in Dec 2011 and started on the road at the beginning of 2012 at age 54. So its taken me 6 years - I think I had about 200k in my retirement fund at that point. The retirement age in Australia is now 67 and I was sure I would be working at least until then. So I'm not in the 1% but very happy none the less. And have gained invaluable financial and lifestyle skills on the way.

I would imagine the age of FIREEs will drop as folks find this path earlier in life now its a thing. I know I would have grabbed it in my 20s if I'd known.

[Eric]

I never really thought I'd be part of the 1%.  This is pretty great!

[DreamFIRE]

That graphic has been posted to MMM forum before. I commented on those 50-54 previously when it was posted.
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/welcome-to-the-forum/age-at-fire/msg1922725/#msg1922725

I used to think I wouldn't retire until full SS retirement age of 67, but several years back, I figured I could retire early thanks to year after year of 70%+ savings rate.  So I was well on my way to FIREing more than a decade earlier than originally planned before I ever heard about MMM and the early retirement community.

I only wish I had a pension, that would have sped things up even more.

[Cool Hwhip]

My wife and I are 52. I discovered the FIRE movement almost 2 years ago. We made some adjustments and now have 2024 (age 57) as our goal to FIRE. My wife is a teacher so the years of service factor into our date. However, if I had the knowledge and maturity to use the knowledge at a younger age, we might be traveling in a camper van right now. I think that the point in life when you learn about the possibilities of continuing to increase the gap between earning and spending, has a direct impact on the average retirement age percentages. As younger generations realize they are in control of their own destinations, the average retirement age may become younger.

[arebelspy]

I was feeling ancient at 52 compared to most on here, so that diagram has cheered me up no end!  Anyone have a link to the original data to work out what's going on with the two lots of 50 to 54?  I'm guessing it should be a <45 and 45 to 49.

Yeah, weird.

The source is cited at the bottom of the graphic, if you can find it. Let us know if you dig into the data!

[PhilB]

I was feeling ancient at 52 compared to most on here, so that diagram has cheered me up no end!  Anyone have a link to the original data to work out what's going on with the two lots of 50 to 54?  I'm guessing it should be a <45 and 45 to 49.

Yeah, weird.

The source is cited at the bottom of the graphic, if you can find it. Let us know if you dig into the data!

I've had a dig about their website, but without finding anything.  Googling doesn't get me any further than the Time article of 1 Dec 2016.  It wasn't a totally wasted search though as I did learn a great new (to me) term from the LIMRA website.  HENRY = High Earner Not Rich Yet.  I feel that's a term we could definitely make use of here!

[nereo]

I've had a dig about their website, but without finding anything.  Googling doesn't get me any further than the Time article of 1 Dec 2016.  It wasn't a totally wasted search though as I did learn a great new (to me) term from the LIMRA website.  HENRY = High Earner Not Rich Yet.  I feel that's a term we could definitely make use of here!

How so - to ridicule them?  I guess I'd give HENRYs a pass for a few years if they're coming out of school with 6-figure debt loads, but beyond that its just your typically wasteful consumption story.  My older sibling is a physician, so I know a great deal of her cohort (now in their mid 40s).  I'm shocked at how many have been earning a 6-figure salary for over a decade and yet are on the edge of bankruptcy.  Their excuse is always their massive loans, and never their two new cars, large house or frequent fly-away vacations.

[PhilB]

I've had a dig about their website, but without finding anything.  Googling doesn't get me any further than the Time article of 1 Dec 2016.  It wasn't a totally wasted search though as I did learn a great new (to me) term from the LIMRA website.  HENRY = High Earner Not Rich Yet.  I feel that's a term we could definitely make use of here!

How so - to ridicule them?  I guess I'd give HENRYs a pass for a few years if they're coming out of school with 6-figure debt loads, but beyond that its just your typically wasteful consumption story.  My older sibling is a physician, so I know a great deal of her cohort (now in their mid 40s).  I'm shocked at how many have been earning a 6-figure salary for over a decade and yet are on the edge of bankruptcy.  Their excuse is always their massive loans, and never their two new cars, large house or frequent fly-away vacations.

I'd see it as more of an optimistic appellation because of the 'Yet'.  I agree that there are loads of idiots who never will be rich because of their stupid spending habits (High Earning And Dumb Consumerist Always Spending Everything - HEADCASE?)

[Cookie78]

I've had a dig about their website, but without finding anything.  Googling doesn't get me any further than the Time article of 1 Dec 2016.  It wasn't a totally wasted search though as I did learn a great new (to me) term from the LIMRA website.  HENRY = High Earner Not Rich Yet.  I feel that's a term we could definitely make use of here!

How so - to ridicule them?  I guess I'd give HENRYs a pass for a few years if they're coming out of school with 6-figure debt loads, but beyond that its just your typically wasteful consumption story.  My older sibling is a physician, so I know a great deal of her cohort (now in their mid 40s).  I'm shocked at how many have been earning a 6-figure salary for over a decade and yet are on the edge of bankruptcy.  Their excuse is always their massive loans, and never their two new cars, large house or frequent fly-away vacations.

I'd see it as more of an optimistic appellation because of the 'Yet'.  I agree that there are loads of idiots who never will be rich because of their stupid spending habits (High Earning And Dumb Consumerist Always Spending Everything - HEADCASE?)

LOL.
Always so impressed by people's ability to come up with acronyms

[Daisy]

I beat the median at 48!

Also happy to be part of the 1%.

[Slee_stack]

I only wish I had a pension, that would have sped things up even more.

Actually, a pension is making us wait longer to FIRE.  Yes, its more money, but you have to commit the extra years to vest it.

Its a frustrating dichotomy....  some risk (FIRE now, throw pension away) vs. end up with clown money and no risk whatsoever (work to Pension).

It'd be nice to have an option in the middle.


Hmm...that could theoretically contribute to the bi modal distro...

[nereo]

I hate the whole concept of company pensions. I would like to seem the outright banned.