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I had to quit reading any FIRE (financial independence, early retirement) blogs because they were full of people headed down this same path: Extreme frugality,

I had to quit reading any FIRE (financial independence, early retirement) blogs because they were full of people headed down this same path: Extreme frugality, bare minimum savings, assuming their lifestyle would never change and nothing would ever go wrong. Retiring at 30 sounds great, but no one's life goes exactly to plan for next the 30-40 years until traditional retirement age. People change, expectations evolve, possessions wear out and need to be replaced. Living frugally may be fun when you're in your 20s, but it's not so fun when as you get older and your friends want to do things that require money (vacations, hobbies, dining out). Even worse when your romantic partner has different goals in life, as happened here. Many of the leanFIRE stories have their roots in people who hate their jobs so much that the only thing that motivates them is early retirement. They grind through the job the hate, counting days on their leanFIRE countdown until they can quit working and never look back. Most of these people would be much happier if they simply invested time and energy into finding a job they enjoy, or at least one that doesn't make them miserable. Even if it requires a pay cut and a later retirement date, it's much better to spend your time doing something you don't hate than it is to grind out a bad job in misery just to reach dreams of early retirement sooner.

jpdaigle 6y ago
> Even worse when your romantic partner has different goals in life, as happened here. What stings (as I can't help but empathize with the author's feelings) in reading this blog is that it sounds like they were very aligned five years ago, but she discovered a gradual growing miscontent only once they tried the early-retiree life. Not sure if there's a possible fix there, other than trying to compromise (only one of them working, which would probably just lead to more growing apart)
- Sileni 6y ago
  As many people learned last year, it's easy to gloss over the parts of someone you don't like when you're both actively working towards a goal. When you start spending too much time together, it's easy to have the relationship die from a thousand cuts.
  - pdimitar 6y ago
    I would add "...if you weren't a good match in the first place". Your statement kind of tries to make itself universal. I absolutely will never subscribe to the BS notion of "couples love each other more when they don't spend much time together". I'm with my wife for 7 years now and I already worked remotely by the time we met. Our relationship is actually getting better with time. So what you say mostly applies to people who are, let's call them, good roommates, not two people loving each other.
    - SketchySeaBeast 6y ago
      You take exception to their generalizing and then generalize yourself which I'm taking exception to. I love my wife deeply, but work time apart makes our time together better. It takes all sorts.
      - pdimitar 6y ago
        Not at all, I said what I don't subscribe under and cited my anecdotal evidence. My "generalization" is actually putting people in groups, which by itself admits that a generalization is impossible. But it could possibly be offensive to some people that I call their couples "good roommates" which is a fair reaction -- I still have the right to my opinion however.
        SketchySeaBeast 6y ago
        That's fine, but I believe I'm still allowed to take exception to it and express my opinion.
    - Sileni 6y ago
      I said it was an easy thing to have happen, not that it would happen. I'd argue that you took my statement in bad faith, looking for a flaw in it, and generalized more aggressively than I did.
      - 6y ago
- pdimitar 6y ago
  Some people change, most don't, and when one person changes, the other might be comfortable and not want any changes. Sadly these things can and do happen. But we the people usually make it much worse by holding on to relationships that are past their date, for much longer than it's healthy.
hintymad 6y ago
Well said. I'd also add that frugality does not work very well when you have kids. You would want to buy time if you don't want to spend all your time with kids. That means baby sitters, nannies, coaches, and classes for extracurricular activities. Besides, not every parent is good at coaching or tutoring their kids. Given the education quality of the US, you'd have to pay for additional education unless you're the lucky few who have self-driven kids. And what if your kids get sick? The cost just adds up.
- guidoism 6y ago
  Not going to argue about having to spend money to get some time away from the kids. But education? If you retire then you have the time to unschool your children and while your family and friends will think you are crazy your children will get a much better education than anything that involves money.
  - hintymad 6y ago
    > unschool your children Via homeschool groups or via your own? I don't know much about homeschool group, so I'll comment only educating kids alone: parents tend to underestimate the skills required for quality education. You need empathy to understand that your kids may not get some seemingly simple concepts. You need skills to explain to kids complex concepts in simple terms -- and this is not about merely applying Feynman's technique, but about knowing what language is more accessible to kids. You need to know a subject well to teach your kids effectively. The list can go on. In a word, education is a profession, and it takes years of experience to become a quality educator. Why do parents think that they can magically give "a much better education than anything that involves money"? By the way, I recognize that there are always exceptions, especially that smart and driven kids probably need just parents' guidance and advice instead of full-fledged "education". I mainly have ordinary kids in mind, though, as they are the majority to whom education makes a huge difference. Case in point, I didn't get physics, especially free-body diagram and optics when I started learning physics in junior high. It was a retired teacher who removed my conceptual blocks by giving me very targeted exercises. I got stuck again in high school when studying electromagnetism, and it was another teacher who opened my eyes by prescribing inspiring problems like how to accelerate a static electron without a push. I was also lucky to get a math teacher who somehow could find incredibly challenging yet accessible problems that kept me in the discomfort zone. I have similar stories for writing class, for history class, and for chemistry class. Oh yeah, chemistry. A teacher in my senior year was so passionate about chemistry that I didn't realize that he taught us how to reason about organic synthesis at college level, to the point that we could solve some of the IChO problems. And the truth is that my parents could never do what those teachers did. I'm not sure how many kids were lucky enough to have responsible and capable teachers around. And if they don't, finding tutors is not a bad choice.
neogodless 6y ago
> Extreme frugality Were you reading FIRE blogs or extreme frugality blogs? Or maybe I can just ask "how do you define extreme frugality?" (I think of myself as kind of frugal, and planning to have the choice to avoid compulsory paid work before I'm 50, but I also live in one of the most expensive areas of the United States outside of big cities / California, with somewhat regular trips to Disney World and other countries.) But a blog like earlyretirementextreme.com isn't focused on high earners cutting down on consumption and retiring early (that's MrMoneyMustache.com) - it's a version of extreme frugality and self-reliance (and adaptability regardless of changing life circumstances.) > bare minimum savings I assume by this you mean "leanFIRE" as in "just enough of a nest egg to retire with 25x your annual expenses and everything goes perfectly?!" Of course, that sounds like a recipe for disaster, and I think in some cases it's a bit of a "oh I can quit my stupid job at the exact moment I hit this magic number" mentality, but a misunderstanding of putting a real plan in place for a future that is filled with variables. Depending on the blogs you frequented, they could be "copycat" blogs that just took the juicy headlines from more in-depth blogs and throwing up quick articles so they can get some ad revenue. Any idea, handled poorly, is going to either come off unappealing or be riddled with shortcomings. That doesn't mean the original idea can't work (and it does for some - some by luck, others by proper strategy.)
- ricardobayes 6y ago
  Well someone spending 30k in Massachusetts living in a rental is got to be living extremely frugally. Then the woman had enough of the pennypinching. I see this so often in my circle - all the missed eating out and having fun is ultimately spent on marriage counseling and divorce lawyers.
  - lupire 6y ago
    Divorce is better than an unhappy marriage with someone who doesn't share values.
    - JustSomeNobody 6y ago
      Even better is don't marry that person to begin with. Let them go off and enjoy their life with someone they're better suited to share life with.
mathgladiator 6y ago
I'm going to start blogging about FIRE from the other extreme end. I'm a principal engineer making serious dollars, and I'm writing down my playbook. I intend to "Fat-FIRE", and the only reason I don't retire now is to see how much I can leverage my position to do crazy shit at massive scale. Paradoxically, this sets me up for larger windfalls because I can take risks that my peers do not take.
- slumdev 6y ago
  Nobody ever made it to the top by groveling, volunteering for scut, and accepting an annual 3% raise.
- birdyrooster 6y ago
  Would be more boring than the OP, probably a waste of time to even write the brag piece.
  - potatoman22 6y ago
    I think it sounds interesting. Do you really like to spend your days trying to bring people down? Is that fulfilling?
- lostmsu 6y ago
  You should do that. I am an early retiree, who sometimes thinks it would be nice to get back into the industry just to steer or at least nudge the projects I still care about very much into the direction I'd like to seem them to go. And because they are corporate-driven (hello, Microsoft, Facebook, and Google!) it is just too hard to do from the outside.
  - mathgladiator 6y ago
    I have been tinkering with it off and on. One thing that I see is that people complain about politics rather than recognizing the natural force it is and how to bend and master it towards your will. The working title is "Way of Code"
  - 6y ago
dimmke 6y ago
I've had friends with trust funds, who just seem to dither around in life. "Making music" they never release. Picking up little "pass the time" jobs. And these are people that aren't living "leanFIRE" It seems like such a nihilistic way to live. You're just floating along the stream of life. Things worked out for you, but you have no further passion or inclination to improve the world? No problems you could set yourself to solving? As much criticism as Elon Musk gets (he's certainly not perfect), the path he took is the only thing that makes sense to me in that position. He didn't take his wealth and begin doing angel investing in new CRUD app startups, he wanted to solve real problems humanity faces. Not everybody has that amount of money or skill, but it's surprising to me how many people's alternative to having a day job they're forced to do is just complete leisure time 100% of the time or picking up arbitrary hobbies. In this guy's post, like with writing, it sounds like he wasn't actually passionate about it. There are plenty of places to post serialized fiction as you write in online and get feedback (Royal Road, Substack) but it sounded like the measuring stick he was judging himself was becoming a very popular/famous author, not actually writing great stories. It seems just like a different version of the treadmill he was talking about with other people.
- Taylor_OD 6y ago
  I don't know. I'd love to have a basic level of income and then be able to dither around with random jobs. I'd love to be a bartender for 6 months, work in a bookstore for 6 months, become a carpenter for a year or two. I'd probably feel differently if I actually had a trust fund since my upbringing would be different but it does feel stifling that in order to have a financially rewarding career one has to stay on a relatively narrow path. And I say this as someone who has made a major career change during their life.
  - psychiatrist24 6y ago
    I regret that I never worked as a waiter in a cafe, and now it looks as if I can't afford it anymore. Or if I could afford it, I would be taking away the job from people who have a more urgent need for it than me.
matsemann 6y ago
I think most people would agree with you. Often called "build the life you want, then save for it"[0]. It's not as sexy, though, probably why the extreme outliers are more written about (or vocal). [0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/comments/58j8pc/build_the_life_you_want_then_save_for_it/ https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/comments/58j8...
andreilys 6y ago
Isn’t that the point of financial independence? So that you could invest time into finding a way to spend your time that pays less (or nothing) but which you enjoy?
wdr1 6y ago
> I had to quit reading any FIRE (financial independence, early retirement) blogs because they were full of people headed down this same path: Extreme frugality, bare minimum savings, assuming their lifestyle would never change and nothing would ever go wrong. You should checkout /r/fatFire
the_gastropod 6y ago
> ...bare minimum savings, assuming their lifestyle would never change and nothing would ever go wrong. Isn't the status quo of working a 9-5 and saving ~10% (aka spending 90%) of your salary exactly this? Having ~25x living expenses saved up seems like a significantly less fragile position than you're suggesting. Even this "failure" case, the author ended his 6 years of not earning a penny with more money than he started. And he was able to get a job when he decided he wanted one. > Most of these people would be much happier if they simply invested time and energy into finding a job they enjoy Lots of people don't enjoy things that are necessarily financially viable. Putting in a finite amount of time to free yourself to pursue interests without concern for the financials makes a lot of sense.
yibg 6y ago
I noticed even with myself over the years I've flip flopped. At first I thought I can do lean FIRE, because I was never a big spender in the first place. As I get older I started to gradually spend more on things and frankly enjoy the ability to do so as I earned more. For example, not having to take the crappiest flight to get some where. Recently as I get older, I question if I want to even retire early at all. Now I'm shifting more towards "I want to be financially independent so I'm not reliant on a job, but I still want to work". So things change, and things change more and faster than we anticipate. And this isn't even accounting for externalities outside of our control.
ghaff 6y ago
Furthermore leanFIRE is at least somewhat irreversible. Not literally, but if you retire at say 35 with a bare minimum nest egg and you decide 10 years later that this isn't how you want to spend the rest of your life, it will be at least more difficult to insert yourself back into whatever career track you were on.
BlargMcLarg 6y ago
>Most of these people would be much happier if they simply invested time and energy into finding a job they enjoy Many people reach FIRE without much energy, it's an incredibly easy "set and forget" style of life. Many use its concepts to get in a position where they can find a job they enjoy. This skips over the part where the individual might want to be entrepreneurial and needs the funds to be in a position to take such a risk. Or the job they love is inherently in a shitty position (passion industries teeming with bad conditions), so it's a "pick your poison situation" until they have leverage, and in many cases, both poisons make them feel miserable anyway. The idea that there's a job out there for every person they'll enjoy doing as long as they put in the energy, is an incredibly idealistic and even privileged mindset we should be getting rid of.
onlyrealcuzzo 6y ago
It's interesting to me that so many people think the path to riches is paved with pinched pennies. If some of my friends spent half as much time learning new skills as they do saving pennies - I think they'd be much better off. And especially because they don't even enjoy most of the ways they're saving money! Long commutes, cooking all their meals, doing all their dishes. Especially being overworked by a dead-end job they hate! Spend your money, invest your time. I know it's easier said than done.
6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
Lean-FIRE reminds me of the startup world's "ramen profitable."
tom_mellior 6y ago
> this same path: Extreme frugality, bare minimum savings The author is a literal millionaire living (when not working in a well-paid job) on what is roughly the median income for their state. This is neither extremely frugal nor bare minimum savings. They downgraded from "upper-class lifestyle with upper-class work" to "middle-class lifestyle without work". Not exactly going poor. > assuming their lifestyle would never change and nothing would ever go wrong. They bet that nothing would go several-hundreds-of-thousands-dollars wrong. Sounds like a fairly safe bet. If it's likely that you'll get into a situation that costs you that much, having a job doesn't guarantee much either.
toomuchwork_thw 6y ago
> Most of these people would be much happier if they simply invested time and energy into finding a job they enjoy, or at least one that doesn't make them miserable. I don't think there is such a job, not at 8 hours * 5 days a week. Even if it's unfair towards people who have to work longer and harder - I find it grueling. And I believe it's not due to job (I'm a software developer) - I'm pretty sure if I did my favorite hobby full time for a year I'd start resenting it. It's not for lack of vacation either - 5 weeks/year is just enough to get me to baseline where I'm ready to enjoy proper vacation. 3 days a week * 4 hours + 2 months completely off each year could work nicely, but that's not available in a regular job. It'd mean switching to consulting and my selling skills are non-existent. So I'll probably grind for 2-3 years then take 1-2 years off. I did that once already and the main takeaway was that I could easily and gladly not work ever again, if I could afford it.
- pdimitar 6y ago
  > I'm pretty sure if I did my favorite hobby full time for a year I'd start resenting it. There are some ways around it: - Have several hobbies and just do whichever depending on your mood and desire at the time. They are hobbies, not jobs; you don't HAVE to do them if you currently don't want to. It's OK to abandon some of your hobbies for years. (There is a good amount of stories about book authors who start seriously writing -- and become famous and financially successful -- at 50+ years old). - Don't do anything "meaningful" for a while. I have found huge inner peace and improved mental health by just being completely useless for 3 months between contracts. Ironically, during these "useless" times of mine I've progressed hugely on numerous personal interests (some of which overlap with me being a programmer but are relating to things that aren't popular there). - [Re-]Discover true leisure time: walks in nature and admiring the scenery, boat trips, lying on the beach, traveling to exotic locations (OK, this one is almost impossible at the moment), and many others. We don't live to only work.
arwhatever 6y ago
I found the notion of pushing my retirement needle up at at all, to be a really good revelation that got out of reading about FIRE strategies. Even if only age 55 rather than 65, realizing I was not tied to one number, pre-specified by society, has been immensely valuable.
darth_avocado 6y ago
I think what 99% of people need is a 1 year break from their jobs. If you can't find something meaningful in that 1 year, you'll never find happiness in FIRE. You need to find something that you'd be very happy doing, which also incidentally brings you enough money to supplement your FIRE.
Aeolun 6y ago
Either I convinced myself of, or I realized quite early on, that I would not be happy if I just retired early. I need to be doing something, so I may as well be working.
Salgat 6y ago
My FIRE goal is to simply be at a point where my job is optional. I'm no longer sure I want to retire early, but I like the option and flexibility that FIRE gives (and possibly reducing to part-time if it works out that way).
dennisgorelik 6y ago
Did you consider FatFire? https://www.reddit.com/r/fatFIRE/ https://www.reddit.com/r/fatFIRE/

jpdaigle 6y ago

> Even worse when your romantic partner has different goals in life, as happened here. What stings (as I can't help but empathize with the author's feelings) in reading this blog is that it sounds like they were very aligned five years ago, but she discovered a gradual growing miscontent only once they tried the early-retiree life. Not sure if there's a possible fix there, other than trying to compromise (only one of them working, which would probably just lead to more growing apart)

Sileni 6y ago
As many people learned last year, it's easy to gloss over the parts of someone you don't like when you're both actively working towards a goal. When you start spending too much time together, it's easy to have the relationship die from a thousand cuts.
- pdimitar 6y ago
  I would add "...if you weren't a good match in the first place". Your statement kind of tries to make itself universal. I absolutely will never subscribe to the BS notion of "couples love each other more when they don't spend much time together". I'm with my wife for 7 years now and I already worked remotely by the time we met. Our relationship is actually getting better with time. So what you say mostly applies to people who are, let's call them, good roommates, not two people loving each other.
  - SketchySeaBeast 6y ago
    You take exception to their generalizing and then generalize yourself which I'm taking exception to. I love my wife deeply, but work time apart makes our time together better. It takes all sorts.
    - pdimitar 6y ago
      Not at all, I said what I don't subscribe under and cited my anecdotal evidence. My "generalization" is actually putting people in groups, which by itself admits that a generalization is impossible. But it could possibly be offensive to some people that I call their couples "good roommates" which is a fair reaction -- I still have the right to my opinion however.
      - SketchySeaBeast 6y ago
        That's fine, but I believe I'm still allowed to take exception to it and express my opinion.
  - Sileni 6y ago
    I said it was an easy thing to have happen, not that it would happen. I'd argue that you took my statement in bad faith, looking for a flaw in it, and generalized more aggressively than I did.
    - 6y ago
pdimitar 6y ago
Some people change, most don't, and when one person changes, the other might be comfortable and not want any changes. Sadly these things can and do happen. But we the people usually make it much worse by holding on to relationships that are past their date, for much longer than it's healthy.

hintymad 6y ago

Well said. I'd also add that frugality does not work very well when you have kids. You would want to buy time if you don't want to spend all your time with kids. That means baby sitters, nannies, coaches, and classes for extracurricular activities. Besides, not every parent is good at coaching or tutoring their kids. Given the education quality of the US, you'd have to pay for additional education unless you're the lucky few who have self-driven kids. And what if your kids get sick? The cost just adds up.

guidoism 6y ago
Not going to argue about having to spend money to get some time away from the kids. But education? If you retire then you have the time to unschool your children and while your family and friends will think you are crazy your children will get a much better education than anything that involves money.
- hintymad 6y ago
  > unschool your children Via homeschool groups or via your own? I don't know much about homeschool group, so I'll comment only educating kids alone: parents tend to underestimate the skills required for quality education. You need empathy to understand that your kids may not get some seemingly simple concepts. You need skills to explain to kids complex concepts in simple terms -- and this is not about merely applying Feynman's technique, but about knowing what language is more accessible to kids. You need to know a subject well to teach your kids effectively. The list can go on. In a word, education is a profession, and it takes years of experience to become a quality educator. Why do parents think that they can magically give "a much better education than anything that involves money"? By the way, I recognize that there are always exceptions, especially that smart and driven kids probably need just parents' guidance and advice instead of full-fledged "education". I mainly have ordinary kids in mind, though, as they are the majority to whom education makes a huge difference. Case in point, I didn't get physics, especially free-body diagram and optics when I started learning physics in junior high. It was a retired teacher who removed my conceptual blocks by giving me very targeted exercises. I got stuck again in high school when studying electromagnetism, and it was another teacher who opened my eyes by prescribing inspiring problems like how to accelerate a static electron without a push. I was also lucky to get a math teacher who somehow could find incredibly challenging yet accessible problems that kept me in the discomfort zone. I have similar stories for writing class, for history class, and for chemistry class. Oh yeah, chemistry. A teacher in my senior year was so passionate about chemistry that I didn't realize that he taught us how to reason about organic synthesis at college level, to the point that we could solve some of the IChO problems. And the truth is that my parents could never do what those teachers did. I'm not sure how many kids were lucky enough to have responsible and capable teachers around. And if they don't, finding tutors is not a bad choice.

neogodless 6y ago

> Extreme frugality Were you reading FIRE blogs or extreme frugality blogs? Or maybe I can just ask "how do you define extreme frugality?" (I think of myself as kind of frugal, and planning to have the choice to avoid compulsory paid work before I'm 50, but I also live in one of the most expensive areas of the United States outside of big cities / California, with somewhat regular trips to Disney World and other countries.) But a blog like earlyretirementextreme.com isn't focused on high earners cutting down on consumption and retiring early (that's MrMoneyMustache.com) - it's a version of extreme frugality and self-reliance (and adaptability regardless of changing life circumstances.) > bare minimum savings I assume by this you mean "leanFIRE" as in "just enough of a nest egg to retire with 25x your annual expenses and everything goes perfectly?!" Of course, that sounds like a recipe for disaster, and I think in some cases it's a bit of a "oh I can quit my stupid job at the exact moment I hit this magic number" mentality, but a misunderstanding of putting a real plan in place for a future that is filled with variables. Depending on the blogs you frequented, they could be "copycat" blogs that just took the juicy headlines from more in-depth blogs and throwing up quick articles so they can get some ad revenue. Any idea, handled poorly, is going to either come off unappealing or be riddled with shortcomings. That doesn't mean the original idea can't work (and it does for some - some by luck, others by proper strategy.)

ricardobayes 6y ago
Well someone spending 30k in Massachusetts living in a rental is got to be living extremely frugally. Then the woman had enough of the pennypinching. I see this so often in my circle - all the missed eating out and having fun is ultimately spent on marriage counseling and divorce lawyers.
- lupire 6y ago
  Divorce is better than an unhappy marriage with someone who doesn't share values.
  - JustSomeNobody 6y ago
    Even better is don't marry that person to begin with. Let them go off and enjoy their life with someone they're better suited to share life with.

mathgladiator 6y ago

I'm going to start blogging about FIRE from the other extreme end. I'm a principal engineer making serious dollars, and I'm writing down my playbook. I intend to "Fat-FIRE", and the only reason I don't retire now is to see how much I can leverage my position to do crazy shit at massive scale. Paradoxically, this sets me up for larger windfalls because I can take risks that my peers do not take.

slumdev 6y ago
Nobody ever made it to the top by groveling, volunteering for scut, and accepting an annual 3% raise.
birdyrooster 6y ago
Would be more boring than the OP, probably a waste of time to even write the brag piece.
- potatoman22 6y ago
  I think it sounds interesting. Do you really like to spend your days trying to bring people down? Is that fulfilling?
lostmsu 6y ago
You should do that. I am an early retiree, who sometimes thinks it would be nice to get back into the industry just to steer or at least nudge the projects I still care about very much into the direction I'd like to seem them to go. And because they are corporate-driven (hello, Microsoft, Facebook, and Google!) it is just too hard to do from the outside.
- mathgladiator 6y ago
  I have been tinkering with it off and on. One thing that I see is that people complain about politics rather than recognizing the natural force it is and how to bend and master it towards your will. The working title is "Way of Code"
- 6y ago

dimmke 6y ago

I've had friends with trust funds, who just seem to dither around in life. "Making music" they never release. Picking up little "pass the time" jobs. And these are people that aren't living "leanFIRE" It seems like such a nihilistic way to live. You're just floating along the stream of life. Things worked out for you, but you have no further passion or inclination to improve the world? No problems you could set yourself to solving? As much criticism as Elon Musk gets (he's certainly not perfect), the path he took is the only thing that makes sense to me in that position. He didn't take his wealth and begin doing angel investing in new CRUD app startups, he wanted to solve real problems humanity faces. Not everybody has that amount of money or skill, but it's surprising to me how many people's alternative to having a day job they're forced to do is just complete leisure time 100% of the time or picking up arbitrary hobbies. In this guy's post, like with writing, it sounds like he wasn't actually passionate about it. There are plenty of places to post serialized fiction as you write in online and get feedback (Royal Road, Substack) but it sounded like the measuring stick he was judging himself was becoming a very popular/famous author, not actually writing great stories. It seems just like a different version of the treadmill he was talking about with other people.

Taylor_OD 6y ago
I don't know. I'd love to have a basic level of income and then be able to dither around with random jobs. I'd love to be a bartender for 6 months, work in a bookstore for 6 months, become a carpenter for a year or two. I'd probably feel differently if I actually had a trust fund since my upbringing would be different but it does feel stifling that in order to have a financially rewarding career one has to stay on a relatively narrow path. And I say this as someone who has made a major career change during their life.
- psychiatrist24 6y ago
  I regret that I never worked as a waiter in a cafe, and now it looks as if I can't afford it anymore. Or if I could afford it, I would be taking away the job from people who have a more urgent need for it than me.

matsemann 6y ago

I think most people would agree with you. Often called "build the life you want, then save for it"[0]. It's not as sexy, though, probably why the extreme outliers are more written about (or vocal). [0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/comments/58j8pc/build_the_life_you_want_then_save_for_it/ https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/comments/58j8...

andreilys 6y ago

Isn’t that the point of financial independence? So that you could invest time into finding a way to spend your time that pays less (or nothing) but which you enjoy?

wdr1 6y ago

> I had to quit reading any FIRE (financial independence, early retirement) blogs because they were full of people headed down this same path: Extreme frugality, bare minimum savings, assuming their lifestyle would never change and nothing would ever go wrong. You should checkout /r/fatFire

the_gastropod 6y ago

> ...bare minimum savings, assuming their lifestyle would never change and nothing would ever go wrong. Isn't the status quo of working a 9-5 and saving ~10% (aka spending 90%) of your salary exactly this? Having ~25x living expenses saved up seems like a significantly less fragile position than you're suggesting. Even this "failure" case, the author ended his 6 years of not earning a penny with more money than he started. And he was able to get a job when he decided he wanted one. > Most of these people would be much happier if they simply invested time and energy into finding a job they enjoy Lots of people don't enjoy things that are necessarily financially viable. Putting in a finite amount of time to free yourself to pursue interests without concern for the financials makes a lot of sense.

yibg 6y ago

I noticed even with myself over the years I've flip flopped. At first I thought I can do lean FIRE, because I was never a big spender in the first place. As I get older I started to gradually spend more on things and frankly enjoy the ability to do so as I earned more. For example, not having to take the crappiest flight to get some where. Recently as I get older, I question if I want to even retire early at all. Now I'm shifting more towards "I want to be financially independent so I'm not reliant on a job, but I still want to work". So things change, and things change more and faster than we anticipate. And this isn't even accounting for externalities outside of our control.

ghaff 6y ago

Furthermore leanFIRE is at least somewhat irreversible. Not literally, but if you retire at say 35 with a bare minimum nest egg and you decide 10 years later that this isn't how you want to spend the rest of your life, it will be at least more difficult to insert yourself back into whatever career track you were on.

BlargMcLarg 6y ago

>Most of these people would be much happier if they simply invested time and energy into finding a job they enjoy Many people reach FIRE without much energy, it's an incredibly easy "set and forget" style of life. Many use its concepts to get in a position where they can find a job they enjoy. This skips over the part where the individual might want to be entrepreneurial and needs the funds to be in a position to take such a risk. Or the job they love is inherently in a shitty position (passion industries teeming with bad conditions), so it's a "pick your poison situation" until they have leverage, and in many cases, both poisons make them feel miserable anyway. The idea that there's a job out there for every person they'll enjoy doing as long as they put in the energy, is an incredibly idealistic and even privileged mindset we should be getting rid of.

onlyrealcuzzo 6y ago

It's interesting to me that so many people think the path to riches is paved with pinched pennies. If some of my friends spent half as much time learning new skills as they do saving pennies - I think they'd be much better off. And especially because they don't even enjoy most of the ways they're saving money! Long commutes, cooking all their meals, doing all their dishes. Especially being overworked by a dead-end job they hate! Spend your money, invest your time. I know it's easier said than done.

6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago

Lean-FIRE reminds me of the startup world's "ramen profitable."

tom_mellior 6y ago

> this same path: Extreme frugality, bare minimum savings The author is a literal millionaire living (when not working in a well-paid job) on what is roughly the median income for their state. This is neither extremely frugal nor bare minimum savings. They downgraded from "upper-class lifestyle with upper-class work" to "middle-class lifestyle without work". Not exactly going poor. > assuming their lifestyle would never change and nothing would ever go wrong. They bet that nothing would go several-hundreds-of-thousands-dollars wrong. Sounds like a fairly safe bet. If it's likely that you'll get into a situation that costs you that much, having a job doesn't guarantee much either.

toomuchwork_thw 6y ago

> Most of these people would be much happier if they simply invested time and energy into finding a job they enjoy, or at least one that doesn't make them miserable. I don't think there is such a job, not at 8 hours * 5 days a week. Even if it's unfair towards people who have to work longer and harder - I find it grueling. And I believe it's not due to job (I'm a software developer) - I'm pretty sure if I did my favorite hobby full time for a year I'd start resenting it. It's not for lack of vacation either - 5 weeks/year is just enough to get me to baseline where I'm ready to enjoy proper vacation. 3 days a week * 4 hours + 2 months completely off each year could work nicely, but that's not available in a regular job. It'd mean switching to consulting and my selling skills are non-existent. So I'll probably grind for 2-3 years then take 1-2 years off. I did that once already and the main takeaway was that I could easily and gladly not work ever again, if I could afford it.

pdimitar 6y ago
> I'm pretty sure if I did my favorite hobby full time for a year I'd start resenting it. There are some ways around it: - Have several hobbies and just do whichever depending on your mood and desire at the time. They are hobbies, not jobs; you don't HAVE to do them if you currently don't want to. It's OK to abandon some of your hobbies for years. (There is a good amount of stories about book authors who start seriously writing -- and become famous and financially successful -- at 50+ years old). - Don't do anything "meaningful" for a while. I have found huge inner peace and improved mental health by just being completely useless for 3 months between contracts. Ironically, during these "useless" times of mine I've progressed hugely on numerous personal interests (some of which overlap with me being a programmer but are relating to things that aren't popular there). - [Re-]Discover true leisure time: walks in nature and admiring the scenery, boat trips, lying on the beach, traveling to exotic locations (OK, this one is almost impossible at the moment), and many others. We don't live to only work.

arwhatever 6y ago

I found the notion of pushing my retirement needle up at at all, to be a really good revelation that got out of reading about FIRE strategies. Even if only age 55 rather than 65, realizing I was not tied to one number, pre-specified by society, has been immensely valuable.

darth_avocado 6y ago

I think what 99% of people need is a 1 year break from their jobs. If you can't find something meaningful in that 1 year, you'll never find happiness in FIRE. You need to find something that you'd be very happy doing, which also incidentally brings you enough money to supplement your FIRE.

Aeolun 6y ago

Either I convinced myself of, or I realized quite early on, that I would not be happy if I just retired early. I need to be doing something, so I may as well be working.

Salgat 6y ago

My FIRE goal is to simply be at a point where my job is optional. I'm no longer sure I want to retire early, but I like the option and flexibility that FIRE gives (and possibly reducing to part-time if it works out that way).

dennisgorelik 6y ago

Did you consider FatFire? https://www.reddit.com/r/fatFIRE/ https://www.reddit.com/r/fatFIRE/