I spend a lot of time in the r/financialindependence subreddit, mostly looking for good suggestions or inspiration, but too often I find people in their 20’s looking to FIRE. I find this wholly depressing.
More often than not, these people working entry level jobs and planning to retire by their early 30’s. Many times they’re working high paying tech jobs. They’ve barely gotten their beaks wet in the world of work, many are still heavily in debt, and they’re talking about cutting their careers short for the dream of early retirement.
I have to say that I respect that these people are getting financially savvy at a young age. I certainly didn’t. Someone told me to put 10% in my 401k, so I did. I wasn’t really thinking about retirement, and I definitely wasn’t being financially smart with the rest of my money. So kudos to all of you in your 20’s who already have a plan. It’s good to make plans.
The problem is that it seems more of the young people looking to FIRE are doing it for the wrong reasons. They’re chasing that Instagram life. They want an automated income so they can travel the world and somehow become better people for it. And that’s not how it works.
In life, you find out who you are and what you’re made of by working hard at something, by overcoming obstacles, by persevering and often succeeding. Yes, reaching the goal of financial independence checks all those boxes, but retiring in one’s 30’s does not. Having the option to walk away from a job in your 30’s should be the goal. Being able to decide your own career path without fear of failure is something few people that young get to do. That’s financial independence. But thinking that completely walking away from the world of work in your 30’s will make you happy or a better person is foolish.
For starters, many people, myself included, don’t even get to the good part of their career until their mid to late 30’s. It’s a shitty fact of the working world. It is extremely rare for someone to wind up in their dream job making more than enough money in their 20’s. Even if you’re one of the many brilliant coders I’ve met in my career getting paid $200k right out of college, chances are, you’re doing the shit work. It’s no surprise you’d want to retire early if you’re working long hours, doing work you don’t enjoy and don’t feel you have the freedom to choose your own career path. Financial independence is definitely the right goal for someone like this in their 20’s, but not retiring early.
Here’s why. If you stay the course through your 20’s, saving as much of your pay as you can, and suddenly find yourself in your mid-30’s with a huge nest egg and complete financial independence, you’re staring down the barrel of an amazing career. You’d be well experienced and likely have a decent network of connections in your industry. If your job was trending in a direction you liked, you can ride it out and see where it goes. If you don’t like the direction of your career, you can change it without fear of needing that income. Hell you can even change careers entirely! Maybe a startup opportunity comes along, you can take that risk.
In my experience, it’s easy to have a myopic view of your field early in your career. I for one had virtually no understanding of the tech world when I started. I thought enterprise IT at a cable company was just the same as working at a software company. Boy was I wrong. Whatever your chosen career, your field is wider than you think, and there may be amazing opportunities lurking out there that will take your career in a direction you may have never thought of. Sometimes instead of chasing your dream job you’ll find that the job you find along the way is challenging, rewarding and fun, and that will do for right now.
The quest for financial independence is a long road for just about anyone. To spend one’s early career moping about hating your job and dreaming of retiring at 35 is wasted effort. Stay the course, but find a way to enjoy the journey. Create opportunities for yourself by staying educated about your field and making connections. Look for ways to improve your life both at work and at home. You may find that somewhere along the way you’ve started enjoying yourself, and retiring early would be nice, but not right now. And once you really reach FI with potential decades of a career ahead of you, you may find you’re perfectly happy to keep working on your own terms. That’s true independence.
Freed by 50 