BiggerPockets Money Podcast · Friday, July 31, 2026
Adriene Adams, a CFP from Domain Money, points out that many people pursuing Financial Independence, Retire Early (FIRE) optimize for a number without considering what they want their life to look like after reaching it. This can lead to feelings of emptiness upon achieving their financial goal, as they didn't plan for what comes next.
“I see a lot of mistakes, but mistakes is how we learn from what we've done in the past and how to get better. So, a lot of these mistakes are not irreversible, so to speak. The first one I would say that really resonates the most with me is when clients are not optimizing for their life. They're just optimizing for a number, which I feel like makes a ton of sense and is huge in the fire community because it's all about the math and this number that you're targeting. But I've sat across from clients who hit their fire number and felt literally nothing because they didn't ask what the number was actually for after that. Does that make sense?”
“Exactly. And the fire community is historically very good at math and maybe not as savvy at the design part of it, right? That's what I tend to see, at least, in a lot of our clients that are on their fire journey. So, a lot of energy goes into accumulation and what it looks like while you're building up. And then once you get there, all of a sudden it's like, "Oh, now what?"”
“And the clients that struggle the most in early retirement, in my experience, are the ones who retired from something rather than retiring to something.”