Owen Raskovitch

If you retire at 50, that's still early to retire.

You aren't the generation older than you when they retired.

I mean, for the majority of them, it's not that age.

So I think just pursue it in any case.

Okay, so I reached out to the folks at the couple at Dividends Down Under.

And I've just got it in my little WhatsApp chat here.

I've also written it down there.

But I asked them, what is FIRE for you?

And they said, to substantially spend less than one earns, probably living quite frugally and invest heavily until reaching a wealth amount that could support you for the rest of your life.

That's how they define FIRE.

But then in a practical sense, what that means is, for us, that means saving 50 to 60% of our after-tax pay and investing until the annual dividends would cover our desired expenses.

50 to 60%, you know, that's a pretty, for most people, I would say that's an ambitious target.

They've been doing it.

If you think, imagine just for a moment, the majority of people listening to this will not be saving 50% to 60% of their income unless they live at home with their parents, they've got a good job, they don't pay board, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Or they have a really lucrative side hustle.

Or they have a really good side hustle.

Or they're just really, really wealthy.

They might be the exceptions, but there's not going to be many of them.

For the majority of us, we're not going to be saving 50% to 60% of our income, particularly if we have kids, a mortgage, those types of things.

The thing here is that you don't have to.