35-Year-Old With $3 Million Net Worth Making $250K A Year Says Despite Hitting All Financial Goals, He's Miserable — 'I Feel Dead Inside'
Reaching financial independence by 35 is the dream. At least, that's what the FIRE community would have you believe.
FIRE—short for Financial Independence, Retire Early—is a movement where people aggressively save, invest, and try to exit the rat race decades ahead of schedule. Skip the daily commute, skip the boss, and live life on your own terms.
But for one user on Reddit's r/FIRE subreddit, hitting every financial milestone didn't come with freedom. It came with burnout.
Don't Miss:
Maker of the $60,000 foldable home has 3 factory buildings, 600+ houses built, and big plans to solve housing —
Deloitte's fastest-growing software company partners with Amazon, Walmart & Target –
He's 35, married with two kids, earns $250,000 a year in a high-stress corporate role, and runs a startup projected to earn $90,000. His net worth? Over $3 million. That includes $2.5 million in brokerage accounts, $200,000 in retirement, $30,000 in cash, and a home worth $650,000—with only $300,000 left on the mortgage at 2.25%. Two cars are paid off, and the third is nearly there.
He's done it all right. And yet?
"I don't think I've ever been more miserable," he wrote.
"I feel dead inside and I don't like who I've become. I feel like I can't enjoy anything anymore, even hobbies I once really enjoyed. I can't recall the last time I was actually happy or honestly what that even really felt like."
He said he's losing sleep, spending hours staring at the ceiling, thinking about the years he's sacrificed. He goes through the motions, smiling for his family, pretending things are fine.
"If only one of us has to be miserable, it should be me. No need to bring them down too."
Trending: Maximize saving for your retirement and cut down on taxes: .
For a community obsessed with asset allocation and early retirement math, the response was strikingly emotional. Users didn't toss spreadsheets at him—they tossed support.
One person asked, "How did you get a $3 million portfolio in 13 years making $250K or less?"
Another replied, "Lots of risk is the answer."
Someone else said, "Sounds like OP is trading time and life experiences for money. And now found themselves entirely empty."
The thread turned quickly from admiration to intervention.
"You should probably talk to a mental health professional. Not a financial forum."
"Walk away from the corp job to focus on your startup for one year... Spend more time with the kids and wife."
"You can't get back those years of your youth. They're worth more than $250K a year."And the harshest but most honest comment of all?
"If it makes you feel any better, I feel this way with almost $3 million less than you."
This entire crisis tracks with what psychologists call the hedonic treadmill—the idea that happiness levels may shift briefly after life changes but eventually drift back to a personal baseline. According to Psychology Today, that baseline isn't the same for everyone, and a person can have different set points for emotional highs versus overall life satisfaction.
In other words, your life can look fantastic on paper and still feel emotionally bankrupt.
So maybe FIRE isn't the finish line after all. Maybe it's the starting line for a harder question: what are you really chasing? Because no amount of brokerage accounts or early retirement plans will buy back your 30s—or the peace you expected to find once you got here.
Read Next:
Invest where it hurts — and help millions heal:.
'Scrolling To UBI' — Deloitte's #1 fastest-growing software company allows users to earn money on their phones.
Image: Shutterstock
UNLOCKED: 5 NEW TRADES EVERY WEEK. Click now to get top trade ideas daily, plus unlimited access to cutting-edge tools and strategies to gain an edge in the markets.
Get the latest stock analysis from Benzinga?
APPLE (AAPL): Free Stock Analysis Report
TESLA (TSLA): Free Stock Analysis Report
This article 35-Year-Old With $3 Million Net Worth Making $250K A Year Says Despite Hitting All Financial Goals, He's Miserable — 'I Feel Dead Inside' originally appeared on Benzinga.com
© 2025 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CBS News
38 minutes ago
- CBS News
Fire destroys Crown Recycling facility in Calverton, Long Island
A large fire at a recycling plant in Calverton on Long Island Wednesday appears to be under control. The recycling plant was destroyed after the main building, considered a recycling transfer facility of Crown Recycling, caught fire. The call came in at around 2 a.m. Wednesday. More than 30 fire departments responded and worked on the blaze through the early morning hours. By 8 a.m., it was 80% contained. By noon, firefighters were still working on hot spots. The remains of a recycling plant in Calverton, Long Island after a fire on June 4, 2025. CBS News New York The Department of Environmental Conservation was also on the scene with decontamination equipment and is evaluating any off-site impacts from the smoke as well as water runoff. Riverside Police and Suffolk County Fire Rescue and Emergency Services advised residents to keep their windows closed until all of the smoke dissipates. According to its website, Crown Recycling Facility recycles scrap metal and disposes of solid waster and demolition debris, including asbestos. It had serviced Suffolk County and the five boroughs of New York City for more than 30 years. Officials are expected to give an update on the fire early Wednesday afternoon.
Business Insider
an hour ago
- Business Insider
Bark Box CEO apologizes for employee's internal message comparing PRIDE collection to MAGA toys
The CEO of BarkBox, the company that offers a monthly subscription service for boxes of dog toys and treats, has issued a public apology for a "disrespectful and hurtful" internal message that leaked on social media. A screenshot of the message that circulated on Reddit described the decision to immediately pause paid ads and lifecycle marketing pushes for the company's Pride kit. "While celebrating Pride is something we may value, we need to acknowledge that the current climate makes this promotion feel more like a political statement than a universally joyful moment for all dog people," the message reads in part. "If we wouldn't feel comfortable running a promotion centered around another politically charged symbol (like a MAGA-themed product), it's worth asking whether this is the right moment to run this particular campaign." "Right now, pushing this promo risks unintentionally sending the message that 'we're not for you' to a large portion of our audience," the message concludes. BarkBox confirmed to Business Insider the authenticity of the screenshot. The author of the message is unclear. Founder and CEO Matt Meeker apologized for the "disrespectful and hurtful" message in an Instagram post on Wednesday. "I do not agree with the content of the message. It wasn't good, it doesn't reflect our values, and I'm deeply sorry that it happened," he said. "We stand by the products," he wrote about the Pride kits, noting that the company had no plans to remove them. While the company has donated a portion of profits from its Pride collection to an organization supporting LGBTQ people in past years, it'll donate 100% of the revenue from the collection this year, he added. The company's Pride collection is available as an optional add-on for BarkBox and Super Chewer subscribers, and has been offered for the past four years. The initial pullback on Pride isn't unique to BarkBox. Some of the biggest retailers in the US have walked back their support for diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, with some taking cues from the Trump administration's stance on the matter. Target last year scaled back its Pride Month collection after receiving backlash from conservatives over the merchandise in prior years. In late November, Walmart announced it was ending some of its DEI initiatives and taking down some LGBTQ-related merchandise from its website.
Gizmodo
2 hours ago
- Gizmodo
New Theory Suggests Meat Preservation, Not Cooking, Drove Early Fire Use
Hundreds of thousands—if not over a million—years ago, humans discovered how to make fire. This would prove to be one of the most important advancements in prehistoric human development, but the origin of this vital discovery remains a contentious topic among scholars. In a study published last month in the journal Frontiers, researchers from Tel Aviv University proposed a new theory for what prompted humans to start making and controlling fires: to protect their food from animals, and, most notably, to extend the prehistoric shelf life of their meat through smoking and drying. In other words, prehistoric speck. The scientists claim to be the first to propose this hypothesis, which aligns with a broader theory they've been developing: that humans' consumption of large animals—and then smaller ones when the megafauna became extinct—drove important prehistoric developments. 'The origins of fire use is a 'burning' topic among prehistory researchers around the world. It is generally agreed that by 400,000 years ago, fire use was common in domestic contexts—most likely for roasting meat, and perhaps also for lighting and heating,' co-author Ran Barkai explained in a statement. 'However there is controversy regarding the preceding million years, and various hypotheses have been put forward to explain why early humans began using fire. In this study, we sought to explore a new perspective on the issue.' Before around 400,000 years ago, early humans such as Homo erectus used fire only occasionally, 'in specific places and for special purposes,' co-author Miki Ben-Dor explained. Starting and maintaining a fire was an arduous process that required a 'compelling, energy-efficient motive.' To investigate this motive, Barkai and Ben-Dor studied previous research on all known prehistoric sites with evidence of fire use from between 1.8 million and 800,000 years ago, amounting to nine locations. Their analysis revealed that all nine sites featured an abundance of large animal remains, including elephants, hippopotamuses, and rhinoceroses. 'From previous studies, we know that these animals were extremely important to early human diets and provided most of the necessary calories. The meat and fat of a single elephant, for example, contain millions of calories, enough to feed a group of 20–30 people for a month or more,' Ben-Dor said. A successfully hunted elephant or hippopotamus was 'a kind of meat and fat 'bank' that needed to be protected and preserved for many days since it was coveted not only by predators but also by bacteria.' The researchers' analysis of the nine prehistoric sites, combined with their calculations of the potential 'energetic advantage' of preserving large game and observations of modern hunter-gatherer societies, culminated in the idea that humans were motivated to make fire to both protect their meat 'banks' from other animals and to smoke and dry them for long-term preservation. Once humans adopted fire to serve these means, they may have also used it for cooking 'at zero marginal energetic cost,' Barkai added. In other words, fire was initially used to smoke and dry meat, and only later repurposed for cooking. The researchers say their approach backs a bigger theory they've been developing—one that sees major prehistoric changes as reactions to shifts in diet. Early on, that meant hunting big animals, but as those species dwindled, people started relying more on smaller game for food. While we already knew that ancient humans, including the iconic Ötzi the Iceman and ancient Native Americans in southwest Florida, were curing and smoking meats thousands of years ago, the researchers' new theory predates this approach by hundreds of thousands of years, and contextualizes it within one of the most important prehistoric human developments known to science.
