Dollars and Sense: The new Kiwi dream is to retire early, but can you really?
Sunday, 24 May 2026
Senior business reporter Rob Stock answers your money questions. Got a question for Sunday magazine? Email it to sundaymagazine@stuff.co.nz
QUESTION: What are your thoughts on the F.I.R.E. (Financial Independence, Retire Early) movement?
ANSWER: Financial independence is the new Kiwi Dream, a survey that landed on my desk last month claimed. It wasn’t a huge survey, but 54% surveyed said they felt the best definition of the Kiwi Dream was not owning a quarter acre section and raising a happy, well-balanced family, but becoming financially independent.
Of course, this is not a new dream. People have always dreamt of wealth and prestige, though the form that takes has changed. A great impetus for colonisation was for people to secure land so they could escape exploitation, and achieve a life of independence and dignity, though it was not a life of idleness they were seeking.
But the FIRE dream is peculiarly modern in one sense.
It’s having the heck marketed out of it on social media by people who are aiming to be financially independent by talking about it.
And it feels like it should be attainable for all, like washboard abs, and an Insta-perfect lifestyle.
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Undoubtedly, it is attainable, for some.
When Sir Bill English was Finance Minister, he ordered some research done on the chances of a person born into certain life circumstances (substance-addicted parents, parents in prison, welfare dependency, etc) ending up in prison by a certain age. The results showed just how dependent future life paths were on the luck of a person’s birth.
Social mobility in New Zealand is relatively limited, but we don’t really notice, partly because we remember the exceptions who drag themselves up by their boot strings, and as a result think everyone can do it. Of course, not everyone can. We’ve been banging away at getting rich for centuries, and we still have the poor with us, and the struggling middle.
There’s another FIRE acronym. This stands for Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate. In some people’s eyes, New Zealand deindustrialised and centred its wealth-gain dreams on investing in Microsoft/Tesla/Nvidia (delete depending on age) shares and amassing portfolios of rental houses, not through actually creating wealth through business. A total of 54% of people in this country cannot become financially independent through these things.
Research I have found persuasive for the pursuit of financial satisfaction and stability shows a fairly simple set of steps, each which reduces financial worry.
They go: 1. Get yourself marketable skills. 2. Save regularly and have a lifelong retirement investment plan. Just saving makes you feel happier. 3. Have an emergency savings fund. 4. Buy a home. 5. Get to the point where you can survive on one income with your partner. 6. Get shot of that mortgage, so your money is your own.