This week, we’re talking about the most googled personal finance topics by state. I’ve picked out the personal finance topics from these search trends that I think are most useful when it comes to planning your retirement.

Today’s most googled topic by state is Massachusetts, which ranked highest of all 50 states in searching for early retirement.

Ah, early retirement. This is also known as the FIRE movement. FIRE stands for financial independence, retire early. And it means a lot of different things to different people.

It’s a way of life that has has soared in popularity in recent years, but has also drawn harsh criticism from the likes of Suze Orman and other personal finance gurus.

The jury is still out for me on the FIRE movement, but I do think that some people chasing after or living an early retirement may not realize the risk of needing your money last for potentially 50 years, if you were to retire at, say, 40 years old.

That’s 25 years of paying for healthcare before medicare kicks in, all the costs associated with raising kids, paying for college, 5-10 downturns in the stock market in retirement, watching inflation make everything you buy more expensive, not to mention the risk that things will go wrong in life that can completely change your plans like a serious illness in your family.

Any one of these factors could force you to go back to work and start all over again after 20 years of living your early retirement. Now at age 60, you have no retirement savings and will have to work again until God knows when. There are real risks there, that many FIRE chasers don’t fully appreciate, and that is worrisome.

My other criticism of the FIRE movement is that I’ve met many people who are pursuing FIRE to stroke their own egos.

Think about this: If you’re 40 years old and someone asks you what you do and you say “I’m retired”. That’s like the ultimate status symbol. It’s instantaneously clear to anyone that you clearly have plenty of money or a large trust fund, in order to retire before your hair turns gray.

So if you’re considering FIRE, please make a thoughtful decision about the sustainability of a 40-50 year retirement in your situation and really question your motivation for pursuing FIRE in the first place.

Take the time to do a full-blown retirement analysis, which will show you the likelihood of not running out of money, based on your lifestyle. But it should also show how vulnerable you are  if things go sideways, which can help you make the most informed decision possible. Here at True North, we do retirement projections which can model a lot of different scenarios for clients all the time, and they provide so much clarity to help clients make smart decisions. So I encourage you to talk with a financial advisor who can show you whether your early retirement dreams are actually doable.

That’s it for today! Thanks for listening. Tomorrow we’re going to talk about who is googling money laundering. The answer might scare you.

My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the One Minute Retirement Tip.

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