As an analogy, I'm a big believer in caloric intake determining weight for most people. Consume more calories than you use and you will tend to gain weight. Consume less and you will tend to lose weight. So to get a caloric deficit you can exercise more or eat less. But... it's 90-95% diet.
Bringing this back to FIRE, the key lesson I think is that what matters in having financial freedom is controlling costs not maximizing income. Expenses can (and often do) _easily_ rise to your level of income. People fall in these traps of thinking they need a $5m house instead of a $2m house, or a bigger boat or a third vacation home.
But if you control your expenses AND can be happy then you doubly benefit: you increase your savings (and thus the time required until you have financial independence) AND you decrease how much money you need in retirement because you're accustomed to lower costs.
So the point of FIRE is (IMHO) not to seek satisfaction through material things but rather through your approach to life and your experiences.
I've seen this with coworkers who convince themselves they need $50,000pa/child for private school, $500k+ plus to pay for each child's Ivy League education and so forth and kill themselves to achieve that. Worse, they can become bitter and unhappy as they realize how long that will take them to achieve even as the top 1% of earners.
So not only are they working super-hard for longer they're seeing their families less and bringing home this negativity and entitlement. All of that is a prison of your own making.
FIRE philosophically is about really examining what you need and what's really important.
As an analogy, I'm a big believer in caloric intake determining weight for most people. Consume more calories than you use and you will tend to gain weight. Consume less and you will tend to lose weight. So to get a caloric deficit you can exercise more or eat less. But... it's 90-95% diet.
Bringing this back to FIRE, the key lesson I think is that what matters in having financial freedom is controlling costs not maximizing income. Expenses can (and often do) _easily_ rise to your level of income. People fall in these traps of thinking they need a $5m house instead of a $2m house, or a bigger boat or a third vacation home.
But if you control your expenses AND can be happy then you doubly benefit: you increase your savings (and thus the time required until you have financial independence) AND you decrease how much money you need in retirement because you're accustomed to lower costs.
So the point of FIRE is (IMHO) not to seek satisfaction through material things but rather through your approach to life and your experiences.
I've seen this with coworkers who convince themselves they need $50,000pa/child for private school, $500k+ plus to pay for each child's Ivy League education and so forth and kill themselves to achieve that. Worse, they can become bitter and unhappy as they realize how long that will take them to achieve even as the top 1% of earners.
So not only are they working super-hard for longer they're seeing their families less and bringing home this negativity and entitlement. All of that is a prison of your own making.
FIRE philosophically is about really examining what you need and what's really important.