Financial Samurai had a thought provoking post. I commented the shit out of it. Below is my response, along with some added stuff.
Sam over at Financial Samurai wrote a great post which went deep into the question of whether FIRE is obsolete. I agree and disagree. My short answer-if you have a flexible job you can do remotely, sure, achieving FIRE at a blistering pace through hard core frugality may not be for you. Maybe chill, achieve balance with less demanding work, and slowly build your investments until they eclipse your expenses. But if you have a job that can’t be done remote, and you’re either unwilling or unable to make take a gamble at retraining into a remote gig, FIRE is a damn good option to get some more freedom in your life. As always, there seems to be lots of room for nuance. Hence the 1000+ words below.
I think my wife and I are good examples of both sides:
My wife exemplifies the more evolved and balanced approach to work Sam is talking about. She was able to negotiate for hourly compensation instead of salary, and to be almost completely remote. Last year she worked an average of 27 hours a week. She makes less than she could if she was full time, but her salary still covers our combined expenses and then some. She felt secure in making this switch years ago, as at that point she had amassed enough investments that would kick of passive income to cover over half of her expenses if need be (we found a combined but separate expense tracking worked best for us. It’s a bit complex, but works for us. TL;DR-we split expenses 50/50 on paper). She decided not to go the harcore save/frugal route, but instead enjoy her life in the present, as well as her job. Her investments have now grown to cover 80% of her expenses. The big reasons she was able to do this were:
1. As an engineer, her job was totally doable remote. COVID cemented that.
2. She actually enjoys her job, and gets a lot of positive benefits from it.
Me? I’m probably the poster case for why FIRE is still a good option for those of us who have jobs that are currently unable to be done remote. My collar was blue; I started out as an enlisted grunt in the army. During the GFC I realized my combat experience and liberal arts degree qualified me for two jobs, either barista of cop.
I chose the later, and worked in a large city for almost 15 years. I went full in with the job, and took on all the responsibilities offered. This led me to getting on the SWAT team and working as an undercover detective. Getting to save people’s lives was very rewarding, and the action was a lot of fun. But these roles required me to work over 80 hours a week with absolutely no regular schedule. As a rookie I enjoyed 90% of the job, and hated 10%. After a few years that started to drift to 70/30. As I looked at my older coworkers, I could see the writing on the wall, and a google search led me to the FIRE community.
Sure, I guess I could have retrained for some other job that would have offered more balance and greater compensation. But I loved my job, and felt good about helping people. For me, and probably many others in blue collar/non-remotable jobs, FIRE was a good fit. Worked liked crazy, built investments, and slowly started to hate more and more parts of my job as people continued to try and kill me and my coworkers. Went to funerals for those who weren’t as lucky-that got old quick. A few years ago my passive income hit the point where it covered more than half of my expenses. Though I still believed in the job, it was wearing on my mental health, and I wanted to spend more time with our young kids. So a year ago I left the job to become a full time stay at home dad.
For people like me, I don’t think FIRE is dead. As the Financial Samurai says, 40% of jobs could probably be done remotely. Which means more than half can’t. Sure, some of those doing the other 60% could retrain, but I believe a lot of them either don’t want to or would hate the type of jobs that can be done remote. For us, FIRE is still a good option.
Stay at Home Dads and our fragile egos
I also agree and disagree with what Sam says about the stay at home dad front. I’m heavily paraphrasing here, so please check out his post so you fully comprehend what he’s saying about Stay at Home Dads (SAHD). Maybe I’m misterperting, but my understanding is that he’s arguing that guys who chose to stay at home after they hit FI is not actually retired if he’s taking care of the kids while his wife still works. He’s a SAHD, not an early retiree. Well yeah, I agree with that.
Sam also describes how men and their egos drive them to define themselves as something other(entrepreneur, investor, writer, etc.) than a SAHD because society historically doesn’t accept dudes as the primary caregiver. Guys are just kidding themselves because in reality they are dependent on their wife’s salary and don’t want to admit it. Honestly, this kind of rings true as well. We’d be alright if my wife stopped working right now. But it is reassuring to know my wife’s salary covers our expenses. Are we completely dependent on that income? No. But it’s nice. Does that mean guys in my position are just kidding ourselves and are afraid to call themselves a SAHD? Not sure about that one. Sam concludes that now with it becoming more ok for dudes to say they’re a SAHD, less guys will play these mental gymnastics and just call themselves a SAHD instead of something else to satisfy their fragile ego. I suppose if a guy is truly a SAHD, then that may be true. In my case, not so much. I tried being a SAHD, and it didn’t work out:
When I was getting ready to leave my job, when asked what I was going to do next, I always replied “Stay at Home Dad”. Most of my coworkers didn’t quite know what to make of that, especially in such a male dominated field. But more than a few were very supportive. I think there’s still a lot of room for improvement on how this is viewed in our culture, and I highly recommend that more men at least try it. That said, it was not for me. I had been looking forward to more time with our kids, and when our daycare arrangement fell through for our then 1 and 5 year old, I went full in on the stay at home dad thing just months after leaving the job. And it about crushed me. I’ve been shot, shot at, people have tried to stab me, blow me up. None of that was as stressful as being the sole caregiver for two young kids, even though I love them more than I thought possible. I now have so much more respect for all the stay at home parents who do this, especially those who don’t have a choice and/or are doing it alone. Luckily, our financial position gives us a choice, and our kids are in childcare 6-7 hours a day, and I have my sanity back. I’d consider myself more of a homemaker than a SAHD these days.
This experience taught me that being a full time caregiver is definitely not for everyone. I sucked at it, even though I was all about it before I tried it. So maybe it’s not completely about men(and women) being ashamed of being stay at home parents. Maybe some of them know themselves enough to realize that it’s not for them. I don’t think these are all cases of people with fragile egos. Maybe some are, sure. But plenty are probably people who have realized that role isn’t for them. My wife is a good example of this; while she is a great mom, she knows that being a full time caregiver is not for her.
I really enjoyed Sam’s post as it helped me think through the above points. To sum up, I think he’s right about quite a bit, especially as it applies to people who can do their jobs remote, as well as those that have the disposition to be a caregiver. For the rest of us though, FIRE ain’t dead.
