Early retirement is unaffordable

NickOttens

From Bloomberg Opinion:

The “Financial Independence, Retire Early” advocates are using assumptions about future market returns that are unrealistic.

[...]

If you poke at the FIRE people with these criticisms, such as your standard of living will drop during retirement, they will typically respond that it is possible to have a high standard of living under these constraints, but it just isn’t true. I know how to operate Microsoft Excel just as well as they do and the numbers don't add up. Life is full of trade-offs. If you don’t want to work a full career, you will generally have to consume less. If consumption is somehow tied to happiness, then you will not have much happiness. Of course, the core of the FIRE movement (and the tiny house movement) is that consumption is not tied to happiness, but that doesn’t exactly jibe with the historical record.

Roey

@NickOttens - That sounds reasonable. Do you think we can invite some of the FIRE movement people to comment on that here?

NickOttens

I'll look!

Natasha

In the US, it is advisable to wait until 70, which benefit is 25% higher than retiring at 65 or even 69. The fact that one years begets a 25% increase in social security is worth waiting for, and a possible sign that a person is a happy person. :-)