What, like $5 Million is hard? That’s what Personal Finance Pro, Suze Orman, reckons you’ll need to have a happy retirement, but ah yeah, it sounds hard to me which is probably why she’s copping a bit of backlash for the stance.
Who are the least happy about her claims? The recent subscribers to the “Financial Independence, Retire Early” aka. FIRE movement who were hoping to live frugally and maximise their savings so they can retire comfortably by 40 years old and just have themselves a good old time.
The FIRE movement was started in the U.S.A. by former software developer and current blogger at Mr. Money Moustache, Peter Adeney, who says he retired at 30 and now lives off his investment returns of about $600,000.
But, ah, Orman straight up called the philosophy “naive” during a recent interview with the Afford Anything podcast.
“I personally think [FIRE] is the biggest mistake financially speaking you will ever, ever make in your lifetime,” she said. “I think it’s just ridiculous. You will get burned if you play with FIRE.”
“I hate it,” proclaimed the woman with a net worth of over $US30 million and her own private island, “I hate it, I hate it, I hate it.”
Well then. Why won’t she tell us what she really thinks. Look, the woman does have her own island so she’s got to be pretty good at what she does, right? Why does she think FIRE is unrealistic?
“When you’re older is when you want $40 (million), $50 (million), $100 million. Two million dollars when you’re in your 30s, you may think that is a lot and you can live on $80,000, and you can have a good time for two, three, four, five years and hopefully nothing will go wrong, but I promise you, if you think $80,000 a year as you get older is going to make it for you before tax, I have a bridge to sell you.”
Well, dang. She goes on to explain that what many people aren’t realising is that things happen in life that have unforeseen costs, like illness and accidents. If you haven’t got enough saved for retirement, those things could really leave you stuck in retirement.
Instead, she urges that we should find a job we love so it doesn’t feel like a chore and keep working for as long as possible. So buckle up I guess, we’re going to be in the workforce for a long while yet.
Btw, if you’re mildly panicked and trying to work out how much you’ll be needing for retirement, give the below guide a gander:
