Ask HN: What do people think of FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early)? - devlife
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glun
I think its stupid. Retirement is boring, youll end working anyway just to
have something to do. Id rather have an enjoyable job and lots of sparetime
now that im young rather than slave away my youth so that I can retire early.

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justaguyhere
I don't think it is stupid. Retirement in this sense doesn't mean "sit at home
and do nothing all day" \- it just means getting out of the rat race and stop
working for money at the job one hates. Once the financial pressure is gone,
we can work on things that actually matter to us and those that we enjoy.

I do get your point about slaving away the youth though.

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world32
There are different interpretations of what FIRE is. FIRE in the sense of
saving money in order to be less reliant on potentially unfulfilling jobs is
certainly a good idea.

However, FIRE as some kind of end-goal to be achieved by all means necessary
is unlikely to make many people happy. Reading the financial independence
subreddit, many people think of FIRE as some holy grail - like they will
finally be happy once have saved up enough money that they can quit a job they
hate. I dont think its healthy to obsess over some kind of medium-distant goal
and put all your energy towards it thinking "I will be happy when I'm
financially independent".

The old cliche "life is a journey, not a goal" really applies here. Some
(though not many) even argue that you shouldn't have kids because they cost so
much and will delay your FIRE.

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BjoernKW
It's a reasonable approach.

From my perspective it's not so much about the "retire early" but rather about
the "financial independence" part. Even if you don't intend to retire early
approaches like FIRE are extremely useful for establishing or restoring
financial sanity.

If you think about it it's really not (or at least it shouldn't be) all that
novel an idea: Consistently spend less than you earn.

It's just that industrial societies at large have become used to a rampant
consumerism that favours spending more than you earn.

More traditional retirement plans also disproportionately benefit banks and
insurance companies.

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gubsz
My interest in FIRE can really be boiled down to this scene:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJjKP8vYjpQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJjKP8vYjpQ)

I'm on board and actively pursing FIRE. I'm not sure if I'll actually choose
to retire when I hit the magic number (~20x your yearly expenses), but it does
provide me with a sense of satisfaction and stability.

I think a lot of the FIRE community over evangelizes the "RE" portion of FIRE,
but that may just be a reflection of the high stress/high pay types of jobs
that many FIRE pursuers find themselves in.

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baccredited
I'm actively pursuing FIRE. On pace to reach it in 2023. I think every
software developer who wants to write code their whole career must actively be
trying to reach FIRE by age 50. Ageism is rampant in this industry.

If you want to be a manager or founder or whatever I think you can work past
50 but FIRE is still worth pursuing.

And if you love working on projects that matter to YOU there is nothing better
than achieving Financial Independence.

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devlife
You are so right about ageism. I am in my mid-forties and I am already feeling
it. I have been rejected from positions because of my age. The feedback most
of the time: I am not a good cultural fit.

I do not get lured by Pool table, office BBQs, bowling nights etc. I just want
to write good software.

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highhedgehog
is it bad if i'm 31 and I don't get lured by office events either?

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miguelrochefort
Based on the salaries of people who comment here, I assume most can retire in
about 5-10 years of work.

For the rest of us, I don't think we'll ever retire.

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RikNieu
I find it fascinating and very condusive to my personality.

However, the amounts of income you need to be able generate to truely get
there seems to be... ambitious.

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NotSammyHagar
I see lots of people saying they do this on the blind app but i've never met
anyone yet who seems to actually be getting there. best way to get wealth as a
software engineer is working consistently at high paying jobs, save your money
and invest it, don't try for riches at startups.

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rurban
I'm doing it, my neighbor is doing it, many people I know retired already and
are doing fine. You have so much more time doing more interesting stuff.

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avichalp
How much time it took you to get there once you consciously started working
towards it? And what path you took? If you don't mind me asking :)

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marketgod
Not the original poster however get where? Everyone has their own goal. The
basic fire goal is $1M with a 3-4% withdrawal rate however you can "fatfire"
and look to maintian the same lifestyle you have when you were earning, which
is easier to do for someone who has start-up shares, or owns a
business/commercial real estate. You just have to start and also know that the
younger you are when you start the more your money grows via compound interest
(especially if you are using the index fund investment approach.)

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NotSammyHagar
30 or 40k is not enough to live on comfortably in most of the us, much less
the larger west cost cities. Is the goal that low? Seems way to low.

My home owner's taxes are more than half that. Probably the idea is live in a
place that's less expensive (which is not stupid), but I also want to live in
a place with interesting things and people and good climate and jobs and
schools, leading to a 'nicer' city I think.

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return1
i don't get the "retire early" part. who wants to be a retiree for ever? But
financial independence is sweet freedom

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counterpig
Think of retire early as a polite way of saying having fuck you money.

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chatmasta
Employers love it because it encourages their workers to keep their head down
and work hard. Retirement is just around the corner.

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potta_coffee
I don't come anywhere close to making enough money to attempt it. Sounds
awesome though.

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dredmorbius
Clearly, a passing fad.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIRE_economy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIRE_economy)

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shoo
I think some of FIRE's basic mental models provide a useful perspective to
help make some decisions, but like many things in life, it's not great to
focus on one perspective myopically, to the exclusion of everything else.

While accumulating and investing savings it is reasonably useful to keep in
mind your savings ratio:

    
    
      savings_ratio := (income - expenses) / income
    

If you choose to focus on growing investments, make decisions to maximise the
savings ratio, subject to other constraints. You can try to reduce expenses,
or increase income. Or both. Sometimes you can find win-win decisions that
increase your savings ratio while also giving you some other benefit (e.g.
start riding a bicycle to work instead of commuting on public transport --
this saves money and can be more enjoyable, provided conditions for cycling
aren't too foul and you live close enough).

Focusing on maximising savings ratio assumes that your expenses while saving
will be similar to your expenses once retired. This may or may not be true --
for example, maybe you have high-paying work in a higher cost of living area,
but you can move to a lower cost of living area when you no longer need a
reliable day job.

Once retired, we want our investment income to cover our expected expenses:

    
    
      cash_flow_in + cash_flow_out >= 0
    
      cash_flow_in = capital_invested * (expected_nominal_return - inflation) * (1 - effective_tax_rate)
    
      cash_flow_out = expected_annual_expenses_when_retired
    
    

We can calculate our progress by the ratio cash_flow_in / -cash_flow_out .

For example, let's plug some numbers in:

    
    
      expected_annual_expenses_when_retired = -20,000 USD / yr
    
      capital_invested = 200,000 USD
      expected_nominal_return = 6% (say we're 100% invested in the US stock market)
      inflation = 2%
      effective_tax_rate = 5% (complete guess, i don't live in the US)
    

So

    
    
      expected_investment_income = 200,000 * (0.06 - 0.02) * (1 - 0.05) = 7600 USD / yr
    

In this example, our progress to covering our expected annual retirement
expenses with net real investment returns is 7600 / 20000 = 38% .

There are calculators to estimate the time until retirement. Here's a simple
one:
[https://networthify.com/calculator/earlyretirement?income=70...](https://networthify.com/calculator/earlyretirement?income=70000&initialBalance=0&expenses=25200&annualPct=5&withdrawalRate=4)

All that said, real life is unpredicable and complicated, it might be good to
leave a bit of margin in there to handle unpredictable events such as stock
market crashes, large one-off expenses to repair a house, contingency for
emergency medical expenses, etc. It's arguably not a great idea to be 100%
invested in stocks at the moment, let alone US stocks.

Potentially useful resources:

    
    
      http://www.efficientfrontier.com/
      https://www.bogleheads.org/

