“I can deny reality as long as I write it in bold text!” – sure, Jan.

Look, you wanted to be informed, and I informed you. I did the math – correctly – for you. You wanted to know how the math worked for somebody who did the thing starting a decade ago such that they could be retired today, and I told you how it worked for somebody who started a decade ago such that they could be retired today. How it works for somebody starting today who wants to be retired ten years from now might involve slightly different tactics (especially with the Orange Dipshit trying his best to wreck the country in new and unanticipated ways), but that’s not really the point.

You are out of touch to understand housing…

What part of “granted, that circumstance no longer exists, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t other ways to make ownership (or otherwise hedging against rent inflation) happen, such as “house hacking” or living on a boat” did you not understand?

You are not entitled to disingenuously quote half an argument, ignore the other half, and use that to pretend you won. Argue in good faith or don’t argue at all.

If I hadn’t done what I did back then, I would be doing something else now instead (probably living on a boat) to keep my costs low. But I sure as Hell wouldn’t be paying $3K a month on housing! And more to the point, I can guarantee you that the other guy isn’t either, even without asking him or knowing anything else about his situation.

For context, the median individual income in 2015 for men working full time was 50k, I am pretty sure 90k is top 15%

Hey, guess what: go back and re-read the earlier comments and you’ll notice that you were the one who set that simplifying assumption, not me. My initial ballpark guess was that the guy’s yearly spend was closer to $24k than $40k. Obviously a normal person’s career progression is going to have their income gradually increasing over time, not starting at exactly $90k/year and not varying by even a cent for a decade, and my initial explanation took that into account and lowered my guess at his spending accordingly.

Setting your own simplifying assumptions for somebody to use and then bitching that the math “doesn’t work” because you moved the goalposts for precision is another example of a bad-faith argument to which you are not entitled.

And this is essentially the classic class advice: quit being poor pleb

No, it’s literally the opposite. The advice is “learn to be happy with the amount of money you have.” The amount of money you actually have, that is, not the (much larger) amount of money you think you have because you fail to plan for the future.

You’re just pulling preconceived notions out of your ass and ignoring what me and the other guy are actually telling you. This isn’t ‘prosperity gospel’ shit; central features of the FIRE mindset are things like:

• “Luxury is just another weakness”
• “Is it Convenient? Would I Enjoy it? Wrong Question.”
• And my personal favorite, especially considering we’re talking in !fuckcars about a topic that really should be discussed in !fire instead, “What Do You Mean “You Don’t Have a Bike”?!”

If you think that stuff has any resemblance to “quit being poor, pleb,” I don’t know what to tell you – you’re just illiterate or something. ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯

What it really boils down to is 21st century Stoicism and learning to avoid the Diderot Effect/hedonic adaptation – you reduce your spending until the math does work such that you have a very high savings rate, even if that means, IDK, living in a tiny apartment with multiple roommates or something. And then accepting that and figuring out how to be happy about it anyway.