D-Squared

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Most things in life come down to either luck or timing, usually both. For me, when coming across an interesting idea, timing is everything… When I say “timing”, I’m talking about my mental state and what’s happening in my life at the moment, these two combined usually control if a concept resonates or not. Most of the time it’s not, but that’s a topic for a different day! 🙂

I’ve recently come across an idea that I’ve slowly become more and more obsessed with (thanks to Mr. Money Mustache)… It’s called “FIRE”. No, not the kind of fire that’s fun to look at, instead this “FIRE” is an acronym for “Financial Independence Retire Early”. I know, I know! You’re probably assuming this is some kind of scam, which I’m sure there is scammy content out there in the interwebs, but this idea is pretty solid. Within this “FIRE” community each group of words (e.g. “FI” and “RE”) has its own meaning… 

But! I’m not going to preach about what all this means or how it works, I’m more interested in explaining WHY this concept has captivated my brain for the past couple of months… With that said, let’s dive into each side of “FIRE”. 

Financial Independence (the “FI” in “FIRE”):

There’s an interesting analogy that sums up the reason why this part of “FIRE” is so interesting to me and that is “freedom chips”… When thinking about the concept of money, I picture a game of collecting as many “freedom chips” (e.g. money) as possible. In this game, there are two ways of collecting “freedom chips”… One – You give your time/energy for chips… Two – These chips begin to make more of themselves, with little to no time/energy needed from you. My goal is to work my way into option two. 

So, why would I want to collect these “freedom chips”? Well, more chips = more freedom… Simple. Now, don’t think that I just want to collect a bunch of “freedom chips”, instead the goal here is to collect ENOUGH (Here’s a good TED talk explaining “enough”). 

The interesting thing about the word “Enough” is that it’s different for everyone, maybe you feel that having a 3 bedroom house, 2 cars, a flatscreenT.V., 4 international vacations, and  3 Gucci bags is enough… And that’s fine! But for others, the picture of “enough” is a bit different. And at the moment, for me, “enough” is being able to cover the necessities (e.g. rent, food, etc.), plus a bit of spending on experiences with my lady love. 

So, once I’ve collected enough of these freedom chips and I’m able to maintain the “lower” cost life I live, then I’ll feel a bit more psychologically free, with the ability to focus where I choose to… This leads me to the “RE” of “FIRE”

Retire Early (the “RE” of “FIRE”) 

Retire… This word brings a lot of baggage with it and I’m sure some of you are picturing someone laying on the beach sipping martinis as retired… First, I don’t really like beaches and second, I definitely don’t like martinis. All jokes aside… The concept of retirement is one that’s been tainted by society. The way I’m envisioning retiring here is being able to “retire” from a life of “jobs” to a life of “work”. Let me explain the difference.

When thinking about a “job”, I see someone giving their time, skills, energy, and attention in exchange for freedom chips (and yes we’re calling money freedom chips now), not necessarily because it’s something they’re super excited about doing. This is the case for most of us… 

So, what about “work”?

“Work” for me is all about creation, it’s about turning an idea or interest into something more… And yes, this can be done while still doing a “job”, but why do that, when there are alternatives? Once I’ve gotten to the point where my outgoing money is equal to my incoming money, without having to put too much time/energy into the incoming, then I’m golden! 🙂 

This ability to “retire early” shouldn’t be thought of as a way to relax all day, but more importantly, an opportunity to “work” on the things you want to create… No longer needing to waste your time/energy in exchange for freedom chips. There are many things I want to work on full-time, without the concern of having enough money to survive, but that dream is slowly becoming a reality… 

This is my short brain dump on why this whole “FIRE” concept has been plaguing my mind over the past couple of months. When combining “FI” and “RE”, into “FIRE”, I’m realizing there are different ways to live a life of freedom… This is actually counterintuitive to a lot of the Western media telling us to make more, spend more, and then eventually retire at an older age, with very little life left to dedicate to the things that matter most to us. 

I think that’s enough for now… There is so much more to this topic and many other amazing benefits that come with this kind of mindset, so I’ve linked some resources below if you’re interested in diving a bit deeper. 

Resources

Mr. Money Mustache (One of the OGs for FIRE

Netflix Series

YouTube

Podcasts

Minimalism Short Animation Series (make sure to watch the whole series… Only 15ish minutes)