I'm a fan of anything hating on Suze Orman, so I clicked on
this article the other day and subsequently read
this response.
Yesterday was the first I've heard of this FIRE movement, which basically means saving money and retiring early, or some version of retirement that doesn't involve a ****ty job (Financial Independence / Retire Early). ... There's as many ways to do that as there are people on the planet, of course, but Orman jumped in there with this awful "YOU'RE A HOBO IF YOU AINT A MILLIONAIRE" nonsense.
Reading the response, I found that while the guy's nom de plume grates my brain, a lot of the ideas he writes about resonate with me. For instance:
Quote:
In the interview, Suze Orman goes on and on about what might go wrong, and how you need an incredible amount of money saved to protect you, just in case. But this thinking is completely backward — money will not cure your fear, as megamillionaire Suze proves so clearly.
If you are afraid of what might happen in the future, you have a mental problem rather than a financial problem.
I think this nails one of the underlying problems with the modern idea of "retirement." Watching people budget and save, watching my dad deal with a fixed income, all of the planning seems to be around maintaining the status quo. Nothing must change in retirement.
And that, for sure, is a stressful proposition. Yeah, if that's your whole goal, you may actually need a few million. But what if "retirement" didn't buy into that idea? What if it allowed for changes in lifestyle and flexibility?
Of course, my dad looks at my life and says "you're not going to want to do any of the things you do today, when you're my age." And he might be right, but trying to predict what I will want seems like a bad longshot proposition to base my life on.