As someone who FIREd, his assumptions of 5% real returns and 4% SWR may not hold in the future.
He himself also retired with a free and clear home and a free and clear rental home, which meant he didn't have to tap into his capital, not to mention $400k annual blog revenue shortly after.
But generally I enjoyed his articles over the years and a high savings rate combined with investing is always a wise choice.
I never thought about FIRE in those terms. Your comment (unintentionally?) makes FIRE sound like a self-help trend that primarily makes money for self-help gurus.
The theory sounds good but there's a difference between having to sell parts of your portfolio (which is volatile) and never touching the capital because you have blog/YouTube revenue.
A big part of "retirement" is feeling financially secure. I'm sure Pete (MMM) practices what he preaches for the savings rate part of FIRE, but when I quit my job, the lumpiness of my investment returns made me very uneasy.
Having a steady stream of income outside of your investments makes the "safe withdrawal rate" part of the theory kinda moot. (By the way, here's some nuance to Bengen's 4% SWR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7rH7h7ljHg)
Nowadays my FIRE stance has softened to "it's nice to have this pile of capital in case things go wrong" and frugality has always been my nature anyway.
Now, at age 41, for some reason I can't stand his writing, which I find pugnacious and lacking self-reflection. But at the time in my 20s, his classic early posts on MMM hit me just at the right time, and made such a deep impression on me.
Possibly his writing style is highly effective at introducing a new unfamiliar perspective.
I read his posts about the hedonic treadmill and general anti-car-dependence at the time that I was considering a (nicer) replacement for a car that had developed expensive problems.
I ended up selling the car and we've been a one-car household ever since... despite the addition of our kid.
Could you share the specific article you mentioned about the hedonic treadmill and general anti-car dependence? It sounds very insightful, and I’d love to read it. Thanks!
This one is rather harsh, but it made me think even more about my car use (I already lived within walking distance of a subway and a commuter rail station, so was ripe for further changing my habits): https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/04/22/curing-your-clown...
Basically, once you’re accustomed to a certain “luxury,” it can feel like a necessity, even if you were content without it before.
Flipside: once you’re used to doing without something, you may find that you don’t really miss it, even if before you had trouble imagining doing without (in my case, full time car usage - I grew up in suburban Texas)
He himself also retired with a free and clear home and a free and clear rental home, which meant he didn't have to tap into his capital, not to mention $400k annual blog revenue shortly after.
But generally I enjoyed his articles over the years and a high savings rate combined with investing is always a wise choice.