Financial Independence Retire Early (FIRE)

throwaway4372 said:
I'm from the north, I don't really belong in the south, people walking past each other without saying hello is grim :)

It also ties in with looking after my mum as she gets old and needs it. She might already be getting a bit iffy, seems to unlearn things, couldn't text message the other day but has done it for 20 years. It just required a little thinking to figure it out and she couldn't even begin trying. Tested her with a few games of chess at xmas, she taught me to play but can't think ahead even 1 move now. It's weird coz she seems fine generally, most people wouldn't notice any difference. Not really sure whether it's a problem or not tbh, she wouldn't be open to hearing it if it was. So for now it's just on my radar as something to keep an eye on and have a plan to move if needed.
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Only kidding dude, my whole family is northern ish in origin (although thankfully moved to less grim climes in recent generations :p) , I just enjoy the bants. I do sometimes think how much simpler things might be in terms of our financial future if we lived further north... Will have to see!

Sorry to hear about the vibes you're getting from your Mum, definitely something to think about with reference to the thread topic. My parents are going through it a little bit noe with my Grandma; she requires a lot of attention, which my parents (being recently retired) are thankfully able to provide. It makes sense to expect similar for our future and plan accordingly.
 
Penfold101 said:
Retire early with no mortgage and a **** ton of money in the bank ready to enjoy the rest of your life after doing nothing but work and survive for 25 years.

Get run over the next day.
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Its not even that. Its simply that working your ass off for 25 years and going without fundamentally changes you as a person and your best years are behind you. You will likely not have a lot of friends and in many cases no family. You have also made most of your life your work and switching gears to suddenly have all the free time and no work is very very hard.

You usually have to be driven and hard working to achieve FIRE and you wouldn't expect someone to magically go from a slob to a hard worker so why would it work the other way. Its like when people ask "why do billionaires not retire after making £20m, £50m etc. Its because the sort of person who makes £50m isn't happy with £50m. They probably thought they would be when they had £1m but now £500m is the target.

I just want to retire early or semi-retire early but the idea of retiring at 40 sounds rubbish honestly. My partners dad came into quite a lot of money in his mid 40s and has spend the last 20 years sitting on his bum watching a lot of sky sports. He could have lived 90% of his lifestyle on benefits and I think he is mildly depressed. Humans need a purpose. That doesn't need to be anything grand but you need something to keep you ticking over and engaged in life. Some people can fill their time with hobbies but I think there is a hell of a lot to be said for working at least something like 20 hours a week. Probably more when you are younger.
 
I don't think anyone is advocating that the point of FIRE is to stop working as quickly as possible in order to... watch sky sports all day. Equally you could say that continuing to work a miserable day job just so you don't lose the will to live is just as sad.

The point of the FI in FIRE is to allow you the security to take more chances, whether work or pleasure, and if you do RE as well - there's nothing stopping you combining hobbies with a purpose. For example I'll probably end up volunteering at one of the many great heritage railways across the country - lord knows one thing they need desperately is new blood.
 
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adam cool dude said:
I do think it is possible if you chose to live a nomadic lifestyle.

I could buy a lorry with trailer and get the trailer fitted out as a house for around 50-100k all in if I did it myself. Most likely better than some 1 bedroom flats too.

We pay at the moment £166 a month on council, £80 a month on water and £180 on gas and electricity plus £600 a month on the house.

That is a grand a month you could invest. Close to 250k over 20 years. Just from not living in a house.

It is very easy to live in laybys and industrial estates if you really needed to then move on when needed. You could even plan it where you stay in the country to keep yourself out of trouble. Solar gives you all your power for free and you can take water from rivers and clean it yourself.

You could even buy a small piece of land off someone and use that like gypsies as a place to stay.

All you use your wage for is food and maintenance of the truck which is tiny compared to what you would spend on a house.


A lorry driver can easily net 4k a month take home with the majority of that being invested. Say you started at 25 by the time you are 45 you could have invested 720k into whatever.

You would also still have 500-750 a month disposable to do whatever you want with.

Reading that through I have essentially described a travellers lifestyle! Maybe they are onto something.
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I imagine this will be getting harder to do, after "van life" came out of covid, lots of local residents in hotspots were getting fed up of people just rocking up in their vans to spend a few nights, that councils were starting to clamp down on where they could park overnight.

Having a massive trailer would really limit your options, as well as having to compete with any HGV driver who would also be looking for areas to camp out for the night. You'd also risk it being stolen or vandalised when not hitched to the cab - you mention just buy a plot of land to store it on. There's always planning laws etc that will stop you from essentially living in a truck there.
 
If I somehow come into enough money to achieve FI, retirement would be having a family, travelling.

The other thing that is valuable is time, I don't want to sit at home watching TV. My parents have retired last year and they collect their pension now but it's just lots of YouTube and Facebook for them it seems between cooking. They go to Hong Kong twice a year and some gardening. They are too old or scared to venture out to new countries, I told them to go to Singapore or something as there is a large Chinese community there and it would be fine but they can't even do that.
 
fez said:
Its not even that. Its simply that working your ass off for 25 years and going without fundamentally changes you as a person and your best years are behind you. You will likely not have a lot of friends and in many cases no family. You have also made most of your life your work and switching gears to suddenly have all the free time and no work is very very hard.

You usually have to be driven and hard working to achieve FIRE and you wouldn't expect someone to magically go from a slob to a hard worker so why would it work the other way. Its like when people ask "why do billionaires not retire after making £20m, £50m etc. Its because the sort of person who makes £50m isn't happy with £50m. They probably thought they would be when they had £1m but now £500m is the target.

I just want to retire early or semi-retire early but the idea of retiring at 40 sounds rubbish honestly. My partners dad came into quite a lot of money in his mid 40s and has spend the last 20 years sitting on his bum watching a lot of sky sports. He could have lived 90% of his lifestyle on benefits and I think he is mildly depressed. Humans need a purpose. That doesn't need to be anything grand but you need something to keep you ticking over and engaged in life. Some people can fill their time with hobbies but I think there is a hell of a lot to be said for working at least something like 20 hours a week. Probably more when you are younger.
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My partners dad mostly watches sky sports too. And the things he has to do.
He had a nice racing bike he used a lot before.
But I saw it this Christmas covered in dust.

The money simply vanishes on a big house + lots of upkeep cost. Heating set to 21.

He could have same life on half the pension with a smaller house.
 
MichaelAwkward said:
I don't think anyone is advocating that the point of FIRE is to stop working as quickly as possible in order to... watch sky sports all day. Equally you could say that continuing to work a miserable day job just so you don't lose the will to live is just as sad.

The point of the FI in FIRE is to allow you the security to take more chances, whether work or pleasure, and if you do RE as well - there's nothing stopping you combining hobbies with a purpose. For example I'll probably end up volunteering at one of the many great heritage railways across the country - lord knows one thing they need desperately is new blood.
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Of course they aren't advocating that. You've completely missed my point. As to working a miserable day job so they don't lose the will to live...most people work a day job so that they can keep a roof over their heads.

My point is that you have to have things outside of your work to be able to retire at any age and be happy usually. Most people struggle to go from full time work and everything around that to suddenly having all the time in the world. Thats the same at 40 or 65 although potentially worse at 40 as most of your friends are likely busy during the day all week.

Its easy to retire and do very little and sink into the same hole that people not working do.
 
Not the same as retirement of course but thanks to some garden leave I managed to get two months between jobs once. I easily and happily filled my days between exercise, projects around the house, finding and trying new recipes to cook, doing an online course - and yes some chilling. It really, really suited me and if finances weren't a consideration I'd stop working in a shot. I find it hard to relate to the "retire, have a boring life, and wither away/die" meme.
 
fez said:
Of course they aren't advocating that. You've completely missed my point. As to working a miserable day job so they don't lose the will to live...most people work a day job so that they can keep a roof over their heads.

My point is that you have to have things outside of your work to be able to retire at any age and be happy usually. Most people struggle to go from full time work and everything around that to suddenly having all the time in the world. Thats the same at 40 or 65 although potentially worse at 40 as most of your friends are likely busy during the day all week.

It’s easy to retire and do very little and sink into the same hole that people not working do.
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Yeah I get what you’re saying but not having a life outside of work (which then results in misery when you retire) hasn’t really got much to do with FIRE which is what this thread is about. Almost all of the people I know who have actually done FIRE in a meaningful way (I.e not just retiring a few years earlier than everyone else) has done so with a specific passion or dream that they want to chase. I think a few people are responding to this idea from a singular point of view that doesn’t bear out in reality. You need that drive and motivation to achieve the savings rate required for FIRE in the first place, at both ends of the spectrum.
 
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fez said:
I just want to retire early or semi-retire early but the idea of retiring at 40 sounds rubbish honestly. My partners dad came into quite a lot of money in his mid 40s and has spend the last 20 years sitting on his bum watching a lot of sky sports. He could have lived 90% of his lifestyle on benefits and I think he is mildly depressed. Humans need a purpose. That doesn't need to be anything grand but you need something to keep you ticking over and engaged in life. Some people can fill their time with hobbies but I think there is a hell of a lot to be said for working at least something like 20 hours a week. Probably more when you are younger.
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The daft thing to my mind is how these always get set up as polar opposites when FIRE is discussed. I'm not saying you're doing it, but it always becomes this pointless debate - as if it's a choice between eating beans and rice every day to retire at 40 then sit on the sofa, or have a "normal" life.

Just because someone has enough money to achieve a threadbare retirement at 40 doesn't mean they have to do it, or that the whole process was pointless.

They might decide to drop down to 3 days a week, or start their own company, or monetise a hobby to a small degree. And, OK, technically they've not retired. But all the principles of FIRE still applied and were valuable.

To me, the stupid approach would be giving the majority of your life to a job, spending what you earn so that you can't realistically retire before 60, and then taking a huge risk that you don't get a redundancy / health issue when you're over 55 that makes it nigh-on impossible to ever earn the income you'd been accustomed to.
 
FIRE should ultimately be viewed as a method to achieve the life you want. It’s a means to an end. Framing it as an end in itself is fundamentally misunderstanding what it’s about.

If the life you want is eating beans watching sky sports all day, then fine - but that’s nothing to do with FIRE.
 
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MichaelAwkward said:
FIRE should ultimately be viewed as a method to achieve the life you want. It’s a means to an end. Framing it as an end in itself is fundamentally misunderstanding what it’s about.
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I do wonder if influencers have to some degree caused the issue - after all, it's a lot more click-baity to title a video "How to retire at 40" than "Investing early to give yourself options later in life" or whatever.

And even the acronym having "retire early" in it has caused a whole slew of arguments about defining what retirement is, and I've seen people get really irate over which types of income they consider do and don't qualify as retired / passive.
 
Jim99 said:
The daft thing to my mind is how these always get set up as polar opposites when FIRE is discussed. I'm not saying you're doing it, but it always becomes this pointless debate - as if it's a choice between eating beans and rice every day to retire at 40 then sit on the sofa, or have a "normal" life.
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I think its just a discussion and when something is mooted as a "good idea" there is always going to be discussion around it. We all have life experiences and at its core, FIRE is about early retirement. There is no reason to think that retiring at 40 would be any different to retiring at 55 or 65 unless you have the right mentality.

So no, FIRE isn't about retiring early and living a miserable and meagre existence or sitting on the sofa doing nothing but my point was more that most people are not happy doing **** all in their retirement and that no matter the age you retire you need to make sure you do the things you need to do to make yourself happy or you will be miserable no matter what.
 
The whole thing is about the person's mentality. If you have spent your whole working life to be frugal, saving money, and now managed to retire with a good pot. It is a VERY difficult change to start spending money. That person is likely to be frugal, but instead of going to work, they are at home, in not spending money.

There will be very few people suddenly will start travelling or something but to do this takes a certain kind of person in both mental and physical shape.
 
Jim99 said:
To me, the stupid approach would be giving the majority of your life to a job, spending what you earn so that you can't realistically retire before 60, and then taking a huge risk that you don't get a redundancy / health issue when you're over 55 that makes it nigh-on impossible to ever earn the income you'd been accustomed to.
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This is all 99.9% of people can do, there's no other option.

Also if people didn't 'give the majority of their lives to a job' the economy wouldn't be prosperous. We need workers to create GDP.
 
danlightbulb said:
This is all 99.9% of people can do, there's no other option.

Also if people didn't 'give the majority of their lives to a job' the economy wouldn't be prosperous. We need workers to create GDP.
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Surely that’s only true if the number of people leaving is greater than those entering? Part of the problem in a lot of companies currently is that young people are stuck in junior roles because there’s no advancement. Keeping more senior people where they are isn’t really helping the economy.
 
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