K, just finished, here are some thoughts:
-It was better than I expected based on the responses here. My expectations were extremely low, so that helped.
-I think more time should have been spent on what their lifestyle looks like now that they're settled. Their struggles were largely due to massive life upheaval, especially for Taylor.
She had so much angst about all the sacrifices and it feeling meaningless when she still wasn't getting to spend more time with her daughter, but now she's still working full time, I presume, so it's not like she's happy now because she reached FI, she's happy because she's living a good life on the way to FI.
The misery wasn't so much from the reduced spending, but from the total chaos they voluntarily threw themselves into.
-It would have been nice to compare their current lifestyle to their past lifestyle and express how it's really the same quality of life, if not better, at a much lower cost, and they really didn't lose anything by cutting back.
-As critical I have been of them telling a really unorthodox version of pursuing FIRE, I do think there's A LOT of value in seeing a case where people are willing to just pick up and move from an HCOL location. Feeling geographically pinned down is a very real thing, so the more I watched, the more I actually liked that that kind of move was made.
-I STILL think they should have openly talked about making the movie itself and why they chose to lose an entire income.
Them not being able to afford their "dream home" is a lot more profound a relationship issue when one partner has given up an income to work on a passion project that may never make any money. This would have fit in really well in his reflection in the woods scene.
I just can't wrap my head around this not being a core part of their conversations along the way and a lot of the emotional weight on Taylor, which I think does her a real disservice, IMO.
In my marriage, I'm the one who has given up 80-90% of my income and I may choose to give it all up and pursue a passion project instead that may or may not end up profitable. We're not FIREd yet, so I can very much relate. The key difference is my spouse has been pushing me to do this for years.
Whenever we talk about our future it's always about two realities, one where I don't make much money and one where I make substantial amounts. So the phrase "depending on what happens with my income" precedes almost every thought about our future, and the two outcomes are wildly different.
How this part is just completely left out just baffles me. Like, how do they not even address it? I get keeping the filmmaking out of a film, but in this case it leaves a giant, awkward, screaming void in the discourse.
Dropping an entire income is a HUGE deal for FIRE folks. DH only convinced me to do it because he's specifically NOT aiming for early retirement and wants his full pension.
If he was dying to retire, there's no way I would voluntarily take on projects that might not break even.
-Beyond driving a very nice Honda SUV, buying a nice house is a lower cost area backing onto a noisy street, and making breakfast burritos, there was actually very very little about cutting expenses.
-To that point, there were also virtually no numbers beyond previous food spending, savings percentages and costs of houses. I respect this choice to not distract with numbers, but I really wanted to understand if he had income contributing to that final savings rate number.
-Wow, Pete is way more telegenic than he is photogenic, but the content shown for him were odd choices, imo, with a whole focus on the "cult" thing, but little explanation.
-Actually, it was a weird stylistic choice to not give any context to most of the "experts" other than their retirement ages. I don't read any of those blogs, so I only know or know of these people vaguely, so even I was like "wait, what's this person's story?", paused, and googled them to refresh my memory as to what their particular brand is.
-JL Collins is one of the most soothing people, I could listen to him talk about index funds all day and just feel reassured about life
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@arebelspy is definitely a highlight, not just because of being a really relatable story, but because he emanates that calm confidence of someone living really autonomously. It's that intangible and difficult to describe thing that people working towards FIRE are hoping for.
-Overall, better than I expected.
It's more a story of dealing with total life upheaval, but there's some decent personal reflection about spending in the process. I think Gen Pop would actually relate to a lot of it pretty well.
I think FIRE community people will mostly be left confused because he purposefully avoids talking about making the film or what his ambitions are, which gives us virtually no context to frame his decisions.
I think he made his wife a sacrificial lamb for the sake of drama...I'm curious how intentional that was.
