FIRE? Unless you hate or are bad at your job, isn't work the best part of life?

Anonymous101

bostonerimus said:

The foundation of FIRE is frugality and aggressive saving and investing. Funnily that's what I grew up doing and by budgeting I've never felt I'm missing out. In fact being sensible with my finances has given me the enormous luxury of being financially independent in as much as I simply don't worry about money anymore. Having low expenses allows for greater saving and these compound so that when you retire you have a bigger pot than most people and lower expenses.

Congratulations on reaching financial independence.

I take a slightly different stance on the foundations of FIRE being frugality or perhaps extreme frugality. I think for many that is the case, but I also think that can alienate others. I think that the core of FIRE is assessing what is and is not valuable in your life and then cutting spending on what is not to a minimum. Then investing / saving.

Personally I reached an amount of spending which gave me a comfortable life and capped my spending at that. Any future pay rises from that point went straight to saving in their entirety. I wouldn't say that I live a particularly frugal life, but what I have done is created a much larger savings percentage than most people by limited lifestyle inflation. Granted thats only available to people that are growing their income but I do think generally its easier to do. Its just that most people spend more and more as their income increases.

Dead_keen

Anonymous101 said:

I take a slightly different stance on the foundations of FIRE being frugality or perhaps extreme frugality. I think for many that is the case, but I also think that can alienate others. I think that the core of FIRE is assessing what is and is not valuable in your life and then cutting spending on what is not to a minimum. Then investing / saving.

Personally I reached an amount of spending which gave me a comfortable life and capped my spending at that. Any future pay rises from that point went straight to saving in their entirety. I wouldn't say that I live a particularly frugal life, but what I have done is created a much larger savings percentage than most people by limited lifestyle inflation. Granted thats only available to people that are growing their income but I do think generally its easier to do. Its just that most people spend more and more as their income increases.

I think that FIRE covers quite a spectrum.  Lean FIRE is all abut buying the best value can of baked beans.  Fat FIRE is all about which private jet is the best solution when you want to travel around Europe (see the r/fatfire on reddit if you want the answer).

Albermarle

It sounds like you need an Operational Excellence expert at your company.  Nothing resolves problems quicker than someone with absolutely no understanding of current processes deciding how your job should be done.  And of course, they should always start on the processes that already work well, involving as many non-experts as possible ;-).  It can all be sorted by a Zoom meeting with no agenda. Arranged without checking your calendar.

Even better than your own in house Operational Excellence Manager , is to hire very expensive consultants to do the same thing . In fact you normally only get one experienced consultant, and a a bunch of wet behind the ear graduates who have never had a proper job.

ex-pat_scot

Albermarle said:

It sounds like you need an Operational Excellence expert at your company.  Nothing resolves problems quicker than someone with absolutely no understanding of current processes deciding how your job should be done.  And of course, they should always start on the processes that already work well, involving as many non-experts as possible ;-).  It can all be sorted by a Zoom meeting with no agenda. Arranged without checking your calendar.

Even better than your own in house Operational Excellence Manager , is to hire very expensive consultants to do the same thing . In fact you normally only get one experienced consultant, and a a bunch of wet behind the ear graduates who have never had a proper job.

I am generally that very expensive consultant, and the experienced one. Sadly I don't have a backup team of grads to do the gruntwork

Anonymous101

Dead_keen said:

Anonymous101 said:

I take a slightly different stance on the foundations of FIRE being frugality or perhaps extreme frugality. I think for many that is the case, but I also think that can alienate others. I think that the core of FIRE is assessing what is and is not valuable in your life and then cutting spending on what is not to a minimum. Then investing / saving.

Personally I reached an amount of spending which gave me a comfortable life and capped my spending at that. Any future pay rises from that point went straight to saving in their entirety. I wouldn't say that I live a particularly frugal life, but what I have done is created a much larger savings percentage than most people by limited lifestyle inflation. Granted thats only available to people that are growing their income but I do think generally its easier to do. Its just that most people spend more and more as their income increases.

I think that FIRE covers quite a spectrum.  Lean FIRE is all abut buying the best value can of baked beans.  Fat FIRE is all about which private jet is the best solution when you want to travel around Europe (see the r/fatfire on reddit if you want the answer).

Interesting that you mention the take on Lean / Fat fire. I've also heard it said that Lean / Fat related to how big your pot was in relation to your annual spending. Lean being 25x or less and Fat being 30 or more.

So much of it is down to interpretation and as you say there's a spectrum for everything. The great thing for me is that it is empowering to know that you have a safety net, more savings equals more choice and more power to live your life the way you like not just however society, corporations or government would prefer.

Albermarle

For someone who earned a 'decent' wage, deciding to scrimp on everything come retirement time would be rather...dismal, I fear 😱

I agree, which is probably why I hung on OMY ( or two or three) so I would not have to watch the pennies too closely , or hardly at all.

I did lash out on a nice phone when I stepped away...yes, £45 pcm for 2 years, 

Be careful you might get banned from this forum for paying £45 pcm for a phone 

LV_426

Albermarle said:

For someone who earned a 'decent' wage, deciding to scrimp on everything come retirement time would be rather...dismal, I fear 😱

I agree, which is probably why I hung on OMY ( or two or three) so I would not have to watch the pennies too closely , or hardly at all.

I did lash out on a nice phone when I stepped away...yes, £45 pcm for 2 years, 

Be careful you might get banned from this forum for paying £45 pcm for a phone 

  I'm taking some heat for thinking of going to an IFA
 

MallyGirl

Probably best that I don't elaborate on the greenhouse I went to look at last week !

We are all different and the have to do what works for us as individuals

ex-pat_scot

MallyGirl said:

Probably best that I don't elaborate on the greenhouse I went to look at last week !

We are all different and the have to do what works for us as individuals

The key (in my opinion) is to know yourself and to spend intentionally.
That's not the same as "cheap", but differs from person to person.
I do spend on high end stuff, for certain matters.
I can't ever have enough money to satisfy all my "wants", but more than enough for my "needs".

You can by cheap functional greenhouses, and beautifully-made ones that are robust, add value and give more years of service. If you have sufficient, and will make use of it, then there is no reason to deny yourself.
You can't have the best of everything you want, but you can certainly have the best of the things that are most important to you.

F'rinstance - mountaineering fleeces. 
You can buy cheap <£10 ones.
I spent a large part of my student grant on a Patagonia one, justified at the time by the Alpine adventures I was up to. I'm wearing it all week this week.  Bought in 1988.

zagfles

ex-pat_scot said:

MallyGirl said:

Probably best that I don't elaborate on the greenhouse I went to look at last week !

We are all different and the have to do what works for us as individuals

The key (in my opinion) is to know yourself and to spend intentionally.
That's not the same as "cheap", but differs from person to person.
I do spend on high end stuff, for certain matters.
I can't ever have enough money to satisfy all my "wants", but more than enough for my "needs".

You can by cheap functional greenhouses, and beautifully-made ones that are robust, add value and give more years of service. If you have sufficient, and will make use of it, then there is no reason to deny yourself.
You can't have the best of everything you want, but you can certainly have the best of the things that are most important to you.

F'rinstance - mountaineering fleeces. 
You can buy cheap <£10 ones.
I spent a large part of my student grant on a Patagonia one, justified at the time by the Alpine adventures I was up to. I'm wearing it all week this week.  Bought in 1988.

The point isn't "cheap" or "expensive", it's getting value!! If a fleece costs £300 and lasts 30 years whereas a cheap one costs £10 and lasts less than a year, clearly the more expensive one is better value. Or if you buy a £2000 bike which you use every day for 10 years then spending an extra £1800 on something you get slightly better enjoyment from on a daily basis is probably good value.

But with a lot of stuff, there is minimal value from paying sometimes considerably more, as per some of the examples earlier. As discussed a lot of people fall into the trap of thinking they need costly additional fluff which doesn't really add value, and as a result they don't achieve FI. We're probably all guilty of this to some extent with some products and services, but some people do it with practically everything they buy! And as a result, can't achieve FI when they want, or even ever.