Anita Kinoshita is a 34-year-old influencer who decided five years ago to change the track she was on and reinvent herself. At the time, she was earning approximately $70,000 per year as a software engineer and searching for a house to buy.
But no house she looked at was as attractive as the possibility of putting all her extra savings into investments and front-loading her retirement dreams.
“Ultimately, I felt like it wasn’t the time for me at the moment, and I was not willing to invest less either. I wasn’t satisfied with my career and felt like I was living my dad’s dream and not really mine,” she said to CNBC (1).
Kinoshita shifted gears and went full throttle into Coast FIRE, a retirement strategy that focuses on saving and investing enough upfront to enjoy financial flexibility and freedom in middle age — even if you’re still working. In 2021, she invested her down payment savings. By April 2022, she had $200,000 invested and decided to quit her job and start working part-time.
“I value my time and freedom a little bit more than I value home ownership. In retrospect, I think if I had bought the house, I would have felt trapped in my career,” she said to CNBC.
In a recent post on her YouTube channel, she revealed she has paused investing for the first time in 11 years since her portfolio has reached her $500,000 goal (2). She has decided to “intentionally inflate” her lifestyle by moving from her apartment to a rented single family home in her dream town with her husband. They pay $4,000 per month for rent.
“Because I made early retirement my priority, my investment accounts have really grown in a way that I really didn’t anticipate,” she said. “As of the time of this recording in November 2025, I have about $265,000 in my 401(k), $60,500 in my Roth IRA, $180,000 in my brokerage accounts, and about $15,600 in my SEP IRA. And despite never having a six-figure salary, I’ve been able to put about $300,000 into the stock market since 2014. But most of those contributions actually came from the past four years.”
Kinoshita attributes her success to investing 100% of her side hustle income and lowering expenses. But is it the right choice for everyone?
Gen Z and younger millennials in the 21st century live in a different world from their parents when cars cost $5,000 and houses cost $50,000. Many also feel the era of FIRE has come to an end as the possibility of getting a job that pays enough to afford retirement at 40 recedes.
Consequently, the median age of first-time ownership has surged as elevated prices and mortgage rates have outpaced incomes, pushing more would-be buyers to delay and keep renting. According to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), in 2025 the median age of a first-time homebuyer was 40-years-old, up from 30 in 2010 (3).
Read More: Vanguard reveals what could be coming for U.S. stocks, and it’s raising alarm bells for retirees. Here’s why and how to protect yourself
Renters are also feeling the pain. Households are considered cost-burdened when they spend more than 30% of their income on rent, mortgage payments, and other housing costs. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, this was the case for more than 21 million renter households in 2023, representing nearly half of the total.
The financial reality dictating younger adults’ life choices come in three models: less bad, bad and worse. Setting priorities in this environment can pull you in conflicting directions. The best strategy is to run the numbers and follow the path that makes the most sense for you.
When deciding whether to save for a house or invest in financial markets, you have to consider opportunity cost and risk.
The amount of savings required to make a down payment on real estate has risen dramatically over the last five years from an already high level before 2020.
Since the ability to get a solid job and work steadily to buy a home some day feels out of reach for many, investing more in the stock market, which has exploded in value over the last few years, may be attractive. Financial gurus like Ramit Sethi have argued that choosing to rent over buying is the right choice for many Americans considering where home prices are.
“In reality, real estate is not always the best investment. It comes with significant phantom expenses. And there are often better investments, such as a simple low-cost index fund,” he says on his website (4). “This is well-understood by sophisticated investors but ordinary Americans have been duped into thinking their primary residence is a great investment.”
If you decide to give up on your dream of owning a home to pursue early retirement, it’s important to first speak to a trusted financial advisor, invest the extra savings responsibly and avoid overspending.
Personal finance expert Suze Ormond and Anita Kinoshita are generationally miles apart, but Suze’s criticism of FIRE-type retirement movements is also worth considering.
On the Afford Anything podcast with Paula Pant, Ormond gave her unvarnished opinion of the FIRE movement: “You can do it if you want to,” she said. “I’m just telling you, you will get burned if you play with fire” (5).
Even if you have saved $2 million dollars by the time you’re 45, you may live for another 40 years. Will the passive income from that endowment be enough to support you? And if you hit a stretch of bad luck — whether that’s ill health or massive tax hikes — will you be able to go back to work to start rebuilding?
The calculation of risk versus reward — put your savings into a booming market now or save until you can afford a house — will be different for every individual as they determine for themselves how much risk they can afford.
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CNBC (1); Anita Kinoshita/YouTube (2); National Association of Realtors (3); I Will Teach You To Be Rich (4); Afford Anything (5)
This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind.
