{"id":117,"date":"2024-03-11T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-03-11T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/moneywithkatie.com\/forged-in-the-fire\/"},"modified":"2025-09-03T18:51:49","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T18:51:49","slug":"forged-in-the-fire","status":"publish","type":"essays","link":"https:\/\/moneywithkatie.com\/essays\/forged-in-the-fire\/","title":{"rendered":"Forged in the FI\/RE"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

I read an essay<\/span><\/a> the other day from a guy who really, really hates the Financial Independence\/Retire Early (FI\/RE) movement. Jared, who writes the We\u2019re Gonna Get Those Bastards<\/em> newsletter, did not mince words: \u201cThis is the f***ing stupidest thing I have ever heard of in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a personal finance writer and semi-loyal FI\/RE believer, I felt like I was eavesdropping on a conversation I wasn\u2019t supposed to hear. Fortunately, I\u2019m always ready to indulge in some good old-fashioned shit-talking\u2014regardless of the subject!\u2014so I rolled up my sleeves and prepared to be titillated by his unfettered hot takes.<\/p>\n

His argument boiled down to this: Decades upon decades of unstructured free time to stress over the stock market\u2019s every move is not an aspirational existence. And as a chiefly \u201canti-consumption\u201d movement, FI\/RE pledges a life of less<\/em>: less work, less money, and less stuff. What it provides in spades\u2014see: time\u2014isn\u2019t a good thing, he argues, because without those other things to fill it with (work, money, stuff), you end up \u201cagonizing and obsessing\u201d over every dollar. <\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to consume nothing and produce nothing,\u201d he writes, noting that the movement is full of \u201cwhite people in Colorado\u201d (the snort I snart!) who are \u201cpredominantly liberal\u201d because \u201cno self-respecting conservative\u201d would ever quit their job to \u201ccover Hey Soul Sister on ukulele.\u201d Like I said: a rich text.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
>
\n \u201c<\/span>This recounting of the goal\u2014the vision of 50 years of blank space\u2014struck me as existentially fraught.\u201d<\/span>\n <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n
\n

Generally, these colorful points weren\u2019t new to me. He even mentioned a theoretical snag I\u2019ve covered before\u2014that it doesn\u2019t scale<\/span><\/a>\u2014and that someone<\/em> needs to keep clocking in and out for 40 years so the underlying companies fueling stock market returns will rise in value and produce that blessed 9%-per-year-before-inflation juice. Won\u2019t someone think of the shareholders?!<\/em><\/p>\n

What did<\/em> unsettle my spirit, though, was his seemingly harmless description of the typical FI\/RE devotee:<\/p>\n

\u201cJoe Millennial graduates from college and gets a job in the cube farm for $80,000 a year. He gets the cheapest apartment possible, rides a bike instead of driving, and eats ramen noodles. He does this for ten years, saving up to 70% of his income, and investing it in low-cost index funds. At the end of ten years, he has a million or so saved up, more if he is lucky. At that point, he retires to play the guitar or paint happy little trees, and gradually draws down his savings over time. If the stock market keeps going up as planned, he can stay retired for 50 more years, and get really good at guitar.\u201d<\/p>\n

This was, of course, the promise that initially drew me in like a moth to an open flame\u2014you\u2019re telling me I can compress my working life into one-quarter of the time then sail into the sunset, never to labor again?<\/em> Where do I sign?! <\/p>\n

But for some reason, this<\/em> recounting of the goal\u2014the vision of 50 years of blank space\u2014struck me as existentially fraught.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

FI\/RE lives somewhere in a tangle of Venn diagrams with hustle culture, productivity and business advice, and other maxims about creating a life of financial abundance. There are different sects: Some emphasize anti-consumption, as Jared noted, while others are more concerned with creating as much \u201cpassive income\u201d as possible. <\/p>\n

One thing is true of all: In an effort to accelerate the path to not working at all, many adherents work a lot<\/em>. <\/p>\n

Somewhere in my mainlining of these philosophies, my wires got crossed. I conflated being busy with being responsible; productive with being profitable. A sense of ambient hustle urged me forward toward an imaginary (or rather, quantified) finish line. I filled every spare moment with a podcast, newsfeed, or task, reflexively stuffing my day until it suffocated, removing any capacity for broader reflection. <\/p>\n

And with good reason! In school, this methodology worked: At the beginning of every semester, there was a syllabus prescribing a finite number of assignments, tests, and exams that, once finished, marked an endpoint that meant one to three months of uninterrupted downtime. One could<\/em> get ahead, and the year was punctuated with long windows of respite between sprints.<\/p>\n

But in the working world, \u201cgetting ahead\u201d is an illusion. There is no point at which the semester ends, no natural stopping point. Instead, it\u2019s week after week of that amnesiac delusion that \u201cif I can just work extra this<\/em> weekend and clear this<\/em> to-do list, I\u2019ll reach a point where I\u2019m ahead and can take a breather.\u201d Unfortunately, working \u201cfaster\u201d usually just means working more<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
>
\n \u201c<\/span>In this context, FI\/RE was an irresistible dangling carrot.\u00a0\u201d<\/span>\n <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n
\n

In this context, FI\/RE\u2014the promise of a career finish line you can sprint past, into the land of compounding returns and endless summer vacation\u2014was an irresistible dangling carrot. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s important to recall, of course, that most people who \u201cretire\u201d early end up doing some other job or filling their time with something productive (otherwise, as Jared put it, your \u201cvisions of going to the beach, traveling, or visiting the grandkids\u201d turn into spending your days \u201cin the living room with the brown carpet with Fox News turned up to 11\u201d). <\/p>\n

The point is, life is long, and if you\u2019re just going to get another job\u2014or otherwise devote your time and effort to something productive\u2014in retirement, the thinking goes, What\u2019s the rush? Why not just make money doing something you like, so you don\u2019t have to rely on the fickle mistress of the public markets for 40+ years?<\/em><\/p>\n

I was reminded of a conversation I had with a friend a few years ago who was self-employed working part-time. She only worked in the afternoons, took random days off, and approached work at a leisurely pace. As I worked four jobs simultaneously to produce as much margin as possible, I couldn\u2019t understand why she wasn\u2019t more interested in maximizing her income. When she asked me why I<\/em> was working so hard, I scoffed at how silly the question was: \u201cSo I can get to the point where I can work however I want,\u201d I explained. Duh!<\/em> <\/p>\n

She didn\u2019t seem to understand. \u201cOh,\u201d she replied, \u201cWell\u2026I already work however I want.\u201d Mic = dropped.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve spent the better part of the last four years on a six- or seven-days-per-week schedule, putting in between eight and 10 bonus hours every weekend for maximum output. It began during the pandemic when I started working from home, and my personal and professional lives blurred inextricably together. Seeing my desk from the couch felt like an ever-present invitation; a reproach against my Sunday morning lazing. <\/p>\n

While at first I enjoyed the edge working all weekend gave me, somewhere along the line, it stopped providing an edge and became a necessity: In order to keep up with the pace I had set for myself (and the expectations that created!), I had<\/em> to work every day. FI\/RE, I figured, was the reward.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

But this past weekend, I did an experiment: I avoided my laptop and phone entirely, knowing how even my purest attempts at good, old-fashioned doom scrolling had a tendency to drift mindlessly into Slack or my inbox, blacking back in two hours later and three folders deep in Google Drive. <\/p>\n

Hungry for the artificial sugar rush of infinite feeds and stimulation, my brain started flipping through a Rolodex of fragmented memories and ideas, not unlike the way I compulsively scroll my own Photos app when there\u2019s no wi-fi on long flights.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
>
\n \u201c<\/span>After my weekend of nothingness, I felt a magical polarity I had long forgotten.\u201d<\/span>\n <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n
\n

But eventually, I read. I napped. I walked. I cooked and ate. After about 36 hours, I felt my nervous system beginning to unclench. Is this how people lived in the eighties?!<\/em> I wondered, basking in the anachronistic glow of only having Large Screen, as Small and Medium Screens were safely shelved away. What a strange feeling to be so alone with your thoughts<\/em>, I reflected, grasping at whatever memory floated to the surface and luxuriating in the sense of space.<\/p>\n

With so much time on my hands, I thought a lot about what Jared wrote\u2014how he prefers the 80-hour work week and his favorite time is Sunday night, because he\u2019s always so excited to get up on Monday morning. After my weekend of nothingness, I felt a magical polarity I had long forgotten.<\/p>\n

Paradoxically, I realized, FI\/RE represented anti-<\/em>hustle to Jared: a movement that suggested doing less. My <\/em>interpretation was the opposite\u2014that in order to ever<\/em> do less, you must first do far more. <\/p>\n

But I wondered: Rather than resolving to live the life you actually want once you\u2019ve surpassed a magic number<\/em>, what if you tried living that way <\/em>now? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Whether that means more frequent vacations, a schedule with less pressure, or simply approaching day-to-day life differently, it\u2019ll almost definitely mean it\u2019ll take a lot longer to hit \u201cthe number\u201d\u2014but you\u2019ll no longer be in any hurry to get there. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I read an essay the other day from a guy who really, really hates the Financial Independence\/Retire Early (FI\/RE) movement. Jared, who writes the We\u2019re Gonna Get Those Bastards newsletter, did not mince words: \u201cThis is the f***ing stupidest thing I have ever heard of in my life.\u201d As a personal finance writer and semi-loyal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":2503,"template":"","meta":[],"categories":[37,52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-117","essays","type-essays","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-financial-independence","category-money-psychology"],"yoast_head":"\nForged in the FI\/RE - Money with Katie<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/moneywithkatie.com\/essays\/forged-in-the-fire\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Forged in the FI\/RE - Money with Katie\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I read an essay the other day from a guy who really, really hates the Financial Independence\/Retire Early (FI\/RE) movement. 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