The end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020 was not only the start of the global pandemic, but also the start of my investing journey (which I’ve written previously about here). During this time I discovered the F.I.R.E. movement – Financial Independence, Retire Early and it has since become the focal point of my investing journey.
My journey to FIRE
While my job can be rewarding and intrinsically helps people, I find myself going through cyclical appreciation and distress at my job. At times I can feel huge appreciation for the wage, benefits and outcomes of my work, but at other times, the expectations from management and workplace conditions/politics can obstruct the optimistic view of my work. Due to this, I found that achieving FIRE would allow me to focus on the positives of the work and reduce the attention or time at the workplace to minimize the negative aspects, and was a key driver behind my pursuing the FIRE movement – the freedom to chose when and how often I work, if at all. However, after reading through lots of articles, and podcasts, the issue was raised about whether the FIRE movement is a lie.
What is FIRE?
So what is the F.I.R.E. movement? Essentially, the FIRE movement focuses on building enough wealth to cover your income or expenses so that you can ‘retire’ and dedicate your time to the things you enjoy. You could go down the rabbit hole of each sub-set of ‘FIRE’ movements, such as FatFIRE or LeanFIRE, but essentially they just adjust how much you are going to invest or work. The fundamentals are justifiably sound – why work at a workplace with questionable or negative policies, when you can ‘retire’ and choose to do the specific things you like? However, you need to question the ‘why’ behind your pursuit of FIRE, the ‘what’ are you going to do when you achieve it, as well as acknowledging what you need to sacrifice to achieve it.
Why aim for FIRE?
Why are you aiming for FIRE? What is it about your current lifestyle that you want to escape or change? For me it’s the ability to escape the control of workplace policies and systems that can’t be influenced by someone at my current level in my profession. Originally, I had considered, and made progress towards climbing up the ladder at my workplace, however, the higher I climbed, I realised there was no end to the decisions coming from above, and that the climb to the absolute pinnacle was not worth the effort, time or change in priorities I would need to achieve it. I came to the conclusion that the workplace I desired would be one where I had control, as this isn’t achievable in my industry, I realise FIRE would be the closest thing to working on my terms that I can achieve.
What will you do with FIRE?
Having an idea surrounding what your FIRE life will look like is crucial to setting a realistic, achievable goal. Whether you have plans to travel multiple times per year, or have a family, or continue to work in some capacity, thinking about these decisions is important as it will dictate how much money you’ll need and may allow you to achieve your goals earlier if you do plan on continuing working in some capacity. As I am mindful of ‘losing’ time while I have energy and am relatively fit, I am aiming to build enough funds to achieve a 4% drawdown to supplement 40% of my wage so that I can reduce my work to 3 days a week. My current belief is that dropping to 3 days a week may help in reducing how much the workplace politics and policies impact my love of the job. This may change in the future, but it’s important to clarify your goal so you know what you are working towards.
What are you sacrificing for FIRE?
One thing that is rarely discussed in terms of FIRE is what you are sacrificing when pursuing the movement. The target demographic are people within their 20s – 30s who have negative experiences within their workplace/s and are looking to achieve their freedom. However, acknowledging that you are sacrificing portions of your young, energetic life need to be taken into consideration. The unfortunate reality is that you may be sacrificing your youth to achieve freedom when you may be too old to enjoy it to its fullest extent. If you have dreams that require a certain level of physicality, such as scaling Mt Everest or backpacking around Asia, acknowledge that if you dedicate your entire time and resources towards FIRE that you might not be able to reach these dreams when you’re older. You need to acknowledge that you may have to sacrifice memorable opportunities to reach your FIRE destination, and take this into consideration when planning.
While I am still pursuing a form of FIRE, thinking about the Why, What and sacrifices have helped me to better plan my life. I am aiming for a form of FIRE that will get me to part time work early, while also acknowledging that I need to be okay with spending some money on experiences while I’m young, after all, they provide dividends in the form of memories!
