I Didn’t Know I Was on FIRE

 

“The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.” - Henry David Thoreau

Fortunately I’ve never literally been on fire, except for that one birthday when my long hair accidentally touched a lit candle on the birthday cake and caught fire. (In case you were wondering, burning hair does not smell good.) In this instance I’m talking about FIRE: Financial Independence, Retire Early. The FIRE movement has become more mainstream over the past several years, but the concept actually stems from the book Your Money or Your Life by Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez, which was published in 1992. Prior to the book, Dominguez was teaching these principles in person and via cassette tape (remember those?) in the 1980s.

I first read Your Money or Your Life around 1997. At the time I was living in the suburbs of San Diego and found the book at the local Barnes & Noble store where I loved to browse, plus there was an adjoining Starbucks for easy access to mocha frappuccinos. I was intrigued by the concepts presented and started implementing some of the exercises such as tracking my expenses, but that fell by the wayside as my personal life imploded.

The following year I separated from my husband, relocated to upstate NY, then a year later relocated to northern VA. Between 1998 and the early 2000s I worked multiple jobs simultaneously as I scrambled to rebuild my life and decide whether my marriage was salvageable. During that process I was trying to lease a one-bedroom apartment for which my job income alone didn’t qualify me. At the time I was receiving some money from my soon-to-be-ex, but since it wasn’t classified as alimony because the divorce was still pending, I was asked to get a notarized letter from my husband stating the amount he was giving me in order to qualify for the lease. I still clearly remember how humiliated I felt - I was 28 years old and essentially needed to get a permission slip from someone who had hurt me badly in order to afford a place to live. In that moment I vowed to myself never to be financially dependent on another person ever again. It was a promise I kept, and unknowingly this set the groundwork for my early retirement.

At some point in time I became interested in the minimalism lifestyle movement and realized that even prior to learning about minimalism I had already been a minimalist in many respects due to the upheaval in my life caused by my divorce, relocating to a place where I knew no one, and having to start over from almost nothing. Once the dust settled and my life was on more stable ground, I re-read Your Money or Your Life, and although the message of the book really resonated with me, it took me reading many more personal finance books and years gaining more experience with my money before I even considered early retirement. Initially I was just focused on being financially healthy. 

By 2009 I was a veteran minimalist living a financially stable and frugal life. I had worked for the same local government employer since November 1999 and was careful not to inflate my lifestyle due to pay raises and promotions. I had emergency savings, retirement accounts, and I owned a house which was soon to be paid in full. Then one day I came across the blog Early Retirement Extreme. Jacob Lund Fisker, the author, shares his philosophical view of finances and retirement as well as gives concrete ways to retire early. The information is presented in a framework that most anyone can apply to their unique situation. This turned out to be the final piece of the puzzle, when I realized that I wanted to retire early and that it was possible.

By this time I was already used to being frugal and wasn’t interested in having a lot of stuff. Reading the blog energized me to up my game a few notches and see what was really possible. I began to get more extreme with minimalism in order to experience more freedom as well as to have more money to put towards my “Freedom Fund” which would allow me to retire early. It was very interesting how eliminating a seemingly random physical item would lead towards letting go of more items. For example, I sold my Bose iPod speakers, which sat on a bookcase that no longer held books because I previously got rid of them, so I sold the bookcase too. I sold everything I could on Craigslist and gave away or donated the rest.

I also began considering the larger expenses in my life. Even after my house was paid off, there were still associated costs such as taxes, maintenance, and utilities. My commute to work was also steadily increasing. What used to be an easy 25 minute drive each way was getting closer to an hour with increasing regularity. After one particularly brutal week of commuting I decided to put my house on the market. It took a few months for it to sell, and once it did I rented a furnished room a mere 3 miles from where I worked. I had pared down my possessions so much by that point that everything I owned fit into one carload of my Honda Fit. That was October 2013, and as I took a relaxing walk around my new neighborhood I felt so free - no more long commutes, smaller household bills, and my goal of early retirement was that much closer to becoming a reality.

Over the next five years I made many new social connections and loved my newfound free time now that my commute was radically shorter. Everything was easier and less stressful. I enjoyed walking outdoors and meeting new neighbors, hanging out with friends, and exploring new hobbies. Almost magically, somehow having less in a material sense allowed me to have more of what I truly wanted: friendships, serenity, time, and money.

I left full-time employment and semi-retired (since I did work some part-time jobs) in December 2018 at age 47, though technically I achieved Lean FIRE, or my “enough” point as per Your Money or Your Life, some time before that. My original plan was to stay with my long-time employer until spring of 2021 to give me plenty of extra financial cushion because I’m a cautious person, but a series of unexpected events led me to retiring 2.5 years early (which I wrote about here).

Unlike many FIRE adherents who have arrived at financial independence, I didn’t have a college degree or a high paying job to help me get there. And I wasn’t financially perfect with every decision I made either. I lived very frugally and even found it a fun challenge to find ways to save money or, even better, completely eliminate an expense from my life. Early retirement, although perhaps not an option for everyone depending on their circumstances, is possible for most people. It just depends on what you prioritize and what actions you’re willing to take to get there.

Retiring early is like a roller coaster: initially you’re full of excitement and anticipation as you wait to board, then you ascend the first steep hill and as your cart pauses at the top you’re scared witless, but as you begin the descent and the wind blows through your hair it’s exhilarating. My life now is nothing like I ever imagined it would be, and it’s wonderful.

[A posthumous thanks to Henry David Thoreau for his essay Walden. I vividly remember purchasing Walden and Other Writings when I was in high school. It was a small paperback with a dark green spine and a photograph of woods on the front cover. Walden’s message of, “Simplify, simplify, simplify!” has been meaningful throughout my life. Looking back, reading that essay as a teenager was my initial FIRE inspiration which helped lead me to the life of freedom I’m living today.]