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The FIRE movement (Financial Independence, Retire Early) has grown in popularity over the past decade, thanks to books like The Simple Path to Wealth, Quit Like a Millionaire and Your Money or Your Life \u2014 but what was once a grassroots movement to live with less so you can get out of the rat race has, according to r\/Fire Reddit user teric233 (1), grown into a community for “software engineer[s] making $400K\/year, saving half and aiming for 10M by 35.” <\/p>\n
They wonder if the movement has shifted into something else entirely. <\/p>\n
Must Read <\/p>\n
“I thought FIRE was always about being resourceful. Learning to do things yourself,” they wrote. “Fixing your car instead of buying a new one. Rebuilding an engine, replacing your AC or your roof, being handy. Finding freedom by spending less because you’re capable, not just because you make a lot.” <\/p>\n
The FIRE community has grown in recent years \u2014 \/financialindependence subreddit membership jumped about 300,000 people between 2020 and 2021 based on old Reddit API data (2) \u2014 but does that mean FIRE is no longer achievable for those making less than six figures? <\/p>\n
“Now it feels like the conversation is mostly about getting rich enough to pay people to do all those things in retirement, which feels kind of backwards?” teric233 continued. “Like, those are the exact skills that could’ve saved you thousands and helped you get to FIRE faster \u2014 especially if you’re not in tech or making six figures.” <\/p>\n
Is FIRE a frugal movement? <\/p>\n
In 1992, Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin’s Your Money or Your Life was released and became a bestseller, widely popularizing many of the concepts the movement was built on, according to Investopedia (3). <\/p>\n
The book laid out a nine-step path to financial independence, where “Step 6: Valuing Your Life Energy \u2014 Minimizing Spending” focused on reducing your spending to increase savings. <\/p>\n
In the 2010s, the movement expanded thanks to bloggers like Mr. Money Mustache (4), who focused on living well below your means to achieve financial independence as soon as possible. <\/p>\n
His frugal advice included tips like: “Live close to work. Move to another city if you enjoy adventure. Don’t borrow money for cars, and don’t buy stupid ones. Ride a bike wherever you can. Cancel your TV service. Learn to appreciate the life-boosting joy of using your own body to get things done. Learn to mock convenience.” <\/p>\n
But post-COVID, as inflation (5) and cost-of-living skyrocketed, is this advice still applicable to anyone actually trying to achieve financial independence? Teric233 believes FIRE can still be within reach, even if you’re not a tech bro. <\/p>\n
“I get that not everyone wants to DIY, but I think people underestimate the more practical side of FIRE, the kind that doesn’t rely on a massive income,” they wrote. “You can make 65K a year and be super resourceful and still be able to save a large percentage of your income.” <\/p>\n
User drewlb disagreed with their premise that the FIRE subreddit only focused on living a frugal lifestyle. <\/p>\n
“I’ve been in the sub for 10+ yrs. It never really intersected much with r\/frugal it was always much more with r\/investing,” they wrote. “At the end of the day \u2026 FIRE does require excess income above expenses to be viable, and no amount of making your own laundry detergent is going to get you there.” <\/p>\n
Read More: Millionaires under 43 hold only 25% of their wealth in stocks. Here’s where their money is actually going<\/a> <\/p>\n Can you really FIRE on a 65K salary? <\/p>\n So, is it realistic to achieve financial independence and retire early on a $65K salary in 2026? <\/p>\n That depends on what your FIRE number actually is, and which brand of FIRE you wish to achieve. <\/p>\n As the FIRE movement gained popularity, different versions of FIRE developed as a way of tracking where you are on the path to financial independence. <\/p>\n A few variations, according to ProjectionLab [6], include: <\/p>\n Coast FIRE: Having enough saved and invested that you no longer need to save and invest more. You don’t stop working, but you only need to work to cover your day-to-day expenses until retirement. You no longer need to save for retirement, meaning you can work fewer hours or take on a less stressful job, coasting into retirement. <\/p>\n Barista FIRE: This requires having enough saved and invested to partially cover your daily expenses, and working part-time to cover the rest. This allows you to work as a barista, for example, rather than committing to a full-time 9-to-5. <\/p>\n Lean FIRE: This means retiring on $1 million or less. When using a 4% withdrawal rate, this would leave you with $40,000 a year in retirement, requiring a frugal lifestyle. <\/p>\n Chubby FIRE: This allows you to retire comfortably on $80,000 – $150,000 a year, using the 4% rule. It requires an investment account of $2 – $3.75 million. <\/p>\n Fat FIRE: Considered the ‘luxury’ version of FIRE, this means having anywhere from $2.5 to $10 million saved for retirement, depending on your cost-of-living. <\/p>\n For someone earning a $65K salary in 2026, the first three might be within reach, but Fat FIRE and even Chubby FIRE could be tricky, depending on your lifestyle. <\/p>\n That said, it all comes down to your current expenses. If you live at home with your parents, rent-free, have no kids and save and invest all of your income until retirement \u2014 Chubby FIRE might be easily within reach. <\/p>\n But realistically, if you have to pay rent or a mortgage, utilities, food, childcare, travel and entertainment, that will take up a notable portion of your income, making it harder to achieve the luxury end of FIRE on an early timeline. <\/p>\n If you’re curious about your potential FIRE number, you can use a retirement calculator to find out what your number is, and go from there. Keep in mind, if your life circumstances change, that number and timeline will change, so it’s always good to reevaluate your number on a yearly basis. <\/p>\n Simple ways to build your FIRE fund <\/p>\n If you’re looking for an easy way to build the investment habits necessary to achieve FIRE on any income, a platform like Acorns might help. <\/p>\n Acorns<\/a> helps build savings habits right into your everyday spending, allowing you to automatically invest spare change from everyday purchases into a diversified portfolio of ETFs managed by Vanguard and BlackRock experts. <\/p>\n It works like this \u2014 buy a coffee for $3.25, and Acorns will round up the purchase to $4 and invest the difference for you. So that $3.25 purchase automatically becomes a 75-cent investment in your FIRE fund. <\/p>\n Sign up today with a recurring deposit, and you can get a $20 bonus investment<\/a>. <\/p>\n Another tool on the path to financial independence is a high-yield savings account, where you can stash your emergency fund without letting inflation erode its value. <\/p>\n A high-yield account like a Wealthfront Cash Account<\/a> can be a great place to grow your uninvested cash, offering both competitive interest rates and easy access to your money when you need it. <\/p>\n A Wealthfront Cash Account currently offers a base APY of 3.30% through program banks, and new clients can get an extra 0.75% boost during their first three months on up to $150,000 for a total variable APY of 4.05%<\/a>. <\/p>\n That’s 10 times the national deposit savings rate, according to the FDIC’s July report. <\/p>\n Additionally, Wealthfront is offering new clients who enable direct deposit ($1,000\/mo minimum) to their Cash Account and open and fund a new investment account an additional 0.25% APY increase with no expiration date or balance limit, meaning your APY could be as high as 4.30%<\/a>. <\/p>\n With no minimum balances or account fees, as well as 24\/7 withdrawals and free domestic wire transfers, your funds remain accessible at all times. Plus, you get access to up to $8M FDIC Insurance eligibility through program banks<\/a>. <\/p>\n Budgeting is another important part of understanding your finances. While you don’t have to maintain a strict budget forever, setting up and monitoring it for at least a year will help you better understand your spending habits, which is a vital step in achieving FIRE. <\/p>\n If managing a budget feels overwhelming to you, apps like Monarch Money<\/a> can simplify the process. <\/p>\n Monarch Money<\/a> puts all your finances under one roof, from your banking statements to your investments. You can also add separate or joint accounts to your dashboard, which can be great for tracking grocery runs for couples or helping your child get used to big-picture financial planning as parents. The app is also well reviewed. Forbes ranked Monarch Money as their best budgeting app for 2025, as did the Wall Street Journal. <\/p>\n And the best part? Monarch Money offers a seven-day free trial so you can see if it’s right for you. If you like what you see, you could then snag 50% off your first year with code WISE50<\/a>.](https:\/\/moneywise.com\/c\/1\/358\/1655?placement=2).Is) <\/p>\n Is homeownership a path to burning through your savings? <\/p>\n Some FIRE enthusiasts prefer to avoid buying property, as the hidden expenses involved in homeownership can make it harder to reach FIRE as fast as possible. According to the White Coat Investor (7), skipping homeownership also allows for geographic arbitrage \u2014 meaning you live in or travel through low-cost-of-living areas rather than stay in the higher cost-of-living city you’re from \u2014 which can help make FIRE possible sooner. <\/p>\n While this can help achieve FIRE on a speedy timeline, if you still want to benefit from the gains of the real estate market, there are alternative options that allow you to do so without owning a home. <\/p>\n You can tap into this market by investing in shares of vacation homes or rental properties through Arrived<\/a>. <\/p>\n Backed by world-class investors, including Jeff Bezos, Arrived allows you to invest in shares of vacation and rental properties<\/a>, earning a passive income stream without the extra work that comes with being a landlord of your own rental property. <\/p>\n To get started, simply browse through their selection of vetted properties<\/a>, each picked for their potential appreciation and income generation. Once you choose a property, you can start investing with as little as $100<\/a>. <\/p>\n You May Also Like <\/p>\n Join 250,000+ readers and get Moneywise’s best stories and exclusive interviews first \u2014 clear insights curated and delivered weekly. Subscribe now<\/a>. <\/p>\n Article Sources <\/p>\n We rely only on vetted sources and credible third-party reporting. For details, see our ethics and guidelines<\/a>. <\/p>\n u\/teric233\/Reddit (1<\/a>); Subredit Stats (2<\/a>); Investopedia (3<\/a>); Mr. Money Mustache (4<\/a>); CNBC (5<\/a>); ProjectionLab (6<\/a>); The White Coat Investor (7)<\/a> <\/p>\n This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Moneywise and Yahoo Finance LLC may earn commission or revenue through links in the content below. The FIRE…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":583677,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[287288,45054,2246,287290,52249,123095,138,287284,246,2079,287285,111,139,69,244,245,287286,287291,287289,287287],"class_list":["post-583676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-10-yrs","tag-10m","tag-2246","tag-3-25","tag-52249","tag-acorns","tag-business","tag-chubby-fire","tag-finance","tag-fire","tag-money-mustache","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance","tag-reddit-api","tag-satura","tag-the-simple-path-to-wealth","tag-your-life-energy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=583676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583676\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/583677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=583676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=583676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=583676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}