Memento mori. Memento vivere. Remember you must die. Remember you must live.
The premise
The traditional FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) movement asks one question: how do I save enough to live until ninety-five without working?
SuicideFIRE asks a different one: why are you trying to live until ninety-five?
If you have $300,000 saved, a spending rate of $40,000 a year, and a job you can’t stand for one more morning — the math doesn’t say work another decade. It says you have fifteen good years. That’s enough time for every meaningful thing on your list. The rest is just running out the clock in a body that’s already failing.
This is the trade SuicideFIRE puts on the table. Not a recommendation. A trade you can finally see clearly.
What we publish
Three threads, woven together:
- Financial Independence — the actual arithmetic. Withdrawal rates, sequence-of-returns risk, what “enough” looks like at different ages, how to model a finite plan instead of an infinite one.
- Life Choices — the philosophical scaffolding. Stoicism, Epicureanism, Die With Zero, the ars moriendi tradition, modern bioethics. Why mortality is a feature, not a bug.
- Resources — calculators, books, and the rare podcast worth your hour. Things that help you think, not things that help you scroll.
Essays are slow. Most run 2,000–5,000 words. Nothing is sponsored. Nothing is monetized through fear.
Who this is for
You, if:
- You’ve already read Your Money or Your Life and the bogleheads forum and The Simple Path to Wealth and you’re still not sure why you’re saving.
- You’ve noticed that the FIRE community’s “die with $4M” outcome is a bug, not a goal.
- You’ve been told by a financial advisor to plan for age 95 and felt the air go out of the room.
- You’re allergic to hustle culture but unconvinced that more years is the same thing as more life.
You, also, if you just want to think about death for a while without anyone calling a wellness check.
A note on the name
The name is provocative on purpose. SuicideFIRE is not about suicide as we conventionally use the word. It’s about something the Stoics called libera mors — the free death — the recognition that a life you have not chosen, accepted, and finally relinquished is not fully your own.
If you are in crisis, please call 988 (US) or your local equivalent. Nothing here is medical or psychiatric advice. This site is a philosophy publication, not a help line.
Who’s writing this
This is a solo publication, written under a pen name. The author is a software engineer with an aborted philosophy degree and an unhealthy interest in actuarial tables. Get in touch via Contact if you want to argue, contribute, or correct an error.
“It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste much of it.” — Seneca, On the Shortness of Life
About Memento FIRE
Memento FIRE is a life-first financial independence project. It exists for people who do not want to postpone their whole life until a spreadsheet finally says they are allowed to live.
The site’s central belief is simple: money matters because life is finite. Saving, investing, earning, downsizing, and optimizing are useful only when they serve a life with more agency, attention, healthspan, and courage.
Our editorial point of view
- Financial independence should buy aliveness, not just optionality.
- Enough is a life-design question, not only a net-worth number.
- Healthspan, relationships, place, identity, and attention belong in the plan.
- The goal is not necessarily to quit work. The goal is to quit delay.
About the legacy domain
The current public brand is Memento FIRE. The suicidefire.com domain is a legacy address retained for continuity, backlinks, and existing readers. The phrase was always figurative: not self-harm, but a refusal to sleepwalk through life. Memento FIRE is the clearer expression of that philosophy.
Trust and transparency
Some writing may be developed with AI-assisted tools, but the editorial direction is human: useful arguments, responsible framing, and clear separation between personal finance philosophy and individualized advice.
Read more: Editorial Policy · Financial Disclaimer · Advertising & Affiliate Disclosure · Privacy Policy
New here? Start with Start Here or The Memento FIRE Manifesto.