Do you share your FIRE journey with friends?

[FIRE Artist]

Yes.  I find that by letting people know what I am retiring to (full time artist), they understand the why and therefore get the sacrifices so don’t question why I opt out of dining out with the group more than once a month, but am instead always up for house (not since COVID), and park gatherings.  They know not to bother inviting me to a concert, but certainly to an art market or gallery opening. 

My friends identify me through my passion for art making, so the financial decisions make sense.  I think if I didn’t have something I was passionate about to retire to, it might be harder for people to understand.  If people really know who you are, there is nothing at all difficult Or surprising about FIRE. 

[iris lily]

I am old and several years into retirement. But over the decades we have shared our financial situation only with family, and with one friend. That one friend is of a similar mindset to us: frugal and has amassed  more than $1 million in investable assets.But he’s a few years younger than we are and he still hasn’t retired. Health insurance Is his concern. Also, he doesn’t have the huge number of hobbies and involvement in organizations that we have. He likes aspects of his work. Anyway —

Just recently I have decided to do more talking about our financial situation mainly because so many of our retirement age friends are still working, recently retired, or Figuring if-when they can-should retire. I would bet that to them, $1 million in investable assets seems unfathomable.But mainly I’m going to talk about it openly because friends are having these discussions where they talk about their income in retirement, how much is in their  401(k). It’s Cetera.

In the past with a very close friend who is very very spendy, I told her how much is in my 401(k) because it’s a similar amount to what’s in her 401(k). It’s just that she doesn’t grasp that I have many many other accounts besides that one.

[DadJokes]

The more I think about it, many things have to align to have a frank money discussion with another person:

• You roughly need to have the same level of wealth
• You need to have the same level of visible wealth.
• The trajectories have to be similar. Say there are two people worth a million. But suppose one person is on the upswing while the other person is losing money, this may cause problems.
• The people have to be in a non-competitive relationship with each other
• One person should not be dependent on the other person.

Obviously you can come up with counter examples to any of these points but I think there is some validity to these criteria.

I'm sorry, but *why* are these prerequisites for frank money discussions.

Literally the *only* prerequisite is that both people want to have a frank discussion about money and neither are judgemental or reactive about other people's personal finances or opinions about personal finance.

Maybe this is rare culturally where you are, but I personally have no problem finding people from all walks of life with whom I can talk frankly about personal finance.

Just this week I've had very open and deeply vulnerable money conversations with a many multi millionaire who makes about 600K/yr, and a chronically underemployed PhD who has never made more than 40K/year and that was a looooong time ago.

Why would someone have to be just like me financially in order to be able to talk to me about money??

I find that if people have very disparate life experiences it can be pretty hard to be candid.

E.g. if you are earning $250k a year and your main goal is to retire by 45 and you are exploring various investments to get there, and your PhD student earning $35k a year has a main goal of not being hungry, what are you guys gonna talk candidly about? You have nothing financially in common. If you were to candidly say that your main financial problem is figuring out how to take advantage of various retirement accounts for tax savings, and that you barely ever have to worry about the nuts and bolts of daily financial life, how is that going to benefit the poor PhD student? You'd have to be diplomatic about a lot of things and that tends to inhibit candour.

Taking the situation to the extreme, you wouldn't expect a millionaire to be able to have a candid and equal discussion about money with a pauper.

Well, in that scenario, I would be able to talk about when I made $35k/yr and what I did right and what I did wrong. Sure, the help only goes one way, but that's fine.

[Metalcat]

Well, in that scenario, I would be able to talk about when I made $35k/yr and what I did right and what I did wrong. Sure, the help only goes one way, but that's fine.

You also don't even necessarily need to try and help, unless that's what the person asks of you. I can't remember the last time I spoke to a much wealthier person and was looking for advice from them...

You never know, their story may be the far more interesting one with more lessons to learn from. Most people are fundamentally a lot more interesting than they let on.

[Zikoris]

I think the only thing you need to have in common is both wanting to talk about money, and I suppose both being reasonable people who don't lean towards feeling entitled or jealous. I talk about money all the time with people all across the spectrum, though I definitely try to keep things at the person's level so it's a conversation versus talking at them. I don't meet a ton of people who make substantially less than me since my income is at the lower end, but I do meet a lot off people who make multiples of what I do, and either way it's fine with me.

If I limited myself by stuff like the same level of visible status symbols, my finance buddies would have to come from a pool of, like, McDonalds workers, recent refugees who moved here with nothing, backpackers passing through, and eccentric extreme minimalists.

[Cassie]

Most of our friends are retired so everyone basically lives on what they have. No one is poor and everyone has different priorities. We prefer to travel while some others spend their money on new cars, etc.

[Bloop Bloop]

The more I think about it, many things have to align to have a frank money discussion with another person:

• You roughly need to have the same level of wealth
• You need to have the same level of visible wealth.
• The trajectories have to be similar. Say there are two people worth a million. But suppose one person is on the upswing while the other person is losing money, this may cause problems.
• The people have to be in a non-competitive relationship with each other
• One person should not be dependent on the other person.

Obviously you can come up with counter examples to any of these points but I think there is some validity to these criteria.

I'm sorry, but *why* are these prerequisites for frank money discussions.

Literally the *only* prerequisite is that both people want to have a frank discussion about money and neither are judgemental or reactive about other people's personal finances or opinions about personal finance.

Maybe this is rare culturally where you are, but I personally have no problem finding people from all walks of life with whom I can talk frankly about personal finance.

Just this week I've had very open and deeply vulnerable money conversations with a many multi millionaire who makes about 600K/yr, and a chronically underemployed PhD who has never made more than 40K/year and that was a looooong time ago.

Why would someone have to be just like me financially in order to be able to talk to me about money??

I find that if people have very disparate life experiences it can be pretty hard to be candid.

E.g. if you are earning $250k a year and your main goal is to retire by 45 and you are exploring various investments to get there, and your PhD student earning $35k a year has a main goal of not being hungry, what are you guys gonna talk candidly about? You have nothing financially in common. If you were to candidly say that your main financial problem is figuring out how to take advantage of various retirement accounts for tax savings, and that you barely ever have to worry about the nuts and bolts of daily financial life, how is that going to benefit the poor PhD student? You'd have to be diplomatic about a lot of things and that tends to inhibit candour.

Taking the situation to the extreme, you wouldn't expect a millionaire to be able to have a candid and equal discussion about money with a pauper.

Well, in that scenario, I would be able to talk about when I made $35k/yr and what I did right and what I did wrong. Sure, the help only goes one way, but that's fine.

Yes. But that's assuming you even made as little as $35k a year at some stage (other than as a student in a part-time job for example). And as you said, the help only goes one way. It's more of a mentoring role, then, than a frank discussion. And we've been using the example of a PhD student who might have a similar background to you ["you" being the other person in the example, not necessarily you]. If it's an Amazon warehouse worker on $35k a year the discussion is going to be even more one-sided.

[Metalcat]

The more I think about it, many things have to align to have a frank money discussion with another person:

• You roughly need to have the same level of wealth
• You need to have the same level of visible wealth.
• The trajectories have to be similar. Say there are two people worth a million. But suppose one person is on the upswing while the other person is losing money, this may cause problems.
• The people have to be in a non-competitive relationship with each other
• One person should not be dependent on the other person.

Obviously you can come up with counter examples to any of these points but I think there is some validity to these criteria.

I'm sorry, but *why* are these prerequisites for frank money discussions.

Literally the *only* prerequisite is that both people want to have a frank discussion about money and neither are judgemental or reactive about other people's personal finances or opinions about personal finance.

Maybe this is rare culturally where you are, but I personally have no problem finding people from all walks of life with whom I can talk frankly about personal finance.

Just this week I've had very open and deeply vulnerable money conversations with a many multi millionaire who makes about 600K/yr, and a chronically underemployed PhD who has never made more than 40K/year and that was a looooong time ago.

Why would someone have to be just like me financially in order to be able to talk to me about money??

I find that if people have very disparate life experiences it can be pretty hard to be candid.

E.g. if you are earning $250k a year and your main goal is to retire by 45 and you are exploring various investments to get there, and your PhD student earning $35k a year has a main goal of not being hungry, what are you guys gonna talk candidly about? You have nothing financially in common. If you were to candidly say that your main financial problem is figuring out how to take advantage of various retirement accounts for tax savings, and that you barely ever have to worry about the nuts and bolts of daily financial life, how is that going to benefit the poor PhD student? You'd have to be diplomatic about a lot of things and that tends to inhibit candour.

Taking the situation to the extreme, you wouldn't expect a millionaire to be able to have a candid and equal discussion about money with a pauper.

Well, in that scenario, I would be able to talk about when I made $35k/yr and what I did right and what I did wrong. Sure, the help only goes one way, but that's fine.

Yes. But that's assuming you even made as little as $35k a year at some stage (other than as a student in a part-time job for example). And as you said, the help only goes one way. It's more of a mentoring role, then, than a frank discussion. And we've been using the example of a PhD student who might have a similar background to you ["you" being the other person in the example, not necessarily you]. If it's an Amazon warehouse worker on $35k a year the discussion is going to be even more one-sided.

It's seems that you perceive that if someone makes very little money that they have nothing to say about money that would interest you. If that's the case, then absolutely, neither of you will get anything of value from the conversation, and the other person is likely to be made to feel uncomfortable and self conscious about their modest income. You are absolutely correct about that.

Question though, do you feel the same way about talking to someone who has vastly more money than you do? Do you feel like you don't have anything to bring to a financial conversation with a billionaire?

[Bloop Bloop]

What I could bring to the table in a financial conversation with a billionaire is my own experience of life and money. That might include things like the sacrifices I have, or haven't made, to get to where I am today, and a comparison of the sacrifices he or she did or didn't make. Or a discussion of our values about and attitudes to money.

That goes for any two people on earth. You can always have those discussions.

But those are more about life values and life experiences than financial nuts and bolts. I don't think the billionaire and I would have much in common when it comes to financial goals, investing plans, investing methods or financial advice. And what works for the billionaire isn't going to work for me, and vice versa.

[Metalcat]

What I could bring to the table in a financial conversation with a billionaire is my own experience of life and money. That might include things like the sacrifices I have, or haven't made, to get to where I am today, and a comparison of the sacrifices he or she did or didn't make. Or a discussion of our values about and attitudes to money.

That goes for any two people on earth. You can always have those discussions.

But those are more about life values and life experiences than financial nuts and bolts. I don't think the billionaire and I would have much in common when it comes to financial goals, investing plans, investing methods or financial advice. And what works for the billionaire isn't going to work for me, and vice versa.

Now you are the one moving the goal posts.

You seem to be defining "frank conversations about money" to mean sharing specific advice about the nuts and bolts of managing your finances.

That's an extremely narrow definition of "frank conversation" and wildly different than mine. No wonder we're talking past each other.

That said, even if I were to constrain my definition to the specific nuts and bolts of personal financial planning, I would *still* be able to have that conversation with anyone, rich or poor, because I would *still* be interested. However, my goal wouldn't just be to share tips and give/get advice. I'm just genuinely interested in people and the details of their lives.

I'm getting the impression that you aren't, but I'm fascinated that you seem to think that it's impossible or illogical that others are?

I've had many of these nuts and bolts investing discussions with people whom I have NOTHING in common with investing wise. For example, I have friends who are primarily or exclusively invested in real estate. That's so not my thing, but I chat with them about it extensively and find it fascinating specifically because real estate is *not* my thing.

I personally prefer conversations about things that I *don't* have in common with people. To me it's much more interesting.

Sure, I can have interesting talks with like minded and similarly invested people comparing the details of our investment strategies and perhaps get or give some useful details. However, that's nowhere near as interesting as talking to my friends who own shopping malls. That shit is fascinating, and I can talk to them for hours about the nittiest and grittiest of details.

So yeah, if a billionaire wants to talk nuts and bolts of their money management, I'm thoroughly interested even if it's not at all personally relevant to me, because that's just not why I talk to people.

That's cool, we're very very different people. I'm just flummoxed why you seem to think the kind of conversations I have on a day to day basis aren't possible when I keep flat out telling you that I have them.

[Bloop Bloop]

I think you define inquisitive conversations re money / lifestyle as 'financial discussions' whereas I define nuts-and-bolts conversations as 'financial discussions'. Further, you are clearly more inquisitive than I am, or perhaps I am just more guarded or goal-directed in financial conversing compared to you. Part of it may be that Australian society is rather touchy when it comes to openly discussing money, and more reserved, I think, than Americans. Therefore bridging gaps is harder. That would be my observation, having lived in both countries.

[Metalcat]

I think you define inquisitive conversations re money / lifestyle as 'financial discussions' whereas I define nuts-and-bolts conversations as 'financial discussions'. Further, you are clearly more inquisitive than I am, or perhaps I am just more guarded or goal-directed in financial conversing compared to you. Part of it may be that Australian society is rather touchy when it comes to openly discussing money, and more reserved, I think, than Americans. Therefore bridging gaps is harder. That would be my observation, having lived in both countries.

Not an American, they too seem to be pretty guarded about money.

Canadians aren't super open about it either, but in general, yes, I do find Canadians naturally more comfortable being vulnerable with each other if given the chance.
I was raised by Danes though, so that explains a lot more.

I agree as I said above that we are very different. I have multiple degrees in studying human beings including training in counselling. People are what interests me and I'm literally an expert at getting them to talk, especially about what they're guarding.

You don't have these types of conversations with people you have nothing in common with because you aren't interested in these types of conversations with those people, not because they're not possible or not appropriate.

That's fine, you do you, but I'm going to staunchly insist that *for someone who wants to have them* that it's very easy to have very frank, nuts and bolts conversations about money between people who have virtually nothing in common in terms of income, net worth, or investing strategies.

There are A LOT of people on this site lamenting that they wish they could talk more openly about personal finance with people, and my whole point is that they can if they really want to.

You can talk to most people about virtually anything if you really want to. Getting people to talk is a skill set, learnable like anything else.

[better late]

What I could bring to the table in a financial conversation with a billionaire is my own experience of life and money. That might include things like the sacrifices I have, or haven't made, to get to where I am today, and a comparison of the sacrifices he or she did or didn't make. Or a discussion of our values about and attitudes to money.

I could see talking to a billionaire about kids and money. I think there would be a lot of common ground. 

[iris lily]

What I could bring to the table in a financial conversation with a billionaire is my own experience of life and money. That might include things like the sacrifices I have, or haven't made, to get to where I am today, and a comparison of the sacrifices he or she did or didn't make. Or a discussion of our values about and attitudes to money.

I could see talking to a billionaire about kids and money. I think there would be a lot of common ground.

I think so too. Once you reach a level of financial comfort, a real issue is how that translates to raising and gifting comfort to your children. The issues are the same, just bigger pots of money.

[Linea_Norway]

Today a friend ask me when of years off would end. I answered that DH had taken a sabbatical tobthe end of the year and that I had quit my job entirely. I didn't have the heart to tell her I don't intend to go back to work ever. She mentioned it was very fortunate for me to have that opportunity to take a gap year. She herself has a more average paying job (we had high paying jobs) and she and her husband have an expensive hobby, dog sledging.