How I Added FIRE to My Life and I Enjoy It

FIRE stands for Financial Independence Retired Early. This is what is now part of my life.

After reading a post of Mr. Money Mustache and how he retired in his 30s after saving a million dollars, I started exploring what FIRE really meant and how it became such a relevant movement.

With such an amount one could generate $40K a year by investing in an index fund, which typically returns 7% a year.

This is the so-called “safe withdrawal rate” or the 4% rule to be able to live off the invested amount without running the risk of emptying the basket.

Financial independence means different things to different people.

For some, it means a life of endless travelling adventures. While for others, it means spending more time with family and friends or the catalyst for quitting their jobs. I am pretty sure we can add quite a long list of meanings to the above.

For me personally, it means freedom of choice.

The limitations we have in our lives come from the fact that we need money to pay for our food, housing and all the other expenses that a regular person has. For most of us, it means we need to generate an income either by being an employee, a freelancer or a business owner.

Now imagine if our expenses were magically paid!

Would you still go to work and follow the 9-to-5 lifestyle? Would you quit your job? Would you continue to live in the same city or country? Vacations only twice a year?

The choices I do every single day are biased. Biased because I do have obligations to fulfill. Therefore, I am not free to choose whatever I want but I do have to limit myself to a few options.

“ While we should be extremely happy to have options to choose from, we are always unsatisfied with something. From our jobs to our hair color, everyone has something they would like to change. “

One of the reasons I can think of that justifies the rapid growth of the FIRE movement, is that people can become capable of discovering themselves and find out what really pleases them without limiting their scope of actions.

People get amazed by the idea of controlling their lives rather than being controlled. This is one of the key factors that made me join the FIRE initiative.

” The fact that I can hold the wheel instead of simply being a passenger, pleases me very very much. “

I started to deep dive into budgets and to optimize my savings. Limiting myself to a fixed amount of the expenses was not easy but it makes results possible.

As the most common ways to build a retirement nest are either through index funds or real estate, I took the initiative to educate myself about investing. While classic real estate demands leverage, index funds can be a much easier and smoother strategy.