[anonporridge]

The original FIRE movement was all about living frugally, fighting lifestyle inflation and western hyper consumption, and saving like mad in order to invest early and take advantage of long term compounding.

It's become perverted in recent years by high salaried hyper consumers who have started idealizing "fatFIRE", which is really only achievable by a small group of people.

[LaserDiscMan]

100% agree with this. The FIRE movement (or the equivalent before it gained this name) was about average people using frugality, investing, sensible leverage, and luck to get ahead and (semi) retire much earlier than usual. It has since suffered an influx (at least in popular online circles) of high earners scoffing at the idea that anyone could achieve financial independence with a frugal lifestyle. This despite the trivial mathematics proving it is indeed very possible for average earners, perhaps even more so recently given the bull markets.

I've worked with some very intelligent, brilliant people, who simply cannot comprehend how their own financial spending is foolish, or more likely, know this and choose to play ignorance. I've always found it fairly bizarre, almost like an addiction. It's fascinating how some people can be so skilled in one domain, but so lacking in self-control, especially when obtaining said skill requires enormous self-control in the first place.

[anonporridge]

It is quite fascinating. I've known incredibly high income earners and brilliant engineers who have hundreds of thousands of dollars sitting in cash earning near 0 percent. It blows my mind how absurdly financially illiterate so many people are.

And beyond that, so many of my peers hit the ground running on the hedonic treadmill right out of college, quickly filling up their consumption habits to meet their newly high income, while I continued to live low and plow huge amounts of my paycheck into my investments. Well, they're all still slaving away with no end in sight and I'm financially independent after many lucky breaks in my early investments that wouldn't have happened if I didn't have such a frugal mindset early on.

It seemed so obvious to me that this would be the outcome. I still don't understand how so many people can't seem to grok how much early sacrifice can yield outsized reward down the line.

[poisonborz]

One of them here, although I'm working on it. There is a lot of things here going on, and I don't think you can just stamp this with "lol how reckless these people are"

- Separate investing and frugality/budgeting. I guess a lot of those people do actually one of those, but not the other.

- You talk about high earners/engineers. In most of they earning life they never knew the need to ration, or lacking funds - so with the trajectory they see in early adulthood, especially if they like what they do, and they're successful, there simply isn't any recognizeable need to save for later (or even retire early)

- Maybe you like dealing with money, watching stock news early in the morning - I hate it. I hate the thought of dealing with this. It's an active aversion. Of course, the majority of investments should be "set and forget", but it's not always apparent how (especially outside US) and you need quite some research beforehand.

- Coupled with this, you put your life savings in a thing that you don't understand, won't follow. There may be a not entirely unfounded fear of South Park's "aaaand it's gone"

- There is something absolutely tempting about money sitting directly available on an account. Especially when you're young and single, you have no idea what happens with you next year, or what you will probably spend on. Walling away your funds is a critical and worrysome thought.

Sure, you can sum this all up as "financial illiteracy", but they are still cemented in valid concerns or life experiences, instead of mere negligence.

[vineyardmike]

> Of course, the majority of investments should be "set and forget", but it's not always apparent how (especially outside US) and you need quite some research beforehand.

I really wish things like annuities or pensions were available for the 21st century economy. So many people don't want to deal with investing and understanding markets (which change!) and avoid making smart decisions.

There should be a way to just put money in a magic box that pays a little bit back each year, and every time you put money in it grows a bit more.

[zz865]

> and take advantage of long term compounding.

Yeah that is what I mean, what happens when the stock market drops 75% over 25 years? Not much compounding happening. https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/%5EN225?p=%5EN225

[anonporridge]

That index is up over 25 years. You'd be even better off if you were buying during the bear periods. AND you're not including dividend reinvestment.

A quick check here, https://www.portfoliovisualizer.com/backtest-portfolio, with JPXN between 2002-2021 investing a static amount monthly and reinvesting dividends suggests you would have doubled your money over the period.

Bad compared to US growth to be sure. You're right that Japan is a great example of how this strategy doesn't work as well for people locked in to stagnating economies.

[chii]

> You're right that Japan is a great example of how this strategy doesn't work as well for people locked in to stagnating economies.

that's why you don't invest in a single region. A globally diversified portfolio (which, to be fair, is more difficult to achieve for people in some nations that's not the west) is what's required to get the market returns.

[burntoutfire]

> That index is up over 25 years. You'd be even better off if you were buying during the bear periods. AND you're not including dividend reinvestment.

You, on the other hand, are not including inflation...

[zz865]

Yeah I meant 1989 to 2012. FTSE10 is flat from 1999 to 2021 as well.

[anonporridge]

Sure. You can cherry pick a time period in any index that would be bad. That's why the 4 percent rule only works for most retirement historical starting years, and why some people choose to work towards a more conservative 3 percent withdrawal rate.

Retirement always was and will continue to be a risk that depends both on how much you've saved and how well the economy will continue to function and grow once you're no longer working. Like all things in life, nothing is certain.