- Reader Case: From Cancer Survivor to FIRE - September 1, 2026
- The FIRE Guide to America’s Health Care System (2026) - July 7, 2026
- Planting Your Money Trees - February 23, 2026
We’ve all collectively been through a rough few years. After a brutal global pandemic and stock market crash, followed by years of inflation and the subsequent rise in interest rates, you can be forgiven for feeling kind of shitty about the state of your finances.
The rising cost of living has affected everyone, and on top of that there’s now a housing crisis to deal with too! While Millennials were seen as whiny and entitled, Gen Z has been described as “financially hopeless,” and has collectively chosen to blow their money on luxury goods because they’ve basically given up on ever becoming financially stable.
For younger generations, financial goals like buying a house and saving for retirement can feel out of reach.
Gen Z Is Splurging on Luxury Goods to Soothe Their Economic Despair, Bloomberg.com
All this has led to the next generation looking at us millennial FIRE bloggers and concluding “Yeah, that shit doesn’t work anymore.”
Gen Z has a point. Everything from groceries to bus tickets is more expensive now, and home prices have shot past the crazy levels that I remembered, and then kept going. Is FIRE just another financial strategy that no longer works, a relic of economic conditions that no longer exist?
Great question. Let’s see what the MATH tells us, shall we?
Everything’s More Expensive!
Inflation is a bitch. It makes everything more expensive, it affects everyone, and it’s notoriously difficult to wrangle under control once it rears its ugly head. You basically have to spike interest rates up to slow down lending and hope you don’t accidentally cause a recession in the process. The US Federal Reserve has done a fantastic job of this, somehow pulling off a soft landing that has brought inflation down from nosebleed levels of 10%+ back down to the target range of 1-3%.
“With an appropriate dialing back of policy restraint, there is good reason to think that the economy will get back to 2% inflation while maintaining a strong labor market,” [Fed Chair Jerome Powell] said.
‘The time has come’: The Fed just sent a crucial message about its next move
However, even though a recession has (so far) been avoided, that doesn’t mean it’s been painless. Spiking interest rates have made borrowing more expensive, and put the screws on anyone with a variable or adjustable rate mortgage. And as Canadians have painfully discovered, unlike American fixed rate mortgages which are actually fixed rate, our so-called “fixed rate” mortgages renew every 5 years. So, it hasn’t been fun to be a mortgage holder, to say the least.
And even though inflation has been mostly brought under control, there’s a misconception that prices are supposed to go back to pre-pandemic levels. They’re not. Inflation has been corralled back into the central bank’s target range that’s seen as a healthy level of inflation, which means prices are going to keep increasing, but at a more sustainable 1-3%. It doesn’t mean prices are going to come down. That would require deflation, which nobody wants because it would trigger a recession and massive job losses.
So, prices are higher now, and they’re going to stay that way. This is now the new normal.
Now, how does this affect FIRE if inflation has made everything way more expensive
To model this, first I’m going to need our spending data from when we first started working, back in 2006. Fortunately, I still have all that data from when we first started our blog, in our “How We Got Here” series. So I dug up our old tables and replicated them here below. All numbers are in CAD, and annual.
Also note that in Year 1, we started working only in July, so that row only covers half a year of expenses. Before that we were in school.
Year | Rent | Food/Entertainment | Transport/Utility/Misc | Travel | Total Expenses |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | $9,000.00 | $16,200.00 | $1,800.00 | $4,999.98 | $31,999.98 |
2 | $18,000.00 | $26,400.00 | $3,600.00 | $3,000.00 | $51,000.00 |
3 | $9,600.00 | $26,400.00 | $3,600.00 | $6,999.96 | $46,599.96 |
4 | $9,600.00 | $26,400.00 | $3,600.00 | $9,000.00 | $48,600.00 |
5 | $9,600.00 | $20,400.00 | $3,600.00 | $11,849.88 | $45,449.88 |
6 | $9,600.00 | $20,400.00 | $3,600.00 | $6,999.96 | $40,599.96 |
7 | $9,600.00 | $13,740.00 | $6,660.00 | $6,996.00 | $36,996.00 |
8 | $10,200.00 | $10,080.00 | $7,536.00 | $5,604.00 | $33,420.00 |
9 | $10,200.00 | $10,200.00 | $8,580.00 | $2,016.00 | $30,996.00 |
Let’s split up our expenses into two broad groups: Rent and Everything Else.
Everything Else contains all the expenses that aren’t rent. Namely, food, entertainment, transport, travel, and other miscellaneous expenses. According to the Federal Reserve, prices, which are measured using the Consumer Price Index (CPI), have increase a total of 50% from 2006 to 2024. So let’s scale all these prices up by 50%.
Year | Food/Entertainment (+50%) | Transport/Utility/Misc (+50%) | Travel (+50%) |
|---|---|---|---|
1 | $24,300.00 | $2,700.00 | $7,499.97 |
2 | $39,600.00 | $5,400.00 | $4,500.00 |
3 | $39,600.00 | $5,400.00 | $10,499.94 |
4 | $39,600.00 | $5,400.00 | $13,500.00 |
5 | $30,600.00 | $5,400.00 | $17,774.82 |
6 | $30,600.00 | $5,400.00 | $10,499.94 |
7 | $20,610.00 | $9,990.00 | $10,494.00 |
8 | $15,120.00 | $11,304.00 | $8,406.00 |
9 | $15,300.00 | $12,870.00 | $3,024.00 |
Looking at this new budget, this looks broadly in line with our current non-rent spending, so it seems reasonable.
Now, let’s look at rent. Rent has increased at a rate faster than inflation, and looking at average rents then and now, we are going to scale everything up by a factor of 2X, like so.
Year | Rent (+100%) |
|---|---|
1 | $18,000.00 |
2 | $36,000.00 |
3 | $19,200.00 |
4 | $19,200.00 |
5 | $19,200.00 |
6 | $19,200.00 |
7 | $19,200.00 |
8 | $20,400.00 |
9 | $20,400.00 |
When we first started working, we were living separately, and renting two bedrooms in a shared living space with roommates. Back then, this cost us $1700 a month, and today, we’re estimating the cost to be $3400 a month, which again seems reasonably accurate.
We decided to move in together in year 3, which is why rent dropped since we went from paying 2 rents down to 1.
So really, what we’re doing is pretending that we’re Gen Z rather than millennials, but otherwise we’re the same people, making the exact same spending decisions, but with today’s prices rather than in 2006.
Put it together and this is what our spending looks like, then (starting 2006) and now (starting 2024).
Year | Total Expenses (Starting 2006) | Total Expenses (Starting 2024) |
|---|---|---|
1 | $31,999.98 | $52,499.97 |
2 | $51,000.00 | $85,500.00 |
3 | $46,599.96 | $74,699.94 |
4 | $48,600.00 | $77,700.00 |
5 | $45,449.88 | $72,974.82 |
6 | $40,599.96 | $65,699.94 |
7 | $36,996.00 | $60,294.00 |
8 | $33,420.00 | $55,230.00 |
9 | $30,996.00 | $51,594.00 |
Hmm, that does look quite a bit higher, doesn’t it? Seems pretty bleak at first glance, but spending is only one half of the FIRE equation. The other half is of course, earnings. So how would our earnings be if we were looking for the exact same jobs today versus back in 2006?
Have Wages Kept Up?
When I started working, my starting salary as a computer engineer was $80k, and FIRECracker’s was about $60k, for a total before-tax earnings of $140k.
I looked up the same job postings at our old companies, and found that my old job is now paying $130k, and FIRECracker’s is paying $85k if we were to be hired into them today.
The tax situation has also changed, since we now have a new tax vehicle at our disposal here in Canada: the First Time Home Savings Plan, or FHSA.
The FHSA, as the name implies, was designed to help Canadians save money towards the down payment for a house, but if you don’t end up buying a house, the balance can be transferred into your RRSP. In 2006, we maxed out every tax shelter we had access to, so I’m confident that our Gen Z doppelgangers would have also done the same, so each year we assumed we maxed out both our RRSP’s and FHSA’s.
Plugging these values into a tax calculator, we get this as our after-tax earnings.
Wanderer | FIRECracker | |
|---|---|---|
Gross | $130,000 | $85,000 |
RRSP + FHSA Contributions | $23,400 (RRSP) + $8000 (FHSA) | $15,300 (RRSP) + $8000 (FHSA) |
Taxes | $25,695 | $14,516 |
Net Income | $104,305 | $70,484 |
We also have to take into account that during our careers, we got promoted, we received bonuses, and we got raises. I was promoted three times, and FIRECracker twice. This is reflected in the increase of our earnings in our original 2006 data.
So if we assume that our Gen Z versions got promoted and received raises at the same rate, we should scale our actual earnings data up so it maintains the same upwards trajectory.
To do this, we’re going to take our earnings in Year 2 and compare them to today’s starting salary. Why Year 2? Because Year 1 only reflects half a year of earnings (we started working in July), so Year 2 reflects our first full calendar year of working.
If we take our Year 2 after-tax earnings and compare it to today’s salaries for the same jobs, it looks like this.
This means that our after tax earnings now, in today’s dollars, is 40% higher than our earnings in 2006. Let’s take that 40% scaling factor and apply it to our earnings.
Year | 2006 Earnings | 2024 Earnings (+40%) |
|---|---|---|
1 | $66,500.00 | $87,394.50 |
2 | $125,000.00 | $174,789.00 |
3 | $131,000.00 | $183,178.87 |
4 | $136,000.00 | $190,170.43 |
5 | $145,400.00 | $203,314.56 |
6 | $167,500.00 | $234,217.26 |
7 | $168,680.00 | $235,867.27 |
8 | $155,000.00 | $216,738.36 |
9 | $164,000.00 | $229,323.17 |
Gen Z FIRE
Now that we have the 2024 versions of our earnings and spending data, how long should it take to get to FIRE?
Here’s how long it took us to reach FIRE as millennials…
Remember that because everything costs more, our FIRE target has to be higher today than what it was before. Back then, we used $40k as our spending target. Today, it would need to be 50% higher, or around $60k. That means that instead of quitting like a millionaire with $1M, we would need $60k x 25 = $1.5M.
How long would it take to get there?
Year | Balance | Savings | ROI (6%) | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | $0.00 | $34,894.53 | $0.00 | $34,894.53 |
2 | $34,894.53 | $89,289.00 | $2,093.67 | $126,277.20 |
3 | $126,277.20 | $108,478.93 | $7,576.63 | $242,332.77 |
4 | $242,332.77 | $112,470.43 | $14,539.97 | $369,343.16 |
5 | $369,343.16 | $130,339.74 | $22,160.59 | $521,843.50 |
6 | $521,843.50 | $168,517.32 | $31,310.61 | $721,671.43 |
7 | $721,671.43 | $175,573.27 | $43,300.29 | $940,544.98 |
8 | $940,544.98 | $161,508.36 | $56,432.70 | $1,158,486.04 |
9 | $1,158,486.04 | $177,729.17 | $69,509.16 | $1,405,724.37 |
10 | $1,405,724.37 | $177,729.17 | $84,343.46 | $1,667,797.00 |
So it does take longer, but not by much. Instead of making it to our target in 9 years, it takes 9 years and a few extra months to hit our new target of $1.5M.
So that means, if we were the same people today as we were back in 2006 after graduating from school, and we worked the same jobs and made the same choices today, we would hit FIRE in about the same amount of time (plus a few months).
Conclusion
The more things change the more they stay the same.
Jon Bon Jovi
It’s tempting to look at the world around you, throw up your hands and give up, but even though inflation has made everything more expensive, other factors have also shifted to compensate. Jobs have to pay more competitive salary to attract and retain workers, and even though salaries haven’t quite kept up to pace with inflation, the end effect is relatively minimal.
So even though FIRE feels harder to achieve now than before, the math shows that it’s still doable.
When we wrote Quit Like a Millionaire, we said that FIRE is the only mathematically reproducible method of creating generational wealth that we’ve encountered, and that’s still true in 2024 just as it was back then.
Even when the news makes financial stability seem hopeless, don’t lose hope. Let the math guide you instead..
Hi there. Thanks for stopping by. We use affiliate links to keep this site free, so if you believe in what we're trying to do here, consider supporting us by clicking! Thx ;)
Build a Portfolio Like Ours: Check out our FREE Investment Workshop!
Travel the World: Get flexible worldwide coverage for only $45.08 USD/month with SafetyWing Nomad Insurance
Multi-currency Travel Card: Get a multi-currency debit card when travelling to minimize forex fees! Read our review here, or Click here to get started!
Travel for Free with Home Exchange: Read Our Review or Click here to get started. Please use sponsor code kristy-d61e2 to get 250 bonus points (100 on completing home profile + 150 after first stay)!
Unfortunately, not a lot of people have the same high salary you and wandered had 🙁 even back then. Would you please do the math based on the average salary in Toronto in 2024.
Most of my friends that say this, they smoke or buy trendy stuff frequently.
If it doesn’t take 9 years, it could take 20. It’s still very good, no ?
That’s an interesting future article idea, sure!
But generally, to achieve FIRE, you do need above average earnings, below average spending, or above average investment returns. If someone has an average salary, they have to have a combination of very low spending and really good investment returns to counteract that effect.
Yep, I am thoroughly convinced that FI/RE is the ultimate “equalizer”…
Either we purposely buy STUFF or FREEDOM first. At the end of the day, we either go with “instant” or “delayed” gratification. Either we “look” rich or “be” rich so this is all about aligning “choices” with our “goals and priorities”. It is purely that simple yet so difficult for others to get their heads around.
Again, I would rather walk alone than with a crowd going in the wrong direction.
ImmigrantOnFIRE
That’s a really good point. FIRE is all about choices, and you do have to go against the crowd and be OK with doing your own thing.
If there is not a big pay bump like in tech, it may take longer to achieve FIRE currently. However, it is OK to take a little longer and no need to kill yourself to speed up the process. FIRE is a tool not a goal.
That’s a great point. Tech salaries did keep up (relatively) with inflation while not every sector did, so FIRE may have become harder or easier depending on what type of job you had. But it’s still possible even with all this inflation, which is the important thing.
omg, the haters are going to inflate their hate after this post! After all, haters also have to adjust for inflation, so the hater index will be a double-double on this one.
lololol
Yup, correct. Math checks out 🙂
Always a good read and thanks for the interesting article but so many assumptions.
Over the last 10 years the SP 500 has gone hyperbolic from 1600 to 5600. I doubt that will continue if stagflation sets in.
In addition to inflation I don’t think you accounted for Trudeau’s wonderful progressive new taxes and carbon taxes. The more you earn, the more he confiscates from you including new minimum taxes required to be paid.
Also what if your tech company got rid of you and you were part of the great tech layoff.
That other great fire promoter Fiancial Samaurai Sam Dogen ended up recently needing to go back to work .
Keep working everyone
LOL.
Financial Samurai Sam Dogen did NOT need to go back to work.
That was only click-bait to drum up more publicity for his websites/books. An example of pure greed. That is all.
He makes more than enough just through his blog to pay for all his family’s expenses.
Thanks for reading and sharing my work! I really appreciate it.
Can’t help it if journalists want to cover my work. But I have been writing about FIRE since I launched Financial Samurai in 2009, so I guess it’s inevitable.
As a finance guy, it’s been fun to write about finance, investing, and early retirement. Let’s hope the bull market in stocks and real estate continues!
Best,
Sam
I think the S&P 500 will rise considerably in the years to come as the great rotation of money fro boomers to Gen x and millennials is the biggest transfer of wealth in history. That money will go to stocks, houses and bonds. Mostly stocks I’ll bet!
You have to make assumptions in order to do a projection. If the stock market enters a decade-long tailspin, or there’s a massive tech layoff, or a nuclear war breaks out, then yes my projection won’t be true, but that’s true for literally every financial projection.
We’re just trying to measure whether the inflation of the past 10 years singlehandedly kills the FIRE dream, and the answer is no it doesn’t.
Went back to work, but could only last for four months. Too many meetings and too much micromanagement! Back to the drawing board.
https://www.financialsamurai.com/went-back-to-work-and-could-only-last-four-months/
Think I’m going to look at an elective teaching job at my kids’ school. Could be fun!
FIRE in 2024 is definitely harder, especially if you have two kids or more in an expensive city. But it’s possible, especially if the bull market continues.
Also, if you’ve owned your house for the past 10-12 years or have paid off your house, FIRE becomes much easier. Crazy how much home prices have gone up.
I just read your article about returning to work and subscribed to your blog. Very interesting read. I’m feeling similar sentiments right now and I don’t even have kids or a partner yet but am feeling sucked dry by useless meetings and not many avenues for meaningful expression and innovation of thought. I’ve been working in Federal government for 10 years and want to quit so bad (I’m only 38 but cant do this anymore). Do you happen to know if negotiating severance works for federal government employees?
My husband and I have similar saleries and live in the GTA, the math seems reasonable for those saleries if you don’t have kids. We have 2 children, and FIRE will take longer because of the added expenses for kids.
FIRE is more difficult today, but I think it’s doable. If you can get a good job, you’re on your way. Of course, it seems harder to get a well-paying job these days.
The interest is high, but just keep at it. Things will get easier as you get more established.
I paid 8% mortgage on our first house in 2000. We refinanced when rates dropped and now our core expenses are pretty low.
In some ways, yes it is more difficult, but we now have the wide acceptance of remote jobs and the opportunities for geographic arbitrage that come with it. If you can break the requirement that you have to live in a high cost of living city in order to make a high income, you can really supercharge your FIRE journey.
Yes….FIRE is still totally doable. The housing crisis might actually be a good thing as it opens up spare room renting opportunities to actual FIRE people (I would much rather be the FIRE person renting the room over the FIRE person who needs to rent a room in order to achieve FIRE).
Everyday Joe salaries unfortunately in about 50-60 k per person. Rent in Vancouver or Toronto 2500 1 bedroom. Let’s calculate fire number for them if possible.
Also people should forget about having children, pets and supporting old parent if have one.
I am your big fan anyways and we follow our dream to become at least FI. Seems like my husband goes to retirement at 53-55 and I will have to work for at least another 5 years and retire at 48. We have alimonies, pet and old parents to support.
Are you joking me 50-60K is the average salary in Toronto or Vancouver? Uber drivers makes more than that lmao.
A coop student from a decent program/school get paid more than that during their coop term.
Amazon DDE starts at 140K out of school. Cali tech positions 250k RSU multiplier bonus.
Even if you had garbage grades in high school and went to college, you could still end up on the sunshine list within 5 years.
Garbage grades and no college? No problem! Northern mines or oil fields…
Stop crying about your low salary and blaming immigrants, your just lazy 🙁
Haha
I am not crying and being lazy. I work hard and achieving Fire in several years. You are just being rude.
Actually, Natalia’s point is quite valid. Tech jobs may have increased that much, but not everyone works in tech. And not everyone can/should. We need nurses, teachers, etc, who are notoriously underpaid especially in BC. (Those professions require college education btw.)
This is brilliant. I was just contemplating the same thing. Thank you for doing all the excellent math.
Forgot to add. Since we have so many immigrants right now it is getting super difficult to find job. We both in IT. My husband company seems like trying to outsource employee from Albania so layoffs are coming.
Yikes, I’m sorry to hear that. I hope it works out for your husband.
Great post!
Inflation is tough, but I believe that by prioritizing living below their means and focusing on essential spending, people can still achieve early retirement. Even with inflation, many continue to spend excessively on non-essential items. The real issue is that most people don’t realize that every purchase often costs them hours at a stressful job. If more people understood how much free time they could save by cutting unnecessary expenses, I’m sure they’d be happier and reach early retirement much sooner than the average person who retires at 65.
Recently, we climbed Taiwan’s highest peak – Yushan (3,952m), and witnessing traditional retirees struggle to catch the epic sunrise (due to being older than us – has Taiwanese are quite fit as retirees) reinforced our decision to retire in 2018. Being able to enjoy these incredible experiences while still in our prime has made every sacrifice worth it! Plus we got the compound interest of making memories early that we can then share with others. But this is another topic of discussion…
Mr. NN
Very cool! Sounds like you’re doing retirement right!
It’s those salaries that are the real challenge. Not sure how engineers are fairing but my son recently completed his master’s degree in chemistry (defended in May). His thesis has been published in one of the world’s top chemistry magazines and he has 2 years work experience in a university research lab. He did a full double major in both chemistry and history (got stalled in his chemistry undergrad during the pandemic and kept loading up on history courses, which he loved) so he is an excellent communicator as well as a great scientist. Yet, he has sent out over 100 CVs and so far the only job offer is basic lab work at $22.50 per hour. You can barely pay rent at that rate, let alone save anything! There seem to be lots more STEM grads (especially in the sciences) than there are jobs for those young people so labs are offering dirt pay. I fully understand that it’s hard not to get discouraged as a GenZ.
Ugh, that sucks.
When I say that these are the salaries for our first jobs, you also have to remember that our school had a co-op program where we did internship throughout our schooling, and those jobs were similar entry-level jobs that you’re describing here. You do have to put in the hours and work your way up, but it does work.
Not every career is like that. I appreciate you sharing your stories and your numbers but I think there’s something missing in the analysis if you don’t even acknowledge that other careers haven’t kept pace like that. If you work in healthcare or education, you’re facing the same inflated expenses with only a modestly higher income.
As others have mentioned, I agree with the overall point, but it feels either disconnected from reality or disingenuous to not acknowledge this. Do you expect that the vast majority of your readers are also engineers or the like?
A lot of young graduates find themselves in similar positions, expecting a more advanced job because they completed a difficult researched based masters or PhD. The reality is that unless there is a company interested in that specific research that kind of specialized education doesn’t benefit the employer. It’s important for young people to research/understand the jobs available for their education before signing up for (more) school. We offer the same starting salary to those with bachelors degrees as masters degrees, which means the young people who took the masters degree are further behind in work experience and earnings when they eventually start work
It’s really hard for young people out there, and quite frankly a lot of people out there who are unsure of how to increase their income or reduce expenses to have a moderate lifestyle. The great transfer of wealth will be a spectacle to see, as many boomers seem to want to keep kids out of their estate planning yet leave them with everything.
As someone who’s just starting to explore the concept of FIRE, it’s inspiring to see how adaptable this strategy can be, even in today’s economic climate. The challenges of 2024 make me more determined to learn and apply these principles to secure my financial future.
Glad to hear it! FIRE really is the only financial strategy out there that seems to consistently work, but it does take time and sustained effort to pull off. It is possible, though, so keep at it!
That’s awesome, we can choose to surround ourselves with the voices that say yes it is possible. Positive role modes, and the math says so too. Very inspiring!
My husband and I’s path is very similar to yours except 13/14 years later (graduated in 2019 and 2020). This article aligns with our life about as close as you could get. However, I barely made the cut as a Gen Zer and am in year 5 of my FI journey. Our yearly expenses are right around 60K and our projected FI timeline is essentially what you have above. (We do own a house, though, which is probably the biggest difference.)
I agree that FIRE is still very much attainable.