Financial Independence / Retire Early
 

Any FI/RE types on this board? Searching through the first three pages didn't show anything active. Seems to be a rather pertinent topic given today's economic news. Our family is not there, but we're continuing to save for as long as I stay employed. Besides, I figure if I lose the medical later in life it would be nice to say "I'm done" instead of "holy crap, what do I do?".

I know there are plenty of other forums for this, but I figured it might be interesting to see how many other folks in this community were interested/pursuing it. Besides, I can't keep talking about COVID. Maybe this could be a nice distraction.

I'm in the FI/RE community. Have been for the last year or so. Just starting out and playing catch up from years of not being in preparation mode, but in survival mode.

Well I won't hit you with all the cheesy savings rate/magic number stuff, since this forum's only somewhat anonymous, but how far out do you think you are at this point? And what FI/RE specific forums you subscribe to or participate in?

We're probably realistically a decade and a half or two out. Savings took a fairly steep dive when I left the Army and got back into flying planes, and the projection for the pension is a lot different, assuming I stay in the Reserves. We'll see what happens, but so far still employed in this industry. Hopefully it stays that way. Learned about FI mostly through reddit and bogleheads. Been at it in some form or fashion for about 6 years now, so still in the boring middle of the journey. I had a really insufferable Battalion XO when I was a Company XO to thank for the google search that sent me down this path.

I want to be, but I have to get my training debt paid off first.


Here are 3 good videos which explain FIRE and how to get started:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5S2cRNveZgg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyF40JydVNU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvJ4bwnAHnE

And of course one of the original websites about it: https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/

The FIRE community is very active on Reddit I think.

Choosefi.com is a podcast I listen to as well as MMM

I was fairly active on the reddit community in 15/16/17, but it's (to some extent) turned into a dead sub. And I'll have to credit Mr. Money Moustache with getting me into FI/RE, even if I'm more of an FI guy these days. I'll have to check out the videos, thanks.

I'll have to check the podcasts out.

I'm a big Bogleheads fan. Lots of FIRE types on there. Very few airline pilots seem to be on the forum. It seems to be dominated by tech and medicine, but still has good investing advice for anyone.

Isn't that interesting? You'd figure with all the worst case planning we have to do it might extend to our finances. And there's a fair amount of crossover between tech and aviation (as in people that have moved between the two careers).

Word of caution about FIRE...

It only works if the vast majority of people DON'T do it. The more people who expect to live off of savings/investments, the fewer folks who are actually available to produce goods and services... then you get inflation, which over time nullifies your FIRE war-chest.

If everybody on your block has $10M (except Joe who has $15M), but nobody wants to work, the neighbor's kid gets to name his price to mow your lawn... he might charge $5K. And Joe will pay it, he can afford to. Everybody else has to mow their own lawn, unless they want to get in a bidding war with Joe.

If FIRE catches on big, most of you will have to come out of "retirement" at some point. Unless you're Joe.

The only reason seniors can retire is because there's normally a lot of younger folks to provide goods and services (although that's actually problematic in some societies today). Also society is sympathetic to them being old and infirm.