For a generation captivated by financial independence, the ambition often narrows to a single figure. Save and invest enough, the reasoning goes, and paid work becomes a choice rather than a requirement. It ranks among personal finance’s most durable promises.
That one number anchors an entire movement, organized around aggressive savings rates, careful withdrawal math and a personal countdown to the day someone can leave a job for good. Its appeal is easy to understand, since a fixed target feels measurable, trackable and, above all, final. Reach it, the thinking holds, and the striving is finally supposed to stop.
On Friday’s episode of the BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast, host Dave Meyer told listeners that the finish line so many are sprinting toward does not function the way they picture it. A real estate investor for more than 16 years, he framed the entire premise as a mistake and did not soften the delivery.
“Hitting that number is not going to fulfill you,” Meyer said. “It is not going to make your problems go away.”
Why the financial independence number keeps moving
The standard version of financial independence rests on a tidy sequence. A person calculates the savings needed to cover their expenses indefinitely, invests until they reach that amount, then steps away for good. Meyer chased a milestone like that for years before deciding the concept behind it was broken.
“Eventually I realized this idea of a FI number or a magical net worth number is wrong,” Meyer said. “It’s actually just kind of a myth.”
That conclusion changed how he measures progress. The trouble, in his telling, is that the target never holds still, and two forces keep pushing it upward. The first is inflation, which steadily erodes what a dollar buys and lifts the required amount year after year.
The second is lifestyle creep, the way spending tends to expand as income grows. Rather than casting that as a failure of discipline, Meyer defended it as part of the payoff for building wealth in the first place. In his view, it’s partly the reason the work is worth doing.
“Financial independence is actually a moving target,” Meyer said.
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He offered his own approach as an example. Meyer said he set his own target at $10,000 in passive cash flow every month, an income-based benchmark he adopted from the start of his working life rather than a lump-sum net worth. Even that marker, he acknowledged, drifts as costs rise and personal expectations climb alongside them.
For anyone treating one figure as the end of the road, the message is blunt: the line will keep sliding forward no matter how quickly they close the gap.
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Why financially free people go back to work
The sharpest reason the number lets people down, Meyer said, has little to do with spreadsheets or savings rates. It lives in the psychology of achievement itself, and it has a name.
“It’s called the arrival fallacy,” Meyer explained. “It was coined by a psychologist called Tal Ben-Shahar. And basically it’s the false belief that achieving a specific goal is going to bring some lasting satisfaction.”
The lift from crossing a finish line, by that logic, burns off quickly, leaving the same person with the same concerns on the other side. Meyer said his own life bears it out. His net worth has climbed well beyond what he once imagined, yet he still works and still finds himself thinking about money.
The pattern, he said, is common among the people others envy.
“People who become financially free, they often go back to work,” Meyer added.
For Meyer, that is less a cautionary tale than evidence that work and money remain part of life long after a numeric goal is met. He tied it to a wider point about purpose, observing that many retirees who step away entirely lose their sense of direction instead of finding the freedom they expected. Purpose and a reason to get up in the morning, he suggested, do not automatically arrive with a full bank account.
His prescription was to stop treating financial independence as a single moment and start treating it as a spectrum, aiming to become a little more independent each day rather than staking everything on a distant endpoint. As he framed it, fulfillment comes from the pursuit and the steady progress, not from the day a balance finally clears a threshold.
Key takeaways on Dave Meyer’s early retirement message
- The finish line keeps sliding forward: Meyer said he came to see any fixed net-worth milestone as a myth rather than a reliable goal, with inflation eroding spending power and lifestyle costs climbing alongside income to push any target steadily higher over time.
- Even a concrete income goal drifts: Rather than a lump sum, Meyer said he pegged his goal to $10,000 of passive cash flow each month, adopted from the start of his working life, and noted that even that income benchmark shifts as expenses and expectations grow.
- Reaching the goal rarely delivers lasting satisfaction: Meyer described the arrival fallacy, a concept he attributed to psychologist Tal Ben-Shahar, as the mistaken conviction that reaching a set target delivers lasting fulfillment, which helps explain why the milestone can feel hollow once reached.
- Many who reach financial freedom keep working: Meyer said many who reach financial freedom end up returning to work, and pointed to retirees who lose their sense of purpose after stepping away, evidence in his view that a number alone will not supply meaning.
- The case for building wealth still stands: Meyer’s argument reframes how to pursue financial independence rather than abandoning the effort, urging a focus on becoming more independent each day and on the daily process rather than fixating on one distant figure.
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