In a tempestuous round 3, The Investor basically ¹ told The Accumulator he’s wasted his life then invites him to trade blows rather than shares. Will The Accumulator take this personal stuff personally? Will he explode in the face of The Investor’s ceaseless attacks on his FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early) beliefs? 

The Accumulator: TI, you can make it as personal as you like, me old jackfruit. Or, we can talk about Brexit if that’d be more fun?

One of the straw men you’ve sent to fight me is that FIRE advocates advise sticking with a miserable job for a couple of decades.

This ain’t so. If you can find a better situation then FIRE-ees won’t burn you at the stake for dropping your savings rate.

FIRE is a movement for people whose nagging doubts about the hedonic treadmill have become a clanging alarm bell. Maybe they find themselves among the majority of the population who rate every job somewhere on a scale between ‘hate’ and ‘meh’. Maybe they once liked their job but the shine wore off. Maybe they like their job but don’t think the money-time trade-off is worth it forever. Maybe they regularly change their job to keep things fresh but still maintain FI** as a long-term goal. All these things are possible!

The community offers an alternative to the conventional consumer narrative of work for 40 to 50 years, buy as big a house as you can ill-afford, stuff it full of crap, get promoted to your level of incompetence, and beat those pesky Jones’s at all costs. Should this narrative ring hollow for you, the FIRE community is full of bright ideas on how to redesign your lifestyle – as much or as little as you want. From extreme to work optional.

I agree that ‘rapidFIRE’ is hard. Even opening your mind to the possibility seems hard, if the vitriolic comments underscoring every mainstream article about FIRE are any guide.

But that doesn’t mean the minority isn’t on to something.

Just walking the path for a while can have massive benefits even if you don’t make it all the way, as TDM mentioned. Let’s say that you’ve convinced me. Tomorrow I wake up and realise I’ve been pursuing a fairy story. What have I gained for my trouble?

• No debt.
• FU money to fund retraining or a bout of unemployment.
• Less stress at work because I have more options.
• Dotage sorted.
• Mrs Accumulator is financially secure should my clogs pop tomorrow.
• A healthier relationship with consumerism and careerism.

I’m happy with that even if I retire from work only to return 12-months later because I need more structure or money in my life than I thought.

Let’s talk about that. I don’t think I need to work in the conventional sense to maintain my sense of worth, purpose, need for challenge, or sense of engagement with the world. I won’t truly know until I get there and I accept I could be wrong. I’ve seen the same people crash out of FIRE that you have but I’m also aware that plenty of FIRE-ees report that they are loving life.

I agree that those who’ve publicly talked about their struggles have done us a massive favour. Now that I’m close to the line, about 90% of my FIRE bandwidth is spent thinking about what my RE life will look like, and about 10% to the FI side.

FIRE drill

I’ve tried to learn the lessons of others, and I’ve picked up on a few things:

Don’t change too much at once! Don’t go from doing 80 hours a week to zero, then move away from family and friends within months. Take it slowly. (For me, I think it’d be sensible to shift to part-time employment before leaving the workforce altogether).

Don’t trust the initial euphoria. Most FIRE-ees report feeling amazing for a few months, then they adapt… and demons return. (I’ve been putting time into identifying my demons and how I can control them.)

Don’t freak out if you feel sad, listless, adrift. You’re going through a massive emotional upheaval. This too will pass.

Retire to something. Don’t retire and then try to work out how to fill the hours. Have outside interests, passion projects, and hobbies already on the go, then expand on them when you have more time.

Think hard about how much of your identity is bound up with work, striving and earning money. SexHealthMoneyDeath comes to mind here. SHMD readily admitted that he struggled to value himself when he was no longer a breadwinner. (TI and TDM you obviously recognise this pitfall already. I think I’ll be okay with it but I’m not certain.)

Read books by those who’ve been there and done it. Retirees (both early and conventional) have written about the joys and hazards in store. I take heart that none of them wish they’d spent more time in the office. I guess the ones who do are too busy to write books?

Sidenote 1: @TI:

“I’m not sure how personal to make this; I don’t want to get noses out of joint, but you’re now explicitly saying you’re okay with your job. But many times you’ve said, on this site, that getting out of that job is a goal because you don’t like it.”

Maybe you can point me to the pieces you have in mind? It’d be interesting to see if my thinking has evolved more than I realise. There have always been aspects of my job I’ve liked and disliked. FIRE is my goal because I want time back to do more with my life. I’m no poster boy for early retirement. At best, I’ll be 49 by the time I pull the trigger. That said, three things in my work life have much improved since I began my FIRE journey:

• My work environment is a lot better than it was, say 10 years ago. Personnel changes have helped but also personal changes – I’m more experienced and resilient than I was.

• Greater financial security has given me more confidence and peace of mind.

• I’ve improved my mindset. I’ve come to own problems I once blamed on my job. I’ve come to accept problems that are beyond my control to change. This is a domain that overlaps with the FIRE community if you dig deep enough.

Sidenote 2: @TI:

“I know you’re very thoughtful about all this. But if I may, five years ago you borderline dismissed such talk.”

Do you mean I rejected the notion of a retirement that included paid work? I don’t remember this but it’s possible. I think you were always clear that you didn’t want to stop work. I’ve always wanted the option to never have to work again.

As a society, I think we’d be happier if we were less materialistic and obsessed with financial status. I’ve got nothing against any individual who wants to work until they drop, and if I can envisage myself working in some capacity for longer than I once thought, then you can chalk that up to your nefarious influence.

Sidenote 3: @TI:

“You then say putting up with it for “a decade”. I think that’s generously short. If we assume someone earning £40,000 a year gross, saving £15,000 a year – already big numbers for most – then it’s going to take them over 20 years by my reckoning.”

I’m on course for 13 to 14 years, if you include the period when I hadn’t even heard of FIRE and just wanted to pay off the mortgage. I earn more than you quote above but still mid-five figures. Mrs Accumulator is on substantially less. Soooo, nothing like the DINK six-figure sums brought in by some of the US bloggers who checked out in under 10 years. Some Early Retirement Extreme types can make it in five years or so, earning modest five-figure salaries, admittedly with considerable sacrifice.

FIRE is not a prescription. It’s a broad church. I can admire and learn from people into geo-arbitrage or living on boats. Their lifestyle isn’t for me but it could be a lightbulb moment for someone else. The ideas are the important thing. And for sure, you could be at it for 20 years or more, but that’s still better than the conventional 40 to 50 years, if you never do find your dream job.

New thread – the influence of partners

TDM, your dearly departed old blog featured regular posts from your partner. I got the impression that your wife wholeheartedly supported your FIRE experiment but wasn’t sure whether it held any answers for her. Is your partner still pursuing FIRE? Did her uncertainty contribute to your decision to abandon FIRE?

The Details Man: My wife has strengthened her quest for FIRE over time. It wasn’t a thing for her when we first met. Although she knew it was for me. I’d say right now, she definitely wants to reach FI and is aiming for early retirement. The difficulty she has is working out what comes after.

I think there were two eye-openers for my wife. First, her colleagues earning hundreds of thousands a year but still living month-to-month in their late-30s and 40s. Second, the power of investing to compound your money. Together, those things show that it’s foolish to whittle away all your money in your 20s. Even saving and investing small amounts will start the metaphorical snowball.

Moving on, as you mentioned earlier TA, a great deal of our identity is wrapped up in the work we do. Especially those with professions like my wife and I. Jim of SexHealthMoneyDeath is another classic example.

Even at my (relatively) tender age, I’ve spent almost all of my adult life working towards and being a chartered accountant. When I retire, I’d be a retired chartered accountant. Much the same, I suppose as if you were a doctor, solicitor, electrician, and so on.

My wife’s uncertainty about what comes next didn’t affect my decision at all. Perhaps the opposite. My wife talked me into pulling the trigger – which I wouldn’t have done otherwise. However, going back into part-time work definitely came from me and my internal desire to get back to doing something I enjoy, though over a more reasonable proportion of my life. Finding that balance is challenging. I feel that I’m getting there. I’m thankful that money is simply part of the equation I don’t need to worry about.

The Accumulator: Heh, if there’s one conclusion we can draw from this debate, it’s that the difficulty lies in working out what comes after. TDM, it’s good to hear that your wife has been inspired by the possibilities of FI** and is carving out her own path. I really enjoyed her posts. 

Mrs Accumulator is the classic vocational professional… she got into it to help others and is inspirational in that respect. But her profession has been systematically hollowed out by cuts, targets, reviews, performance management, and the rest. The workforce is demoralised and prevented from focussing on what matters by counterproductive and politicised decision-making. So yeah, she’s pro FI**. And more frugal than I am. It’s hard to imagine making it work if we weren’t on the journey together. 

Even at my (relatively) tender age, I’ve spent almost all of my adult life working towards and being a chartered accountant. When I retire, I’d be a retired chartered accountant.

This is fascinating, TDM, I would never think of myself as a ‘retired [whatever the hell I am]’. I’ve spent most of my career resisting self-identification with my work. Inwardly I raise my eyes to the heavens whenever somebody asks me the: “What do you do?” question. Especially when it’s within the first 60 seconds of meeting somebody, as happened just the other day.

On the surface that question should open up the field of conversation, but usually it’s designed to narrow it down. I get it, I understand that’s the world we live in, but I chafe against it. It’s another reflection of our obsession with labels… speaking of which, oh god, he’s back…

Will The Investor be pacified by this late outbreak of moderation and affectionate talk of partners from The Details Man and The Accumulator? Is his strange, uncomprehending look the face of a combat vet struggling to realise the war is over, or the mask of an implacable warrior who must crush all opposition? All will be revealed in Round 5 – the final conflagration! Comments are turned off until the final post. 

1. Reading between the lines.[↩]

In round 2, The Accumulator presented his vision for a life of FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early) prompting The Investor to get Hannibal on his ass by threatening TA with his elephant. Perhaps The Details Man can restore order…?

The Details Man:

Quoting @TA:

“I don’t know when the next bad boss will walk into my life. Or when I’ll be deemed surplus to requirements. Or too old. Or my face doesn’t fit anymore. Or I get a diagnosis I don’t want to hear and realise I never did spend enough time with Mrs Accumulator.”

I feel that’s a key point missing from our discussion so far. Many people don’t get to retire through choice. Retirement is forced upon them. They’re made redundant; become disabled; have to care for loved ones; take time out to raise children and find the ‘flexible work’ promises are empty; or there simply aren’t any jobs for an old coal miner.

We over-estimate how secure our jobs are. What’s more, we under-estimate how long we will live and how healthy we will be. It’s not in human nature to picture ourselves as being old and infirm.

In that sense, planning for early retirement is prudent– even if that’s only a few years before a ‘normal’ retirement age. It is a protection policy against an unfortunate, unpredictable future event. It is also a virtuous circle. The methods underpinning ‘sorting your finances’ help build good habits:

• Planning for the future
• Thinking long-term
• Financial discipline
• Learning to invest
• Taking risk in exchange for reward

These will put you in good stead regardless of what happens.

Sidenote: Yes, I’ve read that David Foster Wallace speech. I’m a worrier and a grumpy man by nature. I know several people have questioned whether my work is purposeful. I feel it is – even if it might not seem it to external viewers. I’m good at it, for one thing, and we all enjoy doing things we’re good at. I also know how the rules work and, for better or worse, I’ve come to accept those.

After I quit, I explored the charity/third sector route. I found it wholly unfulfilling. I’m a devil’s advocate and, from my limited experience, they absolutely do not want challenge. There’s also a lot of coasters, inefficiencies and byzantine rules in these places: “We’ve always done it like this so we ain’t changing”. That’s something my friend and blogger Indeedably has also found.

Given I’m able to do interesting work, something I’m good at, on my terms and for handsome reward – it seems like a good deal to me!

The Investor gets personal

The Investor: I don’t feel I need to define new terms for ‘work’ and ‘retirement’ as you ask TA, because I have one that I feel does fine – financial independence.

It is financial independence that enables you to say ‘stuff it’ to a boss, or to a job you don’t like. It’s financial independence that enables you to shift to a different or lower-paying career if required. It’s financial independence that enables you to learn to be a piano tuner or study Tibetan for five years, if that’s what makes you happy.

It is not ‘early retirement’ – that is just one potential outcome of financial independence, and my argument is that it shouldn’t be seen as the prime one.

I’m not sure we even disagree about this, but we’re scuffling about in the arena butting heads, perhaps reluctant to give ground or perhaps caught up in the nets of definitions.

So at the risk of repeating myself, financial independence is a great and worthwhile goal, though not at all costs.

One cost, I’d say, is decades in a job you dislike if not hate. I’m not sure how personal to make this; I don’t want to get noses out of joint, but you’re now explicitly saying you’re okay with your job. But many times you’ve said, on this site, that getting out of that job is a goal because you don’t like it…

In any event, it’s the people who don’t like their jobs, and who pursue early retirement as an explicit goal, that I have in mind when I say get a different job. From reading the Internet and comments, that seems to comprise plenty if not most of the FIRE crowd.

You then talk about putting up with it for “a decade”. I think that’s generously short. If we assume someone earning £40,000 a year gross, saving £15,000 a year – already big numbers for most – then it’s going to take them over 20 years I’d estimate.

I think 20 years is realistic, if you really go for it, and presuming you don’t have (a) a huge salary, or (b) windfall assets from elsewhere (say an inheritance, or you buy before a house price boom and downsize). It matches my experience, too.

Giving up 20 of your very best years to a job you dislike or hate, to bring forward what I suspect will be an unsatisfying ‘early retirement’ for most, is a steep price to pay.

The alternative is to give up, say, 25 to 30 years in a job you mostly like, to achieve the same end. Or to stick to the 20-year plan, but allow for earning say £10,000 a year into normal retirement age, which is completely doable by anyone reading this blog who is capable of achieving FIRE.

We could go around in circles forever, so I’m going to bring in a new point, which is: we live in a society that is centred around earning money and being productive. I know I’m throwing you red meat to savage here, but it’s true.

Now he’s having a go at the monks

The Investor continues:

Stepping entirely outside of ‘normal’ means not just becoming financially independent but also becoming some kind of modern day monk, who not only shuns materialism but also the rhythm that currently makes the world go around.

Some can do it, sure. My observation is that most won’t, and I’m not surprised because it’s a big ask.

You might say that on top of saving 30 to 50% of net income (a vanishingly rare feat), the ideal FIRE-ee can then eschew work altogether. Perhaps that’s true, but I doubt most do.

I’m about as unusual/marginal a high-functioning Monevator-reader type as I know:

• I long avoided all long-term commitments.
• I rented with a friend into my 40s.
• I did save huge swathes of my income.
• For the last few years, before I bought my flat, people stopped asking me what I was doing because they assumed I’d lost the plot somewhere, seeing me still living my scruffy/cool/tawdry Bohemian investor lifestyle.
• I didn’t use my excellent degree to get the six-figure salary that I could have earned within five years of university in the 1990s.
• I’ve switched industries entirely twice and started from scratch.
• I’ve never had a car and showed it off to the neighbours.
• I don’t have kids nor respond to any societal or familial pressure to do so.

Bottom line: I’m comfortable being different. I think I could hack it.

Yet I can tell you – even as someone who day-to-day mostly shrugs that stuff off, and who has the wherewithal to reach FIRE – that turning your back on earning money and being economically productive – and rewarded – in 2019 is I believe a big ask.

It’s not that I couldn’t do it.

It’s that not doing it is easier, feels a better choice, leaves me with far more spending money, keeps me engaged with the world because money talks, gives me enough stress to make the non-stressful times sweet, allows me to buy stuff if I want to and to go on holiday, preserves my human capital… I could go on and on.

This is the crux of the debate, for me. If FIRE doesn’t actually mean not working again, then it means financial independence, and working as you see fit. If continuing to work/earn to some degree is accepted as part of the plan, then the plan has more optionality in both the accumulation and the post-FI phase.

Also, if one doesn’t build early retirement up as some kind of wondrous solution, then one won’t wonder what one did with the past 20 years, when one gets there.

Fisticuffs at dawn

I know you’re very thoughtful about all this. But if I may, five years ago you borderline dismissed such talk.

I agree the evolving discussion has helped bring these ‘what next’ issues to light. And, before you jump in a car and drive to challenge me to fisticuffs, I’m not meaning to be patronising. I was like that, too.

There are still explicit “let’s leave work and retire!” articles on Monevator I wrote from the very early days! I had a taste of it a decade or so ago (I wasn’t FI but I didn’t need to hurry back) and I started to notice the trends I’ve discussed, and I changed my view.

I remember one prominent early retirement blogger who hit his number while still working hard and then wrote a commendably candid post saying that previously hated work was now mostly de-stressed. He knew he could do what he wanted, management treated him differently, he had options.

Some readers said this was because RE was now in reach. But I noted at the time that this was really the power of financial independence – not the promise of RE, but the reality of FI today. Independence and choices.

This blogger proceeded to his dream RE and was metaphorically staring into space within six months. He’s done the community a huge service in continuing to write about this, because he’s the quintessential hard-driver who believed that he’d thought hard about post-work, and discovered that it wasn’t enough.

I don’t know – perhaps we all have to learn this for ourselves?

Blimey! Will The Accumulator challenge The Investor to fisticuffs? Will he blow money on petrol just to fight The Investor quicker? Find out in Round 4 – The Accumulator goes completely nuts! Comments are turned off until the final post. 

In the last round, The Investor and The Details Man responded to The Accumulator’s gentle enquiries about their views on FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early) by snatching away his life’s dream and ripping it apart before his eyes. Can he turn the tables on the bully-boy cynics and make the case for a better world? Can you tell that The Accumulator wrote this intro?

The Accumulator: Okay TI, for me, you’ve just burst through the doors of the speakeasy shouting, “Freeze, it’s the Early Retirement Police” and popped caps into anyone who’s earned money since declaring FIRE.

The problem is applying the traditional view of ‘retirement’ to the RE side of the equation.

The FIRE version of retirement is retiring from the rat race. It’s not about sitting in your pants all-day or puttering around in a golf buggy like the world is one vast retirement village.

The post FI-life discussed by most of the community is one where your precious remaining days on this Earth are spent as meaningfully as possible. As opposed to meeting targets, sitting in jams, dealing with douchebag bosses, insane deadlines, office politics and generally playing corporate Mortal Kombat.

We’re looking for a quality-of-life upgrade here. If you make some money in the pursuit of purpose then that’s just great.

For example, Jacob Fisker, of Early Retirement Extreme, the FIRE thinker who inspires me the most, spent his first RE decade variously:

• Repairing bikes for a women’s refuge.
• Learning how to build furniture.
• Racing yachts.
• Getting into top physical condition.
• Tinkering with mechanical watches.
• Executing sophisticated trading strategies (including a stint with an investment firm as a quant).
• Growing vegetables.
• Launching the ERE blog and a vibrant online community, and publishing his book.

Some of those activities earned Jacob money, most did not and that was generally beside the point. He chose to do those things because they meant something to him, unlike his previous career of writing academic papers that only five people in the world cared about.

I can only hope my RE is so varied. I’m kinda glad about the RE controversy because though it’s responsible for much confusion – and I agree the label is wrong – it forces you to think about what happens next.

FI tells you you’ve got enough to live on, but how are you actually going to live? That’s the RE bit. And if you haven’t given it enough thought by the time you get there, then you could be heading for trouble.

When looking at Jacob’s last ten years, I’m inspired by his range of interests and desire to engage with the world.

I think living life that way requires imagination and willingness to experiment. It takes some fortitude too – not to worry about whether your choices are racking up enough dollars to score you as a ‘success’.

I don’t think most humans are built to enjoy mono-maniacally ploughing a single furrow well enough to compete in a globalised economy. Doing so comes at a massive cost in lost life.

I’d rather spend more time with those I love, playing, tinkering, learning, participating in my community, taking on new challenges, and not worrying about whether that’ll earn me millions, or even anything at all.

Are you both doing jobs that you find interesting enough to sink most of your time into? Would you do those jobs for free?

TI fires his Axiomatic-47!

The Investor: You’ve made some good points about why you believe early retirement is right for you. But I feel we’re discussing the bigger picture here – what RE means for most people, and whether it’s right or useful as a goal?

I’d argue you’ve only tangentially touched on my point that most early retirees don’t retire, and nor do most financially successful people. To oversimplify, you’ve said: “Yes they keep working, but that’s not really work, because they’re FIRE.” We are in danger of running around in circles.

I don’t accept the ‘early retirement police’ label – it’s more I axiomatically reject the RE part of FIRE. What’s the point of calling it ‘early retirement’ if there’s an explicit recognition by all that one might not – likely won’t, from what I’ve seen – ‘retire’?

Just call it financial independence and be done with it!

This is more than semantics to me, because as I said in my first post if we drop the RE baggage then we get lots more options on the journey to financial independence – and potentially more options when we achieve it, too.

Continuing on that note, you’ve said you don’t feel modern work is all that. I agree for many people that’s the case. But core FIRE methodology is to put your head down, grin and bear it for 10 to 20 years while saving as much as possible and living as cheaply as possible to get out as soon as possible, where ‘soon’ is nearly always decades away, realistically. To make all this tolerable, the FIRE-ee typically bolts on a lot of extra beliefs about how most stuff and experiences that cost money aren’t worth it.

I’d fully agree there’s a balance to be struck here. But for me it no more lies with the extreme early retire-er than it does the shopaholic loaded down with bags and debts and regret.

There is a viable alternative option to getting out of a soul-destroying job and that is to move into a less soul-destroying job.

I’ve done a couple of huge pivots (one of which came directly from working for free for the hell of it for several years.) Can everyone? Probably not, but I suspect most readers of this blog can – certainly those without kids who are contemplating effectively taking a pay cut of 50% by saving vast amounts towards FIRE.

Will a more amenable job be as great as being able to do anything you want on any given day? (Leaving aside the downsides of such freedoms, as TDM has already alluded to). Probably not, but it’s a compromise.

Will it mean a pay cut? Perhaps, perhaps not in the long run.

Will it be worth doing so to avoid disliking or even hating how one spends most of one’s waking hours? I think so.

You write passionately about the “massive cost in lost life” of work, but hardcore FIRE-seekers sign up to just that to achieve FIRE.

Of course, the vision you paint of spending time doing more of what you love, with those you love, is universally appealing – who wouldn’t want that? – but I feel you avoid addressing the cost of achieving that vision.

I’m wary of playing men not balls here, but just on Jacob Fisker, I am 100% certain he could have (and did) many of those things before he was FIRE, during, and afterwards. Obviously not all (some seem full-time endeavours) but various things. Similarly, I know lots of busy working people who have at least one or two interesting hobbies or passion projects going, too. I’d say ‘most’ for those who don’t have the time suck of kids.

I’ve the impression Jacob was that sort of person all his life. He didn’t burst out of a life of humdrum wage slavery, throw his briefcase away, and have an epiphany that made him into a poster-child, renaissance FIRE-ee.

Also FIRE, such as he achieved, was well below a material standard of living many would accept and on an income many would struggle with. And of course it didn’t last. I applaud him for pursuing his dreams, but for me it was more an interesting sabbatical, rather than what FIRE claims to do on the side of the tin as most lifestyle shoppers read it.

That brings me to an elephant in the room with all this RE business, but I’ll save that for my last contribution as I’m not getting paid by the word here.

TA readies his elephant gun

The Accumulator: Hmm, you’ve said “the vision you paint… is universally appealing,” and that I haven’t sufficiently addressed whether RE is a useful goal for most people. So I’m going to conclude this is a labelling problem and move on. If the terms ‘retirement’ and ‘work’ aren’t elastic enough for you then make up new terms and let’s talk about what’s possible.

I hear you when you say that a career change can make more sense than FIRE… that is if your problem is the type of work you do, and there’s a viable alternative career that would make you happy. I have a friend in their mid-40s, always worked as a high-flyer for big firms, too conventional for FIRE but no longer motivated by hitting her numbers. I’m convinced she’d be much happier working in the charity sector.

What if I’m in my 20s, perhaps only half a decade into my first career? I feel like I’ve made a terrible mistake with my life. A career change could be worth a go, and faster-acting than a decade-long slog to FIRE. But FIRE is reversible. It could be that a few years on the journey to FIRE, I turn a corner at work, get a promotion, a new sense of mission and control over my life. Now I have mastery and autonomy in my career. Giving it up is no longer necessary, in fact I’m glad I stuck with it, and I’m financially more secure to boot.

In my case neither sticking nor twisting is the answer. I don’t want to devote 8-10 hours, 5-6 days a week to any one thing for the rest of my life. I’ve done the dream job that loads of people would kill for. It grows old. So do you. It becomes time for a change.

Go part-time? Many careers and industries just don’t reward you for having a life. For all the ‘flexible working’ tokenism, things are going the other way. We’re expected to be available on demand. Our jobs bleed into our private lives. If you’re not on tap 24/7 then you’re sidelined, forgotten or cut. Maximising human wellbeing isn’t the goal for most of the economy.

I’m fine with my job, incidentally. But it’s not possible to do it four hours a day, or three days a week. The times when my job has not been fine have been out of my control. I don’t know when the next bad boss will walk into my life. Or when I’ll be deemed surplus to requirements. Or too old. Or my face doesn’t fit anymore. Or I get a diagnosis I don’t want to hear and realise I never did spend enough time with Mrs Accumulator.

Or maybe you want to tread more lightly on the planet, or you take the red pill and suddenly find that climbing the corporate/consumerist ladder really doesn’t do it for you anymore. Or you want to spend more time with your kids.

Sure, you don’t need to FIRE to do any of these things, or to protect yourself from the litany of misfortunes I’ve mentioned. And it’s not a panacea. All true. But it is a good way of dealing with these issues collectively and making you think about how you really want to spend your time.

I didn’t even know that much freedom was within my power until some of the early FIRE pioneers published the recipe.

Sidenote: Re: Jacob. I’m sure you’re right. FIRE didn’t hit him like a lightning bolt and turn him from Saul to Paul. But rather than fitting a couple of passion projects around his work life, he jettisoned the work life and made his entire life a passion project. He’s written about it. He’s never looked back.

You don’t have to accept Jacob’s standard of living. That suited him partly because of his beliefs about what we’re doing to the planet. Partly because he’s hardcore. Jacob’s method was to show you his principles, not to hold himself up as the Holy Template.

Now there’s ‘leanFIRE’ and ‘FatFIRE’ and every degree of FIRE you could possibly want. You strike me as more of a MMM man.

BTW, Jacob is still FIRE. It did work out. I guess you think it didn’t because he took up a job as a quant with a Chicago investment firm. He took that job because, as he said, that was his equivalent of being allowed to fly fighter jets. In other words, he’d do it for free, but if someone wanted to pay him for it, then why the hell not?

But he stuck to his FIRE budget during those four years and he left the job once he’d had enough. He bailed in 2015. He didn’t need it. He wasn’t doing it for the money.

Sidenote 2: TDM, you said that your railing at the corporate world was replaced by railing at other things. To me, this is the human condition. Solve one set of problems and we find something else to worry about. It’s a blessing and a curse. We’re obsessed with improving our world but we’re always unhappy about something.

I don’t think the performance reviews or the delayed trains are really the problem… it’s you. Or me. It’s us. It’s humans. We’re infinite worry-machines. And we carry our baggage everywhere for so long as we don’t recognise that we’re carrying our baggage. That we can put it down. Have you come across David Foster Wallace’s commencement address on this?

Does your return to the corporate world in search of new challenges mean you’re no longer seeking FIRE? Is the corporate world the only place where you can find meaningful challenge?

What’s happened to The Details Man? Has he left the table like an embarrassed house guest caught in the middle of a family row? Is The Investor about to unleash his elephant? Find out in Round 3 – the elephant’s revenge! Comments are turned off until the final post.