Fun in the Sun with FIRE! – Part 2
In the last post, I briefly described what the term FIRE means (Financial Independence, Retire Early). Our view is that this is a way for achieving time freedom to go pursue your dreams, interests, and long term goals. In this article, I will summarize the high Level Journey that eventually Led me to achieving Fire.
I first got the idea of FIRE before it was even a term. This was several years before it became known as “FIRE” or had gained in popularity as it did in the 2010’s. However, I didn’t have a good roadmap to follow at that time. I know now that at least one existed, but I was not aware of anyone who offered advice or a plan for how to achieve the goal of time freedom through financial independence. .
The idea came from a conversation with my dad when I was in college. My dad was telling me that he potentially Might get laid off in a downsizing.
“gosh, I sure hope not, that would be awful,” I believe I said,
To my surprise My Dad said, no, he would love it!
he would likely get a lump sum payout of around $500K (probably about $1.2M in Today’s Dollars), and could replace his paycheck from the interest and dividends Earned off that chunk of change.
BING!! A light bulb went off over my head!
the idea of freedom from a paycheck never went away for me from that point on.
my dad’s idea got me interested in topics like budgeting, figuring out my net worth, how to save and invest, and personal finance in general. However, It took me several years before I came up with an adequate plan for how to achieve the goal.
Fast forward to the mid-2000’s. I Had accepted a new job and It required a long and grueling commute five days a week.
eventually, I decided to put the Commute time to better use. I went to the library to Check out books on CD or tape to listen to on my drive (this was pre-smart phones and streaming).
As I perused the shelves, I came across a binder of about 16 to 20 cassette tapes. It was labeled, “Transforming Your Relationship With Money.”
Hmm, that sounded kind of interesting…
Little did I know that My world was about to be rocked by these tapes!
The tapes were recordings of workshop lectures given by Joe Dominquez, the co-author (with Vicki Robin) of the book Your Money or Your Life (YMoYL).
As I listened to the first tape, I was hooked immediately…I couldn’t wait to make my daily 3 hour roundtrip commute so that I could keep listening to the tapes!
Joe Dominquez’s lectures, and the book YMoYL, provide a 9 step plan to follow to reach what they call the “cross-over point.” This is where your assets generate enough cash to pay for all your living expenses; freeing you from what they call “making a dying.” This was the Idea I got from my dad.
Dominquez made a very compelling case in the lectures that deeply resonated for me. I immediately started following the 9 step plan and began making decent progress.
Two years later, I was still attempting to follow the 9 steps of YMoYL, but doing a mediocre job of it. I had not only stalled in making progress but had regressed…badly.
I had incurred many new debts and expenses and I was barely able to Meet all my financial Obligations. I was drowning. This was for a host of reasons … life choices and changes, a lack of diligence, a lack of precision, a lack of adequate knowledge, understanding, or skills for how to effectively manage and invest money, etc., etc.
Thus, I decided to start reading other books about personal finance. One of those books, and a very impactful one on my eventual success to reach FIRE, was Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover (TMM). In this book he outlines his famous 7 Baby Steps plan.
Ah, okay, baby steps are all you need…hmmm…Okay! I think I get it… Sure, Baby steps, Makes sense…
Really?….Baby Steps??
Yes, Baby Steps!!!
Ramsey’s inspiration for The Baby Step’s plan was from a Movie called What About Bob, starring Bill Murray. if you have seen the movie, I felt just like Bill Murray’s character as I read about Ramsey’s Baby Steps. I was elated.
Ramsey outlines 7 baby steps that you take, one at a time, sequentially, by applying what he calls “gazelle like intensity” in order to complete Each Step as fast as you can. you focus on the first step before moving to the next step, then the second, etc.
You do this until you reach step 7 where he advocates that there are only three uses for how to spend your money from that point on: 1) For living, 2) For giving, and 3) For having fun.
These two resources, YMoYL and TMM, became the core resources I used to build my personal blueprint for reaching FIre. They were foundational for helping me:
A) Get my financial “act” together, and
B) realistically achieve YMoYL’s cross-over point (which is a PREREQUISITE for achieving FIRE).
A couple years later, I came across a blog called Early Retirement Extreme (ERE), and I started devouring each of its posts. That blog also helped in advancing my thinking about how to achieve the 9 steps of YMoYL and the 7 baby steps of TMM.
When I discovered the ERE blog, Jacob Lund Fisker (the author) was soon about to quit posting on it. I believe I caught his last 3 to 6 months of posts. (I don’t recall the exact date he decided to put it on pause, but likely it was in 2011 or 2012).
In his last post, he announced his Decision to stop posting on the blog. He recommended another blog called Mr. Money Mustache (MMM) for those looking for a good alternative. I started reading it, too, and searching for other blogs that might help Me. Soon I had
about 10 blogs I read regularly, with several more I checked infrequently, plus I started reading as many personal finance books as I could.
Wanting to be more frugal and wise with my money, I also started taking public transportation for my 3-4 hour round-trip commute. I would spend much of my commute, particularly in the afternoon, reading personal finance books and blog articles. This reinforced my learning. The nearly daily reading gave me new insights and ideas, or acted as motivation and reinforcement for making smart money choices and decisions.
Technically, I Reached an “acceptable” Cross Over Point in 2015. However, I didn’t achieve “Full” FIRE until almost 2020, when I left my long term career Field. While I am thankful that my Net Worth grew in that 4-5 years, In a way, I also Had fell into the “one More Year” trap (will save that story for a later post).
In conclusion…
In this post, I wanted to share the most important resources I used to develop the plan I Followed for reaching FIRE.
if you are interested in pursuing the kind of time freedom I have described, I highly recommend starting with reading and following the advice by these 4 resources.
YMoYL and TMM are still very popular, and it’s probably inexpensive to get a copy of both. At Last check, ERE and MMM are also still online and available for free (and I see that Jacob, author of ERE, has started posting again).
The Transforming Your Relationship with Money lectures are available on YouTube, and Vicky Robin, co-author of YMoYL, is also still active and somewhat involved with the FIRE movement, (Joe Dominquez passed away in the mid1990’s).
YMoYL, TMM, ERE, and MMM all come from minimalist and do it yourself (DIY) perspectives (particularly ERE and MMM).
YMoYL advocates discovering what is “enough” money And Stuff to allow you to live a joyful and meaningful life, they claim it is probably way less than you think. TMM advocates “living like no one else so that later you can live like no one else” Dave Ramsey says that may Meani eating “beans and rice, rice and beans” to save money while you apply gazelle like intensity to complete the baby steps.
ERE advocates reducing your housing, food, and transportation costs as much as possible, he Claims He figured out how to live a fulfilled life on minimum wage.
MMM follows ERE’s advice but he also allowed himself to spend More, about 2-3x’s the amount of a full time minimum wage job. MMM is also a proponent of doing work you love for extra money once you leave your Previous job or career. (He’s a bit of a general contractor and seems to love working with tools, which is why applying a DIY approach Is a big part of his philosophy).
The minimalism Ideas greatly appealed to me, but it may not be your cup of tea. However, I am less enamored with Fully DIY Approach unless I already possess a base level of competence and the time for Money trade off makes sense,
When it comes to working on cars and doing maintenance and improvement projects aroudn the house I eventually decided DIY is Often a Poor strategy for me. There are some things I can do just fine and don’t mind, but after a lot of Failed DIY disasters, and experiencing the huge time sucks those projects created for me, I decided I would rather hire experts to take care of tasks that I am either incompetent at doing or that do not add joy to my life. This allows me to focus my time on what I am actually motivated to do and am at least somewhat good at doing (or motivated to spend the time to get even better at doing).
At this Point, I realize You may be asking, “Uh, where is the fun in the sun part of all this???”
I will Keep coming back to the Connection Of FIRE and Fun in later posts, and eventually share more detailed ideas and methods I have developed. However, for me, striving to reach the cross-over point, to achieve Full time freedom through fire, was actually great FUN! It was motivating and I enjoyed the heck out of playing it like a game.
In fact I have found I Wanted (perhaps needed?) to replace the reaching the cross Over point game with other Monetary goals that I can play like a game. So, there will be more to the story and attention to the fun in the sun parts of Fire in future posts!