Why?
I don't hate working, and it allows me to fund my hobbies. If I wanted more free time I would just quit and do my own thing for a year. And many of my friends from college have done that.
Maybe saving for retirement is the point. And the fun comes from attempting to accomplish that. I can understand, and thus respect that.
You can even keep working after you're reached your retirement number, but at that point it is because you chose to do it rather than having that choice thrust upon you.
I understand that not everyone is in my situation though, and not everyone has the same motivations as me. I just think that living extremely frugally in your twenties is kind of a waste of your twenties.
No, you are trading a job for any job you want.
You aren't required to sit out on your porch and rock your days away. It just means you have an indefinite runway to figure out next steps.
Mr. Money Mustache apparently makes crazy money now despite still living on $30k / yr, because he had time to find what he loved doing. And if he suddenly decides he doesn't like it, it means he can just... stop doing it.
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Actually. Let me phrase this in "valley speak".
FIRE is about building and funding a personal basic income system.
30s seems pushing it for no reason but by 50 it is quite nesc.
Find meaningful work, whatever your passion is. In practice, you'll likely not starve or become homeless; but simply enjoy more modest means.
One man’s necessity is another man’s luxury. I envy those people who don’t worry about the future and live the bohemian life - I don’t think they are lying to themselves though. People are diverse.
* Severe medical problems, some resulting in instant death (like an aneurysm rupturing)
* Accidents resulting in damage to your person, especially car accidents
* Disability, ethnic makeup, sexual preference, parental social class, etc. which restrict opportunities available to you in our current society
We aren't talking about any of that. We are talking about things which fall within our margin of subjectivity, which for some fortunate people (especially highly-paid software engineers) includes work. To deny this reality and the terms of your participation is to live inauthentically.
Trying to get enough money to retire early now is entirely to make it possible to take on meaningful work instead of the soul crushing jobs that are mosy modern software engineer positions
Note: I said modern software engineer _positions_ and not practices as I've found that most companies are incapable politically of implementing best practices if they deviate at all from how things have been done in the past 20 years on the enterprise side, while the startup side is long hours for a lottery ticket.
It certainly can be, but doesn't have to be. The "long hours" part varies greatly depending on your role, responsibilities, and expertise. The "lottery ticket" part varies based on whether you're optimizing for salary or equity.
I have always excluded stock options from my decision-making process. Sure, it's possible they could make me rich some day... but it strikes me as highly unlikely, and I'm planning on them being worth $0. Equity I consider a potential negative if the company hasn't had their IPO, due to the tax implications.
There are startups out there that offer great salaries and quality of life out there, but you've got to look for that in particular. It also helps if you live or are living to live somewhere with a low cost of living and are willing to work remotely.
I live in a small town and there are effectively zero jobs here that I'd want because the market is so small that they can pay much less than I want to accept. Working remotely allows me to compete on the global labor market, where the compensation is substantially higher. I'm not making the same salary I would if I lived in LA or SF, but it's a whole lot closer to that than if I worked for a local employer. The difference in housing costs alone more than makes up for that, much less the total cost of living.
Here's a comparison between my employer's location (Santa Monica, CA), and the nearest city to me (Springfield, MO). Note that I live about an hour from Springfield, and the costs here are even lower: https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?cou...
For probably over 90% of people whose passion is writing music for example, they will in fact become homeless if they try to make it their only source of income. Even a lot of now-famous actors/singers/etc. ended up homeless for a while as a direct result of this before they hit it big.
FI - Financial Independence. This is the big one, and basically means you have enough money such that you aren't dependent on a job. It gives you freedom to leave a position you don't like, to take a job with less pay that you enjoy more, to ride out periods of unemployment without worry, etc. It can mean different things to different people.
RE - Retire Early. This is an optional part that only some people aspire to. Many, like yourself it seems, don't mind working so will continue to do so. If you've already achieved a degree of FI, then you'll simply be able to spend more, or donate more , or whatever you'd like to do. For those that don't enjoy traditional employment, they might want to focus on personal pursuits, volunteer work, family, etc.
The point is that you can make these choices on your own terms.
One core idea in all of this is lifestyle creep; as you start to earn more, you find ways to spend it. No matter how much you make, it can seem like it's just enough. Even without being frivolous, it's an easy trap to fall into. And to an extent, it's just fine so long as you anticipate working until a normal retirement age and do save appropriately. But the observation here is that a relatively small delay in gratification, in delaying lifestyle creep, can lead to a large amount of financial independence. A bit of measured frugality can accumulate a large degree of wealth due to investment returns.
Naturally, some will take this to an extreme that seems silly, but the basic idea is a very useful one.
No, you don't understand, that is not the goal.
The goal is to live a happy life in a way that allows you to save enough money to retire early. Step 1 is to disabuse yourself of the notion that you need to spend all your money to enjoy yourself.
Can you quit your job for 2 years to study AI and change fields and earn more money and get a more rewarding job? (not you specifically, just an example). The constant nagging of rent, then work + strees and then spending to relieve that stress has something rotten at its core, and its that its aimless.
Fire is a way to cope with that dynamic.
What also kind of bugged me with this article was that it sounds so crazy that these two people are doing this so young but then it's revealed they made a bunch of dosh off crypto which cheapens it a bit for me. This isn't just a road map one can follow, it implies some sort of luck ahead of time. I guess fortune favors the bold.
That makes sense if the things you enjoy cost a lot. But not everyone needs a lot of money to do things they enjoy. For those people, the real cost of having a day to day job is time. For example, I may really enjoy biking and that is a hobby which does not require much money - but it does need daylight and with a full time job you lose the majority of that.
The single best thing I did was focus on my health, that's an investment that will pay off as I age, regardless of my net worth.
You answered your own question right away. Apparently, these people hate working more than they like being less frugal. I've had to be frugal to get by and it does become sort of like a game, where you are always trying to optimize your savings and tradeoffs. However, the stress involved with making these decisions and worrying about money made me appreciate working and making a good income, and I prefer this balance for now.
It also doesn't hurt that if you save up enough money to retire, then realize you want to continue working, you're not exactly in a bad place.
You can't go back in n time and save. You can however live a full and fantastic life while still saving a lot of cash.
It's really about taking care of future you.
There is a balance and the FIRE people are leaning more towards postponing benefits. I am sure not are on the extreme side (as the article seems to point out).
Why? Some people have hobbies and friends. And if they don't have to spend most of the daylight time at work, they have more time for doing what they enjoy most and spending their time with people whose company they enjoy most.
> If your work is drudgery... But if you enjoy it...
What if it's something in between? My job is nice in many ways. But give me enough money that I can spend the rest of my life doing my hobbies instead, and I will quit without thinking twice. It's not that the work sucks; I just enjoy my hobbies much more.
> ...to live a life of poverty?
Poverty is relative. I don't desire a new expensive car, exotic vacations, and other stuff some people spend a lot of money for. All I need is a roof above my head, food, computer, and internet connection. Plus some extra money for random unplanned situations. Then I can read books, watch videos, play computer games, write a blog, develop my own software, and take a walk in nature with my friends afterwards. That seems like quite happy life.
Everyone has their own preferences. To me, the idea that someone needs a job to bring meaning to their life, sounds utterly horrifying. Maybe I am just misunderstanding something, but do such people have no friends? No things they want to learn? No non-profit causes they want to help? Spending most of your days doing one thing over and over again, means neglecting the rest of your life... or of what your life could have been otherwise.