AxelHeyst wrote: ↑Thu Jan 19, 2023 11:43 am
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It occurs to me that the carrot of FIRE is very distracting. The problem is that it is at WL5 ish. So if it really is the carrot of FI that attracts you to ERE, well, you get the reward at WL5. And then for most people there is no other visible carrot. The reasons for going on to WL6 or 7 or whateverthehell 8+ is are... opaque, fuzzy, even repellent to some. So you get the carrot at WL5, and then you're good, and you're basically done.
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Okay. Criticism? What's naive about this? Are there non-obvious ways this fails?
No criticism really. But sometimes FI of whatever sort/at whatever level, is not the goal in-and-of itself. When I first started thinking about FI it was out of fear and it was the goal, no question. Once the crisis passed I very quickly hatched a plan where FI was a precondition, but it was was just the last task of what is now my prior phase of life. In other words, I created a vision for the autumn of my life (I was almost 50 when I first found ere), a carrot, and FI was just a means to an end.
So it was a bit more of a considered move than simply a blind rush to fatFFIRE then stopping and saying, "Ok, my carrot is gone, so now what?". I started taking concrete steps towards the future vision 7 years before parting ways with my employer, even cracked open the stash to do it (the only time I've been into it since it was so named). I guess what I'm trying to say is sometimes there are things above and beyond ere WLs, or simply "not working" that people strive for in life.
Being someone whose ere WL is rather low I doubt I'm even at L5. The higher levels posited do seem at best fuzzy. I'm one of those annoying people who always asks himself why. Based on where I started and the direction I intended to steer my future, beyond a certain point it seemed like oversaving was a much more efficient path than over-ereing. That is, ere beyond a certain point became the distraction.
I think the path you outline is fine. I think the weak link is assuming opportunities to scrabble for a few bucks will always be available when you need them in the future. Bird in hand is worth two in a bush sort of thing. But it's not a fatal weak link.
I think it mostly comes down to what someone sees as the pinnacle of their lifestyle and arranging things around pursuit of that. If more/higher ere ascendance is a person's primary long range goal in life, a perfectly noble ambition, then you've laid out a path that is probably a more efficient means-to-end than dwelling longer in the wage earner world. There are probably other ambitions that could indicate superiority of that approach.
One of the things that retirees of all stripes often do a poor job of is giving enough thought to the specifics of what they really want their life to be like. I had ideas that I carried with me for more than 45 years that I made specific and that's where I'm headed. A few years back I even took a month off to give the vision a trial run. When push comes to shove furthering those goals takes priority. But ere still has a place at the table. Mostly in contingency planning, but having done numerous thought experiments with my understanding of things like web-of-goals, yields/flows, system theory, etc., I still find small ways to hone my day-to-day efficiency. That may or may not lead to higher WLs (I think it won't but could be wrong).
I think the real secret sauce is figuring out the most efficient ways to tailor use of the lower level ere tools to construct whatever it is a given individual is aiming for, be it higher levels of ere or something else entirely. I don't know if there is a systematic way of doing that, maybe every individual will have to use trial/error and intuition to solve things for themselves.