A Developer's Reality Check on the FIRE Movement

The Plan to Retire at 45

Interest in FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) is running hot in tech communities.

Among developers — whose salaries tend to be relatively high — more and more people are planning to "achieve financial freedom and retire within 10-15 years."

In my view, the "Financial Independence" half of FIRE is a worthy goal everyone should pursue.

But the "Retire Early" half deserves some serious second thought.

Let's Look at the Numbers First

The basic FIRE formula works like this: save 25 times your annual expenses, and you can retire. It's based on the 4% rule — the Trinity Study's finding that if you withdraw only 4% of your assets per year, the money won't run out.

If your monthly expenses are 3 million won (about $2,300), that's 36 million annually, and 25 times that is 900 million won (roughly $690,000).

How long would it take a developer in their 30s living in Seoul to save 900 million won?

On a salary of 70 million won, after-tax take-home is about 52 million. Spending 36 million on living expenses leaves 16 million in annual savings. Investing that at a 7% annual return, reaching 900 million takes about 22 years.

Start at 30, and you hit the target at 52. That's a bit awkward to call "early" retirement.

Extreme Approaches to Boosting Your Savings Rate

To shorten the FIRE timeline, you need an extreme savings rate.

Save over 50% of income and it takes 17 years. Save over 70% and it drops to 8.5 years. These numbers assume a 7% annual return.

In the US, someone earning $200,000 while keeping expenses to $40,000 can pull off extreme frugal FIRE.

But in Korea, saving 70% of a 70-million-won salary means living on about 1.3 million won per month. In Seoul, that's nearly impossible.

In practice, the Korean approach to FIRE tends to rely more on income growth than savings rate. The combined strategy is: jump salaries through job changes, create side income, and grow assets through investing.

What People Say vs. What Actually Happens

People say "once you achieve FIRE, you can live freely," but the stories from people who actually retired early aren't always rosy.

There's an interesting survey from the US FIRE community. About 30% of people who achieved FIRE and actually retired returned to work within two years.

The reason wasn't lack of money — it was "having nothing to do."

Developers are especially vulnerable to this problem. A significant part of our identity comes from being "builders."

We get our sense of accomplishment from writing code, designing systems, solving problems. Take all of that away, and what's left?

I once read a blog by a former developer who accumulated roughly 1.5 billion won by age 42 and achieved FIRE. Within six months, he started contributing to open-source projects again.

He ended up "working for free." The line between retired and unpaid developer became blurry.

What FIRE Should Look Like for Developers

In my view, what suits developers isn't traditional FIRE but "Coast FIRE" or "Barista FIRE."

Coast FIRE means saving enough retirement money early on so that afterward, you only need to earn enough to cover living expenses.

For example, if you save 300 million won by age 35 and let it compound at 7%, it grows to roughly 1.7 billion by age 60. After that, you don't need to cling to a high-paying job.

You can cherry-pick projects that interest you and choose work based on fulfillment rather than salary.

Isn't that more realistic and healthier? Not full retirement, but the freedom to not work for money.

Conclusion

Pursuing FIRE isn't a bad thing. But reaching the destination and asking "now what?" defeats the purpose.

Financial independence is a starting point, not an endpoint.

As developers, shouldn't what we're really chasing be — not quitting everything at 45 — but having the freedom at 45 to only do work we choose?