Are You Part Of The F.I.R.E. Movement?
Dear Friends & Neighbors,
Coin stack with time (Presented at: WindermereSun.com)
Ben Franklin’s face bill (Presented at: WindermereSun.com)
Money would grow (Presented at: WindermereSun.com)
(Please click on red links & note magenta)
When I was a university math professor in Illinois, I would routinely use the example of compound interest effect when covering exponential function to encourage students to start thinking and planning for early retirement. So, it is no surprise when some of them have become part of the F.I.R.E. movement.
Did you know that there is a new wave of young people who are taking early retirement to a new level, believing and planning to retire in their 30’s or 40’s, taking part in a new movement called F.I.R.E. (Financial Independence, Retire Early) movement. Their goal is to save and invest very aggressively (between 50% to 75%) of their income in order to achieve the goal of retiring in their 30’s or 40’s.
There are two types of F.I.R.E. method group participants:
- Lean F.I.R.E. method group: living extremely frugally, focusing on spending less
- Fat F.I.R.E. method group: Focusing on earning the most amount of money one can
Here are some examples of the F.I.R.E. movement, below:
A software engineer and professional fundraiser in Boston decided four years ago to purge some of their consumerist habits to save more than 70 percent of their salaries. The result was a big move to rural Vermont and the release this month of the book, “Meet the Frugalwoods: Achieving Financial Independence Through Simple Living.” NewsHour Weekend’s Christopher Booker reports, in the video “What a well-off couple learned from cutting consumer habits“, below:
Working is a choice, not a necessity, for this Denver-based member of the FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early) movement, in the video “This flight attendant saved enough to retire early but chooses to work“, below:
Grant Sabatier, creator of Millennial Money and author of Financial Freedom, was broke and moved back in with his parents after college. Then he set a goal of reaching $1 million as soon as possible and achieved financial independence, in the video “How this millennial saved $1 million in five years and retired early“, below:
In this installment of our Eye On Money series we are focusing on a fast-growing trend that focuses on saving aggressively to retire early. It’s called F.I.R.E. and stands for “financial independence, retire early.” The idea is to live a frugal life now, so you can take control of your financial future, in the video “F.I.R.E. savers: Behind the trend of aggressively saving“, below:
They live frugally and save 70 percent of their income, and now Jose and Tatiana are trying to decide what they’ll do when they retire early. The first episode of the new Marketwatch series FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early) Starters, in the video “Millionaires next door: Once couple’s frugal path to early retirement“, below:
After all, retirement is not determined by age, but by a financial number. There is no written law that says one has to work until 65.
Members of the F.I.R.E. movement have these two goals in mind: keeping their expenses extremely low and raising their income. The general idea is that the higher one’s income and the lower the expenses are, the sooner one can reach financial independence. Upon reaching financial independence, one may scale back to work only part-time or have the freedom to pursue a new direction.
No matter where one is on the financial journey, there is much one may glean from the F.I.R.E. movement:
- Start dreaming and planning for retirement early, so to allow the power of compound interest effect to work ASAP.
- Get out of debt ASAP
- Finding ways to lower expenses by clearly defining one’s wants and needs, looking at one’s expenses, and sticking to a budget.
- Finding creative ways to boost one’s income: turning a side hustle into a small business on nights and weekends, driving for uber, delivering pizzas, etc.
- Make Saving and Investing a priority: set a goal and get into the habit of saving and investing every month and let the compound interest work for rather than against one.
- Avoid getting divorced. It would really hurt economically.
Keep in mind that:
- One-third of the millionaires never had a six-figure household income in a single year.
- The average millionaire worked, saved and invested for an average of 28 years before hitting the $1 million mark.
- One does not have to have a high-paying job to build the wealth one needs to retire securely.
- Any one can become a millionaire. It just takes time, saving, and investing.
Gathered, written, and posted by Windermere Sun-Susan Sun Nunamaker More about the community at www.WindermereSun.com
We Need Fair Value of Solar
~Let’s Help One Another~
Please also get into the habit of checking at these sites below for more on solar energy topics:
www.kiva.org/team/sunisthefuture
www.facebook.com/sunisthefuture
