I find the premise to be ridiculous, and the reality of success limited to a tiny handful of people. Simple facts of fire and wild areas make it highly unlikely to succeed. Let's use retiring at 40 as an example. To make the income required almost certainly requires college, so that leaves about 17–18 years of working. If you average $60,000 for the first eight years, and $100,000 for the next ten years, you earned a total of $1.48 million. By the way, those earnings are above the norm. Taxes will take you down to $1 million. That leaves about $50,000 per year net income average. Basic decent cost of living is $3,000 per month minimum. Here's where the FIRE gurus start to get crazy. Live in your parents basement! Drive a $500 car! Eat beans and rice! Think about QUALITY OF LIFE. Is working really that horrible that you want to live like a bum for two decades to avoid it? So you have about $14,000 a year to save. Lets say life doesn't get in your way - things like kids, a wife who doesn't share your desire to do nothing, car breaking down, etc. You will save about $260,000 much of it saved after age thirty. As a millennial, you hold the mistaken impression that the stock market is a one-way, no lose proposition. Quora today is brimming with questions about the “crash" where stocks have fallen 13%. I've got news for you, you ain't seen nothing yet. In my lifetime I have seen a half dozen markets where the danger of losing half your money was real. For FIRE to work you have to aggressively grow $260k into some decent amount and then pray that the next 30–40 years doesn't have any economic calamities. And it will have calamities, you can count on that. But let's say you get your $260,000 up to $400,000 by age 40. Using 5% withdrawal rate, that is $20,000 per year. I don't see a life worth living on $20k per year. So you decide to supplement your income, maybe you are good with your hands so you pick up some carpentry work. Or work in starting a blog. Yes, WORK. You are WORKING. I don't care if you are on a beach in Maui or commuting to an office in Chicago - if you are trading your time for money you are NOT retired, you are working.
