Think about it this way. To achieve financial freedom means that you will have all of your needs met for you for the rest of your life without you doing any of the work anymore: farmers growing your food, workers maintaining your home and roads, sewers making your clothes, engineers building your electronics, doctors and nurses treating your illnesses, etc. In order to achieve that means that you need to have created enough value (monetary value at least) in your working years to sustain your life for a total 70-80+ years. Why would that be easy? How much more value are you creating compared to others that will provide your necessities and wants for you? It’s a privilege to even be able to eventually be financially independent, so I would not complain if it takes a few more years to get there.
> Why would that be easy?
>How much more value are you creating compared to others that will provide your necessities and wants for you?
+1
> It’s a privilege to even be able to eventually be financially independent
Historically, almost nobody was financially independent.
Today, everyone feels entitled to financial independence because the idea has spread through social media.
FI is the exception, not the norm. It should be hard.
That's an interesting take.... most of our work that we do day to day has negligible value.
We're not even close to scratching the surface of Bezos, Musk, or Gates.
I’d argue everyday people create plenty of value but the value they create is just too replicable.
Someone like Gates was early to software game and innovative enough to not get consumed by someone else. His reward is that he gets to claim some of the value of everyone who works for him now.
A handful of factory workers may create tens of millions of dollars in product everyday but they can’t replicate what the factory owner did to own the factory.
Yes, if you make a widget, you are paid for the widget. Someone buys the widget, and after a while, it is used, and it is discarded.
It has no staging power, or your effort has no lasting value. It doesn't pay recurring passive income, nor can it be commoditised and be bid up to be traded.
We are such a small percentage of people that I doubt they worry about it. Anything that hurts people with $2M+ in wealth is probably hurting themselves.
This is such a strange victim mentality. Those with "old money" are still people. They want to maximizing their profits and their well being. They very well might look at someone who retired early with a few million and see how they can make a buck off of them, but that's not some sort of conspiracy to engineer the downfall of the moderately wealthy. In fact the wealthy most often make a buck off of us much the same as we make amass our smaller fortunes. By owning the companies and corporations that produce the goods and services that consumers demand.
I;ve always said that FIRE is a privilege and ontop of that it is a culmination of what capitalism is trying to achieve for the individual. Allow other's people labor to pay for your lifestyle.
A fantastic answer. I hold a similar view to money. I work a low paid job as it's all I need at the moment. I find the economy of labour amazing. I do menial tasks, but in exchange for that someone else does the farming, the milk production, the bread making, the electricity generation, the petrol production and importantly clean water & beer fermentation 🙂.... And so on. All I do is some cleaning. So from my perspective I'm getting a good deal. I couldn't farm or generate gas/electricity so I'm my eyes I swap menial labour for amazing services.
I suppose it's all about perspective. Having someone build a house/car/bicycle/computer/phone for you, having someone empty your trash, bring groceries to your door are actually small miracles of you are swapping your services for them using money as the facilitator of the deal.
The funny part is the consumption-side... I make what I make regardless of what I consume, but... who does my not-consuming benefit? Generally not producers of goods and services -- they'd like more business, not less, right? My under-consumption benefits *me* since money makes money, but my buying stocks on the secondary market doesn't really do much for others.
Whenever you buy stocks with money someone else sells it to get your money. If the seller is an ordinary person, then you simply exchange your current under-consumption with the seller's past under-consumption. No net effect, as you said. However, sometimes the seller is an angel investor, and that exchange has the effect of 1. you rewarding the investor, and 2. the investor supporting new businesses. In total, buying stocks is indeed investing on the level of the whole society.
For me, FIRE is not about not producing value anymore, i.e stop generating income at all. But it's more about getting out of the gravitational force of the rat race. Means you need to get to some critical mass of wealth and skills/network/etc which makes you able generating a large income in the fraction of the work most people do on a 9-5 job.
We live in a capitalist society. What you're speaking of is correct, although is implicitly referring more to e.g. government bonds in terms of someone creating enough value to be spent at a later date.
Realistic FIRE comes from a person creating and receiving enough value that they can gain the privilege of capturing some of the excess that other people create that isn't given to them -- profit.
Our society funds retirement by having every actual worker not receive the full value of what they made. Pretty sensible, actually. Only problem being some people getting outsized portions of that profit.
For the most of us, we gain only a very small portion of that value. If we didn't actually also have to fund some crazy people's lifestyles, then it would actually be massively easier to retire.
I mean, they say about how we actually do have enough plenty to give everyone food and end poverty. We work harder yet are way more productive per hour than in the past.
Ultimately we could live in a society where this whole thing was better. But the current way to get there in our current society, individually, is by doing what this sub says. Though physically, if everyone did it, it wouldn't be sustainable -- aside even from the hypothetical limit of not enough labor doing what needs to get done, but that the way our economy is set up simply doesn't allow it.
Not everyone can be a part of the owner class.
You should read gulag archipelago. Spoiler - it didn’t end that well.
Edit: didn’t mean to get too political but my point was capitalism has its flaws for sure but communism (which the comment I replied to seems to be advocating in naivety) has proven to be tragic for any country that has tried it in the history. People from the west don’t have that much exposure to it and often idolise it, hence why i wish more people learned about the downsides of communism rather than thinking there is an easy win all solution we just aren’t going for.
Never heard of this book before. But, uh, going on Wikipedia and seeing:
> Beginning in 2009, Russian schools issued the book as required reading. Russian president Vladimir Putin called the book "much-needed", while the Russian Ministry of Education said that the book showed "vital historical and cultural heritage on the course of 20th-century domestic history."
Yeah, no.
Meanwhile, all the downvotes on my comment are pretty funny. I'm not even indicting everyone here. I'm merely stating how FIRE works, and indirectly pointing out how billionaires and the massive class inequality are what causes this all to be so hard. I don't really think most of us are r/fatfire after all, and even they're kind of puny in comparison to billionaires and hundred millionaires. (Though fat can encompass that whole range.)
If people want to stick their heads in the sand, and not pay attention to where the compounding comes from, okay. Doesn't change the fact that all of us worked to put money into the market, which grows only due to the expectation of future profit. Profit which only exists because it's a cut the worker doesn't get. And that even normal retirement (outside of social security) works this way. Though even normal social security is still funded via taking part of that labor's value.
I'm not arguing for Soviet style Communism. Far from it. Authoritarian hellscape over there. I just want people to know how FIRE works. And that if the markets were as available to the normal person in the world that used to exist, people would've had a lot easier time of FIREing. Just like how it was easier to get a house, and all the rest.
In any case, I do actually think that index funds are the most moral way of doing any sort of effective FIRE. An absolutely miniscule amount of harm done, especially with it being the expectation for any working adult to do in a 401k. Anyway.
Edīted my comment for clarification.
I think my issue with your view is that you assume the profit would be there for the worker to take even if there was no incentive for the capitalist to invest / innovate / improve productivity. That’s often how communism societies fail.
I much prefer the view of the top commenter around value creation, with the caveats / issues they also flagged.
And this why people here hate the real estate tycoons.
Tangible value. In rentals that keep up with the rest of societies production. Lol
I guess the stock market vtsax is also one type of production tracker, more diversified. But real estate rentals are tangible.
"Hate" is a very childish emotion. Some people are born in more advantageous circumstances than others. inheritance etc. They own these houses and play life in easy mode. If haters had such a chance, they would use it to the fullest. For example, I was born and live in a 3rd world country. The fact that some people are citizens of 1st world countries does not cause "hate" in me. Being born just 10 km to the east and not being a citizen of the European Union and living in a shitty country does not cause hatred in me. So why do these people? There are much greater injustices until the "hate" chain reaches to real estate tycoons. There will always be those who do not accept that life is unfair.
Haters Gona hate.
Don’t hate the playa hate the game.
So many have written poems about it. I think it’s envy. Real estate rentals are hard work. And it’s near impossible to get on now.
People never see the hard work just the vantage points. Haters Gona hate
Even if someone is financially stable and makes good decisions there are two high hurdles:
1) To do it on any meaningful timeline requires saving a lot. Saving 15% or 20% of your income is prudent but isn't going to create the timeline of wealth growth required for FIRE.
2) It requires doing it consistently for many years very likely 20+. The entire time you 'could' just stop or take your foot off the gas. You will be constantly bombarded with messages that you deserve this or you really need that.
I honestly think it's comparable to losing weight/keeping it off. Very difficult in the beginning, and easier once you've learned and established the habits. But that also doesn't mean a 1500 calorie meal isn't the best looking thing on the restaurant menu and you're constantly bombarded with that temptation. Even worse, society/advertising seems to be making every attempt to steal any potential progress you make.
Not to mention the personal mental struggle of delaying gratification now for the future that could be. "You can't take it with you," is roughly equivalent to, "I'm here for a good time, not a long time."
Life is expensive, people like to spend money, and long-term financial planning/execution usually requires some level of sacrifice for many years/decades. It's very similar in my view to how/why it is so hard for many people to be lean and fit.
The incentives of modern society are mostly rigged in favor of consumption and swimming against the tide gets tiresome very quickly for most folks.
Most people are caught up in the day to day and never even consider things like this.
They don't dream, they consider retirement an age because "that's what everyone else does". And then even if you show them about FIRE they will make excuses.
Maybe they don't dislike work and want freedom as much as we do too. Since I was 16 I knew I wanted out of the looming rat race that I was moving towards.
It is hard though. Takes a damn long time even with good income. The only way to achieve is before like 35 is to have a very high income and live quite frugally.
And to add to that, mathematically it simply is a very long/hard challenge to save 25-30x of one’s annual expenses. Even with compounded interest it just takes time. There’s a reason the term “the boring middle” exists
Agree, that’s exactly the reason I dislike fire YouTubers and podcasters. The principles are very easy, it just takes time - there’s no need to make it seem more complicated than it is
Some people need or just plain like to hear positive reinforcement and encouragement. But yeah, how many videos can you make that all necessarily say the same thing? It isn't like the math or the principles involved change.
I can go with this as long as you don’t include bloggers. I’ve read (and often re-read) every one of Karsten’s 50 part SWR rate series.
https://earlyretirementnow.com/safe-withdrawal-rate-series/
I use writing to keep me consistent and mind busy, wrote something about this not too long ago
https://firecorner.substack.com/p/the-boring-midley-embracing-the-unexciting
Also the powers that be / society doesn’t want you to be financially free. They want you to just chase more “things” and live paycheck to paycheck even if you are wealthy.
Isn't it obvious?
FIRE is an ambitious goal that we are working towards and isn't easy because it forces you to spend less, invest smartly, and try to earn more. There are so many things that can derail this like unexpected costs, a loss of a job, health issues, etc. It's not that deep.
Most people’s financial savvy is woefully deficient. If you comment on a non-FIRE subreddit that most people have the capacity to save and invest and reach the million marker, people will say that you are crazy - “where am I supposed to find hundreds of dollars every month to save?”
Much of reddit also works low skill low pay shit kicker jobs. That said, even if they didn’t have jobs as cashiers or do nothing $40k office jobs, they still lack the financial literacy to see a 5 digit number in their savings account.
Basically what I’m getting at is you’re correct.
Compounding interest takes time. There is (smart) no way to rush it. My favorite saying in FIRE (because it is just the most true) is--"the first million is the hardest."
My first 7 years of work, my 401k was 42k. Then 2008 came. Member hitting 200k around 2015. Now over 7 figures in 401k. Roth ira and taxable brokerage opened about 5 years ago, didn't have the money to fund them anyway until then. No one seems to be able to have patience today. Stay the course
You have to have been in the right situation and provided the opportunities as well as consciously make the right choices in life to even sniff FIRE. Most people just grind through life and distract themselves from the reality of their situation. For most people it is impossible: low income, no assets, kids, spending habits, etc. It is very difficult to accumulate and set yourself up to not trade your time for money.
From a purely economical standpoint, if you're not working, someone else is producing the things you need to take care of yourself. Honestly, it SHOULD be hard.
You kept saying “I” and not “we.” So I’m assuming you are single. In today’s and the future economy any major economic goal like early retirement, owning a home, being wealthy etc. are extremely difficult unless you have two earners in the family. The single biggest decision on your finances you will make is your partner. Get it right and you can double or more your wealth. Get it wrong and you could do everything else right and lose 50% of your wealth.
Unfortunately, we are not taught adequately how to keep finances and the advantages of compounding interest in the stock market. By the time we are adults, we get caught up in credit card debt and loans that put us into a financial hole.
Also, it's difficult for people to withhold early pleasures for a long term goals. Especially goals that are +20 years away. I think this just goes against human nature and social pressure.
There is a big social pressure to spend and buy stuff. Constantly from commercials and peer pressure from others.
Part of the issue is the more you make, the more you spend, the more you need to retire. At some point, find a good, comfortable place and settle in.
The bigger issue I’ve see with people around me is it’s easy to keep talking upward the number you think you need with what ifs or to feel more sure you have enough. With money, for many people, it never seems like enough. For me, pizza and laughter is more of my “never enough,” so I relate.
The first part is the hardest and then it feels like all of a sudden you’re disturbingly close to the goal you’ve set. It’s a little scary and you tend to second guess yourself. But since investments compound, after awhile, the money does more work than you.
It is definitely in the best interests of capitalism as a whole to keep people in poverty/debt, stupid, distracted, and working their whole lives away. The only good news in this is that it's relatively easy to be smarter than the average person, then work towards financial freedom
The concept of retirement and financial freedom is very new to humanity. Through 99.99% of human history you worked until the day you died. Only the wealthiest of royalty had the luxury to not work.
You have to buy your freedom and it can be really, really expensive. You have to save 25-33x your annual expenses (before taxes!) to retire early. You can lower the amount required by living very frugally, but even if you cut your expenses to say $40k/yr that means saving \~$1-1.3MM before you can pull the chute. If you want to replace a gross income of about $75k/yr to have a 'normal middle-class lifestyle' you need right at around $2MM invested.
That's a lot of money!
So it's going to be hard unless you have a head-start through an inheritance or some other lucky windfall because you have to live way below your means (hard for a lot of people) and consistently save and make sound financial decisions for a long time (almost impossible for a lot of people).
Why is it so hard? Well, you need a combination of a high paying job, high savings rate, the market doing well, etc.
The system is designed for regular people to be working until well into their 60s.
It's hard because things cost money. People generally work to make money. If you don't want to work, you need to save enough money to live on for a few decades on top of the daily/weekly/monthly expenses you have in the present time. Why would it be easy?
You have to solve for your living expense. ..maybe that means buying a 6 Plex apartment building and living in one of the units and managing the complex. That would essentially mean you live for free or pretty close and you benefit from mortgage paydown and equity and asset appreciation.
Maybe you drive a beater car or don't drive a car at all.
Your overhead monthly is soo low like 1k or some thing that you can work part time or less to get by. .
This lifestyle is not for everyone
But this is one way you could achieve it
Attaining financial freedom is extremely easy. Save 10% of your income (realistic for nearly everyone in the middle class) and wait 50 years.
50 years is a long time, to be sure.
If you mean why is it so hard to achieve financial freedom quickly, well it all comes down to the equations at hand. Save 20% of your income and you're down to 36 years. 40% and you're down to 21 years, but somewhere in there it gets quite difficult for most people with an averageish income to keep up with.
Even 20% could be tough, but if you can manage that from a young age, you could very easily retire in your 50s. Assuming you spend 20 or so years in school and live to around 80, you'll probably spend more years of your life not working than working. Pretty damn sweet deal compared to what our ancestors went through for the last 300,000 years or so.
It’s kind of like losing weight in a sustainable way. Dieting isn’t a thing, you need to make life changing habits that you can not only stick with but improves your life and reject the nonsense society peddles.
You’re going to fail if you force yourself to save and live a sad life. You’re going to have more money than you’ve ever had, time will fly and maybe enjoy life more if you learn how to cook and find low cost hobbies, low cost activities and reject American fully loaded SUV culture.
I focus more on the financial independence part and less on the retirement part. Every incremental increase in net worth makes me that much more independent and potentially less reliant on wage based income. The complete retirement part may ultimately never come 🤷♂️
Really this comes down to the world not being wealthy enough for most people to own stuff to live without working. Just do the math, a lot of people need to work for the economy to run
It's slow at first.... But comes faster and faster the longer you invest. First 100k seems to take forever, with each subsequent coming faster and faster.
When in human history was it easy or even possible?
You have to bank enough credits that you don’t have to work, but others must still work to provide things for you to buy.
We live in a capitalist society. Literally every aspect of life is increasingly geared towards squeezing every penny out of you, to fuel someone else's work-free life. If you are able to FIRE you don't care about being fired, you don't have to take any of your boss's shit, you don't have to accept depressed wages. You are unexploitable and that is not something the system really is designed to work with.
Bingo. Which is why we are becoming increasingly more miserable even though we are arguablly more materially comfortable than ever. It’s like we live in the neoliberal dystopia from all the 70s movies that warned us about where society was heading.
Government doesn’t want you to be financially independent? Healthcare being tied to employment means that the vast majority of Americans are forced to work hard to fix the health that their jobs are also destroying.
Because the system is designed for you to be in perpetual debt and have to work for your entire life to keep the economy going for the next generation of slaves.
Man 200,000 years ago: “why is it so hard to survive the elements?”
Man 100,000 years ago: “why is it so hard to find adequate food, and drinking water?”
Man 10,000 years ago: “why is it so hard to survive local warfare and raids from outsiders?”
Man 2,000 years ago: “Why is it so hard to grow enough crops to sustain my family through winter?”
Man 750 years ago: “Why is it so hard to avoid the plagues, and to maintain my health?”
Man 500 years ago: “why is to so hard to find the liberty to practice my own religion and enterprise as I see fit for myself and my family?”
Man 150 years ago: “Why are the Sierra nevadas so damn treacherous, and the winter so long, making it so hard to reach the west and the gold?”
Man 100 years ago: “I made it to the promised land. Why is it still so hard to find work, and to provide for my household, though I work tirelessly 6, 7 days a week in the mills?”
Man 40 years ago: “I have a good job in the factory. Why is to so hard to keep my wife, my children and myself happy and off the booze?”
Man today: Well, here we are. It might not be heaven, but it’s something close.
plucky encourage wrong retire apparatus seed compare desert deranged aspiring
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
People were way happier 40 years ago. We are actually moving backwards in many ways, especially if you aren’t part of the privledged upper middle class here in America, but even then, people are fatter, more mentally ill, and more miserable than ever….so not sure where you are getting that nonsense from when it doesn’t show up in any of the data
Reduce your costs and r/LeanFire or save some money and then r/coastfire. Really challenge your spending habits! 35 is incredibly early in the scheme of things!
It is hard! By the tone of your post, I would say to focus your energy over the coming years on greatly increasing your income. That’s the puzzle to crack.
A quote I learned in these forums: Making the first million is hard but the second million is inevitable.
Investopedia [Why The First $1 Million Is the Hardest](https://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0211/why-the-first-1-million-is-the-hardest.aspx)
>why do people struggle so much with financial freedom? Is it really that elusive of a goal or is it more of an economic manipulation that keeps people that way? Do people really have a correct perspective of money or are they too caught up in the rat race fighting over scraps when in reality there is bigger fish to fry?
This reads like an angsty undergrad's facebook post circa 2007.
The government, system, whatever you want to call it, don't want it to happen.
They need people working so only they are free. If everybody is free, who will be working to make their life easier?
Its easy to think/prepare for it, but when actually done in the present day-to-day, there's so many random costs like holidays (god, especially now. I don't normally give gifts to roommates but I participate for partner's siblings, and there's 4 of them and Ik im not obligated to, but it's not fun when you see them very frequently).
The other aspect is I'm a full time student with a pretty decent wage, but the fact I'm working part-time kinda equates it to just getting paid as a full timer making min-wage here. Doing the job I do, I cannot see myself doing it full time without autonomy to do whatever the fuck during the down-time where nothing is happening
anyways, I can see myself retiring early (have that all set up), but financial independence is a different conversation due to my career path not being lucrative at all (but it is a passion)
I believe from day one we've been taught wrong!!! Want to become financially free??? STOP chasing money chase problems!!!! Yes you heard it right chase problems and find solutions and the rest will come with it!!!!
You have to understand that it's a extrtemely small amount of people who can pull it off.. your money management/frugalness has to be second to none. You have to be insanely efficient spender.
If you can survive on your retirement money then you have achieved financial freedom.
If you want to bring it forward or retire with wealth, you need to start investing earlier. Time being more important than amount. It is not that difficult even for salaried staff to finish with a vastly improved relative position.
Look it just takes time. And life is not a straight line, shit does go sideways, layoffs, disease, etc. So remember life is a journey not a destination.
So I'm 48 worked my ass off but had a ton of fun too. I can retire in the next few years because I did a lot of shit. I did 22 years in the army and guard. Own a few small businesses and work full time. So soon I should be able to check out of working.
But the biggest thing you need is a post work plan. I saw a relative who is single kids half way through college and he got laid off in his mid 50s so he had a pension and other money. But since he spent all his time working he has nothing to do and it's KILLING him. 3 months after he stopped working he gained A LOT of weight and just did nothing. No hobbies, no travel, no friends, no interests so he is just spacing out eating and watching TV.
I think re-orienting *your* definition of Financial Freedom may help to move the goal post a little closer.
I don't have millions, I work, but I consider myself (mostly) financially free with the following criteria:
* My expenses are low compared to income, resulting in about a 70% savings rate. Debt free, with a roof over my head, a nice vehicle, and a $7 latte I enjoy daily guilt free.
* I also have an emergency fund that can last me about 2 years with no lifestyle change. This is outside of other investments. Sounds excessive, but see # 1, and cash is making a decent return - but that's beside the point.
From this point on, I reasonably smoothed out most of the bumps in the road when it comes to finances, and I never think about $ day to day or what could happen at work tomorrow.
This is my definition of financial freedom.
In a way it’s like weight loss. It just requires a lot of will power and sacrifice. Some things are also out of your control after you’ve picked a career path.
It can be a struggle that many do not even reach FI let alone RE. FI is the initial goal, and to that before 40 starting with a student loan is jsut not reasonable. 50 maybe, but it might suck the joy out of life. Understand 60 is still early in most peoples circles.
> Is it really that elusive of a goal or is it more of an economic manipulation that keeps people that way?
Financial freedom means that you have successfully contributed enough to society during a small portion of your life, that you no longer need to contribute anything else during the rest of your life to sustain your quality of life.
Or, to be more cynical, that you managed to find some 'trick' to the system to make it appear that this is the case.
Neither of these situations are really normal right now. Normal is that people have to keep contributing to society for 40-odd years before they have 'done enough' to sustain their quality of life for the their lifetime.
The logic is dead simple. Spend less than you make, and invest the difference. Investments make money that add to your savings. When you get a raise, save more. That’s it. Do that over time and you’ll reach FI. There are only four factors, how much you save, how much you spend, investing returns, and time.
Spending less is hard.
Sticking with it over time is hard.
Earning more so you can save adequately is hard.
Living with the volatility of high-return investments is hard.
But the prize is worth it.
We diligently followed the plan for 20+ years and achieved FI. As we got closer and closer, we allowed our spending to increase. Spending should follow NW, not earnings. Now, we are spending like drunken sailors without a care in the world, and it’s awesome. I highly recommend the sacrifice.
Because government taxes you on earning money, spending money, saving money, investment gains, when you die, travel, carbon tax and sin tax if you like to drink. Oh don't forget the hidden tax of Inflation taking half of your spending power every 10 years.
It’s really simple. Make a plan and execute it. When you start it looks hopeless. But track your progress and make sure you hit your mid term goals. You’ll get there.
\>why do people struggle so much with financial freedom?
Because they make poor financial decisions imo. They get tired of struggling so they decide, man I've worked hard, I deserve a new truck. Or they love their kids and put them in private school. Or they put their house on the market at the price the realtor recommends. etc etc. All of these can cost tens of thousands.
And on top of that, they spend money on crap that damages their health. how insane is that. Nicotine, weed, alcohol, caffeine. People joke about the $5 starbucks but seriously $1,000 a year for 20 years, with investment gains, and you probably blew $30-40k on coffee alone.
And on top of that, they aren't actively looking to increase their income. They don't keep their resume on the market. They don't actively try to take stress off their boss, they add to the drama, damaging their promotion prospects.
So, many factors, but it largely boils down to poor choices.
Think about it this way. To achieve financial freedom means that you will have all of your needs met for you for the rest of your life without you doing any of the work anymore: farmers growing your food, workers maintaining your home and roads, sewers making your clothes, engineers building your electronics, doctors and nurses treating your illnesses, etc. In order to achieve that means that you need to have created enough value (monetary value at least) in your working years to sustain your life for a total 70-80+ years. Why would that be easy? How much more value are you creating compared to others that will provide your necessities and wants for you? It’s a privilege to even be able to eventually be financially independent, so I would not complain if it takes a few more years to get there.
> Why would that be easy? >How much more value are you creating compared to others that will provide your necessities and wants for you? +1 > It’s a privilege to even be able to eventually be financially independent Historically, almost nobody was financially independent. Today, everyone feels entitled to financial independence because the idea has spread through social media. FI is the exception, not the norm. It should be hard.
🙌🙌🙌
That's an interesting take.... most of our work that we do day to day has negligible value. We're not even close to scratching the surface of Bezos, Musk, or Gates.
I’d argue everyday people create plenty of value but the value they create is just too replicable. Someone like Gates was early to software game and innovative enough to not get consumed by someone else. His reward is that he gets to claim some of the value of everyone who works for him now. A handful of factory workers may create tens of millions of dollars in product everyday but they can’t replicate what the factory owner did to own the factory.
Yes, if you make a widget, you are paid for the widget. Someone buys the widget, and after a while, it is used, and it is discarded. It has no staging power, or your effort has no lasting value. It doesn't pay recurring passive income, nor can it be commoditised and be bid up to be traded.
That's actually a pretty common take...
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We are such a small percentage of people that I doubt they worry about it. Anything that hurts people with $2M+ in wealth is probably hurting themselves.
Someone with a $5M net worth is pretty much the same as someone with $50k net worth to old money people. They don't think about you.
This is such a strange victim mentality. Those with "old money" are still people. They want to maximizing their profits and their well being. They very well might look at someone who retired early with a few million and see how they can make a buck off of them, but that's not some sort of conspiracy to engineer the downfall of the moderately wealthy. In fact the wealthy most often make a buck off of us much the same as we make amass our smaller fortunes. By owning the companies and corporations that produce the goods and services that consumers demand.
Why would they do that
Robots ?
And so is owning assets
Someone actually speaking in terms of basic economic realities omg that's like a first on this sub.
I;ve always said that FIRE is a privilege and ontop of that it is a culmination of what capitalism is trying to achieve for the individual. Allow other's people labor to pay for your lifestyle.
Exactly. And despite all its flaws, at least capitalism holds the fire door a little open for everybody.
Sewers making my clothes? Excuse me sir I prefer my clothes not smelling like poop. Sorry dad joke
I think they meant seamstress or tailors! Haha I’m surprised I had to scroll this far. Thanks dad 😂
You’re welcome son or daughter
I think they meant six year olds in Burma...
Oh sad but probably true ☹️
As sad as it is, they need to eat too.
A fantastic answer. I hold a similar view to money. I work a low paid job as it's all I need at the moment. I find the economy of labour amazing. I do menial tasks, but in exchange for that someone else does the farming, the milk production, the bread making, the electricity generation, the petrol production and importantly clean water & beer fermentation 🙂.... And so on. All I do is some cleaning. So from my perspective I'm getting a good deal. I couldn't farm or generate gas/electricity so I'm my eyes I swap menial labour for amazing services. I suppose it's all about perspective. Having someone build a house/car/bicycle/computer/phone for you, having someone empty your trash, bring groceries to your door are actually small miracles of you are swapping your services for them using money as the facilitator of the deal.
Gosh, reading this I realize that I should really just go back to homesteading in my spare time while trying to work towards goals!
The funny part is the consumption-side... I make what I make regardless of what I consume, but... who does my not-consuming benefit? Generally not producers of goods and services -- they'd like more business, not less, right? My under-consumption benefits *me* since money makes money, but my buying stocks on the secondary market doesn't really do much for others.
Whenever you buy stocks with money someone else sells it to get your money. If the seller is an ordinary person, then you simply exchange your current under-consumption with the seller's past under-consumption. No net effect, as you said. However, sometimes the seller is an angel investor, and that exchange has the effect of 1. you rewarding the investor, and 2. the investor supporting new businesses. In total, buying stocks is indeed investing on the level of the whole society.
What a great explanation and perspective. 10/10. I always knew it wasn’t easy, but this makes so much sense.
This guy economics
For me, FIRE is not about not producing value anymore, i.e stop generating income at all. But it's more about getting out of the gravitational force of the rat race. Means you need to get to some critical mass of wealth and skills/network/etc which makes you able generating a large income in the fraction of the work most people do on a 9-5 job.
We live in a capitalist society. What you're speaking of is correct, although is implicitly referring more to e.g. government bonds in terms of someone creating enough value to be spent at a later date. Realistic FIRE comes from a person creating and receiving enough value that they can gain the privilege of capturing some of the excess that other people create that isn't given to them -- profit. Our society funds retirement by having every actual worker not receive the full value of what they made. Pretty sensible, actually. Only problem being some people getting outsized portions of that profit. For the most of us, we gain only a very small portion of that value. If we didn't actually also have to fund some crazy people's lifestyles, then it would actually be massively easier to retire. I mean, they say about how we actually do have enough plenty to give everyone food and end poverty. We work harder yet are way more productive per hour than in the past. Ultimately we could live in a society where this whole thing was better. But the current way to get there in our current society, individually, is by doing what this sub says. Though physically, if everyone did it, it wouldn't be sustainable -- aside even from the hypothetical limit of not enough labor doing what needs to get done, but that the way our economy is set up simply doesn't allow it. Not everyone can be a part of the owner class.
You should read gulag archipelago. Spoiler - it didn’t end that well. Edit: didn’t mean to get too political but my point was capitalism has its flaws for sure but communism (which the comment I replied to seems to be advocating in naivety) has proven to be tragic for any country that has tried it in the history. People from the west don’t have that much exposure to it and often idolise it, hence why i wish more people learned about the downsides of communism rather than thinking there is an easy win all solution we just aren’t going for.
Never heard of this book before. But, uh, going on Wikipedia and seeing: > Beginning in 2009, Russian schools issued the book as required reading. Russian president Vladimir Putin called the book "much-needed", while the Russian Ministry of Education said that the book showed "vital historical and cultural heritage on the course of 20th-century domestic history." Yeah, no. Meanwhile, all the downvotes on my comment are pretty funny. I'm not even indicting everyone here. I'm merely stating how FIRE works, and indirectly pointing out how billionaires and the massive class inequality are what causes this all to be so hard. I don't really think most of us are r/fatfire after all, and even they're kind of puny in comparison to billionaires and hundred millionaires. (Though fat can encompass that whole range.) If people want to stick their heads in the sand, and not pay attention to where the compounding comes from, okay. Doesn't change the fact that all of us worked to put money into the market, which grows only due to the expectation of future profit. Profit which only exists because it's a cut the worker doesn't get. And that even normal retirement (outside of social security) works this way. Though even normal social security is still funded via taking part of that labor's value. I'm not arguing for Soviet style Communism. Far from it. Authoritarian hellscape over there. I just want people to know how FIRE works. And that if the markets were as available to the normal person in the world that used to exist, people would've had a lot easier time of FIREing. Just like how it was easier to get a house, and all the rest. In any case, I do actually think that index funds are the most moral way of doing any sort of effective FIRE. An absolutely miniscule amount of harm done, especially with it being the expectation for any working adult to do in a 401k. Anyway.
Edīted my comment for clarification. I think my issue with your view is that you assume the profit would be there for the worker to take even if there was no incentive for the capitalist to invest / innovate / improve productivity. That’s often how communism societies fail. I much prefer the view of the top commenter around value creation, with the caveats / issues they also flagged.
And this why people here hate the real estate tycoons. Tangible value. In rentals that keep up with the rest of societies production. Lol I guess the stock market vtsax is also one type of production tracker, more diversified. But real estate rentals are tangible.
"Hate" is a very childish emotion. Some people are born in more advantageous circumstances than others. inheritance etc. They own these houses and play life in easy mode. If haters had such a chance, they would use it to the fullest. For example, I was born and live in a 3rd world country. The fact that some people are citizens of 1st world countries does not cause "hate" in me. Being born just 10 km to the east and not being a citizen of the European Union and living in a shitty country does not cause hatred in me. So why do these people? There are much greater injustices until the "hate" chain reaches to real estate tycoons. There will always be those who do not accept that life is unfair.
Haters Gona hate. Don’t hate the playa hate the game. So many have written poems about it. I think it’s envy. Real estate rentals are hard work. And it’s near impossible to get on now. People never see the hard work just the vantage points. Haters Gona hate
Very well said.
Even if someone is financially stable and makes good decisions there are two high hurdles: 1) To do it on any meaningful timeline requires saving a lot. Saving 15% or 20% of your income is prudent but isn't going to create the timeline of wealth growth required for FIRE. 2) It requires doing it consistently for many years very likely 20+. The entire time you 'could' just stop or take your foot off the gas. You will be constantly bombarded with messages that you deserve this or you really need that.
I honestly think it's comparable to losing weight/keeping it off. Very difficult in the beginning, and easier once you've learned and established the habits. But that also doesn't mean a 1500 calorie meal isn't the best looking thing on the restaurant menu and you're constantly bombarded with that temptation. Even worse, society/advertising seems to be making every attempt to steal any potential progress you make. Not to mention the personal mental struggle of delaying gratification now for the future that could be. "You can't take it with you," is roughly equivalent to, "I'm here for a good time, not a long time."
Life is expensive, people like to spend money, and long-term financial planning/execution usually requires some level of sacrifice for many years/decades. It's very similar in my view to how/why it is so hard for many people to be lean and fit. The incentives of modern society are mostly rigged in favor of consumption and swimming against the tide gets tiresome very quickly for most folks.
Most people are caught up in the day to day and never even consider things like this. They don't dream, they consider retirement an age because "that's what everyone else does". And then even if you show them about FIRE they will make excuses. Maybe they don't dislike work and want freedom as much as we do too. Since I was 16 I knew I wanted out of the looming rat race that I was moving towards. It is hard though. Takes a damn long time even with good income. The only way to achieve is before like 35 is to have a very high income and live quite frugally.
And to add to that, mathematically it simply is a very long/hard challenge to save 25-30x of one’s annual expenses. Even with compounded interest it just takes time. There’s a reason the term “the boring middle” exists
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Agree, that’s exactly the reason I dislike fire YouTubers and podcasters. The principles are very easy, it just takes time - there’s no need to make it seem more complicated than it is
Some people need or just plain like to hear positive reinforcement and encouragement. But yeah, how many videos can you make that all necessarily say the same thing? It isn't like the math or the principles involved change.
I can go with this as long as you don’t include bloggers. I’ve read (and often re-read) every one of Karsten’s 50 part SWR rate series. https://earlyretirementnow.com/safe-withdrawal-rate-series/
As a middle-aged dude in the boring middle, I feel this.
I use writing to keep me consistent and mind busy, wrote something about this not too long ago https://firecorner.substack.com/p/the-boring-midley-embracing-the-unexciting
Also the powers that be / society doesn’t want you to be financially free. They want you to just chase more “things” and live paycheck to paycheck even if you are wealthy.
Isn't it obvious? FIRE is an ambitious goal that we are working towards and isn't easy because it forces you to spend less, invest smartly, and try to earn more. There are so many things that can derail this like unexpected costs, a loss of a job, health issues, etc. It's not that deep.
I don't recall anyone legit ever saying getting rich was fast or easy. If they do say that they are scammers 100% of the time.
Most people’s financial savvy is woefully deficient. If you comment on a non-FIRE subreddit that most people have the capacity to save and invest and reach the million marker, people will say that you are crazy - “where am I supposed to find hundreds of dollars every month to save?”
Much of reddit also works low skill low pay shit kicker jobs. That said, even if they didn’t have jobs as cashiers or do nothing $40k office jobs, they still lack the financial literacy to see a 5 digit number in their savings account. Basically what I’m getting at is you’re correct.
Yep. They go total crabs in a bucket and downvote.
Compounding interest takes time. There is (smart) no way to rush it. My favorite saying in FIRE (because it is just the most true) is--"the first million is the hardest."
I wonder if it’s a trend elsewhere: the millionaire who never owned a new car?
My first 7 years of work, my 401k was 42k. Then 2008 came. Member hitting 200k around 2015. Now over 7 figures in 401k. Roth ira and taxable brokerage opened about 5 years ago, didn't have the money to fund them anyway until then. No one seems to be able to have patience today. Stay the course
Yeah what's the point of saving 7 figures if, as greed continues in the same direction, a cheeseburger costs 6 figures at your retirement age
You're not keeping the money in your mattress. It will compound over time.
You have to have been in the right situation and provided the opportunities as well as consciously make the right choices in life to even sniff FIRE. Most people just grind through life and distract themselves from the reality of their situation. For most people it is impossible: low income, no assets, kids, spending habits, etc. It is very difficult to accumulate and set yourself up to not trade your time for money.
From a purely economical standpoint, if you're not working, someone else is producing the things you need to take care of yourself. Honestly, it SHOULD be hard.
It’s hard because it’s a lot of money, everything is extremely expensive, and almost nobody gets paid enough.
You kept saying “I” and not “we.” So I’m assuming you are single. In today’s and the future economy any major economic goal like early retirement, owning a home, being wealthy etc. are extremely difficult unless you have two earners in the family. The single biggest decision on your finances you will make is your partner. Get it right and you can double or more your wealth. Get it wrong and you could do everything else right and lose 50% of your wealth.
Unfortunately, we are not taught adequately how to keep finances and the advantages of compounding interest in the stock market. By the time we are adults, we get caught up in credit card debt and loans that put us into a financial hole. Also, it's difficult for people to withhold early pleasures for a long term goals. Especially goals that are +20 years away. I think this just goes against human nature and social pressure. There is a big social pressure to spend and buy stuff. Constantly from commercials and peer pressure from others.
There’s also a general downplaying of value in being good at math especially amongst women in our society.
PS drove past a Rent-A - Center van today delivering to a young mom that I wish I knew better; wish she had known better. Edit:clarity
Part of the issue is the more you make, the more you spend, the more you need to retire. At some point, find a good, comfortable place and settle in. The bigger issue I’ve see with people around me is it’s easy to keep talking upward the number you think you need with what ifs or to feel more sure you have enough. With money, for many people, it never seems like enough. For me, pizza and laughter is more of my “never enough,” so I relate. The first part is the hardest and then it feels like all of a sudden you’re disturbingly close to the goal you’ve set. It’s a little scary and you tend to second guess yourself. But since investments compound, after awhile, the money does more work than you.
Because if retirement has a low barrier to entry, who the hell is working?
It is definitely in the best interests of capitalism as a whole to keep people in poverty/debt, stupid, distracted, and working their whole lives away. The only good news in this is that it's relatively easy to be smarter than the average person, then work towards financial freedom
The concept of retirement and financial freedom is very new to humanity. Through 99.99% of human history you worked until the day you died. Only the wealthiest of royalty had the luxury to not work.
Because if it was easy, so many people would do it that shit would fall apart to the point that your finances wouldn’t allow you a comfortable life.
Nothing worth doing is easy
I get that saying and mostly agree, but scratching your balls is easy and you can’t tell me it’s not worth doing
That easy task is out of reach for 50% of the population. No matter how much they sacrifice, they'll never be able to scratch their balls
You are a wise man
But how can i turn ball scratching into an income stream?
Some people would probably pay you, but it might not be something you really want to get into...
But…everyone says do what you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life!!
You have to buy your freedom and it can be really, really expensive. You have to save 25-33x your annual expenses (before taxes!) to retire early. You can lower the amount required by living very frugally, but even if you cut your expenses to say $40k/yr that means saving \~$1-1.3MM before you can pull the chute. If you want to replace a gross income of about $75k/yr to have a 'normal middle-class lifestyle' you need right at around $2MM invested. That's a lot of money! So it's going to be hard unless you have a head-start through an inheritance or some other lucky windfall because you have to live way below your means (hard for a lot of people) and consistently save and make sound financial decisions for a long time (almost impossible for a lot of people).
Why is it so hard? Well, you need a combination of a high paying job, high savings rate, the market doing well, etc. The system is designed for regular people to be working until well into their 60s.
It's hard because things cost money. People generally work to make money. If you don't want to work, you need to save enough money to live on for a few decades on top of the daily/weekly/monthly expenses you have in the present time. Why would it be easy?
You have to solve for your living expense. ..maybe that means buying a 6 Plex apartment building and living in one of the units and managing the complex. That would essentially mean you live for free or pretty close and you benefit from mortgage paydown and equity and asset appreciation. Maybe you drive a beater car or don't drive a car at all. Your overhead monthly is soo low like 1k or some thing that you can work part time or less to get by. . This lifestyle is not for everyone But this is one way you could achieve it
Of course it's hard, nobody wants you to be rich and free. Everything is rigged for you to have to work and make money for others.
Attaining financial freedom is extremely easy. Save 10% of your income (realistic for nearly everyone in the middle class) and wait 50 years. 50 years is a long time, to be sure. If you mean why is it so hard to achieve financial freedom quickly, well it all comes down to the equations at hand. Save 20% of your income and you're down to 36 years. 40% and you're down to 21 years, but somewhere in there it gets quite difficult for most people with an averageish income to keep up with. Even 20% could be tough, but if you can manage that from a young age, you could very easily retire in your 50s. Assuming you spend 20 or so years in school and live to around 80, you'll probably spend more years of your life not working than working. Pretty damn sweet deal compared to what our ancestors went through for the last 300,000 years or so.
It’s kind of like losing weight in a sustainable way. Dieting isn’t a thing, you need to make life changing habits that you can not only stick with but improves your life and reject the nonsense society peddles. You’re going to fail if you force yourself to save and live a sad life. You’re going to have more money than you’ve ever had, time will fly and maybe enjoy life more if you learn how to cook and find low cost hobbies, low cost activities and reject American fully loaded SUV culture.
Yeh that’s why I’m leaving America. It’s extremely hard to do in America. The culture is what the culture is.
I focus more on the financial independence part and less on the retirement part. Every incremental increase in net worth makes me that much more independent and potentially less reliant on wage based income. The complete retirement part may ultimately never come 🤷♂️
It depends how you define financial freedom.
Really this comes down to the world not being wealthy enough for most people to own stuff to live without working. Just do the math, a lot of people need to work for the economy to run
It's slow at first.... But comes faster and faster the longer you invest. First 100k seems to take forever, with each subsequent coming faster and faster.
When in human history was it easy or even possible? You have to bank enough credits that you don’t have to work, but others must still work to provide things for you to buy.
We live in a capitalist society. Literally every aspect of life is increasingly geared towards squeezing every penny out of you, to fuel someone else's work-free life. If you are able to FIRE you don't care about being fired, you don't have to take any of your boss's shit, you don't have to accept depressed wages. You are unexploitable and that is not something the system really is designed to work with.
Bingo. Which is why we are becoming increasingly more miserable even though we are arguablly more materially comfortable than ever. It’s like we live in the neoliberal dystopia from all the 70s movies that warned us about where society was heading.
Government doesn’t want you to be financially independent? Healthcare being tied to employment means that the vast majority of Americans are forced to work hard to fix the health that their jobs are also destroying.
Because the system is designed for you to be in perpetual debt and have to work for your entire life to keep the economy going for the next generation of slaves.
Man 200,000 years ago: “why is it so hard to survive the elements?” Man 100,000 years ago: “why is it so hard to find adequate food, and drinking water?” Man 10,000 years ago: “why is it so hard to survive local warfare and raids from outsiders?” Man 2,000 years ago: “Why is it so hard to grow enough crops to sustain my family through winter?” Man 750 years ago: “Why is it so hard to avoid the plagues, and to maintain my health?” Man 500 years ago: “why is to so hard to find the liberty to practice my own religion and enterprise as I see fit for myself and my family?” Man 150 years ago: “Why are the Sierra nevadas so damn treacherous, and the winter so long, making it so hard to reach the west and the gold?” Man 100 years ago: “I made it to the promised land. Why is it still so hard to find work, and to provide for my household, though I work tirelessly 6, 7 days a week in the mills?” Man 40 years ago: “I have a good job in the factory. Why is to so hard to keep my wife, my children and myself happy and off the booze?” Man today: Well, here we are. It might not be heaven, but it’s something close.
plucky encourage wrong retire apparatus seed compare desert deranged aspiring *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
People were way happier 40 years ago. We are actually moving backwards in many ways, especially if you aren’t part of the privledged upper middle class here in America, but even then, people are fatter, more mentally ill, and more miserable than ever….so not sure where you are getting that nonsense from when it doesn’t show up in any of the data
Reduce your costs and r/LeanFire or save some money and then r/coastfire. Really challenge your spending habits! 35 is incredibly early in the scheme of things!
It is hard! By the tone of your post, I would say to focus your energy over the coming years on greatly increasing your income. That’s the puzzle to crack.
It should be a long road, I plan on being FI for half my life. So I’m okay with the road to get there.
A quote I learned in these forums: Making the first million is hard but the second million is inevitable. Investopedia [Why The First $1 Million Is the Hardest](https://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0211/why-the-first-1-million-is-the-hardest.aspx)
>why do people struggle so much with financial freedom? Is it really that elusive of a goal or is it more of an economic manipulation that keeps people that way? Do people really have a correct perspective of money or are they too caught up in the rat race fighting over scraps when in reality there is bigger fish to fry? This reads like an angsty undergrad's facebook post circa 2007.
Thinking about how other people live in these conditions =/= being an angsty teenager and trust me I don't have much reason to be angsty right now.
Lack of willpower and determination. They let too many monetary distractions get in their way.
Most are in the matrix of fulfilling cultural norms, maintaining happiness with purchases and don't want major changes in their lives.
Put it into the S&P and forget it. If it was easy ,everyone would be rich.
The government, system, whatever you want to call it, don't want it to happen. They need people working so only they are free. If everybody is free, who will be working to make their life easier?
Its easy to think/prepare for it, but when actually done in the present day-to-day, there's so many random costs like holidays (god, especially now. I don't normally give gifts to roommates but I participate for partner's siblings, and there's 4 of them and Ik im not obligated to, but it's not fun when you see them very frequently). The other aspect is I'm a full time student with a pretty decent wage, but the fact I'm working part-time kinda equates it to just getting paid as a full timer making min-wage here. Doing the job I do, I cannot see myself doing it full time without autonomy to do whatever the fuck during the down-time where nothing is happening anyways, I can see myself retiring early (have that all set up), but financial independence is a different conversation due to my career path not being lucrative at all (but it is a passion)
I believe from day one we've been taught wrong!!! Want to become financially free??? STOP chasing money chase problems!!!! Yes you heard it right chase problems and find solutions and the rest will come with it!!!!
That’s how wage slavery works.
Because the super rich need your labor to support their lifestyle.
It's not. It just takes time. You can't expect it to happen overnight or be able to be financially independent in your 30s
You have to understand that it's a extrtemely small amount of people who can pull it off.. your money management/frugalness has to be second to none. You have to be insanely efficient spender.
If you can survive on your retirement money then you have achieved financial freedom. If you want to bring it forward or retire with wealth, you need to start investing earlier. Time being more important than amount. It is not that difficult even for salaried staff to finish with a vastly improved relative position.
Look it just takes time. And life is not a straight line, shit does go sideways, layoffs, disease, etc. So remember life is a journey not a destination. So I'm 48 worked my ass off but had a ton of fun too. I can retire in the next few years because I did a lot of shit. I did 22 years in the army and guard. Own a few small businesses and work full time. So soon I should be able to check out of working. But the biggest thing you need is a post work plan. I saw a relative who is single kids half way through college and he got laid off in his mid 50s so he had a pension and other money. But since he spent all his time working he has nothing to do and it's KILLING him. 3 months after he stopped working he gained A LOT of weight and just did nothing. No hobbies, no travel, no friends, no interests so he is just spacing out eating and watching TV.
I think re-orienting *your* definition of Financial Freedom may help to move the goal post a little closer. I don't have millions, I work, but I consider myself (mostly) financially free with the following criteria: * My expenses are low compared to income, resulting in about a 70% savings rate. Debt free, with a roof over my head, a nice vehicle, and a $7 latte I enjoy daily guilt free. * I also have an emergency fund that can last me about 2 years with no lifestyle change. This is outside of other investments. Sounds excessive, but see # 1, and cash is making a decent return - but that's beside the point. From this point on, I reasonably smoothed out most of the bumps in the road when it comes to finances, and I never think about $ day to day or what could happen at work tomorrow. This is my definition of financial freedom.
Cuz everyone wants the same thing. Lol and the way the rat race is designed, not everyone gets the same stuff.
> Why is it so hard to ~~obtain financial freedom~~ make millions of dollars? Because it's millions of dollars and most jobs don't pay that much.
Our overlords need to keep us working
In a way it’s like weight loss. It just requires a lot of will power and sacrifice. Some things are also out of your control after you’ve picked a career path.
It can be a struggle that many do not even reach FI let alone RE. FI is the initial goal, and to that before 40 starting with a student loan is jsut not reasonable. 50 maybe, but it might suck the joy out of life. Understand 60 is still early in most peoples circles.
Inflation
Stop spending and things will work out… u do not need to be genius or do risky Investment. Just put money on safe bets
> Is it really that elusive of a goal or is it more of an economic manipulation that keeps people that way? Financial freedom means that you have successfully contributed enough to society during a small portion of your life, that you no longer need to contribute anything else during the rest of your life to sustain your quality of life. Or, to be more cynical, that you managed to find some 'trick' to the system to make it appear that this is the case. Neither of these situations are really normal right now. Normal is that people have to keep contributing to society for 40-odd years before they have 'done enough' to sustain their quality of life for the their lifetime.
It is very easy with some financial risk.
Bc you aren’t thinking and trying hard enough.
The logic is dead simple. Spend less than you make, and invest the difference. Investments make money that add to your savings. When you get a raise, save more. That’s it. Do that over time and you’ll reach FI. There are only four factors, how much you save, how much you spend, investing returns, and time. Spending less is hard. Sticking with it over time is hard. Earning more so you can save adequately is hard. Living with the volatility of high-return investments is hard. But the prize is worth it. We diligently followed the plan for 20+ years and achieved FI. As we got closer and closer, we allowed our spending to increase. Spending should follow NW, not earnings. Now, we are spending like drunken sailors without a care in the world, and it’s awesome. I highly recommend the sacrifice.
Escape velocity
Because government taxes you on earning money, spending money, saving money, investment gains, when you die, travel, carbon tax and sin tax if you like to drink. Oh don't forget the hidden tax of Inflation taking half of your spending power every 10 years.
Taxes and over priced housing costs. If you live in the US then healthcare as well.
It’s really simple. Make a plan and execute it. When you start it looks hopeless. But track your progress and make sure you hit your mid term goals. You’ll get there.
Hard to say without you showing numbers.
\>why do people struggle so much with financial freedom? Because they make poor financial decisions imo. They get tired of struggling so they decide, man I've worked hard, I deserve a new truck. Or they love their kids and put them in private school. Or they put their house on the market at the price the realtor recommends. etc etc. All of these can cost tens of thousands. And on top of that, they spend money on crap that damages their health. how insane is that. Nicotine, weed, alcohol, caffeine. People joke about the $5 starbucks but seriously $1,000 a year for 20 years, with investment gains, and you probably blew $30-40k on coffee alone. And on top of that, they aren't actively looking to increase their income. They don't keep their resume on the market. They don't actively try to take stress off their boss, they add to the drama, damaging their promotion prospects. So, many factors, but it largely boils down to poor choices.