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Financial Independence Retire Early (F.I.R.E.) is an ambigous and misunderstood concept, and you need to make your own opinion about it. Then you need to make that opinion a strong opinion, and live your life by it. You need to take full responsability, or it won't get you anywhere. Anywhere good, that is.
Financial Independence is the most ambigous of the FIRE acronym. That because for each it means something different. For some it means living a life full of consuming, travelling and expences, all covered from some interest on safe investments! For others it means not ever be bothered by anything but the essentials of living: just enough food, just enough shelter, and just enough medicine.
We strongly recommend making the transition from someone similar to the first example, towards someone like in the second example. It will also make the task of investing simple and clear focused.
As to the second part of the FIRE acronym - that is Retire Early, things are very simple thanks to our app. Here's an example:
Let's have a man, 43, initially planning to retire at 65. He earns 2000 and spends 2000 each month. He's trapped in this job for the next 22 years, when he will be able to retire on a pension of 860 euro (the replacement ratio, of salary by pension, is .43 in this case). How could this chap retire early?
Solution: let this man have a drastic change in his lifestyle. Let's have him consume only 860 euro per month, and retire at 50. No pension for the next 15 years, but he saves and invests each month 1140 euro, until he's 50. That's 7 years from now, way better than 22 initially. Does he have a chance? well, he's got 100% probability of success, acording to our algorithm, if he invests rightly. In fact, even if he retires at 48 or 5 years from now, he still has 81% chances of success.
Conclusion: retiring earlier is possible, provided someone is able to be happy with less consumption and some additional risk. When the alternative to risky but imediate freedom is 23 years of certain job imprisonment, some will happily take the chances. I would say anybody should take the chances: it is only common sense.