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I completely agree with the article and I still think that if you read Millionaire Next Door and it helps you get a perspective on living below your means and i

by jstx1 5y ago

I completely agree with the article and I still think that if you read Millionaire Next Door and it helps you get a perspective on living below your means and investing regularly, that could still be really useful. I feel similarly about FIRE - retiring early is one of the most unappealing goals that I can think of and the FI part of it is an outright lie - but if you read something on a FIRE blog and it helps you manage your money a bit better, I'm all for it.

zrail 5y ago
> the FI part of it is an outright lie This is a perspective I haven't encountered before! Would you be willing to expand a bit?
- jstx1 5y ago
  Perhaps I was too harsh. What I don't like about FI is that it pretends to be able to quantify the expenses that you'll need in the future with models like the 4% rule which make so many assumptions that the model is useless in practice (or at least the model is dishonest about the risks - one story of early retirement discussed on HN - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26543527 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26543527) So when you challenge the idea that those people are genuinely financially independent, the argument that usually comes up is "it's still better than not having that nest egg at all" or "you don't need to stop working, you need to be able to" - which is just another way to say that it's better to have more money (duh).
  - zrail 5y ago
    Thank you for elaborating. That makes perfect sense.
omnibrain 5y ago
I used to read a few of those blogs and for some (most?) of them even the RE part was a lie. They rented out property and had to take care of it and had some side hustles here and there. Some even went into the direction of being "part time farmer". Granted, they retired from their old dayjob and worked way less than before and with more freedom - which is totally a valid lifestyle - but it's at least a bit disingenious calling this retirement.

by jstx1 5y ago

zrail 5y ago

> the FI part of it is an outright lie This is a perspective I haven't encountered before! Would you be willing to expand a bit?

jstx1 5y ago
Perhaps I was too harsh. What I don't like about FI is that it pretends to be able to quantify the expenses that you'll need in the future with models like the 4% rule which make so many assumptions that the model is useless in practice (or at least the model is dishonest about the risks - one story of early retirement discussed on HN - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26543527 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26543527) So when you challenge the idea that those people are genuinely financially independent, the argument that usually comes up is "it's still better than not having that nest egg at all" or "you don't need to stop working, you need to be able to" - which is just another way to say that it's better to have more money (duh).
- zrail 5y ago
  Thank you for elaborating. That makes perfect sense.

omnibrain 5y ago

I used to read a few of those blogs and for some (most?) of them even the RE part was a lie. They rented out property and had to take care of it and had some side hustles here and there. Some even went into the direction of being "part time farmer". Granted, they retired from their old dayjob and worked way less than before and with more freedom - which is totally a valid lifestyle - but it's at least a bit disingenious calling this retirement.