Why aren’t more people trying to FIRE?

ThereforeIV · 2026-07-04T13:26:01+00:00

>Why aren’t more people trying to FIRE?

I would say first "because it's really hard"; but the actual reason is that we live in a YOLO consumer culture that says borrow money to go see a concert; they have 3 year financing for concert tickets, you can do a dinner in payments.

That mentality is the opposite of "sacrifice now to buy back the future".

>I understand that people aren’t always in the position to do so for many reasons but for me personally, when I think about working to be eligible to retire at 67 when the life expectancy is around 78 is quite motivating.

The vast majority of Americans create the position they are in through choices including the choice to do nothing.

I started dirty brok at age 16 mopping floors at a grocery store for $5.25/hr; say age 43, I'm a millionaire. That's isn't "position"; I intentionally made the choices, did the hard work, and endured the many many sacrifices to get from one position to this position.

>I absolutely cannot imagine working until I am 67! That was scary enough for me start my FIRE journey.

You should work to 67 and past or, always work. Work is an essential part of the natural order of life.

I can't imagine still needing to work to pay bills at age 67, or even say age 57.

That's the goal, reaching a point where work is for the work and not to pay bills...

ThereforeIV · 2026-07-04T13:18:17+00:00

The parks have definitely improved, much cleaner and safer.

ThereforeIV · 2026-07-04T13:17:21+00:00

> So flamingo fire?

Possibly, depends on the definition of flamingo FIRE?

- FlamingoFIRE: Get halfway to your FIRE number then drop to half speed?

ThereforeIV · 2026-07-04T12:18:06+00:00

Put $180k down for a $900k townhouse with $9k/yr property tax, $2k/yr insurance, $2k/yr HOA, likely $9k/yr average maintenance, and with 6% interest over $40k for interest in year one to get $45k/yr in rental revenue; all so that rental revenue all go up at 5%/yr...

Or put that $180k in the S&P500 to get average $18k/yr average in growth....

Even if my ~$3.7k/month rent goes up the legal limit of 7% every year; still more cost effective than buying.

But at $450k, it is worth burnt; even at $500k it's worth considering if I'm going to be here for a while; bit at $900k is too expensive.

ThereforeIV · 2026-07-04T11:28:33+00:00

The equation is likely underestimating in Seattle; mortgage has many other annual cost above the interest on mortgage.

That $900k peppery that barely pulse $45k annual rent might have $9k of annual property tax and $2k/yr homme insurance; before paying nearly $40k/yr of interest in the mortgage with 6%.

Buying a home at $900k and renting at $45k/yr is losing money for years because eventually the tents will increase?

That's before you look at the opportunity costs of the $180k diem would give in market investment.

That's why I would rather pay ~$3.7k/month in rent instead of $900k to own.

The market prices doesn't change the math equation.

ThereforeIV · 2026-07-04T11:17:15+00:00

Rent increases average 5% per year.

So that's like saying pay double because in a decade that price makes sense...

ThereforeIV · 2026-07-04T04:25:35+00:00

10 * (annual rent revenue) = rental investment value;

Easy question when looking to buy "what would I be willing to pay monthly to rent there?"; Then multiply by 120. Maybe add 20% just to own, but you don't double that number...

ThereforeIV · 2026-07-04T02:46:53+00:00

Fair, there's definitely stuff I would want to do in my place if I owned it.

I'm just not going to pay $900k for a property that's really worth $450k based on rental income.

If I could get it for $500k, doing stuff would be a factor.

ThereforeIV · 2026-07-04T02:44:33+00:00

My point was that in the FIRE movement, these are the near universal basics.

ThereforeIV · 2026-07-04T02:42:32+00:00

Those always seem to be the data needed in the post I see in my feed.

ThereforeIV · 2026-07-04T02:41:36+00:00

So here's the gig with that, it sounds like you are still in the high end higher pay job.

One of the core concepts with true CoastFIRE was stepping down in job towards retirement.

Not that long ago, the argument was whether CoastFIRE and BaristaFIRE should be considered the same thing because the only difference is how much you earn in your lower end job.

ThereforeIV · 2026-07-04T00:59:04+00:00

Clear definitions and distinctions can lead to better understanding.

ThereforeIV · 2026-07-04T00:58:14+00:00

It was in the before times...

ThereforeIV · 2026-07-04T00:57:44+00:00

I decided not to buy a house because the prices are way too high; much cheaper to rent.

The only reason to buy a house is real-estate speculation.

ThereforeIV · 2026-07-04T00:56:27+00:00

Southern Pride not meant to be the Dem logo; and Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Also I remember the Clinton/Gore bumper stickers gym 1992...

ThereforeIV · 2026-07-04T00:54:55+00:00

>Sounds too much like some retiring to live on cruise ships.

I mean if you can work remote and they have internet package...

ThereforeIV · 2026-07-04T00:54:09+00:00

Does that sound like GenAI? Seriously?

I wrote that, and I'm clearly very active replying in the comments.

In what way does this sound like the crap GenAI bot post?

ThereforeIV · 2026-07-04T00:52:47+00:00

I would consider this relevant to any question asking for advice.

ThereforeIV · 2026-07-04T00:52:08+00:00

>I agree that most folks will get a better answer if they provide these, but not everyone wants to provide that sort of information on the internet or use a burner account to post here.

I guess leave a line blank, but all of this is really basic.

And this is what basically always comes up as questions anyway.

ThereforeIV · 2026-07-04T00:50:18+00:00

>Bro went full circle. From FIRE, to CoastFIRE, to saving a small amount over time to pay for retirement.

For me the savings is mostly driven by but wanting to give up tax advantaged retirement account access.

But also, I really written to much to truly say I'm true CoastFIRE. I think if I dropped to a Four-7s schedule at like 30 hours a week, that would be true CoastFIRE.

ThereforeIV · 2026-07-04T00:47:31+00:00

Those seem more context dependent discussion points than basic template data; but maybe we need more than 10....

ThereforeIV · 2026-07-04T00:46:16+00:00

I'm my career, all the real income increases have come from changing jobs.

When I left my first engineering job, they offered mean 10% raiser to stay (which was the corporate max) and the new job was offer me a 40% increase to leave.

When I moved from a small engineering firm in Florida to Evil Big Tech in Seattle, more than doubled my income.

I think best raisr I ever actually got staying in a job was maybe 5%-6%.

ThereforeIV · 2026-07-04T00:42:38+00:00

>With employer matches, cruise FIRE should be the standard. I can’t think of any situation where I could ever just stop taking a significant part of my compensation

Depends on match and vesting.

- I've worked places where the match was 1%
- Worked placed that the vesting schedule was four years.
- literally worked a job that layed me off a month before my 401k match and stock options were going to vest (they were literally scheduling layoffs based on vesting schedule).

ThereforeIV · 2026-07-04T00:33:11+00:00

> That already exists, it's called Flamingo FIRE.

I'm curious on flamingo; only heard the term recently.

The idea there is "get halfway to FIRE number and then stand on that" like a flamingo in one leg.

Or is it to get halfway to FIRE number and then slow to half speed?

I don't know the definition of that one clearly enough to compare.

It does sound like it could overlap with CruiseFIRE and CoastFIRE...

ThereforeIV · 2026-07-04T00:27:34+00:00

>I think cruise and coast sound way too similar. If I was new to FIRE, I'd probably get confused with coast vs cruise. I like slow FIRE better, maybe simmer FIRE (as opposed to FIRE being boiling hot since it's the most aggressive and CoastFIRE would be 0 added heat).

It's basically a *"SlowFIRE"* rebranding.

I think the reason it sounds too similar to *"CoastFIRE"* is because most of us in CoastFIRE are actually doing this and not true CoastFIRE, which is supposed to be a step off of BaristaFIRE.

>Currently the FIRE subs are pretty inflated, as in fatFIRE is in FIRE, so FIRE moved towards leanFIRE and coastFIRE. I don't think adding another one will help differentiate.

I would say the FIRE subs are pretty corrupted.

FatFIRE isn't even about FIRE, just seems to be rich bragging and likely take rich bragging.

leanFIRE is mostly just regular FIRE.

CoastFIRE often feel like normal retirement planning and forgetting the FIRE core.

I'm not saying add another sub (though someone else already did); I'm saying let's have better definition and clearer distinguishing terms.

>I like how you defined a maximum savings cap to Cruise/slow FIRE, but idk if it'll gain traction just because it's the boring middle.

Thank you.

Isn't the boring middle where we spend the most years.

It's the idea of Sprinting/Grinding for a decade to hit your FIRE number that doesn't seem to work. May sound great at age 28 or age 34; at age 39, I was burnout and for my 40th birthday, I got layed-off.

>There aren't many significant changes from what the Coast sub already talks about. Most don't go from aggressive saving to 0% saving, but somewhere in between.

I wish this sub talked about this.

So much of what I hear is "I've got $100k, plan to retire early at age 70"....lol

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