Americans say inflation has put the FIRE movement out of reach

Has inflation doused the FIRE movement? 

Popularized in the 1990s, the Financial Independence, Retire Early movement inspires workers to maximize savings, spend modestly and stop working well before the age range most Americans associate with retirement. 

Massive stock gains in recent years have rewarded FIRE savers. But rising prices may have hindered them from saving.  

Consumer prices are up about 27% since the start of 2021. Persistent inflation is a big reason why Americans saved only 4.1% of their disposable income in August 2026, the lowest personal savings rate recorded since 2022. 

In a recent survey by MyPerfectResume, the resume-building platform, 71% of workers said FIRE is unrealistic now for most people. The survey reached 1,000 workers in May 2026. 

“There’s certainly a gap between the appeal of financial independence and workers’ ability to pursue it,” said Toni Frana, a career expert at MyPerfectResume. 

The FIRE movement encourages workers to retire years or decades earlier than America’s traditional retirement window, roughly ages 62 to 70.  

The movement is broadly popular, with one Reddit community claiming more than 2.5 million followers.  

Yet America’s average retirement age keeps rising. The typical retirement age in 2024 was 64 for men, 62 for women, up from 61 and 59, respectively, in 1994, according to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. 

Several recent surveys suggest workers are delaying, rather than advancing, their retirement calendars.  

Of the workers surveyed by MyPerfectResume, 35% said they expect to retire later now than they expected three years ago. Only 13% said they expect to retire sooner.  

In another recent survey, from the financial services company Thrivent, nearly half of workers said they doubt they will ever be able to fully retire.  

The impact of inflation underscores both reports. 

“When you look at the savings rate across the country, you can see that people are struggling,” said Robert Brokamp, a senior retirement advisor at The Motley Fool. “Something’s going on, and I assume that part of it is inflation.” 

One key principle of the FIRE movement is to save at much higher rates than the average American: 30%, 40% or even 50% of your take-home pay. Another is to spend frugally, weighing every expense. 

For FIRE devotees with those priorities, recent economic developments delivered a mixed bag. 

On one hand, rising prices have made it harder for Americans to save. Inflation could play havoc with FIRE plans, said Ryan Sterling, CEO of NerdWallet Wealth Partners. 

“A lot of FIRE plans get built once, around a specific number,” an amount the saver believes will fund a comfortable retirement, Sterling said. A typical goal is to save 25 times your annual expenses.  

But that saver “struggles when costs rise,” he said, “because the plan isn’t built to handle that.” 

On the other hand, soaring stock values have rewarded many FIRE savers with million-dollar portfolios. FIRE investors typically favor low-cost stock index funds. Those funds have done well in recent years. 

“Anyone who has a lot of money invested in the market is thinking, ‘OK, I’ve had a little bit of a windfall, that’s nice,’” said Peter Adeney, aka Mr. Money Mustache, a prominent FIRE blogger in Colorado who famously retired from his software engineer job at 30.  

“While both the market and inflation have been running hotter than the historical average,” Adeney said, “the market has been the winner by far, which has surprised most of us with unexpected growth in our savings, leading to the potential for even-earlier retirement.” 

Adeney said many FIRE savers take inflation in stride. They understand that “our wages tend to go up with inflation,” he said, so the net effect on affordability is effectively neutral.  

And rising prices might affect FIRE savers less than most consumers, he said, simply because they spend less.  

“A lot of the stuff that goes up in price is stuff that we might not be super-interested in anyway,” he said. 

The annual inflation rate for food at home is 2.2%, as of August. The inflation rate for food away from home is 3.4%. FIRE savers tend to favor dining at home. 

“When you cut back your spending considerably, you don’t feel inflation as much, because you’re not spending as much,” Brokamp said.  

A FIRE couple “might be a two-person household but only have one car,” Brokamp said. “Well, then, you’re not feeling the inflation of car prices and gas prices.” 

The recent surveys suggest American workers are downhearted about their retirement prospects as prices continue to rise.  

But the FIRE movement may have inspired workers to start saving earlier and to dream of retiring sooner, especially younger Americans. 

Generation Z started saving for retirement at age 22, on average, according to Northwestern Mutual’s 2026 Planning and Progress Study. By contrast, millennials started saving at 28, Generation X at 32.  

And Gen Z expects to retire at 61, on average, compared with 64 for millennials and 67 for Gen X.