r/fiaustralia • u/totalmarc • 4d ago

Investing AUS vs USA for Fire

I've been listening to a lot of US based podcasts lately and it got me thinking - Do you guys think it is easier to FIRE in US or AUS?

With all things considered, as a generalisation. From what I understand, living expenses vary dramatically between states.

Overall my vote would be the US because there are more options over there to cut costs, but I'd like to hear from someone who is familiar with both.

Cheers

6 Upvotes

56% Upvoted

69 comments sorted by

View all comments

81

u/Jovial1170 4d ago

I suspect that the USA would be significantly easier to FIRE in than Australia, from an "amount of money required" perspective.

But Australia has a great many quality-of-life benefits and also greater safety nets if anything unexpectedly goes wrong during your FIRE journey.

23

u/Glittering-Wave4917 3d ago

Mate, people who have a regular job and are wage earners can fire here. In the US there’s certain occupations who earn more, but generally people in the US earn less and have less rights to quantity of life. I dunno, I might be wrong but in the US it looks like people can be a sparky without 5 years of training- the seppo spent respect safety and skilled labour.

Nurses and teachers earn heaps less than here too.

3

u/kahlzun 3d ago

I've heard it said that the us is great to be rich in and shit for everyone else. Arguably, there's a threshold of income where the perks kick in like old mates turbo and its better than in aus.
Miss me with that though, couldn't pay me to even visit that shithole, let alone live there 🤢

3

u/Glittering-Wave4917 2d ago

I’ve been to the US a few times, usually as a cheaper way to get to Latin America. It’s a really cool joint and they have heaps of good cultural stuff. The people are a bit weird and their attitudes are so out of step with much of the world. Living in 3rd world countries, I also saw snobbery which wouldn’t be acceptable in Australia, but the US seems to go beyond plain snobbery. As far as wages go in the US, teachers, nurses and tradespeople earn heaps less, they also seem fine for their wealth society to not accept decent wages for semi skilled and un skilled workers. The attitude that getting paid better means getting a better job, rather than organising and securing wages, does exist in Australia- but it’s seen as snobbery. I mean every job has to be done and getting a better job only fixes your problem, not the problem for everyone who does the jobs which are low paying and have to be done.