That's the thing about FIRE. It is always a guy in his late 30s with 2 kids and a big house in a metro city trying to sell FIRE to new grads.
IMO, fire becomes impossible the second you have kids. Because all parents I know have some kind of super natural urge to provide better for their children. A house in a better school district, university education and the knowledge that they can have more if they work more, will inevitably stop people from making that early exit they so yearn for.
This becomes even more evident once you get used to roaming in 'high achieving' circles, because the second you RE, you and your children get pushed to the bottom of that social structure (in terms of material possessions)
FIRE also has a wierd hypocrisy to it. It advocates for avoiding life style creep. But, if you avoid lifestyle creep then you can pursue any of the things you would have after retirement as a primary source of income anyways. Especially if you don't expect to take on fresh debt. (new house, new car etc)
That being said, I live a FIRE esque lifestyle too. Because the core tenents make sense even without wanting to FIRE. But, every tech guy in their 20s seems to want to Fire, but I haven't met a single person in their 40s that actually has.
I know a few people in their 50s who managed to FIRE. I think a lot of people want to do it earlier but then life gets in the way. The ones that I know who actually retired early did so when their company got acquired or ipoed (most were director level, one of the people was a very high level IC/eng fellow @ unicorn). Basically there was a push and instead of staying in re-org or finding yet another opportunity they said "retirement!" and had the money to make it reality. The guy who was IC actually still codes/commits to OSS; I guess he just doesn't code for money anymore.
IMO, fire becomes impossible the second you have kids. Because all parents I know have some kind of super natural urge to provide better for their children. A house in a better school district, university education and the knowledge that they can have more if they work more, will inevitably stop people from making that early exit they so yearn for.
This becomes even more evident once you get used to roaming in 'high achieving' circles, because the second you RE, you and your children get pushed to the bottom of that social structure (in terms of material possessions)
FIRE also has a wierd hypocrisy to it. It advocates for avoiding life style creep. But, if you avoid lifestyle creep then you can pursue any of the things you would have after retirement as a primary source of income anyways. Especially if you don't expect to take on fresh debt. (new house, new car etc)
That being said, I live a FIRE esque lifestyle too. Because the core tenents make sense even without wanting to FIRE. But, every tech guy in their 20s seems to want to Fire, but I haven't met a single person in their 40s that actually has.