I got a lot of feedback from readers on last week’s post about how MS affects your perception of W2 wages. I’m always happy to hear that a post helps someone frame their own situation, and the discussion got me thinking about a follow up post. 

I’ll preface this by saying that I don’t consider myself a FIRE adherent. Not because I don’t want to retire early (I do), but because the prominent FIRE influencers when I first discovered it were advocating for something that didn’t feel sustainable for me. 

Watching people like MMM drive for Uber and conduct a financial autopsy of a $55 Costco membership felt less like inspiration to grind harder and moreso a reminder to take care of yourself and give yourself some grace on the path to FIRE. 

It’s a long journey, and to me, there isn’t anything wrong with doing something mildly irresponsible every once in awhile, even if it means you need to work one extra week to pay for it. 

Anywho, I wanted to give that context because I think it’s helpful framing for the discourse from last week. A common thread was a feeling that you could stop working due to MS and your current financial situation, but that it didn’t feel like the right choice, for a variety of reasons. 

There are plenty of legitimate reasons to keep a W2, even if you don’t necessarily need it. Whether it’s affordable healthcare, golden handcuffs like a pension, or the psychological safety that comes with knowing you will probably get paid sometime in the next two weeks regardless of what happens in MS-land, walking away isn’t exactly the easiest to justify.

It seemed like a lot of us weren’t necessarily trying to draw a line in the sand one day denoting ourselves as retired from the rat race and labeling yourself a full time MSer. Instead, the sentiment felt more like a desire to have the flexibility and control over your situation that comes with the FI side of FIRE. 

I think one group we could take some learnings from in this arena is the “sorry, I missed that, can you repeat it?” folks over on the OE subreddit. I follow it, not because I’m OE (I’m not, I promise), but because I think there’s some level of similarity between the constant shuffling of jobs (especially if you’re a consultant/contractor for some gigs) and the weekly changes in targets and earn rates on the MS side. 

Regardless of how you feel about the practice itself, I think there’s a lot of power in the prevailing mantra of ‘this is why we OE’. Whether it’s something catastrophic like losing a job or smaller like conflict at work or getting passed over for a promotion, the idea that it doesn’t actually matter in the grand scheme of things is really valuable. 

For those of us stacking W2 work while juggling a variety of profitable MS avenues, it’s psychologically similar to being OEd. Earning such outsize savings allows you to shrug off negative changes, both at work and in MS. 

And for those of us that are FIREd, MS provides a similar buffer. There’s less need to draw down from your nest egg when things are going well, as well as the ability to add more room to your budget without permanently increasing your SWR. 

I wrote last week’s post in a place of frustration that my W2 provides a much lower CPH compared to a lot of MS activities. First off, I do think the point still stands that the pay rate on the necessary knowledge accumulation before running those loops is worse than minimum wage. 

And let’s not forget that we’re all extreme outliers when it comes to what we think is fun. As my friend RE put it in the discussion “for a lot of people, doing THIS [MS] would be worse than work.” Telling people you go out of your way to spend as much time as possible at the grocery store or count down the hours til 9am Monday makes you look kind of nuts. 

Now that I’ve had a week to think about it, my personal goal feels less like strictly calling myself FIREd and more a renewed focus on progress towards the FI half. My P2 is in a stressful situation that I’d love for her to be able to leave, and the flexibility from financial independence would give her that. But for many of us, our W2s aren’t that bad, so we may as well enjoy double dipping while the getting is good.

I’d love to spend a Wednesday morning hitting David Hasselhoff’s favorite gas station and sitting at a coffee shop with my laptop closed. But for now, it’s all gas, no brakes. 

Anyway, it’s 2026, MS is dead, so go hard and stack your savings while you can. For a second Streetlight Manifesto-themed blog post, “and someday soon my friends, this ride will come to an end. But we can’t just get in line again”

Tsjoch!