FIRE

[red_slr]

CrgT16 said:

It’s all good though, I enjoy reading this thread and does give some good ideas but FIRE is just not for me, not in its pure form.

IME very very few people practice FIRE in its "pure form". The vast majority accept that quality of life is key and they balance this off with pushing their FIRE date out by a few years.

[red_slr]

Halitosis said:

I wonder about the example being set by an early retiree to their children - I grew up watching both my parents working hard with multiple jobs and am sure that instilled something of a work ethic in me. If a child only really sees their parents 'in retirement', might their expectations of adulthood be a little skewed?

Having said that, I do appreciate there would be benefits (time spent together, learning about budgeting etc.), but I'm not sure how much a child will listen to their parents bang on about how hard they USED TO work!

Don't have kids here so does not matter for us.

I suspect if you ask 100 men and 100 women would they like to spend their days with their kids you will get 2 very different answers.

[NickCQ]

red_slr said:

I suspect if you ask 100 men and 100 women would they like to spend their days with their kids you will get 2 very different answers

Particularly after lockdown!

[768]

red_slr said:

Don't have kids here so does not matter for us.

I suspect if you ask 100 men and 100 women would they like to spend their days with their kids you will get 2 very different answers.

No and double fk no?

[princeperch]

CrgT16 said:

All this FIRE if literally is a galaxy, imho.
Sure we can all lead more frugal lives minimizing the income needs and being able to retire early by retiring with less. That is just balancing your spreadsheet.

I don’t see as paying a mortgage anything spectacular, it all depends on earnings/outgoing vs mortgage value.
If I spend nothing, have a cheaper house I can live mortgage free very quickly. Heck I could even sell my house now and buy 2-3 houses with cash in a cheaper area!

Also FIRE must allude to people that are unable to strike a good life/work balance or they don’t take much joy from their work. Not criticising as such, more an observation. I could see myself retiring at 40... after the novelty wears off I would be bored. Retire on a tight budget... no thanks.

Others claim is all about passive income... if that income comes from property or a company you are not technically retired... granted will feel like you are but it’s not a active full retirement.

Time for family... great to spend time with your children when they are young... except when they go to school you are spending most of your time without them so there’s only so much time you can spend at home and with your wife and being this interesting/exciting life... every single day it probably wears off too. Then kids go to college/uni are not spending time with you either... what are your plans? backpack traveling? Yes I suppose that’s an adventure.

Anyways as said not criticising, just my point of view and indeed the concept of being frugal is a sound one.
I am lucky as I manage to work part time a so does my wife so we can see our children a lot including pick up from school, we enjoy our jobs and have a balanced life. Yes we have a mortgage but that doesn’t consume my days... it’s getting paid with no hassle.

It’s all good though, I enjoy reading this thread and does give some good ideas but FIRE is just not for me, not in its pure form.

These are fair enough observations. In total my mortgage borrowings have been 235k initially taking the first mortgage in 2011. I managed to shave 30k off that balance by selling my 1 bed flat I originally was living in and buying a larger but slightly shabby and cheaper house which we have been renovating and is now a 4 bed house. In total we've spent about 70k renovating the house which I've done mostly out of income. So not the largest mortgage in the world but not the smallest. I've managed to hammer it down by basically not having any significant savings and ploughing the spare cash into the mortgage. I've also managed to consistently get better rates by regularly remortgaging when the LTV has improved.

So strangely enough I've managed to pay off the house by moving "down the ladder" by buying a Slightly cheaper house, adding value and then benefiting from that. I paid 388k for the house in 2014 and it's now worth 650k.

[NickCQ]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Yep, FIRE thinking seems to be based on the assumption that you would keep the same annual spending in retirement as in work.
I think that this is probably a bad assumption - given a load of extra leisure time I would end up spending much more.

[xeny]

Welshbeef said:

xeny said:

I can understand the others but what is the tax advantage of OEICs ?

https://techzone.adviserzone.com/anon/public/investment/Guide-Taxation-of-Collectives

Thank - I must be being exceptionally dim in missing the advantage - that page literally says

"The tax rules aim to put the investor in broadly the same position as if they had invested in the fund’s assets directly rather than through the fund."

[mikeiow]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Yup....I guess the 'extreme' FIRE community is about living very frugally from 40s onwards.
I feel that 'extreme' anything is mostly wrong 50-60 feels early enough - still healthy enough to 'do stuff', not so young as to get bored.

Our 'kids' are at the end of their studying years, and mid-50s to me feels like a great time to be able to step back from the day job and figure our what other things we want to do.
Some of that will, I am sure, involve helping the kids along the way....maybe visiting to help DIY some stuff to their future houses, etc. Just visiting them wherever they end up.
Some of it will be stuff we have put off for YEARS - house 'upkeep' (decorating, clearing out, gardening), travel (ha - not until 2022, I suspect), more exercise, taking cheaper rate ski trips, reading MUCH more, watching more films, binging some series perhaps.....chilling. Maybe home-brewing. Who knows.
So much to do, which always gets pushed aside when you have a 9-5 (or 8-6, or whatever)

Work? I will miss people I deal with, around the globe, I am certain. But then again, I will do my best to socially keep in touch with the ones I really get on with, and one day hope to visit them and share more beers!

The FIRE tips & threads like this can be pretty helpful along the way. Certainly helped me focus investments about 15 years ago, which now puts us in the position we want to be.
Attending too many funerals helps focus the mind too, I found.....

[BoRED S2upid]

red_slr said:

Don't have kids here so does not matter for us.

I suspect if you ask 100 men and 100 women would they like to spend their days with their kids you will get 2 very different answers.

I’d quite happily look after my kids every day if I didn’t have to work. Had a random day off today to look after our 3 year old we’ve been for a bike ride to the beach then the park, coffee and cake and home. I’m now watching the TDF while she plays with her teddies. What’s not to like about that? Beats being stuck in an office all day sat at your desk drinking coffee.