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I've noticed an interesting congruity - people in the FIRE community tend to target saving two-thirds of a modern western income, with most finding that living

I've noticed an interesting congruity - people in the FIRE community tend to target saving two-thirds of a modern western income, with most finding that living on less than one-third begins to have serious impacts on quality of life. From some studies I came across while studying sustainable energy it also seems as though a well-designed community in which residents make certain lifestyle choices can reduce resource requirements by around two-thirds. Most people in the FIRE community of course work more than the minimum long enough to save money and then join the investor class, without doing paid work at all from that point - but it's fascinating to think that we could all reduce work and lifestyles by two-thirds in a sustainable, ongoing way.

martincmartin 5y ago
FIRE = Financial Independence, Retire Early for those who don't know.
- pipthepixie 5y ago
  I like the concept. There are even young people experimenting with retirement but for typically one year, also known as a 'gap year' where they don't work/study - they just explore.
  - aiisjustanif 5y ago
    In Europe, a gap year has been a thing for couple decades now, if not more.
    - namdnay 5y ago
      Depends where in Europe. Definitely not common in France. I know it’s common in the UK, not sure about other countries
    - namarie 5y ago
      It's been a thing since at least the 1660s, when people called it a "Grand Tour".
  - mateo- 5y ago
    Can confirm. Am young person considering this. Though I'll be taking it to study, mostly :)
  - 41209 5y ago
    Before Covid made it impossible, I wanted to do this for at least 6 months. I still hope I get the chance to travel for an extended period of time .
  - loftyal 5y ago
    This gap year has been pretty common in Europe/Aus/NZ for a while. Lots of young people do it. We even have visas for it called "working holidays" so they can work a part-time bar job etc, so you dont need to save up much to do it.
  - TeMPOraL 5y ago
    I missed my chance on this. I hope I'll get another after my kids grow up a bit. I believe this is called "sabbatical" (except in this case it'll be self-funded).
sokoloff 5y ago
If “we could all” is constrained to households earning 6-figures, I tend to agree. I doubt a household making $30K/yr could realistically live on $10K/yr. (Further, if everyone FIRE’d, growth would slow to the point where you’d need to save more to generate the same income from investments. We’re so far from that being any kind of practical worry, that it can be safely ignored I think, but would be a concern if it became more than vanishingly uncommon almost-fringe behavior.)
- cntrl 5y ago
  Isn't the FIRE person just delaying it's consumption? At some point the saved up money will be spent, therefore I wouldn't expect it to have a huge negative impact on economic growth
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    I think generally no: FIRE adherents are planning to retire early (the “RE” in FIRE) and expect to spend less over their lifetime than a standard American working that same level of job/income for 40 years instead of 10 or 15. https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-simple-math-behind-early-retirement/ https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-si...
  - SuoDuanDao 5y ago
    It's not delaying but also reducing it significantly - the FIRE person lives on 1/3 a typical income and saves the other two over the course of a compressed career. Typically they retire once they've saved 25X their yearly expenses and then draw down at a rate of 4% a year, putting any excess capital gains towards their portfolios to offset inflation. So consumption is reduced by 60% over the course of a lifetime, which by most metrics would shrink the economy by a similar amount - of course, most FIRE people also keep being productive after retiring, so it's probably not so straightforward to account for everything.
  - outworlder 5y ago
    Depends if it's "lean" or "fat" FIRE.
WhompingWindows 5y ago
Objectively, a lot of the consumption of modern Western life is unnecessary. We don't have to drive out to dinner, there's edible food at home. We could skip those bucket-list vacation trips, purchasing new items instead of making-do with old, we could live in more modest housing for our income levels. It's kind of trippy to imagine what the large-scale effects would be. If everyone cut their consumption by 1/3, our economy would contract a lot, but long-term it'd be healthier, right? Less waste, more efficiency, less environmental degradation overall, though I'll admit we need new technology to replace old dirty technology in energy. Overall, it's a very interesting subset of Westerners, the FIRE group.
- notfromhere 5y ago
  Probably an argument that a forty hour workweek makes that kind of unnecessary consumption possible. People with time and groceries would probably make dinner rather than go out
  - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
    I'm not sure about that, even when my wife and I were both working full time we still cooked all our own meals. It's not that much of a burden.
    - sneak 5y ago
      In-person shopping for food (including travel to/from the place of purchase), food prep, cooking, and the associated cleanup is an enormous time sink. Perhaps you have free time or are already used to spending a lot of it on these tasks, but let's not pretend that it's "not that much". It's huge.
      - kwhitefoot 5y ago
        Shopping for the four of us in this house takes about three man hours a week. Cooking about 15. That is much less than an hour a day per person. If we felt like it we could optimise the shopping even further by only shopping when we were already passing the supermarket on the way to or from work. If we felt like it we could do the shopping online and cut it down to a few minutes a week. Cooking Sunday dinner for four today took me less than two hours. Would have been faster if I had not prepared everything from scratch.
throwthere 5y ago
It’s kind of an interesting thought experiment. Think for a second how much many of our incomes depend on ad revenue. Certainly if a large contingent of consumers massively cut their spending we have to work harder and longer for the same pay. And so on across all jobs producing discretionary goods and services.
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  >Think for a second how much many of our incomes depend on ad revenue. I don't think advertising makes that much difference. Most people spend all their earnings. The only thing advertising does is direct where it is spent. >Certainly if a large contingent of consumers massively cut their spending we have to work harder and longer for the same pay. If we all did it then we wouldn't be working longer and harder for the same pay.
  - throwthere 5y ago
    > I don't think advertising makes that much difference. Most people spend all their earnings. The only thing advertising does is direct where it is spent. Even if it were true that advertising only directed where money was spent, there'd still be 2/3 less money to go to advertising or anything else if everyone was making 1/3 pay. > If we all did it then we wouldn't be working longer and harder for the same pay. I don't understand what you're trying to say. Economies of scale mean that you're more productive with more consumption. IE) If you write code for a living, you're generating more value the more people who use it. If less people use it, you have to work harder to get the same level of value and the same pay.
SavantIdiot 5y ago
Most people in the FIRE community are still under 50. I'm watching to see how this plays out.
clydethefrog 5y ago
A big part of FIRE is putting your income i to index funds that get profit from mindless consumption, unlimited growth and capital extraction. I think if everyone would do that there wouldn't be any return on the investments.

martincmartin 5y ago

FIRE = Financial Independence, Retire Early for those who don't know.

pipthepixie 5y ago
I like the concept. There are even young people experimenting with retirement but for typically one year, also known as a 'gap year' where they don't work/study - they just explore.
- aiisjustanif 5y ago
  In Europe, a gap year has been a thing for couple decades now, if not more.
  - namdnay 5y ago
    Depends where in Europe. Definitely not common in France. I know it’s common in the UK, not sure about other countries
  - namarie 5y ago
    It's been a thing since at least the 1660s, when people called it a "Grand Tour".
- mateo- 5y ago
  Can confirm. Am young person considering this. Though I'll be taking it to study, mostly :)
- 41209 5y ago
  Before Covid made it impossible, I wanted to do this for at least 6 months. I still hope I get the chance to travel for an extended period of time .
- loftyal 5y ago
  This gap year has been pretty common in Europe/Aus/NZ for a while. Lots of young people do it. We even have visas for it called "working holidays" so they can work a part-time bar job etc, so you dont need to save up much to do it.
- TeMPOraL 5y ago
  I missed my chance on this. I hope I'll get another after my kids grow up a bit. I believe this is called "sabbatical" (except in this case it'll be self-funded).

sokoloff 5y ago

If “we could all” is constrained to households earning 6-figures, I tend to agree. I doubt a household making $30K/yr could realistically live on $10K/yr. (Further, if everyone FIRE’d, growth would slow to the point where you’d need to save more to generate the same income from investments. We’re so far from that being any kind of practical worry, that it can be safely ignored I think, but would be a concern if it became more than vanishingly uncommon almost-fringe behavior.)

cntrl 5y ago
Isn't the FIRE person just delaying it's consumption? At some point the saved up money will be spent, therefore I wouldn't expect it to have a huge negative impact on economic growth
- sokoloff 5y ago
  I think generally no: FIRE adherents are planning to retire early (the “RE” in FIRE) and expect to spend less over their lifetime than a standard American working that same level of job/income for 40 years instead of 10 or 15. https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-simple-math-behind-early-retirement/ https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-si...
- SuoDuanDao 5y ago
  It's not delaying but also reducing it significantly - the FIRE person lives on 1/3 a typical income and saves the other two over the course of a compressed career. Typically they retire once they've saved 25X their yearly expenses and then draw down at a rate of 4% a year, putting any excess capital gains towards their portfolios to offset inflation. So consumption is reduced by 60% over the course of a lifetime, which by most metrics would shrink the economy by a similar amount - of course, most FIRE people also keep being productive after retiring, so it's probably not so straightforward to account for everything.
- outworlder 5y ago
  Depends if it's "lean" or "fat" FIRE.

WhompingWindows 5y ago

Objectively, a lot of the consumption of modern Western life is unnecessary. We don't have to drive out to dinner, there's edible food at home. We could skip those bucket-list vacation trips, purchasing new items instead of making-do with old, we could live in more modest housing for our income levels. It's kind of trippy to imagine what the large-scale effects would be. If everyone cut their consumption by 1/3, our economy would contract a lot, but long-term it'd be healthier, right? Less waste, more efficiency, less environmental degradation overall, though I'll admit we need new technology to replace old dirty technology in energy. Overall, it's a very interesting subset of Westerners, the FIRE group.

notfromhere 5y ago
Probably an argument that a forty hour workweek makes that kind of unnecessary consumption possible. People with time and groceries would probably make dinner rather than go out
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  I'm not sure about that, even when my wife and I were both working full time we still cooked all our own meals. It's not that much of a burden.
  - sneak 5y ago
    In-person shopping for food (including travel to/from the place of purchase), food prep, cooking, and the associated cleanup is an enormous time sink. Perhaps you have free time or are already used to spending a lot of it on these tasks, but let's not pretend that it's "not that much". It's huge.
    - kwhitefoot 5y ago
      Shopping for the four of us in this house takes about three man hours a week. Cooking about 15. That is much less than an hour a day per person. If we felt like it we could optimise the shopping even further by only shopping when we were already passing the supermarket on the way to or from work. If we felt like it we could do the shopping online and cut it down to a few minutes a week. Cooking Sunday dinner for four today took me less than two hours. Would have been faster if I had not prepared everything from scratch.

throwthere 5y ago

It’s kind of an interesting thought experiment. Think for a second how much many of our incomes depend on ad revenue. Certainly if a large contingent of consumers massively cut their spending we have to work harder and longer for the same pay. And so on across all jobs producing discretionary goods and services.

tonyedgecombe 5y ago
>Think for a second how much many of our incomes depend on ad revenue. I don't think advertising makes that much difference. Most people spend all their earnings. The only thing advertising does is direct where it is spent. >Certainly if a large contingent of consumers massively cut their spending we have to work harder and longer for the same pay. If we all did it then we wouldn't be working longer and harder for the same pay.
- throwthere 5y ago
  > I don't think advertising makes that much difference. Most people spend all their earnings. The only thing advertising does is direct where it is spent. Even if it were true that advertising only directed where money was spent, there'd still be 2/3 less money to go to advertising or anything else if everyone was making 1/3 pay. > If we all did it then we wouldn't be working longer and harder for the same pay. I don't understand what you're trying to say. Economies of scale mean that you're more productive with more consumption. IE) If you write code for a living, you're generating more value the more people who use it. If less people use it, you have to work harder to get the same level of value and the same pay.

SavantIdiot 5y ago

Most people in the FIRE community are still under 50. I'm watching to see how this plays out.

clydethefrog 5y ago

A big part of FIRE is putting your income i to index funds that get profit from mindless consumption, unlimited growth and capital extraction. I think if everyone would do that there wouldn't be any return on the investments.