[Drakim]

Imagine if the standards of living goes up even more, we have x50 better medicine, huge houses for everybody, fine silken clothes, wall-sized TVs, and gourmet truffle soup every day of the week. But everybody is still working long hours, and only get to see their kids in the morning and a few hours before bedtime.

But no worries, even more improvements are on the horizon. Within 20 years, you'll get all that, but it's gold plated, and encrusted with diamonds too. People live until they are 200, houses rotate to always face the sun, and TVs are now so big they wrap 360 degrees around the entire room's walls. But you still gotta spend most of your waking hours in an office, copying numbers from one excel to another.

Is that really that good of an improvement? Do we measure quality of living purely in material wealth, and not in the time we get to spend with loved ones, or our passions?

In the distant past, a huge proportion of our lives was spent just making sure you had food to survive on. The part where we "spend a huge portion of our lives" seems to stick, even though food is no longer scarce.

[voisin]

I don’t disagree with your statements, but anyone at anytime can choose to opt for more time and less gold plating. There are lots of people making these choices - check out the r/FIRE, r/LeanFIRE, r/FatFIRE communities on Reddit.

Check out the book “Your Money or Your Life” https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/78428.Your_Money_or_Your...

[lm28469]

> I don’t disagree with your statements, but anyone at anytime can choose to opt for more time and less gold plating.

"Anyone" unless you're part of the bottom 80% earners, unless FIRE means being homeless you'll need more money than what most people can attain if they saved 100% of their paycheck for 30 years

[Jensson]

You can live on half the space as average people and eat half as expensive food, that lets you FIRE on an average wage. Doing that puts you much closer to typical living standards 60 years ago where people ate home cooked food and lived in much smaller homes.

[lm28469]

> You can live on half the space as average people and eat half as expensive food, that lets you FIRE on an average wage

Not even close, unless your version FIRE is retiring at 63 instead of 67 and still get 80% of your pension

Average salary in germany: 42k gross, 23k net

Renting a small place : 500 euros (let's say it includes heating, electricity/gas)

Let's say you only eat potatoe and drink rain water: 3 * 1kg * 2 euros/kilos = 180 euros

Good job, after 15 years you have 210k euros you can retire at ~35 years old. This money will allow you to buy a flat in a ghost town and to continue your potatoe fuelled life until you die of old age at ~90

Now remember you have to pay water/electricity/gas, health insurance, property tax, &c.

[ndriscoll]

I don't know about Europe, but in the US, there are various social safety nets that work perfectly with early retirement with some planning (a topic which comes up in "povertyFIRE" circles). There's been a shift (especially in Democrat-run states) over the last decade or two toward getting rid of asset tests for subsidies, so with planning you can get things like free healthcare, reduced electricity bills, free internet, subsidized home renovations for energy efficiency, etc. while having your assets grow in tax-shielded retirement accounts. Universities for your kids generally have asset tests for subsidies, but many of them exclude your home+retirement accounts.

e.g. in New York state, this is available:

https://info.nystateofhealth.ny.gov/sites/default/files/2024...

You can also switch to part-time in a low-stress role rather than retire completely ("baristaFIRE" or "coastFIRE"). The trick is that you don't want health benefits from your employer so that you can get much better ones from the state instead. Usually part-time doesn't qualify for benefits so that works well.

[lm28469]

"free" health care and other benefits aren't free though, they're paid by taxes on working people, if everyone (or even 10%) retires early and ask for them it doesn't work

I'm not saying it's impossible but it certainly isn't "anyone at anytime". In France for example 48% of people earn bellow 2000 euros per months. If you play the game you have an OK life with health care, a good flat, a car, whatever... but if you want to retire before the legal age it's next to impossible, you just can't build enough savings. If you work in a big city you'll never be able to afford a flat there, if you buy cheap property far away you'll need to pay rent in the city + mortgage.

Best case scenario you'll need a 20 years mortgage, most likely 30. You cannot be in debt to more than 30% of your net income, meaning 2k net per month gives you a 600 euros mortgage, assuming 0% mortgage you can't even afford a 150k euros property over 20 years

https://fr.statista.com/infographie/25111/distribution-des-s...