There's an idea that's been floating around the internet for the last decade or so. It goes something like this: save 70% of your income, live as frugally as humanly possible, and retire at 40 to a life of permanent freedom. They call it FIRE — Financial Independence, Retire Early. I've watched this movement grow from a niche blog topic into a full-blown lifestyle aspiration. And I have to say, as someone who's 66 and has been around the block a few times, I think a lot of people are missing the point entirely.
Don't get me wrong. The core idea is solid. Spend less than you earn. Invest the difference. Let compounding do the heavy lifting. That's essentially what I've been saying on this website since day one. The maths works. What I push back on is the extreme version — the idea that the only worthwhile goal is to escape work as early as possible by living on nothing. That's not a life. That's a jail sentence with a spreadsheet.
I've been working for over 45 years. During that time I've built a business, raised a family, made decent money, lost money, made more money, and made just about every financial mistake you can think of along the way. I could have retired at 55 if I'd been more aggressive about saving in my 30s and 40s. I didn't. I'm still working now at 66 — not because I have to, but because I want to. And that distinction is everything.
Here's what the hardcore FIRE people don't talk about enough: what are you actually retiring to? I've known people who retired early with plenty of money and were miserable within six months. They'd spent years obsessing over spreadsheets and withdrawal rates and tax optimisation, but they'd never once thought about what they'd do on a rainy Tuesday morning in February when they had nowhere to be and no one expecting anything from them. Work, for all its frustrations, gives most of us structure, purpose, community, and a reason to get out of bed. Strip that away without replacing it with something meaningful, and financial independence starts to feel a lot like emptiness.
I'm not saying don't save. I'm not saying don't invest. I'm saying the goal isn't the number in your brokerage account — it's the life that number makes possible. And for most people, that life doesn't require retiring at 40 with a million pounds in an ISA. It requires having enough invested that you have options. Enough that you can take a lower-paying job you actually enjoy. Enough that a redundancy doesn't terrify you. Enough that you can go part-time at 55 and ease into retirement gradually, rather than grinding till you drop at 68.
There's a framework I've come across recently that makes more sense to me than the traditional FIRE approach. It's called 'Coast FI' — the point where you've saved enough that, even if you never add another penny, compounding will carry you to a comfortable retirement by normal retirement age. Once you hit Coast FI, you don't have to stop working. You don't even have to stop saving. But you can stop worrying. You can ease off the throttle. You can take a job that pays less but makes you happier, knowing your future self is already taken care of.
Let me put some rough numbers on this. Say you want £25,000 a year in retirement income from your investments — on top of the State Pension, which in 2026 is about £12,547 a year. Using the rough 4% rule as a starting point (and acknowledging all its limitations — it's a guideline, not a guarantee, and investment returns aren't predictable), you'd need about £625,000 invested by retirement age. If you're 30 now and you've already got £80,000 invested in a global index fund, with historical average returns — and again, past performance doesn't predict the future — you might not need to add much more at all. Compounding might do the rest over 35 years. You've hit Coast FI at 30. Everything you save after that is just bringing the finish line closer or making retirement more comfortable. This is purely illustrative — real returns are unpredictable, and your numbers will be different.
The beauty of this approach is that it doesn't require extreme frugality. You don't need to save 70% of your income. You don't need to skip every coffee, cancel every subscription, and wear the same jumper for ten years. You just need to front-load your investing — save aggressively in your 20s and 30s while your costs are lower and compounding has decades to work — and then let time do what time does. After that, you can breathe. Life isn't just about accumulating money. It's about using money to build a life you actually want to live, both now and later.
I think there's also something to be said for working longer than you technically need to. I'm 66 and I still work. Not because I'm trapped in a job I hate, but because I genuinely enjoy what I do. Work keeps me sharp. It gives me social connections. It gives me a sense of contributing something. The difference between working because you have to and working because you choose to is the difference between a prison and a hobby. Financial independence — in whatever form works for you — buys you that choice. It doesn't require you to stop working. It just means the work you do is on your terms.
There's been a shift in the FIRE movement over the last few years that I find encouraging. The extreme voices have quietened down a bit. More people are talking about 'Barista FIRE' — reaching financial independence but continuing to work part-time for structure, social connection, or benefits. More people are talking about sustainable saving rates that don't require living on beans and rice for a decade. More people are acknowledging that financial independence is a spectrum, not a binary switch — it's about having progressively more options, not about hitting a magic number and never working again.
A 2025 survey by the Financial Conduct Authority found that 45% of UK adults pursuing aggressive savings goals reported high levels of financial anxiety. That's not independence. That's just trading one form of stress for another. If your pursuit of financial freedom is making you miserable right now, something has gone wrong. The whole point is to live better — not just later, but now.
So here's what I'd suggest, for what it's worth — and this is just my perspective, not advice. If you're in your 20s or 30s and you're feeling the pressure to save every penny and optimise every aspect of your financial life, take a breath. Yes, save. Yes, invest. Yes, take advantage of the decades of compounding ahead of you. But don't forget to live. Buy the coffee if it genuinely makes you happy. Go on the holiday. Spend time with people you love. The goal isn't to die with the biggest number in your brokerage account. It's to have lived a life that felt worth living — and to have had the financial security to do it on your own terms.
I didn't retire at 40. I didn't retire at 50. At 66, I'm still working, still investing, still learning, and still enjoying my life. My investments have grown to a point where I have genuine options — and that, to me, is what financial independence actually means. Not early retirement. Not permanent vacation. Just options. The freedom to say no. The ability to work less, or differently, or not at all. The peace of knowing that a market crash or a redundancy or an unexpected expense won't derail everything.
That's a goal worth pursuing. Not because you hate your life and want to escape it, but because you love your life and want to protect it. That's the version of financial independence I can get behind — and I suspect it's the one that actually works for most normal people.
For educational purposes only. Nothing here is financial advice. Investment returns are not guaranteed — markets go down as well as up. Past performance does not predict future results. The 4% rule is a guideline, not a guarantee. All investing carries risk. Always do your own research and speak to a qualified financial adviser for advice tailored to your circumstances.