$ Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE) - Embrace the Sigma grindset

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Ahriman

Ahriman

Vivere Militare Est.
kiwifarms.net
Joined
Jan 22, 2018
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Financial Independence is closely related to the concept of Early Retirement/Retiring Early (RE) - quitting your job/career and pursuing other activities with your time. This thread deals primarily with Financial Independence, but additionally with some "RE" concepts.

At its core, FI/RE is about maximizing your savings rate (through less spending and/or earning higher income) to achieve FI and have the freedom to RE as soon as you wish. The purpose of this thread is to discuss FI/RE strategies, techniques, and lifestyles whether you are retired or not.

FI/RE is about:
  • Discovering and achieving life goals: “What would I do with my life if I didn't have to work for money?"
  • Simplifying and redesigning your lifestyle to reduce spending. Your wants and needs aren't written in stone, and less spending is powerful at any income level.
  • Working to increase your income and income streams with projects, side-gigs, and additional effort
  • Striving to save a large percentage (usually more than 50%) of your income to accelerate achieving FI
  • Investing to make your money work for you, and learning to manage/optimize those investments for the unique nature of FI/RE
  • Retiring Early
FI/RE is NOT about:
  • Gaining wealth for the purpose of excessive consumption
  • Taking the slow road, or the traditional road to retirement
Becoming financially independent requires hard work and a healthy attitude towards money, but also a degree of privilege.

Stolen from the /r/financialindependence subreddit sidebar. This is an idea that's been floating around my head for a while, since I currently work in the IT industry and, just like many others, don't see myself working on it for much longer. My idea would be to be on the road for early retirement around my 40s (early, mid 40s), get out of that industry and have enough savings to do whatever the fuck I want. But that'd be taking a "slow road", so I am looking for alternatives. Basically I've realized that I have been already working with the mindset of getting out early and focused on something more fulfilling, or investing so that I can live off said investments for the rest of my life, something comfortable, nothing fancy.

Perhaps some of you fine gentlemen are interested in the concept, so drop your knowledge on here.

Discuss.

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Did something similar to this about 10 years ago. Best decision of my life, and honestly not as difficult to pull off as it sounds.
Just need to learn to live with a minimalist mindset and invest every spare dollar you can into generic total market index funds.

Related:

 
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Uncle June said:
Did something similar to this about 10 years ago. Best decision of my life, and honestly not as difficult to pull off as it sounds.
Just need to learn to live with a minimalist mindset and invest every spare dollar you can into generic total market index funds.

Related:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=xdfeXqHFmPI
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Not to shit on your parade because I started around the same time and am equally pleased with the outcome, however we can't pretend like starting at the start of the single biggest permabull moneyprinter speedrun to have ever existed wasn't at least 80% of the reason why it worked out so well.

People starting now may very well run into some form of Japan-style investment hellhole. Or maybe the printer keeps blasting us up for another decade, who knows really.
 
The Wicked Mitch said:
Not to shit on your parade because I started around the same time and am equally pleased with the outcome, however we can't pretend like starting at the start of the single biggest permabull moneyprinter speedrun to have ever existed wasn't at least 80% of the reason why it worked out so well.

People starting now may very well run into some form of Japan-style investment hellhole. Or maybe the printer keeps blasting us up for another decade, who knows really.
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I started around the early 2000s so it was definitely a different beast then, and I won't deny that the 2002 crash gave me a massive dip to buy in at. However, I did lose about 40% of my portfolio in the 2008/09 crisis, which was my first true test of faith.

A bunch of tards I worked with sold sold sold and realized all those loses. It was hard, but I maintained a long term mindset with the knowledge that it would eventually bounce back.

That being said, I'm not completely delusional to how much worse off the average zoomer is buying in now, but even if the result will be harder to reach, the mindset needed to get there is a massive benefit in itself. To me it's all about avoiding the pitfall of becoming a slave to consoomption.
 
Uncle June said:
Did something similar to this about 10 years ago. Best decision of my life, and honestly not as difficult to pull off as it sounds.
Just need to learn to live with a minimalist mindset and invest every spare dollar you can into generic total market index funds.

Related:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=xdfeXqHFmPI
Click to expand...
I reckon that you and @The Wicked Mitch are older than me so let me just say, good on you guys for getting out of the rat race, and let us know if we are in the right path or not.

For me, the scene that sells it is "Always Be Closing":

 
This is something I've definitely thought about before. Living a relatively minimalist but still comfortable lifestyle, I could probably retire at any age as long as I had at least $600K in assets (excluding real estate and not factoring in stuff like payments I get from renting out properties, etc).

I'd honestly be worried about getting bored though, so something like barely working, rather than retiring early, would probably be more ideal for me.
 
Picklechu said:
This is something I've definitely thought about before. Living a relatively minimalist but still comfortable lifestyle, I could probably retire at any age as long as I had at least $600K in assets (excluding real estate and not factoring in stuff like payments I get from renting out properties, etc).

I'd honestly be worried about getting bored though, so something like barely working, rather than retiring early, would probably be more ideal for me.
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It takes a lot longer to get bored than you would think. You do it early enough, you can stay home and raise your kids. The biggest benefit is working jobs you like, vs working a job you hate but you can't quit. You don't have to stop working, but it's like an insurance policy for a shitty boss or company. Knowing that you don't have to work again if you don't want to is enough to keep your priorities straight; you'll put up with a lot less bullshit if you know you don't need to.
 
President Joe Biden said:
The biggest benefit is working jobs you like, vs working a job you hate but you can't quit. You don't have to stop working, but it's like an insurance policy for a shitty boss or company. Knowing that you don't have to work again if you don't want to is enough to keep your priorities straight; you'll put up with a lot less bullshit if you know you don't need to.
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Yeah, that's why I'm way more interested in the FI part than the RE.
 
I frequently shill Jacob Fisker's "Early Retirement Extreme". He claims to live on about $7000-$8000 per year which he gets from dividend checks and other investments. It required a very radical change in his lifestyle, but he achieved. I don't quite want to live the way he does, but his book is good at giving the reader a different perspective on money, spending, saving, and the value of time. Get it here free:
https://b-ok.cc/book/1179273/babed4

Here's a podcast he did with based Hermitix, if you want to listen to him talk more generally about the project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0CG8PP30pw

He also has a wiki for his project but I don't think it's really maintained or updated much any more: https://wiki.earlyretirementextreme.com/

He also made a forum:

I think the primary difference between Fisker and myself is that as far as I know, Fisker hasn't raised a family. One person can survive on their own on very little money, but having to keep kids fed and all that shit introduces significant costs. Of course, this just means that a greater passive income must be achieved, and it's always possible, but it introduces new challenges.
 
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I've figured I'll just quit working full-time in 15-20 years and work like 2-3 days a week at most. I'd just find an easy job and make like 8-10K a year (the equivalent in tomorrow's money I guess) after taxes and live off that in addition to passive income. IMO working a job your entire life until you're too old to enjoy it is something to be avoided as much as possible.
 
Uncle June said:
I started around the early 2000s so it was definitely a different beast then, and I won't deny that the 2002 crash gave me a massive dip to buy in at. However, I did lose about 40% of my portfolio in the 2008/09 crisis, which was my first true test of faith.

A bunch of tards I worked with sold sold sold and realized all those loses. It was hard, but I maintained a long term mindset with the knowledge that it would eventually bounce back.

That being said, I'm not completely delusional to how much worse off the average zoomer is buying in now, but even if the result will be harder to reach, the mindset needed to get there is a massive benefit in itself. To me it's all about avoiding the pitfall of becoming a slave to consoomption.
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I have a love/hate relationship with Jim Collins, but he has been right about just holding on to your butt and not selling during every financial crisis so far.

Most people who supposedly FIRE never actually stop working and have a bunch of side hustles. Difference is they could quit whenever and have no real consequences unless the market takes a shit...which happens a lot.
 
I figure I would need around $4mil to live comfortably out of safe investments (AAA bonds and the like) for the rest of my life without having to reduce myself to poverty levels.

This still doesn't include housing, which is another problem but I figure with the income that money generates I could pay the mortgage on an average home.

Not really into comsoom, if I travel I go frugal and while I like cars I rather have a BRZ than a porsche, and if I had the later I would buy used for sure and only if I plan to daily it, but I would've to learn how to fix most of the shit myself because thats when the germans scam you hard.

I wouldnt compromise on healthcare, I'm in my 30s and already feeling the age.
 
Delta Integrale said:
So how do you guys in the US pay for shit like health insurance?
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Make just under some threshold that gets you Obamacare subsidies, don't smoke, and be fit. You can get a good healthcare plan not too expensive.
Getwhatyou said:
Fire relies on people earning well above the minimum wage. This isn't possible for most zoomers and older.
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It's not hard to find a $15/hour job that isn't Amazon. You might to carry around heavy things, but for a younger person that isn't a problem. Older people are shit out of luck though.
 
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