🔥 Hot Takes on the FIRE movement

As a long-time cynic of the FIRE movement, I resurface some of my old feelings.

In My Humble Opinion

The FIRE movement has evolved, but not quite enough. 

A few weeks ago, I read Ben Le Fort’s newsletter about the FIRE Movement: What the FIRE Movement Gets Wrong about Money, Time and Happiness. 

For the uninitiated, FIRE stands for “Financial Independence Retire Early.” The basic premise is that you front load a ton of saving and investing in order to be able to leave your job at a young age. Often, this is coupled with extreme levels of frugality in order to be able to save and invest 70 to 80% of your income. Depending on your style (Fat FIRE, Barista FIRE, Lean FIRE) and your desired lifestyle, the amount you need to consider yourself financially independent could range from something like $250,000 to $5 million (or more). 

Honestly, it’s been awhile since I’ve thought much about FIRE. It was certainly all the rage in the personal finance community from about 2016 through early 2020. The number of folks specifically blogging/writing/podcasting about FIRE exploded and those of us who were skeptical about the movement were branded as haters and simply not tough enough to engage in the practice ourselves. 

Ben’s newsletter reminded me of my initial skepticism and honestly, validated everything I’d been feeling all those years ago.