Did FIRE Practitioners Just Get Lucky 2002-2022?

[Hornblower]

I've been an avid consumer of FIRE podcasts , books, forums etc for years. I especially liked the Mr Money Moustache forums where you can get lost for hours. I'm much less familiar with the UK FIRE scene, but presumably it is similar.

I began to notice some striking patterns:

- The Fire-ees very often worked in high-paying computer science/software roles, or related fields, for the government. (In the UK, I'd imagine a disproportionate number work in finance in the South East)

- They typically had a high savings rate & invested using S&P or NASDAQ focussed trackers.

- They often invested in property.


The usual story I heard over & over again was that they were able to achieve FIRE years earlier than they had expected, mostly due to rampant asset appreciation.

My thought is that...obviously the maths of FIRE works, but these people were just incredibly lucky to practice FIRE in this era of rampant money printing.


- The vast US federal budgets are a fairly recent phenomena. They aren't in any way (mathematically) sustainable, but they gave our FIRE-ees a safe, easy, high-paying job + generous pension promises.

- The endless money printing (40% of all US $ ever printed were created in the past 2 years!) & artificially low interest rates caused assets to soar in value, even while wages & productivity stagnated.


This cohort that were focused on acquiring assets right at the time when assets were pumped sky-high by government intervention, and as a consequence saw their net-work increase at a much faster rate than they'd expected. In fact they got WAY above historical returns.


My contention is: This was an anomaly, the next 10-20 years of FIRE will see much lower real rates of return on assets. Perhaps an easier path to achieve FIRE will be through starting a business, rather than through mere state-sponsored asset speculation. Also, what happens to todays FIRE retirees IF we start to see an unwinding of this asset appreciation? Perhaps the old 4% rules will be blown out of the water as assets, or returns on assets drop year over year (especially in a high-inflationary environment)?

[ursaminortaur]

I've been an avid consumer of FIRE podcasts , books, forums etc for years. I especially liked the Mr Money Moustache forums where you can get lost for hours. I'm much less familiar with the UK FIRE scene, but presumably it is similar.

I began to notice some striking patterns:

- The Fire-ees very often worked in high-paying computer science/software roles, or related fields, for the government. (In the UK, I'd imagine a disproportionate number work in finance in the South East)

- They typically had a high savings rate & invested using S&P or NASDAQ focussed trackers.

- They often invested in property.


The usual story I heard over & over again was that they were able to achieve FIRE years earlier than they had expected, mostly due to rampant asset appreciation.

My thought is that...obviously the maths of FIRE works, but these people were just incredibly lucky to practice FIRE in this era of rampant money printing.


- The vast US federal budgets are a fairly recent phenomena. They aren't in any way (mathematically) sustainable, but they gave our FIRE-ees a safe, easy, high-paying job + generous pension promises.

- The endless money printing (40% of all US $ ever printed were created in the past 2 years!) & artificially low interest rates caused assets to soar in value, even while wages & productivity stagnated.


This cohort that were focused on acquiring assets right at the time when assets were pumped sky-high by government intervention, and as a consequence saw their net-work increase at a much faster rate than they'd expected. In fact they got WAY above historical returns.


My contention is: This was an anomaly, the next 10-20 years of FIRE will see much lower real rates of return on assets. Perhaps an easier path to achieve FIRE will be through starting a business, rather than through mere state-sponsored asset speculation. Also, what happens to todays FIRE retirees IF we start to see an unwinding of this asset appreciation? Perhaps the old 4% rules will be blown out of the water as assets, or returns on assets drop year over year (especially in a high-inflationary environment)?

The 4% rule came out of the work of William Bengen who looked at historical data for all thirty year periods between 1926 and 1976.
This analysis was further backed up by the Trinity study which examined periods between 1925 and 1990.
Neither the original study by Bengen or the Trinity study covered any period within the laat two decades and hence couldn't have been influenced by any abnormal conditions during that period.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/four-percent-rule.asp

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_study

[Hornblower]

Yes, exactly.

We've never seen such a period of money debasement & manipulation by the state in history. Maybe something like the end of the Roman empire, but this would have been over a much longer time period.

It makes it very hard to plot a course when parameters can be (and are) arbitrarily changed....& this is in the 'stable' West. Imagine trying to FIRE dealing with Turkey's 75% inflation, the Pakistani financial collapse, Sri Lanka, Argentina etc etc.

[tjh290633]

We've never seen such a period of money debasement & manipulation by the state in history. Maybe something like the end of the Roman empire, but this would have been over a much longer time period.

I suspect that you may be taking the wrong point of view. I invest with the objective of getting dividends that increase faster than inflation (based on UK figures). Here is the comparison of the dividends on my portfolio, on a unitised basis, with the UK RPI since 1988:

.            Ordinary    Rebased     RPI       Change      Change
Year to      Divs/unit   Divs/unit   Rebased   Divs/unit   RPI   
05-Apr-88         2.86      100.00    100.00                     
05-Apr-89         2.72       94.81    112.28      -5.19%   12.28%
05-Apr-90         4.24      147.94    122.89      56.05%    9.45%
05-Apr-91         5.42      189.25    130.75      27.92%    6.39%
05-Apr-92         7.52      262.34    136.35      38.62%    4.28%
05-Apr-93         6.91      241.32    138.11      -8.01%    1.30%
05-Apr-94         6.27      218.85    141.65      -9.31%    2.56%
05-Apr-95         7.48      261.07    146.37      19.29%    3.33%
05-Apr-96         7.38      257.48    149.90      -1.38%    2.42%
05-Apr-97         8.40      293.36    153.54      13.93%    2.42%
05-Apr-98         8.88      310.04    159.72       5.69%    4.03%
05-Apr-99         8.46      295.34    162.28      -4.74%    1.60%
05-Apr-00        11.33      395.51    167.09      33.92%    2.97%
05-Apr-01        11.73      409.64    170.04       3.57%    1.76%
05-Apr-02        13.02      454.50    172.59      10.95%    1.50%
05-Apr-03        12.10      422.26    178.00      -7.09%    3.13%
05-Apr-04        11.62      405.63    182.42      -3.94%    2.48%
05-Apr-05        12.07      421.42    188.21       3.89%    3.18%
05-Apr-06        13.12      458.13    193.03       8.71%    2.56%
05-Apr-07        14.04      490.19    201.77       7.00%    4.53%
05-Apr-08        24.32      849.07    210.22      73.21%    4.19%
05-Apr-09        21.17      739.15    207.76     -12.95%   -1.17%
05-Apr-10        11.06      386.20    218.86     -47.75%    5.34%
05-Apr-11        16.71      583.44    230.26      51.07%    5.21%
05-Apr-12        17.46      609.34    238.21       4.44%    3.46%
05-Apr-13        19.91      694.93    245.09      14.05%    2.89%
05-Apr-14        20.47      714.45    250.29       2.81%    2.12%
05-Apr-15        21.33      744.60    253.44       4.22%    1.26%
05-Apr-16        21.67      756.58    256.78       1.61%    1.32%
05-Apr-17        24.99      872.20    265.82      15.28%    3.52%
05-Apr-18        29.23    1,020.51    274.75      17.00%    3.36%
05-Apr-19        29.25    1,020.97    283.10       0.04%    3.04%
05-Apr-20        29.31    1,023.17    284.38       0.22%    0.45%
05-Apr-21        18.93      660.92    295.78     -35.40%    4.01%
05-Apr-22        23.71      827.82    308.74      25.25%    4.38%

You will see that the dividend per unit rose above the RPI in 1989-90 and has stayed there ever since, but there have been setbacks along the way. That is most noticeable in 2009-1010 and again in 2020-21. I should add that the capital value of the income units rose from £1.00 in April 1987 to £6.20 in April 2022. Plenty of variation along the way, of course.

I retired in 1998, at the then State Pension Age of 65, with both occupational and state pensions. Things have changed greatly since then, but even then fixed interest securities were a poor buy, compared with equities. Annuity rates for a 65-year old were reasonable, at £798/£10k level, £571/£10k LPI-linked and £448/£10k for 5% annual increases. You are looking at 2002, and you will note that, despite the dot-com crash of 2000, dividends held up well. Not having to draw on my investments for living expenses meant that the portfolio could reinvest dividends and grow in consequence. Sufficient to say that a yield of over 4% in 2002 has been maintained for most of that time, except for those lean years around 2010. Sometimes higher, sometimes a bit lower, but nothing that a sensible reserve fund could not have coped with.

TJH

[MrFoolish]

You will see that the dividend per unit rose above the RPI in 1989-90 and has stayed there ever since, but there have been setbacks along the way. That is most noticeable in 2009-1010 and again in 2020-21. I should add that the capital value of the income units rose from £1.00 in April 1987 to £6.20 in April 2022. Plenty of variation along the way, of course.

TJH

I'd imagine you are not expecting dividends to rise above RPI at the moment? (I'd been thinking of asking HYPers in general what they think about this inflation rate and if it concerns them.)

[Urbandreamer]

My contention is: This was an anomaly, the next 10-20 years of FIRE will see much lower real rates of return on assets. Perhaps an easier path to achieve FIRE will be through starting a business, rather than through mere state-sponsored asset speculation. Also, what happens to todays FIRE retirees IF we start to see an unwinding of this asset appreciation? Perhaps the old 4% rules will be blown out of the water as assets, or returns on assets drop year over year (especially in a high-inflationary environment)?

I think that you may find, with a bit of research, that the FIRE concept pre-dates the FIRE term.

Ignoring for a moment the concept of saving to retire at all, the earliest that I am aware of is "Your money or your life" published in 1992, which doesn't use the term.
Previous or similar works existed, but they didn't mention the concept of retirement.
I'm thinking of works like "The Tightwad's Gazett" 1990, or "Voyaging on a small income" 1993, but mentioning a previous book that I can't remember.

IF you started in the 1990's as an adult with a job, how old are you now? Well as it happens I suspect that it might be my age.

BTW YMOYL didn't really use the 4% "rule". They argued that it was more of a guide line. Further they actually argued that if you achieved FI, then you might want to skip the RE part, though they didn't use those terms. Instead arguing that if you enjoyed your job you could simply donate the pay to charity.

Returning to what I quoted, I'm somewhat confused. You think that new small businesses will have a easier time than existing big businesses with resources to support them through bad times, when we expect bad times? It seems to me that you may be placing too greater value on sweat equity. Then again possibly we are at an inflection point. Most will fail but we may see the likes of Andrew Carnegie yet again. Some may argue that we already have.

[scrumpyjack]

I’ve been at rather longer, since my dad gave me some shares in 1954. Then I steadily bought shares from about 1970 so saw some dramatic ups and downs. The huge inflation of the seventies taught me that real assets, shares and property, were much much safer overall than our rotten currency or anything denominated in it. In those days mortgage interest was tax deductible so with the high rates of tax that applied then, it was a no brainer to get a large mortgage and buy a house.

Was I lucky? Probably but if history does not exactly repeat itself, it rhymes, and I would still apply the principles of investment in the seventies.

[Itsallaguess]

My thought is that...obviously the maths of FIRE works, but these people were just incredibly lucky to practice FIRE in this era of rampant money printing.

I think that anyone making a difficult and concious decision to put off spending 'today', to plan for a hoped-for earlier retirement 'tomorrow' deserves a little more credit than simply being labelled 'lucky', no matter what the financial environment is like within which they carry out that process.

Granted, luck can clearly play a large part over the long term with regards to the potential for retiring earlier than initially planned, or for ending up in a post-work financial position that is better than originally hoped for, where a beneficial long-term financial environment within which those FIRE-related goals were worked towards might be better aligned for some than for others, but to put it all down to 'luck' is perhaps being a little disrespectful of the tough decisions and underlying hard work that goes into enacting such long term goals themselves...

I think they deserve all the luck they can get...

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[SalvorHardin]

I retired in 2003, age 39, but I never followed any FIRE promoter. From what I've seen, the vast majority aren't fully retired. They and/or their spouse may have a part-time job, or they're making money from their FIRE advice.

For many aspiring FIREees, the toughest decision will be to learn to spend a lot less than they earn. Doing so is a huge step towards FIRE.

Most Brits who aspired to FIRE didn't benefit much from the stockmarket because they stuck mainly to the FTSE100. The FTSE100's poor performance this century could turn to outperformance in the next decade or two, because UK shares are probably undervalued compared to the rest of the world.

Residential Property on the other hand has done well, in large part because politics restricts the supply. I wouldn't bank on similar returns in the next twenty years, if only because of political pressure from those who have been prices out of the market.

Money printing causes inflation which like the 1970s helps borrowers. FIREees this century didn't have to operate in a high inflation environment, now they do. If we get 1970s inflation, this will help aspiring FIREees who own property and have large debts (many homeowners in the 1970s were greatly helped by high inflation).

Many will also have to cope with huge changes in work, notably outsourcing to cheaper parts of the world. If you can do your job from home, someone in Bangalore can probably do it almost as well for one-tenth of the price (the Daily Telegraph's Alex cartoon often runs with this).

I benefited from a massive surge in the demand for anyone with Actuarial qualifications in the late 1990s, to sort out pension misselling (in 2002 I earned after tax almost seven times what I made in 1996). I never acquired a large spending habit to absorb my income, and made a small fortune on oil E&P companies like Soco, Dana and Dragon Oil.

Since I live fairly cheaply, my portfolio's 2.1% yield is more than enough to live on.

[Darka]

My thought is that...obviously the maths of FIRE works, but these people were just incredibly lucky to practice FIRE in this era of rampant money printing.

... but to put it all down to 'luck' is perhaps being a little disrespectful of the tough decisions and underlying hard work that goes into enacting such long term goals themselves...

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

Have to agree with Itsallaguess, I FIRE'd at the end of October last year and although luck is of course involved, it was mainly down to the 10 years of planning, saving, investing and lots and lots of research.

As for inflation, it's going to pass so I'm not worried, I of course didn't anticipate it however I did ensure my investment income was well above my needs, so that I have a very good buffer.

So far, retirement as been awesome, anyone aiming to FIRE is doing the right thing, but must ensure sufficient income/reserve etc so that they can do away with the stress and worry that might otherwise ensue.

regards,
Darka

[Darka]

I retired in 2003, age 39, but I never followed any FIRE promoter. From what I've seen, the vast majority aren't fully retired. They and/or their spouse may have a part-time job, or they're making money from their FIRE advice.

This is what I found, they are being very disingenuous and give a misleading impression of being FIRE'd.

Very few of them are actually retired.

[Urbandreamer]

This is what I found, they are being very disingenuous and give a misleading impression of being FIRE'd.

Very few of them are actually retired.

One of the authors of "Your Money or your life" died young, but kept working when he had no financial need to do so. Even working as he knew he had limited time. Dare I point out that the world is full of people who continue to work when they don't need to. Given that is it just about possible that missionaries may try to encourage others, as Joe did?

Ok I'll accept that there may be many who support themselves by giving FIRE pep talks or lectures, however can you claim that non are not simply trying to improve people's lives?

I should say that I regard the FI part as the most important part. This has changed as I aged. I use to value the idea of retiring more.

[tjh290633]

I'd imagine you are not expecting dividends to rise above RPI at the moment? (I'd been thinking of asking HYPers in general what they think about this inflation rate and if it concerns them.)

They might lag it for a bit, but much depends on special dividends, of which there has been a plethora this last year. Currently I am expecting quite a decent increase, because of the restoration of dividends following the Covid effects. Ask me again next year.

TJH

[Hornblower]

We've never seen such a period of money debasement & manipulation by the state in history. Maybe something like the end of the Roman empire, but this would have been over a much longer time period.

I suspect that you may be taking the wrong point of view. I invest with the objective of getting dividends that increase faster than inflation (based on UK figures). Here is the comparison of the dividends on my portfolio, on a unitised basis, with the UK RPI since 1988:

.            Ordinary    Rebased     RPI       Change      Change
Year to      Divs/unit   Divs/unit   Rebased   Divs/unit   RPI   
05-Apr-88         2.86      100.00    100.00                     
05-Apr-89         2.72       94.81    112.28      -5.19%   12.28%
05-Apr-90         4.24      147.94    122.89      56.05%    9.45%
05-Apr-91         5.42      189.25    130.75      27.92%    6.39%
05-Apr-92         7.52      262.34    136.35      38.62%    4.28%
05-Apr-93         6.91      241.32    138.11      -8.01%    1.30%
05-Apr-94         6.27      218.85    141.65      -9.31%    2.56%
05-Apr-95         7.48      261.07    146.37      19.29%    3.33%
05-Apr-96         7.38      257.48    149.90      -1.38%    2.42%
05-Apr-97         8.40      293.36    153.54      13.93%    2.42%
05-Apr-98         8.88      310.04    159.72       5.69%    4.03%
05-Apr-99         8.46      295.34    162.28      -4.74%    1.60%
05-Apr-00        11.33      395.51    167.09      33.92%    2.97%
05-Apr-01        11.73      409.64    170.04       3.57%    1.76%
05-Apr-02        13.02      454.50    172.59      10.95%    1.50%
05-Apr-03        12.10      422.26    178.00      -7.09%    3.13%
05-Apr-04        11.62      405.63    182.42      -3.94%    2.48%
05-Apr-05        12.07      421.42    188.21       3.89%    3.18%
05-Apr-06        13.12      458.13    193.03       8.71%    2.56%
05-Apr-07        14.04      490.19    201.77       7.00%    4.53%
05-Apr-08        24.32      849.07    210.22      73.21%    4.19%
05-Apr-09        21.17      739.15    207.76     -12.95%   -1.17%
05-Apr-10        11.06      386.20    218.86     -47.75%    5.34%
05-Apr-11        16.71      583.44    230.26      51.07%    5.21%
05-Apr-12        17.46      609.34    238.21       4.44%    3.46%
05-Apr-13        19.91      694.93    245.09      14.05%    2.89%
05-Apr-14        20.47      714.45    250.29       2.81%    2.12%
05-Apr-15        21.33      744.60    253.44       4.22%    1.26%
05-Apr-16        21.67      756.58    256.78       1.61%    1.32%
05-Apr-17        24.99      872.20    265.82      15.28%    3.52%
05-Apr-18        29.23    1,020.51    274.75      17.00%    3.36%
05-Apr-19        29.25    1,020.97    283.10       0.04%    3.04%
05-Apr-20        29.31    1,023.17    284.38       0.22%    0.45%
05-Apr-21        18.93      660.92    295.78     -35.40%    4.01%
05-Apr-22        23.71      827.82    308.74      25.25%    4.38%

You will see that the dividend per unit rose above the RPI in 1989-90 and has stayed there ever since, but there have been setbacks along the way. That is most noticeable in 2009-1010 and again in 2020-21. I should add that the capital value of the income units rose from £1.00 in April 1987 to £6.20 in April 2022. Plenty of variation along the way, of course.

I retired in 1998, at the then State Pension Age of 65, with both occupational and state pensions. Things have changed greatly since then, but even then fixed interest securities were a poor buy, compared with equities. Annuity rates for a 65-year old were reasonable, at £798/£10k level, £571/£10k LPI-linked and £448/£10k for 5% annual increases. You are looking at 2002, and you will note that, despite the dot-com crash of 2000, dividends held up well. Not having to draw on my investments for living expenses meant that the portfolio could reinvest dividends and grow in consequence. Sufficient to say that a yield of over 4% in 2002 has been maintained for most of that time, except for those lean years around 2010. Sometimes higher, sometimes a bit lower, but nothing that a sensible reserve fund could not have coped with.

TJH

Thank you for your reply TJH.

IMO you are basing your post on two assumptions:

1). The RPI is an accurate measure. It is not. The hedonic adjustments they use are increasingly comical & always go one way (to try & massage the figures lower).
2). The increase in the cost of assets such as property, equity etc are included in the figure. They are not.

The last 10 years has made a mockery of the 'official figures'. Double digit house price inflation for years on the trot, but a loaf of bread still costs a quid, so we are told that there's no inflation to worry about.

It brings up a good point, all of us will have different inflation rates. A person starting out after uni may be worrying about rent increases, the interest rate on the student loan exploding upward, saving for a house deposit, the price of holidays to Phuket.

A slightly older person may be trying to trade up to a larger property, have 2 children in a private school, and be worrying about increasing school fees.

Another person is retired, with a mortgage paid off and just has day-to-day expenses.

An older retired person may be worrying about the cost of home care.

All four would experience completely different inflation rates.


However, I agree with the concept of using rising dividends to provide an inflation matching/beating income. And it is brilliant that there are people like you on here showing real world examples of exactly how dividends behave over prolonged periods. Strong companies should be able to increase their prices, even in an inflationary environment. That doesn't take away from the point of my original post however, that I suspect that many who have FIRED over the past 10-15 years have had a tailwind to their investing returns due to government money printing & interest rate repression driving asset prices to historical highs.


H

[Hornblower]

I’ve been at rather longer, since my dad gave me some shares in 1954. Then I steadily bought shares from about 1970 so saw some dramatic ups and downs. The huge inflation of the seventies taught me that real assets, shares and property, were much much safer overall than our rotten currency or anything denominated in it. In those days mortgage interest was tax deductible so with the high rates of tax that applied then, it was a no brainer to get a large mortgage and buy a house.

Was I lucky? Probably but if history does not exactly repeat itself, it rhymes, and I would still apply the principles of investment in the seventies.

Great insights.

I've read that some analysts are comparing it more with the 1940s than the 1970s, as we have high inflation AND low interest rates. I think that's the twist...if Central Banks aggressively raise rates to calm inflation, asset prices may collapse. We live interesting in times & I don't think there's an obvious answer. We could keep wealth in assets & do ok...or they might get decimated if the interest rates are allowed to return to their long-term average of 5 or 6%. In that case having cash that is gradually being inflated away suddenly looks very clever if you can swoop in and pick up equities that have crashed 80%.

H

[Hornblower]

I retired in 2003, age 39, but I never followed any FIRE promoter. From what I've seen, the vast majority aren't fully retired. They and/or their spouse may have a part-time job, or they're making money from their FIRE advice.

For many aspiring FIREees, the toughest decision will be to learn to spend a lot less than they earn. Doing so is a huge step towards FIRE.

Most Brits who aspired to FIRE didn't benefit much from the stockmarket because they stuck mainly to the FTSE100. The FTSE100's poor performance this century could turn to outperformance in the next decade or two, because UK shares are probably undervalued compared to the rest of the world.

Residential Property on the other hand has done well, in large part because politics restricts the supply. I wouldn't bank on similar returns in the next twenty years, if only because of political pressure from those who have been prices out of the market.

Money printing causes inflation which like the 1970s helps borrowers. FIREees this century didn't have to operate in a high inflation environment, now they do. If we get 1970s inflation, this will help aspiring FIREees who own property and have large debts (many homeowners in the 1970s were greatly helped by high inflation).

Many will also have to cope with huge changes in work, notably outsourcing to cheaper parts of the world. If you can do your job from home, someone in Bangalore can probably do it almost as well for one-tenth of the price (the Daily Telegraph's Alex cartoon often runs with this).

I benefited from a massive surge in the demand for anyone with Actuarial qualifications in the late 1990s, to sort out pension misselling (in 2002 I earned after tax almost seven times what I made in 1996). I never acquired a large spending habit to absorb my income, and made a small fortune on oil E&P companies like Soco, Dana and Dragon Oil.

Since I live fairly cheaply, my portfolio's 2.1% yield is more than enough to live on.

I agree with all of that.

As you say, the FTSE100 has severely lagged. I'm not sure there'll be a mean reversion though, it just doesn't seem to have the dynamism of the NASDAQ. Of course there's a lot of junk in the NASDAQ, but there doesn't seem to be much tech innovation coming out of the FTSE (or the UK in general). It does look undervalued, but I'd expect it's longterm return to still be a bit lower than that of the US market.

H

[Kantwebefriends]

The first few FIRE bloggers I looked at had another thing in common - no children.

But as to the big question: were they lucky buggers? Yes, of course they were. The frugality, and the determination to invest rather than simply save, weren't a consequence of mere luck, so congratulations to them for those.

But the extent of the growth in the value of shares and property was. Still: nothing ventured, nothing gained.

[Hariseldon58]

Started late 80’s and finished late 2007 in my late 40’s ( married with children) , post FIRE I was busy but did not earn any income that was significant.
When I started it was “downshifting” and reading Your Money or Your Life.

I found that watching expenditure was important, you save more in the early years ( those early investments are up by a factor of 10 ) and you clearly have a lower cost of living to support later AND avoiding lifestyle creep. So I went through troubled markets in 1998 and 2000-2003 and was still able to FIRE in 2007.

In hindsight of course that was unfortunate timing ! Sequence of returns risk writ large strikes, it worked out with an equity heavy portfolio, now up by around 100% in real terms, spending is up by about 50% in real terms from 2007 but easily could be trimmed but at around 2.5% why bother ?

However whilst markets have been good since 2009 lows, my portfolio has been below a previous high in 8 of the last 15 years at annual review time, so not that good !!!!

If I was starting now I would see the present markets as providing rich opportunities going forward.

Housing is clearly more of an issue now, student loans etc, if it is of interest we only have a state pension yet to come, no DB pension. I have always regarded housing as somewhere to live and have never made any significant money in residential property. (Our home represents less than 15% of net assets.)

My suggestion for someone going for FIRE now is to keep an eye on living costs, invest regularly in equities, year in and year out, develop your career/business and enjoy the journey.

[vand]

pretty much, yes.
Especially during the 2009-2021 period returns were not only very good, but were delivered with far less risk than anything the market previously managed. I argue that it was the greatest period of risk adjusted return we are ever likely to see:

viewtopic.php?f=76&t=32976

[onslow]

pretty much, yes.
Especially during the 2009-2021 period returns were not only very good, but were delivered with far less risk than anything the market previously managed. I argue that it was the greatest period of risk adjusted return we are ever likely to see:

viewtopic.php?f=76&t=32976

This. Many FIRE bloggers, not all, but many bought tracking funds and did exceptionally well......because the market did exceptionally well.

Sure they saved a high % of their income which is notable, but but if market returns in the last 20 years were average - let alone below average - I doubt the FIRE movement would be as popular. Volatility too, how many young FIRE bloggers could really withstand months or even a year or two of down markets? Last 20 years the central banks have stepped in.

Be interesting to see what happens next 18/24 months!