My FIRE Journey
I wanted to go into a bit more depth about my journey and how I got to this point. We’ve previously talked about why I created Financial Gecko and why I believe documentation is important—but not about why I’m on this journey in the first place.
Going back to the very beginning, it seems I’ve always had entrepreneurial blood in me. If you'd like to read more about the specifics, you can read my story here. This isn’t about that specifically, but I’ve always had an interest in finance and making money from a very young age. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what sparked it, but that drive has always been there. In the beginning, it was less clear what I was working toward. Sure, I wanted to buy things and have some income, but the main goal wasn’t clear. Of course, no one at 13 or 14 is thinking long-term like that. However, these days my journey is much more intentional and long-term than it was back then.
A turning point
I discovered the F.I.R.E. (Financial Independence, Retire Early) movement when I was 20 years old, and it has forever changed my life and set it on a completely different trajectory.
Unfortunately, my discovery of FIRE wasn’t born out of sunshine and rainbows—but rather, out of loss.
Between October 2020 and January 2021, my grandma, grandpa, and mother all died. It was my mom’s death that hit especially hard, coming completely unexpectedly when I was just 20.
What’s even worse to me than losing all those people is that in August 2020, only about five months earlier, my father retired. He retired after working 40+ years, finally looking forward to enjoying some time with his family. Talk about depressing. Seeing and living through all the sacrifices he and my family made to finally reach the end, only to not be able to fully enjoy it, is heartbreaking.
This led me to two realizations:
1. There’s no guarantee you’ll live to a normal retirement age. My mom passed away at 60, another grandpa at 56, and an uncle at 50. You might never reach your “golden years.”
2. Even if you do make it to 60 or 65, there’s no guarantee your spouse will—like in the case of my father.
This led me to one thought: “Theres got to be a better way.” And soon after, my discovery of FIRE was born.
Since then, I’ve learned a lot—to say the least. But most importantly, I’ve learned that it is possible. Knowing that gave me hope to pursue it and continue pursuing it years later. Also, having seen firsthand what can potentially happen has definitely added fuel to the fire (no pun intended).
A couple takeaways from my 5-year-ish journey so far:
Life offers no guarantees, everyone hopes to see old age but that isn’t always the case. I’d rather take my chances being free at 35, 40, or even 45 instead of 65. I find the thought of working for 40–45 years at some 9-to-5 for the chance to retire at 65 to be about as soul-crushing as it gets. I’m certainly not going to take that chance.
Sacrifices will need to be made in order to achieve this goal and there’s no way around it. I have given up many things in the hope of achieving this goal. However I am always surprised that when I give up something that I thought was important to me, the quality of my life doesn’t seem to change much. Of course I am not perfect and still have things I can cut out to save money and time.
Another thing that helps is trying to frame these as choices, not sacrifices.
You can choose to drive a $10k used vehicle instead of a $50k new one. Sure, you could call that a sacrifice, but it’s also a choice that helps you retire earlier. Ultimately you’re not losing anything, it just depends on your priorities. You will need to make smart and frugal decisions if you choose this path. Maybe some that are a little painful in the moment, but with long-term payoffs later.
The question I like to ask myself to check in is:
“Do I regret how I’ve lived my life so far? Or am I happy with where I’m at?”
If you’re happy with where you are on your journey, just keep doing what you’re doing, as long as you’re making progress the way you want to. If you read that question and said “I hate my life”, it might be time to make a big change in how you’re pursuing this journey, or even whether you should pursue it at all.
Balance
Along with sacrifice comes balance. “Balance” can be a tricky word when it comes to FIRE I sometimes feel conflicted internally because balance is often preached as the ideal: not too much of one thing over another. While that sounds nice in theory, I don’t think it applies well to FIRE. If you want to achieve financial independence you’re likely going to lead a very unbalanced life for years while working, saving and investing.
But let’s say you do that for 10, 15, or even 20 years and become financially independent. Suppose you’re 45 in this scenario, you likely have another 35 to 50 years of life where you won’t need to work. Is that balanced? Seems like a pretty good deal to me.
Rather than dragging out your work over 40 or 45 years, why not compress it into 15 or 20? Easier said than done, I know. But just a thought I try to keep in mind. Being 24, it can honestly be tricky picturing my life at 35 or 40, but I know it will come sooner than I think.
Looking ahead
Reminding myself that even if I don’t achieve FIRE, I’ll still be in a much better financial position than if I had never pursued it, helps keep me motivated too.
My personal goal is to be financially independent between 35 and 40, with the ability to retire early somewhere in that range.
My idea of early retirement doesn’t mean never working again—just never working on things I’m not passionate about again. I plan to pick back up on some of my animal-related small businesses, where I won’t need to worry about making an income from them to support myself.
Only time will tell whether or not I’m successful on this journey, but I know I have the commitment to see it through.