The problem with writing about FIRE since 2009 is that I've become completely sold on the lifestyle. I know how good freedom feels, so I have a natural tendency to want everyone to achieve it too.
I'm also aware I can come across as annoying when I talk about FIRE, so I try to throttle my enthusiasm in most situations. After the first year of FIRE in 2012, I no longer told anybody I had retired. Instead, I'd tell people that asked that I was a writer or investor, to avoid strange looks or awkward conversations. I try to play dumb to save energy.
But as someone approaching 50, I'm acutely aware of how quickly time passes. There is no amount of money I would take to trade away the last 14 years of freedom. Not one dollar. OK, maybe two billion dollars.
As I think about the financial mistakes we make, whether buying too much car or house, picking a stock that craters, or pouring money into a business that fails, I keep coming back to the one mistake that dwarfs them all: staying at a suboptimal job far too long, and looking back at years of work that didn't matter, done for people you didn't respect.
You can recover from financial losses. But you can't get back the years you spent being miserable when you didn't have to be. That's the regret that doesn't fade, but grows over time.
Failing To Convince People In Their 40s And 50s To FIRE
I understand that leaving the workforce at 34 is unusual. I wouldn't expect to convince more than 2% of the people I meet in real life to do the same thing in their mid-30s.
But now that I'm almost 50, I expected I'd be more persuasive. After all, it's only 10 years away from the start of traditional retirement age. These are people who've had full careers. They have perspective. Many have kids. And after the S&P 500 delivered extraordinary excess gains since 2022, many of them have serious money.
So I'd expect more people to be taking their financial windfall and changing their lives – not staying tethered to the same commute, the same office with harsh fluorescent lights, the same micromanaging boss, the same soul-grinding routine.
Yet almost nobody does it. And recent conversations have made me feel like a complete failure at selling a lifestyle I genuinely believe in.
The Contradiction I Cannot Explain
Nobody on their deathbed has ever said they wished they'd worked longer. Yet here I am, failing to convince visibly disgruntled people I meet in real life to negotiate a severance and break free.
Yet, these are the same people who enthusiastically tell me how much money they've made from their investments in recent years. So either they aren't as financially set as they claim, are irrational actors, or they simply can't overcome the pull of making maximum income even when they clearly have enough.
What do you think?
I also think there's something slightly absurd about being a grown adult who still has to take orders from another adult who isn't your family. You've got wisdom, experience, and possibly children of your own, yet someone else controls your time. Ridiculous, especially if you are financially independent.
So what is going on? Is the FIRE movement actually dying, instead of being more important than ever due to AI? Maybe you can lend me your perspective.
Four Recent Examples That Stuck With Me
Details have been changed for privacy reasons.
1. The AMD Guy: 22X Returns, Still Clocking In
A 48-year-old man recently told me he'd made a 22X on his AMD position over eight years. That is extraordinary, and I congratulated him.
But I couldn't stop thinking: why is he still driving 45 minutes each way to work, paying $50 a day to park, and working 50 hours a week fielding client calls and traveling? Meanwhile, his wife wants to quit work and spend more time with their young children, but he won't let her. With a 22X, why is none of that changing?
If I invested $100,000 (not saying he did) and walked away with $2.2 million on one position alone, I certainly wouldn't keep grinding so hard. And I definitely would let my wife break free to be a full-time mom if that's what she wanted. So maybe he only invested a token amount instead.
2. The Bearish AI Investor: Complaining on Both Sides of the Trade
A pickleball acquaintance has been telling me the market is overvalued and AI is a bubble since 2025. I didn't push back, even though I'd become an AI maximalist during this time, heavily investing in public and private venture capital.
Recently, he gave me another example of why he hates his boss with a passion. “He's a total, complete idiot!” he told me.
When I suggested for the possibility that we might not be in a AI bubble, and the bull run might still have legs and to reconsider, he said: “You don't realize how much I have invested in AI companies!” So, simultaneously bearish on AI and heavily invested in AI, while complaining constantly about his job, his travel schedule, and his boss.
I genuinely don't get it. He hates his boss and hates AI. But he says he has a ton invested in AI. So shouldn't he break free?
3. The Entrepreneur: Perfect Investment Timing, Every Time
There's an entrepreneur I bump into who always volunteers his big wins without being asked. Bitcoin. GameStop. Vertiv. All highly speculative names that had massive runs. Yet somehow, he never mentions any of them before they run. Only after. Funny how that works.
The one that stuck with me: before Liberation Day in April 2025, when tariff announcements tanked the market roughly 20%, he told me he had gotten completely out a month beforehand. Perfect timing, as always. Did he get back in after the S&P 500 ripped back even higher? Details are sketchy.
Here's what isn't sketchy: if the wins have been as large and as frequent as advertised, why is a three-kid family still living in a condo with a belligerent alcoholic downstairs who scares his children? He's mentioned this neighbor more than once. The annoyance in his voice is real.
If you've nailed Bitcoin, GameStop, and called Liberation Day, why not deploy some of that genius toward buying another condo? Or better yet, a cozy home in a neighborhood where your kids can actually play outside without worrying about what's happening one floor below?
The best time to own the nicest home you can afford is when your kids are still living in it, not after they've grown up and moved out. That window closes faster than any trade.
4. The Unstable Dad: A 10X Return and Still Commuting to Palo Alto
A person I know was laid off, then unemployed for eight months. His wife earns about $230K, enough to cover their living expenses. He made about $3 million from stock sales working at a highly successful startup, then he invested $150K in a public venture capital fund that has since gone up over 10X. They rent, keeping their cost of living relatively low. They also have a 6-month old.
Instead of taking his enormous gains to stay home and care for the baby before she attends preschool, he chose to put her in daycare and drive 55 minutes each way to Palo Alto three times a week for a new job.
The career versus family tradeoff is genuinely hard. But taking two or three years off to take care of your daughter after essentially winning a $1.35 million lottery seems like a rational move.
The Social Media Investment Gurus
Then there's social media. Everyone, always, is successful. Losses are rarely mentioned. Huge gains are posted constantly.
I have no reason to believe they are not telling the truth, since why would people lie? However, why aren't more people changing their lives and FIRing if they've made so much money?
Instead, what I do see is people spending enormous amounts of time posting about money, running auto-responders to sell products, building YouTube channels, hustling for followers. Which is fine. I respect the grind. But if you've genuinely made the money you're claiming, what exactly are you still grinding so hard for? Just let your investment gains do the work for you.
I saw a tweet recently criticizing the FIRE movement.
I didn’t realize everybody in the FIRE community avoids dates, travel, and experiences with friends. Not everybody has the pedigree of Joseph, who graduated from Utah Valley University with a 100% acceptance rate, or is as cultured.
Looking more closely at his account to understand why Joseph was so salty about FIRE, his portfolio appeared to only be around $1 million.
With a family to support, I understand why $1M might not feel like enough to pull the trigger in his early 40s. At a 4% withdrawal rate, that's only $40,000 a year, and most people would rather keep working than live in abject FIRE poverty.
I responded telling him to hang in there if he's feeling behind. There's room for all of us to build wealth, so no need to punch down on FIRE practioners. Seconds later, I got an auto-reply pitching one of his products.
And there it was.
Perception Is Reality Online
On social media, you can appear far wealthier and far smarter than you actually are. You can graduate from any university, never work a day in finance, build a YouTube channel anyway, and have thousands of people treating your opinions like gospel.
This is genuinely one of the great powers of the internet, and I mean that without sarcasm. Use it if you've got something real to offer.
But what became clear is that for some, the game was never about building wealth through investing. It was about building an audience to earn money online. The investing content is just the bait. I respect the hustle. But let's be honest about what the hustle actually is, because the people watching might not be.
However, if you are a FIRE investor, you cannot afford to be too wrong. With no paycheck as backup, it's hard to blindly take so much risk.
Are You Really FIREd?
If you claim to be FIRE but haven't changed anything about a situation you call suboptimal, are you really FIRE? I'm not sure your financial independence number is real.
You can run the numbers endlessly and invent sub-genres, Coast FIRE, Barista FIRE, Fat FIRE. You can call yourself retired while your spouse keeps working for the income and benefits.
But you have to be honest with yourself if you want the label to mean something.
If the investment wins are as big as you claim, why are you still grinding at a job you dislike? At some point, the purpose of making money is to actually use it, not to keep score on a leaderboard nobody else can see.
Lots Of Twists And Turns On My FIRE Path
When I left my job in 2012, I was nervous. I asked my wife, who is three years younger than me, to keep working for a few more years for stability and healthcare. That was a real compromise, and I named it as one.
When I bought a house in 2023 that stretched us financially, I told you about that too. Living paycheck-to-paycheck was both stressful and humbling. I took on part-time consulting to rebuild liquidity and set a specific goal: enough passive income to cover all expenses by December 31, 2027. Because after that purchase, we were no longer technically FIRE. I had blown up our passive income by $150,000 a year overnight.
But I've spent the last 2.5 years finding my way back – through investments, part-time consulting, and writing my third book. I'm close. Maybe I'm already there, but I want a bigger buffer before I plant the flag again.
What I do know is that I'm done with corporate consulting. I'm back to writing in the mornings, taking the kids to school, playing pickleball before lunch, soaking in the hot tub thinking about my next investment, and napping before the afternoon pickup. Evenings belong to the family.
That's not everyone's ideal life. But after almost 50 years, it's mine.
Walking away from the status and identity that comes with a prestigious role is hard. But if you've truly made an enormous return on your investments and you dislike your job and have children who actually want to spend time with you, you owe it to yourself to at least try.
If FIRE isn't for you, that's completely fine. Just make sure you run a regret minimization framework before life makes the decision for you.
Reader Questions About FIRE
Readers, why aren't more people FIREing after massive investment gains? Or are people simply not as invested as they claim, online and in real life? Is it really that hard to quiet the hunger for money and security in exchange for a better life? How much do status and prestige keep people grinding away at jobs they dislike far longer than they should? Do you think it's the desire for an ever nicer home that keeps people chained to work?
Stop Leaving Money on the Table
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Sam, for a lot of the people you address this to – they probably have the numbers, but there is great uncertainty around those assets. Quitting is a one way action – they’re almost certainly not be about to come back in a few years and earn 50% as much. You experienced that yourself when you tried to interview with tech. Folks in their 40s/50s with a long gap are not very employable, outside of one’s personal network. You’re not seen as hungry, and we probably aren’t.
It feels very much like 1999 to me right now. I’m at one of those many firms that is tracking how many dollars per day I spend using Claude, and the correct answer is a lot, not a little. This is nearly as brainless as the dotcom ethos that eyeballs were far more important than profits.
Put it this way – we have two plausible outcomes: 1- AI is bubble, never delivers a positive ROI and a bunch of companies drop dramatically, killing the market for a few years. 2- AI stops lying (hallucinating) to us and we stop hiring college grads entirely, and 50% of the others. Economy collapse. These aren’t the only possible outcomes, but they each represent a chunk of the probability spectrum. Neither are good for a recent retiree. And both impact the Bay Area real estate market, the latter impacts all real estate, so there’s no safe harbor there.
Then there is health care – ACA subsidies are probably on last hurrah, so big gap until 65 unless you’re willing to relocate to a more modern country for a decade or so (I’m considering it). Social Security, a small portion of our intended income may also falter, and there is the recent talk about capping payouts to 100k/year. And last, the US debt picture points to dramatic changes ahead (though probably much worse for the lower 70%).
So I continue to grind. I set a target of 6M and 58 years, I seem to be tracking to hit the 6 a bit early, but …. does 2001 repeat itself? Or 2008? The latter could impose a 3 year delay. Or maybe the company does me a favor and casts me out…but if it’s in the next couple of years then I probably sell the San Francisco home and go to a cheaper homebase. Meanwhile, when the cash flow is good, I save the same amount as before but also take the more extravagant bucket list trips. My wife to retire already, largely because her job contributed less than 20% of the household income but 70% of the household work stress.
Sounds dire! Then I agree, with all that uncertainty, best you keep grinding then.
But I promise you, once you get to $6 million, you’ll start wondering whether you should shoot for $10 million. It NEVER stops until you make it stop. Where are you now?
Personally, I would rather just invest in Anthropic through funds.
Not dire. Just very uncertain. Surely you see that? How certain can we be that we can’t experience what Japan did? Or Argentina?
And no – come 2030ish, I’m out the door, unless the bad potential event strike.
I will not be holding on for 10. You seek to maintain principal post death. I only need to ensure that I and those that depend on me won’t outlive it.
Why not just live free now?
Sam,
You’re wrong, you helped convince me to take the leap. I worked for a Fortune 100 company for 22 years and at age 45 decided it was time to retire. I have two kids (ages 16 and 11) and am a single Dad. I was tired of being on conference calls when they walked in from school, traveling for work when it wasn’t convenient, and frankly not having time to do the things that mattered to me. I read all your newsletters and follow Coach Carson and ChooseFi. The last few years I moved some investments from growth to income and smoothed out my real estate portfolio to make sure the numbers would work. My last day of work was May 6, 2026. While it’s only been a short amount of time, it’s been wonderful and I find that I am extremely busy doing things that mattered. Thanks for all the great content, without you I am not sure I would’ve ever pulled the trigger.
Hi Dan, congrats on FIREing! But I’m not wrong, because we haven’t met in real life yet :)
Enjoy the freedom and the healing! I heard the host at ChooseFi divorced too. What’s going on there? I remember them asking for donations during COVID, and I thought to myself: aren’t you FI?
But their messaging is solid.
Cheers
Great post, Sam! I think everything you’ve written is spot on. I also think there’s a lot going on with “Walking away from the status and identity that comes with a prestigious role is hard.”
I think people grind so hard for so many years and kind of “forget” who they are or were. So when the moment comes to retire, they have a hard time envisioning how they’d spend their time because all they know is the role/status that they have at work. Friends are through work, social events are through work, their value is derived from work, etc.
It’s funny, in preparation for college, we’re all doing a million different sports, extracurriculars, hobbies, etc to show how multi-dimensional we are. Then somehow all that goes out the window for 30 years and we become one-dimensional.
So I kinda think we have to re-learn our multi-dimensional self to a certain extent, and that can be challenging. And maybe some people view that as more difficult to do than keep on grinding the same way they have for 20 – 30+ years. Inertia haha
I actually have a family member who have hit it really big in Silicon Valley (he joined couple of major social media companies pre-IPO). He is still working (consulting and VC), but when I told him about FIRE, he thought it did not make any sense.
His reasoning was you need to enjoy your life NOW and instead of 40s retire in 50s or later. He even told me: If I quit after the IPO, I would have missed out on a lot of investments that will make me really rich in couple of years.
I guess everyone is different, and everyone draw different meanings from different things in life.
I have planned to do a rather early retirement in my early 50s(I receive a pension and healthcare for life, so need to work up to a certain age). Obviously I will miss out on my peak earning years, but between my pension and investments I will be more than fine.
And there is so much in life outside my job that I need time to do…
So each to their own
To each their own indeed. Obviously, if you are on a rocketship, you wanna stay on for as long as possible. And he absolutely makes sense to keep writing it until it blows up.
Most people are not as lucky to earn as much or be thrilled about the job they have. So again I’m talking to the people who are disgruntled, but still hanging on even though they have enough to change their lives.
Hello FS — I think you inspire more people into action than you realize.
My wife (48) and I (52) are planning to pursue our own version of FIRE starting next year: a two-year “bridge” period of part-time work in Europe before transitioning into full FIRE once Rule of 55 access begins in the U.S. My company is international and will allow me to transfer, while my wife is obtaining EU citizenship to help facilitate the move.
Would love to see you cover a new variation of FIRE: “European FIRE” or “Expat FIRE.”
There seems to be a growing number of Americans pursuing partial or full retirement abroad — especially in Europe — driven by healthcare affordability, lower overall cost of living in many regions, slower lifestyle pace, and the ability to arbitrage high U.S. earnings into lower-cost countries.
It creates some really interesting financial planning dynamics:
– Using part-time or consulting work abroad as a bridge to traditional retirement accounts
– Geographic arbitrage
– Coast FIRE in Europe vs full FIRE in the U.S.
– ACA vs European healthcare systems
– Tax treaty considerations
– Visa / residency pathways
– Whether lower living costs reduce required FIRE numbers
– Maintaining U.S. investments while living abroad
– “One more year” syndrome when moving overseas dramatically lowers expenses
Feels like this could become a much bigger FIRE trend over the next decade.
Exact FIRE is great. Maybe you’d like to write a guest post about it since you’re living it.
I grew up overseas for the first 13 years of my life, then worked in international equities for another 13. I am definitely a fan of living abroad. I think I’d choose Amsterdam during the summers and maybe Kuala Lumpur or Taiwan during the winters.
Happy to give that a try! Please let me know how to proceed.
Cool. No promises it will be published, but writing is a great exercise in intentional thinking. Just give it a go! And when done, edited and formatted, you can shoot me an e-mail that can be found at the bottom of my About page. Cheers
Some of us are trying to make hay while the sun still shines. AI is rapidly transforming our jobs, clients, and industries — and it’s hard to walk away when the future feels so uncertain for ourselves and our kids. I feel like I have as much as 5 more years in me to make, save and invest.
That is a good point. If you think you only have five years left to get rich, you might as well go all in before that window closes.
Hi, First, when you wrote that you were going back to work due to a purchase which reduced your passive income, I rechecked all my own numbers and projections and decided to FIRE in 2029 when I am 45 instead my original 2027 date. I wanted a bigger buffer so once I quit, money should not be a reason to force me to come back to work. So, thanks for being honest about your journey. Secondly, I have also talked a lot of people’s ears off about FIRE. Everyone is interested thinking FIRE is some magic formula that will instantly make them rich enough to retire early but when I do take them through the nitty gritty, they lose interest or say “they want to have a life”. After many years, I have decided to stop talking about it completely and just work towards my magic number. Lastly, my decision to extend my working years was also due to a personal check to see if I am ready to leave my nurse identity. I realised every friend or acquaintance I had met through work, and I spend a lot of time talking about work when I am not at work. It’s a big part of my life and my social scene is based around it so when I do FIRE and start travelling around the world, I will lose all that and that scares me. I think that was scares a lot of people leaving something they created over half their lifetime, being alone or lonely and if they would be able to come back if they did not like that life. To get over my fears I am planning on taking a 6-month sabbatical in 2029 from work before deciding If I want to make it more permanent.
45 is a great age to FIRE, and taking a sabbatical before FIREing is also a wise move. You don’t even need to take 6 months off… 3 months is good enough. Just make sure you have specific things you want to pursue post FIRE.
There WILL be a malaise and a second-guessing. But you will also naturally figure out new things to do that are meaningful to you. Good luck!
Thanks for all your advice. I have a whole list of things to do once I retire written down.
re: I have a whole list of things to do once I retire written down.
Before I “early retired” at age 55 due to a life threatening health issue, my work colleagues used to ask me, “What are you going to do with all your free time?” I was asked this question so often that I finally came up with a “Retirement Daily Schedule” and posted it on my cubicle wall. People thought it was funny. I think once I retired I might have kept that daily schedule for about a week – for sure less than a month (can’t remember now after almost 17 years being retired) – then moved on to bigger and better things I never imagined pre-retirement that I would be doing. LOL
re: “What I do know is that I’m done with corporate consulting. I’m back to writing in the mornings, taking the kids to school, playing pickleball before lunch, soaking in the hot tub thinking about my next investment, and napping before the afternoon pickup. Evenings belong to the family.
That’s not everyone’s ideal life. But after almost 50 years, it’s mine.”
Sounds like you’ve finally found your perfect life. I am so happy for you! I would definitely be content with such a life – especially the afternoon naps! ;)
Glad to hear you are done with corporate consulting. Life is too short for that kind of nonsense if you can arrange your circumstances such to avoid it.
Thanks! I LOVE napping, especially after a walk after lunch. A joy to follow one’s natural circadian rhythm.
Having the ability to nap when your body tells you that you need to do so is one life’s greatest freedoms. ;)
One other thing is guilt. I know several people in their 40s, 50s who have enough financially and very successful careers, but part of it came from parents who worked hard and long for it. So they feel guilty dropping out of the workplace early, when they may only be able to, or were assisted by, the generosity of others who didn’t.
I also think there is a aspect of investment gain that are unreal. First, you did nothing directly to benefit from those gains so doesn’t feel they are deserved. Second, they are incredibly volatile. MY investment port dropped 80k friday just from the SPY dropping from 748 to 739. Just a healthy correction of 10% will take my investments from 8M to 7M and a frequent 20% correction to 6M, and suddenly I no longer am meeting that FIRE number of 10X or what you choose. Mot of u have lived through a 50% correction which feels quite realistic with the market at these levels, certainly coming in certain tech stocks. So I think the volatility of the markets can produce a degree of uncertainty that makes it hard to count on them.
Why not de-risk and rebalance? That’s what I discussed in my latest newsletter.
I do, as I’m 61 and not really FIRE audience anymore. But if you are in your 30s and 40s and know you have to have market gains over time to keep up, and they will be very volatile, you feel like you can’t put a ton in treasuries and are at the whim of markets.
You asked, Why aren’t more people using their excess financial gains to break free? I would wager that for many, they never dreamed that big, and when they achieve enormous gains they don’t know what to do with it but to either preserve it or consume it. They’ve likely never truly considered what real freedom looks like and never put forth an effort to formulate what they would do with financial windfalls. So instead, when they achieve financial gains they slip into the insatiable pursuit of making more gains, often with the sole purpose of just making more money to just consume more money. Then a conditioning happens over time where the cycle of pursuing more to have more without fully utilizing more to make more takes hold. And for others, I imagine that it might just be the fear of failure and loss that holds them back from doing the difficult work of defining what success would look and feel like, and what to do with it when one achieves it. I’m oversimplifying all this, but you get it.
Great comment!
I had forgotten what living pain-free felt like until 6 months after I left work. Oh man, it was a revelation after 13 years!
Dear FS
I had been retired since January 2021. I had been enjoying every newsletter and waiting for the weekly email I receive, for free, from you. I live in Mexico(retired at 54 in California as a dentist) and travel around the World about 6 months out of the year. The sovereignty and freedom are PRICELESS! I tend to wonder the same.
Why do people not FIRE if the conditions are there? You identified very clearly, INERTIA and fear of losing the STATUS. I would add fear and lack of imagination. We tend to live with the ghosts and spooks of failure. Hard to quit your daily duties, when you had been told your whole life how important it is to work, etc, etc, etc.
You had been sold into duties that are fake. Most people perform what is expected of them; the FIRE people don’t. I use the leverage of location, to make my money go further, in a place I like, Mexico. I collect about 150K per year in my investments.
As a dentist, owner of a large practice,my income was much larger, but my time was all taken. It would be impossible for me to fully own a large home, cars, and travel for 6 months out of the year(staying in an Airbnb) in California.
I decided I would rather retire and use location as a way to increase our quality of life. I’m 61 now, no regrets, and as you FS, I do not understand why people do not do it more often. After the time has passed, you can never buy it again!
Thank you for such great service you provide, you are a visionary and influence more people into doing what is good for them, more than you think!
Hi Adrian,
Fellow general dentist practice owner here. I’m looking to retire around 55 also and travel. Burnout is real at this age.
Awesome Adrian! I appreciate your words. Love that you are enjoying the priceless freedom!
This may be a newbie question but at 38 how am I supposed to take the gains at the peak of tax bracket in a coastal state? This is my biggest consideration, on top of more corporate ladders to go… though this latter is a known tradeoff. Would love more articles con tax strategies from you Sam…
Not a newbie question at all. It’s one of the biggest psychological and financial hurdles to achieving FIRE in a high-tax coastal state.
When you’re earning peak W2 income, selling appreciated assets can feel painful because every extra dollar gets hit hard by federal + state taxes. That’s one reason many people keep climbing the corporate ladder longer than they originally planned. The opportunity cost of leaving a high income can paradoxically make you feel trapped.
That said, remember to focus on after-tax absolute dollars and lifestyle freedom, not just the tax bill itself. Paying large taxes usually means you’ve made large gains.
There are also ways to improve tax efficiency over time:
• Relocating before a liquidity event
• Living off cash flow instead of selling principal
• Tax loss harvesting
• Holding assets long term
• Asset location strategies
• Donor advised funds and charitable bunching
• Installment sales / staged exits
• Building more exposure in tax advantaged or tax efficient vehicles
But here’s the other thing, you don’t have to sell anything to change your life for the better. You can simply feel secure, knowing that you have these huge gains to take the leap of faith to do something new.
For me personally, market returns the last 4 years have been so spectacular that I have indeed moved up my planned retirement date, now less than 3 years away, but I haven’t yet pulled the trigger.
I’m probably one of the ones you’re talking about, in that my net worth is now just over $7 million (including home equity, but >$6 million liquid). So what am I waiting for?
All that said, I’m in my mid 50s. I feel my interest in corporate work starting to wane. There are definitely Mondays when I’d rather sleep in than get up at 5:30 to commute over an hour by train. The time is coming. But for the next few years, I want to make sure I’m 100% ready because at my age, once I step away I’m 99% sure there’s no ability to go back.
Thanks for sharing. What is it that you do for a living to make over $1 million a year? That sounds pretty good to me.
However, did you more recently come into earning this type of money?
You might hate this, but I encourage people to have a minimum net worth equal to 10 times their gross income before breaking free. And then ultimately, 20X their average gross income for the past three years if they want to really feel secure.
See: Net Worth Targets To Shoot For
I’m a senior executive in a S&P 500 company.
I’ve been earning something close to $1 million a year for about 5 years now; before that closer to $500k. Yes, I do want a net worth of 10x my gross income to retire very securely, which is exactly why I’m hanging in there 3 more years. At that point I hope to have $10 million in assets, between my ongoing contributions, market returns and a very nice retirement program my company has where if you’re at least 55 years old with 10+ years of service, they will accelerate vesting of unvested stock when you retire.
However, I don’t plan to wait until $20 million net worth, because I don’t think I’ll need anywhere near that in order to feel comfortable.
What are you waiting for? Your numbers are fantastic. You can stop the chaos and take full control of Monday mornings and beyond. I left my dental practice 5+ years ago. Loved my job, but loved my personal freedom more. You can be sovereign of your own life. At this point, your life is controlled by your environment, not you. Enjoy what you worked so hard for. We have only one way ticket in life, and it does not have a return leg. If you can FIRE, do it without delay. You will have only one regret after that, you did not do it earlier! Good luck to you. Whatever you choose, wish you the best!! Adrian
Thanks for your POV Adrian. I guess I don’t (yet) feel overwhelmingly controlled by my environment. Monday through Friday yes I’m expected to produce. Some days I have 12-15 meetings plus work I personally need to get done, so it can feel like a lot. But I generally get my evenings and weekends to myself, and I have a lot of autonomy to take occasional time off for fun trips.
What I’m really waiting for is to get to ~$10 million. That will allow me to purchase a $2 million home all in cash in my dream U.S. location and live on the $8 million portfolio remaining, without mortgage or really any financial concerns. Withdrawing 5% a year on an $8 million portfolio means about $400k a year before taxes and before considering inflation. I’m sure there are people who think “but I could make even MORE money if I work into my 60s!” But I will consider myself EXTREMELY fortunate to be able to live out the next few decades in the scenario I describe.
Hi Rich – Let me know how you feel once you get to $10 million, and whether you’ll be able to stop
My inkling is that you will feel no different and it will be hard to stop the pursuit of even more money. Why not $15M, $20M, $50M? It never ends.
So the solution once you have enough is to force yourself to stop wanting more.
Cheers
re: “So the solution once you have enough is to force yourself to stop wanting more.”
One day I asked my husband, “When will we have enough for you to be content with what we have?” His answer? “Never” That very much saddened me. He retired in 2005 (21 years ago as of 2026). I retired in 2013 (13 years ago as of 2026). We haven’t had to worry about money for a long time (even way before retiring.) I think people get caught up in the never ending hamster wheel of more, more, more (whether money, things, and/or status) and never stop to consider what they have, if it’s “enough”, and what they really need to be content.
But even though he said “never,” he took the leap of faith and broke free. So I would say his actions were stronger than his words!
Usually, it’s the opposite. People say they have enough or are FIRE, but still go through misery because they want more.
Sam,
Why aren’t more people using their excess financial gains to break free?
I appreciate how you look at money. It is a privilege to be able to make these choices, these plans.
We retired earlier than anticipated due to husband’s illness. He had an impactful career and could step out with the generous cushion of an own occupation DI policy for the first 4 years. It gave us quite a glide path to adjust. He has lost his executive function (he’s still brilliant, but one thing at a time now) and I stepped up more – money, meds, management of whatever is too much for him at that moment. The market has boiled and churned and overflowed, giving us an abundance. I am now aggressively rolling some of these IRA gains to our Roth, paying off the last of our “age in place” home and protecting ourselves from market frenzy. Taxes are historically low, and the penalty for going from MFJ to S will be overwhelming for the survivor if we don’t take some action. I sell shares annually, keeping 2 years of funds in a HYSA IRA to protect ourselves from having to sell in a down market, and will convert shares (or cash) to Roth when the market is down.
Building and implementing the plan was a lot of work, but just because something is hard doesn’t mean it is bad. I think that is part of why so many don’t make a plan for these market gains. It’s hard. Big decisions, facing reality, checking and rechecking (or trusting an advisor) to do it exactly right. “The market keeps going up so why do it now?” is an easy default. Small things (or big things) take up our days and weeks; suddenly months or even years have passed.
Grateful that you think and analyze and write The Financial Samurai. Deeply important money conversations with friends and peers don’t happen, and not all of our grown kids are ready for it. Like faith, we are all in a different place, on a different path.
I don’t copy what you do, how you invest or what you consider important. I do value that you write and study and share what you think about so many things: money, family and the future.
Thanks.
Thanks for your feedback and story. It is great your husband has you. I hope the children come pay more visits too.
This quote is what I fear as just 9 years ago I was 39 and my son was born. Now my knee is injured and life feels like it’s zooming by quicker.
“ suddenly months or even years have passed.”
Best to you
re: “ suddenly months or even years have passed.”
In my case, I’ve “lost” some TWO DECADES! It’s hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that Y2K was OVER a quarter century ago. My year 2000 high school graduating son has turned into a middle aged man. Even my “baby” is in his early 40’s. How on earth did THAT happen???
It is amazing.. and I wonder if people who are MORE sensitive to the passage of time are more willing to take FIRE seriously than those who don’t.
I think the answer is yes. B/c when my friend died at 15, I realized at an early age that life is not guaranteed. We have to make the most of it.
Be sure to read “Die with Zero” by Bill Perkins.
Bill actually started reading Financial Samurai for years before publishing the book.
But also, if you are worth over $100 million like Bill is, it’s easier to say die so the zero. So watch out!
At a 100M net worth, Bill is failing miserably in the stated mission of dying with zero!
1
For me reaching FI has made it easier to keep working
2
Most of the fire Bolgers are still working so I might as well too
3.
I have flexibility in my job and feel comfortable using it knowing I have FU money
4
Earning more money is not bad as we can always up grade discretionary spending
5
My wife wants to keep working so world slow travel not a optional
I’m with you Sam. I’m 50 and about to retire. Why? Because financially I can, and because as you so perfectly said, I find it absurd to take instructions from other adults who are (most of the time) just carrying on a bureaucratic imperative. Gotta get those TPS reports filled out! I want to manage my own time and pursue my own interests, which may or may not include making more money. That’ll be my choice. My wife is younger and wants to keep working for a few more years. Cool, she loves it. My kids are starting high school and I will be there for them.
Why aren’t more people convinced to retire when they have enough money to do so? My opinion: (1) They think they need way more money than they actually do. They are both afraid to run out of money AND they want to live off dividends and die with 5MM in the bank (for reasons that are unclear). (2) They are uncomfortable going against convention or giving the appearance of “not doing anything”. The “stigma” another commenter mentioned. My father-in-law FINALLY retired this year at age 72. When we congratulated him, he spent the next 20 minutes explaining how he was going to stay busy, he had stuff to do, he’s not going to sit around … as if he had to convince us that he was not a free-loading hippie. We wanted him to retire 10 years ago! Several visits with him were 2 days instead of 4 because he “had to get back for work.” I can’t help but think he sacrificed a decade of pretty meaningful time with his kids and grandkids for a few more TPS reports and the conventional appearance of productivity. They threw him a retirement party that was very special and he will never see them again. Absurdity!
At all ages, I would not assume many people hate their job and/or boss, even if they claim they do in casual conversation. Many just keep working because they really can do as much as they want to do and their job/boss is meh. Work is different now, with much more flexibility. I golf 3 days during the week and still work “full time”. With no kids in the house anymore I have plenty of time to work and do what I want.
I agree that there is definitely always a reason not to be free. But I am talking to people who don’t like their jobs and have people at home who want to spend time with them.
I think it’s great to be able to earn money playing golf three times a week. That’s what I saw during Covid with a lot of people who worked at Google, Uber, and other big tech companies who got paid to play Pickleball. I even started wondering whether FIRE was becoming obsolete given all the flexibility.
But sadly, more companies have called their employees back to the office to make them work for their compensation now.
What is it that you do? I would love to look into that occupation and I’m sure other people would as well. Thank you for sharing.
Ha, I am part-owner of a firm with a great staff working for me (who I am also very good to). You right, there are always reasons not to fire. By the way, did you have 10x your gross income saved when you chose to fire? That seems very aggressive and I have felt understanding you yearly expenses is just as important so you understand what level of spending you want and can afford. I encourage all if they want to FIRE to first track their expenses for 2-3 years and reflect on that lived experience. If you spent 200k per year and were very happy then use the 20-25x expense NW goal. Someone who has made 1M per year for the last 5 years but was only spending 200k per year and stashing away the rest and was perfectly happy, may not need 10M to FIRE. 5M may be perfectly good.
I did. My base salary when I left was $250,000 and I had a new worth of about $3 million. It was tight, but I had my wife, who was three years younger than me, still working and providing healthcare insurance. So when she turned my age when I left, she FIREd too.
Basically everything I write is based on First Town experience and crunching the numbers. So that is how I got to 10 X average gross annual income at the minimum before retiring. And ideally, shooting for 20X.
So in my case, it would have been more responsible if i had left with a $5M net worth. But I just couldn’t take it anymore, and I will still Young and have many options.
and it has worked for you! so it was correct :). I do think yearly expenses can be a very real barometer as well. Every financial planning tool demands a yearly spending input so need to know that to have a reliable plan, and reliable means confidence, which can lead to FIRE.
Echo this. Could FIRE, been following you since the start Sam! Have 33x my gross income and 50x my expenses.
Main reason is wife is teaching and kids are final years at school. So can’t do big travel. I obviously take the 12 weeks of kids holidays.
So within the confines of this I wfh 2-3 days a week and head in to see my team and have lunch with friends 2 days a week.
Gym/health prioritise for tennis/squash/sport with kids, cooking/shopping for family, and try to see two friends a week for social are what fills the mid week
Also I am nervous about AI so why not earn the silly cash to extra protect the family. I am just buying index with never sell / keep it simple mindset to be able to hand it on once I lose my marbles. Capital gains in Oz is much higher than the US
Essentially I do what I want anyway as my boss is overseas and my team are great. So the extra 1-2 days that I actually work are good for my brain and clients seem to appreciate it – I’m not immune to having people appreciate my problem solving skills. (Am in professional financial consulting)
For folks who have more than enough money AND hate their jobs, I believe the reasons they won’t FIRE are because:
1. Favor mainstream behaviors and societal values (employed=good; unemployed=failure/lazy)
2. Don’t want to work the numbers (almost all fears can be adequately quantified)
3. Loss of community / network from work
4. Unwillingness to pay for things they’re used to getting for free/discounted (healthcare, business dining and travel)
One aspect that may be harder to quantify is support for parents and offsprings. These expenses could be high and go on for many years.
FIRE requires a person to become directly responsible for their own future. No one is coming to save you if you make poor FIRE choices. It is a very tough sell. I can see why most people want to remain worker bees.
Funny, I thought the same thing. One of the things I miss most about working is the community and camaraderie. Plus, now that I’m FIRE, holidays, weekends, and vacations are meaningless. Every day is Friday, a holiday, or a vacation to me. That might seem exciting and good, but for me, it’s not, for the most part:-).
Do you plan to go back to work then?
What about playing sports, joining a club, a theatre group, volunteering, joining a meetup group with whatever you are interested in, travel, etc?
I’ve applied for jobs, but I can’t even get an interview. If I were offered a job, honestly, I don’t know that I’d take it. I’d probably work for a few months and get sick of the B.S. Maybe I just need a reminder of how most jobs suck.
Most of my time now is spent managing my portfolio of eight doors (mostly single-family rentals in other states), fine-tuning my tax strategy, building the business, getting the kids to and from school, and keeping the home in order so my wife doesn’t have to do as much outside of her 9-5 job. I also look after my disabled brother-in-law when my mother-in-law goes to work. So, I keep VERY busy. If I had a job, my brother-in-law wouldn’t get the care he needs for a better life. We go on walks daily, listen/sing to music, play games, watch sports (mostly bowling), and spend a lot of time together.
Still, I somewhat miss working at a job. Again, I don’t think I’d last more than a few weeks to months. After that, I’d probably have to bail.
I loved your article. You ask great questions and give wonderful insights into life. Thank you!
Hi Christopher, taking care of your brother-in-law and working on your rental properties is plenty purposeful. To help someone else live a better life is true generosity and thoughtfulness. Well done!
This is actually a very good point, when you have no formal commitments like a job: the holidays, vacation days, the excitement after lunch on a Friday , knowing in a few more hours the weekend off is coming is lost. When 365 days of no commitment is your life, the 365 days off are not appreciated, because its no longer scarce.
Is this what you’ve been feeling as well?
I have felt the opposite. After fire, I become much more sensitive about the passage of time, therefore much more appreciative. I try to avoid rush-hour for Food and Transportation as much as possible, for example, because it seems silly to follow the herd.
I also feel that Everyday of freedom is a great blessing that cannot be taken for granted.
I was FIRE before there was a FIRE movement. I started saving hard in 1991 with a negative net worth and a goal to retire by 40. I missed by 8 years, but I nearly doubled my retirement number. I spent the last 3 years of my career asking myself, “if I never work again, will I be OK with that?”. I was and I still am. That was 13 years ago and I have never, NEVER missed a single day of work. This article really hit home! Thanks Sam.
Great article Sam. It’s a topic I’ve been wrestling with for a while now. After retiring from the corporate grind 3 years ago at 52, I now work for a non profit doing really meaningful and important work. I am paid for that work. But my skills and my temperment have led to more, and more,and more responsibility. Now I’m feeling fairly maxed, again, but doing very rewarding and important work. Also for much less money than in corporate. I dont need to work so I wonder whether I should be, or not. Or should I go part time perhaps. I’m wrestling with it and am still undecided.
Sam,
I have been following your content for a couple of years now and have bought your books, which in honesty have been life changing. Your latest book i’ve listened to on Audible 3 times now, and i really resonate with how you have moved through the corporate world and exited the other side, at the right time. Firstly, I wanted to thank you for all the content you share as it’s nothing i have ever really come across before.
I am a 29 year old from the UK and currently following your mantra on living on as little as possible and saving as aggressively as possible.
I do often find myself getting frustrated with the lack of social time i have + it makes me doubt if what i’m doing is the right thing. I also dont really have a ‘number’ pre FIRE as every time i feel like i’m on track to hit it, it grows again which feels like a mental burden alot of the time.
I was wondering if you offer coaching style calls. I have some questions i’d love to ask you over 30 or 60 minutes, so if this is a service you offer please let me know what the cost is.
Thanks again for everything you have done. I am sure you get it alot but i genuinley haven’t resonated with a personal finance methodology in the same way i have yours.
Em
Hi Sam,
The “Retire or not – the dilemma…” is real for most people. 90%, or may be even 99% people struggle with this dilemma and do nothing. Change is scary. The Poem “The Road Not Taken”, by Robert Frost, explains it best.
I am from INDIA, retired @age=41, and 47 today. Not as experienced and insightful as yourself. I read all your posts for the past several years, and look forward to your thought provoking content each week.
About a year ago, I delved deeply into this very topic. I wrote a detailed document about this for an ex-colleague (Age=52) of mine who is in the same dilemma. I thought of ways to summarize that content for replying to your post, however, I could not trim it any more without losing its essence, to fit in here.
Is there a way I can share a PDF (7 pages), with you? I understand you are the writer here. However, I thought I will ask anyway. You may choose to share it further with your audience, or just leave it at your table as you think appropriate. Please let me know…
Thanks and regards,
Arun Aich.
India.