The Real Currency of Retirement Isn’t Money

Okay so like I’ve been absolutely neurotically obsessed with this FIRE data lately, and there’s this one thing that keeps slapping me in the face – everyone’s talking about numbers and portfolios and withdrawal rates, but the real secret sauce isn’t in your brokerage account. It’s in your ability to actually enjoy the freedom you’re working so hard to buy.

Like seriously, what’s the point of retiring at 45 if you can’t even walk to your mailbox or enjoy your favorite hobbies? I saw this comparison between two grandpas that literally made me pause my anime binge – one dude lived to his 90s, active AF, gardening and doing home repairs, while the other barely made it to 70 and had to give up gardening a decade earlier because his health was so wrecked. That’s 20+ years of retirement difference just from taking care of your body!

Your Body Is Your Most Valuable Asset

We spend so much time optimizing our investment portfolios that we forget to optimize our physical portfolios. Your health is literally the foundation that everything else gets built on. Money can buy medical care, but it can’t buy back your mobility, energy, or the ability to actually do the things you’re retiring to do.

I keep seeing people talking about “health span” versus “life span” and it’s so true. Like, who wants to live to 100 if the last 30 years are just sitting in a chair watching TV? The goal should be compressing the decline phase as much as possible so you maximize the good years.

The math is pretty simple: if you retire at 50 and live to 85, you’ve got 35 years of retirement. But if only 31% of that is in good health, 28% with limitations, and 42% in varying degrees of dependency… that’s not exactly the freedom fantasy we’re sold.

Balancing The Grind With Living

This is where it gets really spicy for me. There’s this constant tension between grinding now to retire earlier versus living a balanced life that includes the things you actually want to do in retirement. Like this one person was talking about giving up tennis, travel, motorcycling, and tech hobbies to save an extra $25k per year.

But those are literally the exact things they want more of when they retire! It’s like saving money to buy a sports car but never driving it because you’re worried about putting miles on it. The whole point of the car is to drive it!

I saw so many people saying “balance balance balance” and it’s so true. You shouldn’t take for granted that you’ll be alive to enjoy retirement. I’ve buried mates who were 40, 43, and 53. You gotta live also.

The Privilege of Health

I know genetics and luck play a huge role, and that’s the frustrating part. Some people do everything right and still get dealt a shit health hand, while others smoke and drink their way to 96. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.

Even if taking care of yourself doesn’t guarantee long life, neglecting yourself is likely going to cut your life shorter than it could have been. It’s about stacking the odds in your favor as much as possible.

I loved this perspective from someone in internal medicine: no amount of money and financial security is going to be able to buy you back your youth and your health. Often people end up needing to use up all that hard earned money to treat chronic illnesses they developed through abuse and neglect of their bodies during their hustling years.

Practical Health Investing

So what does this actually look like in practice? It doesn’t have to be expensive or complicated. You don’t need a gym membership to be healthy – just 30 minutes a day of moderate exercise and healthy eating. Even a $5 jump rope for 15 minutes per day would be life changing for most people.

I’ve seen people talk about focusing on daily exercise and significantly reducing alcohol making a big difference in how they feel every day. Simple changes, massive impact.

Some people are even dropping serious money on private health testing – like $10k on a bunch of tests – because they recognize that what’s the point of having money if you aren’t healthy enough to enjoy it?

Integrating Health Into Your FIRE Plan

The real insight here is that health needs to be part of your FIRE calculations, not just an afterthought. When we’re weighing jobs from a FIRE framework, health absolutely needs to factor in. Which scenario would you prefer:

Retire at 45 having worked your butt off (60h weeks) but your body and mind are beat because you focused entirely on work. You also neglect your social life and hobbies because you’re so work obsessed. Well, now you’re 45, your habits are awful, and you hate retirement.

Or retire at 55 working a less intense job (30-40h weeks), and you spent that extra time doing a mix of exercise, hanging out with family and friends, and taking up hobbies. You retire, your hobbies and friends become an ever-larger part of your life and it turns out to be an amazing time.

The math might say the first option gets you to retirement faster, but the quality of that retirement is going to be vastly different.

The Mind-Body Connection

This isn’t just physical health either. So many people talked about the mental health aspects – the stress of work impacting sleep, which then impacts physical health. One person said they needed to FIRE just to get enough fucking sleep because work caused so much anxiety they couldn’t sleep properly.

Poor sleep is implicated in so many health problems, not least of which is Alzheimer’s. You can’t just separate mental health from physical health – they’re completely intertwined.

Even after achieving FIRE, many people struggle with identity crises, loss of direction and purpose. Money gives you freedom, but you still have to decide what makes life meaningful. Having the physical capacity to pursue those meaning-making activities is everything.

Making Health a Priority Now

The craziest part is that many of the health-promoting activities are the exact same things people want to do in retirement anyway. Exercise, hobbies, social connections, travel – these aren’t just retirement activities, they’re life activities.

By incorporating them into your life now, you’re not just improving your current quality of life – you’re building the habits and physical capacity that will determine your retirement quality.

I heard someone say that your muscle mass and fitness at age 50 is a huge determinant of the rest of your life. That’s why they’re working toward being able to pass the female marines PFT for their age group – 3 pull ups, 1:10 plank hold, 3 miles in 33 mins. That’s a standard to aim for and maintain.

The Bottom Line

At the end of the day, FIRE is about freedom. But freedom without the physical and mental capacity to enjoy it is empty. Your health is the vehicle that allows you to actually experience the freedom your financial independence provides.

Money is worthless without health and fitness. A sickness can consume vast wealth too. If money has to come at the expense of high stress and neglecting your health, it may not be worth it.

Better to be rich and healthy than sick and poor. But ideally, we should be aiming for both – building financial independence while simultaneously building physical independence. Because what’s the point of retiring early if you’re too broken to enjoy it?

The most valuable investment you can make isn’t in stocks or real estate – it’s in your health. Because unlike market returns, your health returns compound in ways that literally determine the quality of every future moment of your life.