The first lesson of the course is a short one, but it’s the most important one: you need to keep an open mind that FIRE is possible for you.
We didn’t get serious about pursuing FIRE till we hit 40. Maybe it was a mid-life crisis, but we both had busy more-than-full-time jobs, two kids and the typically high monthly nut that comes with living in a major metro, New York City. We had been saving in our companies’ retirement plans, but conventional money management focuses on retirement in your 60’s and maybe older. We couldn’t imagine continuing at the pace we were doing for another 20-30 years. (continued below)
Achieving FIRE really spoke to us because of the time freedom it would give. That’s what drives many people who prioritize financial independence – the freedom to make your own schedule, to do what you want. We wanted to travel more. We wanted to pick and choose pursuits we enjoy. We liked working, just not all the time. How about you?
If we only listened to conventional thinking, we would never have achieved FIRE. We had to change our mind and believe it was possible. Once we believed there was a way to reach FIRE, we were able to see how to get there.
Reflect on: What would you do if you were financially independent? What old beliefs are holding you back?
Transcript:
Welcome to Module 1 Lesson 1 – FIRE Is Time Freedom
FIRE stands for Financial Independence, Retire Early, and it’s essentially a catchy way of saying you have ultimate freedom with your time.
You have financial independence, meaning that your financial well-being is not dependent on you working for it, either at an employer or in your own business. You are not trading time for money. Essentially, you are retired from having to work.
The Retire Early piece refers to people who achieve the Financial Independence part of FIRE before the typical retirement age – the most famous FIRE proponents do this in their 20’s and 30’s, though some would also count achieving Financial Independence in your 40’s or 50’s as also early retired.
Some people who have achieved Financial Independence still choose to work. You see this with traditional retirees as well – they keep an active volunteer schedule, they go back to school, they serve on boards, some embark on a new career or start a business.
We have reached a base level of FIRE in that we could move to our property in Costa Rica and simply live off our rental and investment income. But, we are still working on our business and real estate projects because our ideal FIRE level is higher than that base. We want to travel, help support our kids, and keep and maintain our other homes in New York City and Florida.
There isn’t going to be one plan or strategy that will get you to FIRE. As we cover the different strategies, you’ll see that pursuing FIRE is as much mindset training as specific actions. You strive for FIRE, and along the way, you improve your finances, career and life, which is actually why you went after FIRE in the first place.
There are four main strategies you can use to achieve FIRE, and in the next lesson we’ll go through all of them b/c different strategies appeal to different people, AND we found that mixing and matching strategies is what worked for us.
Therefore, if you hear something and your initial reaction is, “There’s no way I can do that” or “I would never want to do that”, try to keep an open mind. You may feel differently when you hear how we have customized the strategies to suit our personalities and priorities, and how our strategies have changed in a significant way over time.