“Ehhhh.” I exhaled audibly over my coffee. “Not quite…” I thought to myself as I read Stephie Grob Plante’s March 25th Vox finance article on the FIRE movement. My fingers began moving involuntarily. Please enjoy today’s blogpost: RE: Vox Article on FIRE Movement.
What It Got Right
The Who and the What
The Vox finance article on the FIRE movement compiles a fairly representative sample of “prominent FIRE thought leaders,” and decently summarizes the fundamental tenets of FIRE. (I put that in quotes because what the heck does that even mean, really?)
Her piece references, to varying degrees, some of the “O.G.” blogs: Mr. Money Mustache, Frugalwoods, Our Next Life and Budgets Are Sexy. (You missed, like, a lot.)
She mentions the Trinity Study, check, Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez’s Your Money or Your Life, check, The Playing With Fire Documentary, check, gives perspectives from a host of other FIRE bloggers, check.
The article attempts to provide more nuance by rebutting straw-man criticisms of the FIRE movement by rolling out MMM quotations. Legitimate strategy, safe, informative for the newbie, I thought.
Related:
What It Got Wrong
Assumptions Can...
Oh, lordy.
The entire Vox article on the FIRE movement is couched under the assumption that work/job sucks and FIRE adherents are trying to retire ASAP to escape their miserable current lives in order to live out their future diffusive Mai-Tai beach lifestyle.
Granted, work/job can suck and Mai-Tais are pretty snazzy, but…
Do you see where I’m going?
The article attempts to “put it in a box.” It tries to narrowly define and clump together a lattice of individual nodes that cannot and should not be stuffed into a drawer and labeled “FIRE.”
Furthermore, in an attempt to make all things under the sun revolve around identity, the article (or maybe it’s just a Vox thing) is hyper focused on the identities of the individuals and their specific “starting point.” Geez, really flying by the mark, now.
False Alternatives
The crux of the Vox article on the FIRE movement (which is intended to be a persuasive article, did you get that?) reduces FIRE, a population of hundreds of thousands of individuals, using the article’s own language, to a binary question.
Is it good or bad?
Black or white. Me or you. Us vs. them.
It then “rolls out the experts” who give valid, sound arguments with specific details, none easily refuted. It sprinkles in a line or two from a FIRE representative as an opposing view (who also makes a valid and sound argument.)
The intent, however, is subtly pernicious, in my opinion. The experts are designed to persuade the reader to discount the FIRE representative (and all corresponding viewpoints, no less) as quackery… naivety. Whatever.
What needs to be emphatically pointed out is adherents of the FIRE movement share a key characteristic: they leverage disconnected resources found on the internet to synthesize their personal approach to acquire knowledge and skills.
In other words, they’re learning stuff! Why would you ever characterize learning more about personal finances as “bad”?!
Nearly guffaw-able when you put it like that, no?
My Take
Head stuck in the clouds?
What is job?
What is work?
What is stability?
What is meaning?
These are not existential questions, well, I guess they are, but they are also pertinent to the corporeal, tangible world that you and I live in today. And, especially now, in a post-COVID-19 world, these are questions that everyone should ask themselves, not just “FIRE weirdos.”
A Means to an End or Something Else?
For me, “finding the FIRE movement,” really means diverting a finite resource, my capacity to learn, in the direction of personal finance, self-improvement and life-optimization.
As someone that I know likes to say: “One thing begets another.” So it were.
I stumbled upon more resources, which “lit the FIRE.” (to borrow a phrase from truly admirable leaders in the space) and blah, blah, blah.
Trouble in Blogger Bliss Land?
Does the FIRE movement have issues? I’ll say it again.
Oh, lordy.
The article highlights a thread of criticism that I think is merited, revolving around the financial structure and incentives involved around FIRE bloggers.
OK, get out your pitchforks, I’m about to raise heck.
The FIRE blogosphere is an ecosystem, a platform, a network to be used for good or ill. Like any large network, there are individual agents with various motivations and ethics.
It is clear that the FIRE movement today is much more than a stoic “Mustachianism” approach to personal finance, for better or worse… probably worse.
It is also clear there’s a lot of click-baity, affiliate-laden garbage out there, masquerading as “financial advice.” That’s probably not anything new, but maybe the lines are more blurred between well-intended folk and charlatan.
Here’s what it comes down to for me: I’ll use one example to illustrate my point. Are you a credit analyst and/or have extensive experience with discounting cash flows, delinquency rates, interest rate forecasts? No? Zero, eh?
Then please refrain from writing one-size-fits-all blogposts about the benefits of P2P lending when you have a direct conflict of interest via an affiliate kickback, while hiding behind the feeble disclaimer that “you’re not a financial expert and this content is for entertainment purposes only.” Please.
You are giving advice.
You do not understand what you’re talking about.
You are being compensated for it.
There…whew! I got that off my chest.
Now that I’ve said my peace on that, I will also say there are many, many “untrained” financial coaches who deliver actionable, sound advice when it comes to personal finance, budgeting and investing, so it goes both ways. I have personally learned tons from these “untrained” folks!
Again, more gray, not black and white.
Furthermore, I do think there is a challenge for not just FIRE bloggers, but writers, creators, artists… to “monetize” their creations.
I struggle with this, like, right now!
For many, “monetization” means putting a bunch of crap on your site. Is that the goal?
Or, is it traffic? Should we be concerned with how many clicks versus impressions, etc.?
Again, oh, lordy.
Conclusion
Man, I guess I’ve been brewin’ on that one for a while. I think there’s a lot to be said on this here topic. I hope this brings a little more nuance to the conversation. I don’t want to portray myself as anything, I’m just a person who’s been observing for a little bit. I submit this to you as a humble, fallible individual, capable of many, many mistakes, but I’m gonna keep on choppin’ away. I hope you do too. We can take solace in knowing that the important stuff, and to a certain extent FIRE, is really pretty simple, but some folks, maybe Vox included, insist on making it complicated.
ok, i read that whole article and the spin on it reminds me of why i don’t frequent sites like vox. i agree it’s a subtle spin but i smelled it for sure. of course if you write content on saving and investing it doesn’t apply to 100% of the world. it does, however, apply to more people who could and probably should be paying better attention. we never had a huge savings rate and i don’t really want the fire acronym pegged to my name but financial independence can do wonders for your life and ability to take away one big stressor: money.
even if a person only amasses a decent emergency fund and puts 8% in a 401k they’re ahead of the game. i think it especially applies right now with all the uncertainty with some jobs. i think you said it right: take the parts you can use and learn something. focus on “getting better and smarter with money.” that is winning.
Thank you sir, well said.