The FIRE Movement has gotten a lot of press over the past decade. It is certainly easy to understand the allure. But, as with many trends we must consider the feasibility. We should scrutinize the personal costs and recognize the greater societal context of this movement.
What is the FIRE Movement?
For those who are not familiar, FIRE stands for Financial Independence Retire Early. The goal of the movement is to save 50-75% of your income and invest it aggressively so that you can retire in your 30s or 40s.
I love the movement’s objective. The idea of having financial independence so that you can live on your own terms is so powerful. I also appreciate the emphasis on freedom rather than possessions or extreme wealth.
The Problems with with Message
My objection is that the ability to pursue early retirement is based in extreme privilege. Many people work just as hard, spend just as frugally, and simply don’t have the money to save. Within the FIRE Movement people explain that they live on $20K or $30K per year and save the rest. But plenty of people only earn $20-30K. They cannot further reduce their expenses.
Also, I find the assumptions behind the FIRE movement to be judgmental. There is an implication that those spending more money are doing so frivolously. For those paying off large student debt or supporting families, these expenses may be non-negotiable. Where I live, for example, one is unlikely to find full time childcare for less than $20K/year, making an annual household budget of $30K is impossible for those with young children.
Undertones of Productivity Culture
A commonly sited objection to the fire movement is the focus on skimping now to save for later. To me this has strong undertones of the protestant work ethic and productivity culture – two things I have recently trying to disengage from. Freedom and independence are very alluring. But, are we really living our best lives if we focus all of our resources on working and saving? In her essay in Business Insider, Kelly Burch provides a helpful explanation of why FIRE may not work for many people.
There is a great amount of irony involved in the FIRE movement. The stated goal is freedom, but in following the practices of FIRE you are actually denying yourself many freedoms.
FIRE and Burnout Culture
In my observations, people want to retire early because they want to escape corporate burnout culture. We don’t want to work fifty hours per week for fifty weeks per year. Spending most of our waking hours in environments that limit our activity, our creativity, and our voice is both stifling and exhausting.
But, is the answer really to burn ourselves out further by working hard and eliminating all pleasure spending? I argue that a better solution is to reinvent the workplaces into environments that we don’t mind spending time. In my own work, I am committed to creating a feminist business in which pleasure and freedom are everyday occurrences and not something that must be delayed until our two week vacation or our retirement.
Obviously, as a person with her own business, I am speaking from a place of privilege myself. Previously, however, I spent many years working for businesses where I had to clock my time, complete tasks that drained me, and even deny my own bodily needs while working through lunch and breaks to meet tight deadlines. For those working under adverse circumstances it is hard not to dream of total and complete escape.
Importance of Saving and Restrained Spending
To be clear, I believe in the necessity of retirement savings. Anyone with the ability to do so should be making some effort to save for retirement. Sadly, in the United States, we have a very limited social safety net. Way too many Americans wind up living in poverty in their later years, particularly women.
I am not advocating for unrestrained spending. Intention is important. We all have limited money and we must make choices about what we spend it on. One of those decisions is how much we save versus how much we spend. Our society is very much a consumerist culture in which we are encouraged to spend more, which makes us even more dependent upon the same jobs we seek to retire from.
We can try balance our current spending and our saving for the future. While I would never advise a client jeopardize their future by spending without restraint, I would also not encourage complete sacrifice in preparation for the future.
Fixing a Broken System
I am concerned about any movement that encourages people to focus solely upon an individual solution available to few rather than a greater emphasis on fixing a broken system. When we have even the most privileged few (those able to save 50% of their income) trying to find a way to exit employment, it is apparent to me that the problem is within the nature of the workplace itself.
We all have distinct circumstances, differing goals and priorities. While we all seek a degree of freedom and ease, what is right for one of us may not work for another. The FIRE movement seems to me to be a classic example of our society’s approach to personal finance from a place of privilege and within a patriarchal, capitalist mindset. The outcomes are then heralded as personal achievements. This results in those with less privilege being made to feel like they have somehow failed or fallen short.