If the conventional wisdom on Reddit these days is 2.5-3%, and if that’s representative of sentiment among early retirees, then things have changed in the fire community recently. I don’t spend any time at all on Reddit so I wouldn’t know what they are talking about there. I do not get the general impression that people have moved far fr…
If the conventional wisdom on Reddit these days is 2.5-3%, and if that’s representative of sentiment among early retirees, then things have changed in the fire community recently. I don’t spend any time at all on Reddit so I wouldn’t know what they are talking about there. I do not get the general impression that people have moved far from the 4% rule and I see next to zero attention to contingency planning for general misfortune and none at all for what Morgan Housel calls social debt. There could be a cultural difference between UK and US early retirees as well.
For the rest, It might (might!) be worth your time having a prod into r/FIREUK to gain some other perspectives. We have 159,000 members, so it's a pretty decent pool for a niche topic in a smaller country.
To summarise though, basically 99% people there first just grab the 4% rule of thumb. Most are not genuinely in a position to make serious progress, which is fair given economic conditions in the UK at the moment.
Those that do approach having enough almost always start reducing their SWR and also doing things like not counting state pension and building in various bits of fat throughout.
We tend to point them towards Monevator's excellent post on the subject:
But honestly, if anything people are sometimes too pessimistic about returns in the UK. I think perhaps the UK is generally more pessimistic in outlook than the USA for most things (fair?).
At the risk of boring you, the other trend I find interesting over there is the watering down of FIRE. If you spend a lot of time there, you'll notice that many people "doing FIRE" are talking earnestly about retiring at ages like 55, 60 or even later. Ages at which just a tiny bit of extra cash is required to supplement basic decent planning. I did initially push back on this, as it makes the difference between FIRE and just retiring rather thin, but the fact is that for most people it's the only realistic target and just the task of retiring comfortably in the UK is hard enough at the moment!
If the conventional wisdom on Reddit these days is 2.5-3%, and if that’s representative of sentiment among early retirees, then things have changed in the fire community recently. I don’t spend any time at all on Reddit so I wouldn’t know what they are talking about there. I do not get the general impression that people have moved far from the 4% rule and I see next to zero attention to contingency planning for general misfortune and none at all for what Morgan Housel calls social debt. There could be a cultural difference between UK and US early retirees as well.
Totally agree re social debt.
For the rest, It might (might!) be worth your time having a prod into r/FIREUK to gain some other perspectives. We have 159,000 members, so it's a pretty decent pool for a niche topic in a smaller country.
To summarise though, basically 99% people there first just grab the 4% rule of thumb. Most are not genuinely in a position to make serious progress, which is fair given economic conditions in the UK at the moment.
Those that do approach having enough almost always start reducing their SWR and also doing things like not counting state pension and building in various bits of fat throughout.
We tend to point them towards Monevator's excellent post on the subject:
https://monevator.com/why-the-4-rule-doesnt-work/
But honestly, if anything people are sometimes too pessimistic about returns in the UK. I think perhaps the UK is generally more pessimistic in outlook than the USA for most things (fair?).
At the risk of boring you, the other trend I find interesting over there is the watering down of FIRE. If you spend a lot of time there, you'll notice that many people "doing FIRE" are talking earnestly about retiring at ages like 55, 60 or even later. Ages at which just a tiny bit of extra cash is required to supplement basic decent planning. I did initially push back on this, as it makes the difference between FIRE and just retiring rather thin, but the fact is that for most people it's the only realistic target and just the task of retiring comfortably in the UK is hard enough at the moment!