This. "Bank extra and make sure you have savings" is way more reasonable than the "aim to retire by 35" FIRE cult. Out of a sample size of 4, 75% of the people

This. "Bank extra and make sure you have savings" is way more reasonable than the "aim to retire by 35" FIRE cult. Out of a sample size of 4, 75% of the people I know who have done "FIRE" regret it. (The one who doesn't comes from a wealthy family who bought him a house right after university, so the sacrifices he made are a lot less.) Among the 3, the common theme was realizing they wasted the best years of their life solely focused on maximizing their money instead of enjoying their youth. Two became severely depressed alcoholics. The other went back to work as a FTE 6 months after "retiring". It's a lot more reasonable to have a goal of, say, having 2 years' of life expenses saved up in case you want to take a faux-sabbatical mid-career. If you're in tech in the US, this is really not hard if you aren't spending extremely lavishly.