Hi everyone,
I started the journey to reach fire two years ago.
In these two years I focused mainly on short term goals: cutting my spending, maxing out my monthly investment (currently at 38% saving rate) and optimizing my porfolio.
I think that I've been able to get some good results out of these categories. Surely more can be done, but I'm not confident that the extra effort would lead to significant gains.
Doing the math now, showed me the hard truth. With my current income and spending levels, I will probably reach my fire number in approximately 20 years (I'm 29). It already feels like a lot of time.
However, chances are that my expanses will grow (inflation, house, kids and stuff), while my income will not (not in a significant way at least). This comes down mainly to the fact that I live in a southern europe country, in which wages actually declined in real term in the past 20 years.
Adding this piece to the puzzle means that my retirement age will probably shift even further away. Meaning I still have at least 25 or 30 more years of work.
This hits hard. Because I feel like despite all the hard work, the projected results are not looking good.
Did this happen to any of you? How do you handle this feeling?