Financial Independence Retire Early (FIRE)

The first rule of FIRE is that if you post about it outside of a dedicated forum, you'll cause a **** storm.

I'm interested - mostly because I think it's extremely risky nowadays to just assume that you'll be able to retire at a particular age - whether that's 48, 58 or 68. So if I'm ready to retire at 45, I've got a lot more choices after that.

On the flipside, it requires a lot of introspection to figure out what you actually value in your life, and what's worth spending money on.
 
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danlightbulb said:
You have to know about something, or at least have an idea of it, to Google or otherwise search for it.
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He did - but apparently didn't know who to call - there were websites easily available via a Google search though.

"Amazon didn't make a penny in profit at this point in time and their stock was obviously very cheap compared to now. I didn't know who to call, now anyone can do that now on an App and there is so much information now on YouTube."

You'd still need to know about something today tbh.. the fact that apps and YouTube videos are popular now instead of websites and forums doesn't negate that.
 
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d_brennen said:
I just visited 3 graves of family and a friend who didn't live long enough to retire let alone early. I'm planning on semi retiring at 55 (14 years) but I'm not going to slow down on living life to do it
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A friend lost their partner suddenly just before Xmas and they were only a few years older than me. Reminded me why I wanted to retire early. We all have a finite and unknown amount of time.
 
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I feel like FIRE is for the affluent, for example. If you are earning £30k a year, how on earth can you save £10k a year in this day and age if you have to pay for rent/mortgage and bills. That is if you are single. If you have kids then you can forget it.

I am in the Facebook indepdeenent financial group and people who ask about this are almost always asking questions like "I am 50 years old, mortgage free with a house valued at £700k, with 200k slush fund and kids now finished university and want to know where he can invest his salary because he is maxing out his pension and £20k ISA already."

I am there thinking? Jesus Christ man, what hope do I have?!
 
Raymond Lin said:
I feel like FIRE is for the affluent, for example. If you are earning £30k a year, how on earth can you save £10k a year in this day and age if you have to pay for rent/mortgage and bills. That is if you are single. If you have kids then you can forget it.
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Yeah, its almost always for people who are earning 6 figures, often without children. You can do it on less but you have likely had a very large foot up with something like inheritance or getting into property very early and reaping the rewards from that.

If we didn't want to buy the next house up from ours, we could probably do FIRE in about 5-10 years quite easily despite having young children but we do want a larger house/garden. We're mid-thirties but my partner got a large deposit from her parents for a house about 18 years ago thats just been paid off in full and I did well out of crypto a few years back and we both have reasonably well paying jobs. Even then it wouldn't be comfortable with children.
 
danlightbulb said:
When I was c.20 years old, the word 'invest' was synonymous with risk and loss. Because of that it was never given a second thought. I wasn't taught how to make money. I wasn't taught any of the principles underpinning investment and financial products. My family didn't have much anyway so of course this wasn't ever something that I learned from them either.
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It's a culture thing. This country has a culture of being savers not investors, investing is seen as risky and for the rich. Parents pass this mindset on to their kids and it continues.

We see it on this forum a bit, pitchforks always out for shareholders etc.

Of course UK gov killing the domestic stock market has not helped either.
 
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The concept of FIRE, and the FIRE movement are in my mind two different things. FIRE as concept is accumulating enough assets that you no longer need to work (FI) and then choose not to (RE). The FIRE movement is really around how to achieve this from regular means - clearly if you have significant assets either via accumulation or inheritance you can achieve this with little compromise, but the movement offers a way to do the same thing by accepting significant compromise to do so alongside some fairly basic but sensible investment strategies.

For me, FI is far more important that RE. I will hit my number next year at 48 but will continue to work, albeit on my terms, for a considerably longer period. This will allow me to do so with an acceptable level of compromise for the lifestyle I lead. Ultimately, that's surely the goal?
 
Jim99 said:
The first rule of FIRE is that if you post about it outside of a dedicated forum, you'll cause a **** storm.

I'm interested - mostly because I think it's extremely risky nowadays to just assume that you'll be able to retire at a particular age - whether that's 48, 58 or 68. So if I'm ready to retire at 45, I've got a lot more choices after that.

On the flipside, it requires a lot of introspection to figure out what you actually value in your life, and what's worth spending money on.
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There is no **** storm just defeatist attitudes
 
200sols said:
It's a culture thing. This country has a culture of being savers not investors, investing is seen as risky and for the rich. Parents pass this mindset on to their kids and it continues.

We see it on this forum a bit, pitchforks always out for shareholders etc.

Of course UK gov killing the domestic stock market has not helped either.
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Yeah. Ask many boomer gen and you'll get "my best advice is to be mortgage free ASAP."

This is absolutely not the best idea. Really, if you want to go all in get an interest only mortgage and put everything else into investment.

fez said:
Yeah, its almost always for people who are earning 6 figures, often without children. You can do it on less but you have likely had a very large foot up with something like inheritance or getting into property very early and reaping the rewards from that.

If we didn't want to buy the next house up from ours, we could probably do FIRE in about 5-10 years quite easily despite having young children but we do want a larger house/garden. We're mid-thirties but my partner got a large deposit from her parents for a house about 18 years ago thats just been paid off in full and I did well out of crypto a few years back and we both have reasonably well paying jobs. Even then it wouldn't be comfortable with children.
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I'd say if I was earning 30k off the bat and 50k at 30 years old then 70k at 40 years old etc. Then FIRE might be reasonable.

If you're earning near average youre gonna seriously compromise your life to retire early. No holidays, no finance cars, no flashy GFX cards.
 
For me this is how I see life now:


The worst investment choice for me is lack of memories and experiences, but a hefty bank balance.

I'd rather spend my money on experiences and retire 5 years later with a bank of memories

Vs

Retire 5 years earlier and the last 50 years were just day to day mundane.

Obviously life memories don't have to cost money. But they often do.
 
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413x said:
For me this is how I see life now:


The worst investment choice for me is lack of memories and experiences, but a hefty bank balance.

I'd rather spend my money on experiences and retire 5 years later with a bank of memories

Vs

Retire 5 years earlier and the last 50 years were just day to day mundane.

Obviously life memories don't have to cost money. But they often do.
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What if I told you I could make you rich and give you a night you'd never forget?
 
Mr Badger said:
...I did work with a guy who on a fairly basic salary managed to pay off his house in something like 10 years. But he literally was the weirdo who lived on baked beans, didn't drive, never went out and had to be forced to take his annual leave. Not a lifestyle I would want.
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I've just got back from the pub with mates.

My one mate is literally that man, and he'll never get off that hamster wheel. He has no kids. He's not happy, but won't change.

The other mate has xxxx all, but has three kids. He's living in his mum's spare bedroom, and lives day to day. He's said if he dies owing money to people, that's their problem and not his. He's happy enough.

I'm doing OK, but have three kids, and the costs that come with that. I'm looking at retiring a couple of years early, and any retirement is likely to be looking after grandchildren and helping out financially. I'm happy enough with that.
 
413x said:
For me this is how I see life now:


The worst investment choice for me is lack of memories and experiences, but a hefty bank balance.

I'd rather spend my money on experiences and retire 5 years later with a bank of memories

Vs

Retire 5 years earlier and the last 50 years were just day to day mundane.

Obviously life memories don't have to cost money. But they often do.
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I think the secret to the best life is finding out how to be really happy day to day. Having holidays and other trips that deliver great experiences is wonderful but no matter what happens and regardless of your situation you are going to be left wanting if you aren't really happy in your normal life. Those other things are always going to be the exception rather than the rule. When you find that, the other stuff is just the cherry on top.
I wouldn't claim to be there yet but for me the main things that are helping me get there are:
  • Have friends and family I care about and have fun with close by and see them often (multiple times per week)
  • Try and live healthily and eat well
  • Be productive with things that interest me when not working (not just at the weekend)
Retiring then means doing even more of the things that make you happy every day and so being even happier. Hopefully some more fun experiences as well - but they are a bonus.
 
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Interesting thread.

I always aspired to retire at 55 but having a kid, big house and far too many interests and hobbies for one man to have, changed that. I'm cool with that though.

I still want to retire early with financial independence but not by following the strict dogma of FIRE as I think it's impossible in this country as dowie mentioned earlier. I couldn't manage it even if I tried because a) I'm too old by it's very definition and b) I like buying **** for the afore mentioned hobbies.

So I've created my own version - the Financial Independence Retire Kinda Early Decision, or FIRKED as it were. I want to get completely FIRKED before I die.
 
throwaway4372 said:
For me part of the plan is to retire up north. There's a lot of room to choose between having a better house or having money left over. My house is worth £400k and I won't ever be owning a house worth more than that. Everyone's expectation is different, but having modest expectations makes FIRE a lot easier.
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FIRE isn't modest though and it's making a very difficult thing still quite difficult if you're actually planning on retiring in your 30s or 40s max then you still need over a million saved in addition to your 400k house paid off to be able to get a modest 30k to 40k a year. And if you're used to earning way more than that then that's quite a big lifestyle hit too plus it's not really leaving much for holidays etc.. if you've got a partner and kids then you need more - a couple of million at least and to what end? To live a lower middle-class lifestyle up north? What would you be doing all day if you're on a budget?

There's a conundrum here in that the sort of people who typically are able to save more to the point where they're able to retire on a budget wouldn't want the lifestyle hit. And indeed (unlike the barristers) some of the banker types in their 40s and 50s who get a redundancy and then can't get back into the industry are the sort of people who unwittingly end up with the modest "FIRE" situation (a paid off mortgage - or enough equity to downsize to a smaller mortgage-free home, million or two saved to draw down from) - typically they're not happy with it at all, if anything it causes some significant depression issues!
 
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dowie said:
FIRE isn't modest though and it's making a very difficult thing still quite difficult if you're actually planning on retiring in your 30s or 40s max then you still need over a million saved to be able to get a modest 30k to 40k a year. And if you're used to earning way more than that then that's quite a big lifestyle hit too plus it's not really leaving much for holidays etc.. if you've got a partner and kids then you need more - a couple of million at least and to what end? To live a lower middle-class lifestyle up north? What would you be doing all day if you're on a budget?

There's a conundrum here in that the sort of people who typically are able to save more to the point where they're able to retire on a budget wouldn't want the lifestyle hit. And indeed (unlike the barristers) some of the banker types in their 40s and 50s who get a redundancy and then can't get back into the industry are the sort of people who unwittingly end up with the modest "FIRE" situation (a paid off mortgage - or enough equity to downsize to a smaller mortgage-free home, million or two saved to draw down from) - typically they're not happy with it at all, if anything it causes some significant depression issues!
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Agree with most of the principles but aren't you over-egging the pot requirements a bit?
If you have a couple of mil and withdraw something sustainable like £80k a year as a couple, you won't be paying much tax and you're probably living like you earn more than double of someone on a wage who is also paying a mortgage and saving for retirement. Hardly a lower middle-class lifestyle.
 
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