Why I Choose the FIRE Life?

So as I write this, it is January 2021 and I am 34 years old. I am currently working full time in a job I enjoy. I enjoy the work, I really do, most of the time…..some of the time, well, not so much.

Ever since I started working and making money (when I finished Uni in 2004) I knew that it was not something I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I just never saw the appeal of working up to 60 hours a week for the next 50 years of my life, only to be able to achieve a comfortable (but lacklustre) retirement.

When I was starting work though, FIRE was not really a thing, well it might have a been a thing, but it was something I had never heard of before. In fact, it was only in the last couple of years that I was aware it was even a thing. But even back then, I at least knew that I needed money to achieve something, I just did not know what it was at the time.

So, over the next 10 years or so I was busy squirreling away a lot of my savings, and I was fortunate enough to be able to invest most of it (not always the best ways to invest mind you, but I will get into those details over the next few blog posts – hopefully you will be able to learn from my mistakes).

Then, on a fateful day back in 2017, I had just finished working the FIFO life and was talking to some friends from Uni days who were talking to be about the FIRE life. It was at this moment that finally everything began to click, and clarity was achieved, and it all made sense. I knew from then what it was exactly I wanted, well in some way I always knew, but at least now I knew there was a name for it.

The best part was, now that it had a name, I knew there would be an online community of like-minded people to be able to support, guide and encourage along the way. That has probably been the greatest motivator I have had; the FIRE community is so helpful and can provide so much inspiration and really makes the whole journey a lot easier.

Anyway, I got a little side tracked – so why do I choose the FIRE life? It is simple, I want freedom, I want time. I want to be able to enjoy my life as much as possible and for me personally my life would be a lot more enjoyable if I had the freedom to retire rather than work for the next 30 years of my life before I am able to retire.

One of the biggest motivators I have to aspire to FIRE is to reduce stress. Paying bills, commitments, expenses and all that stuff can be quite stressful if you do not have a large pool of wealth/savings to draw from. Imagine a life where it barely phased you if you had an unexpected $2,000 bill come up of nowhere? Now obviously no matter how wealthy you are, it would be annoying, but if you have minimal savings, then the stress could be detrimental to your mental state. Why would anyone want to have that?

So not only will you have the ability to control your destiny, retire early if you want, work part time, pursue a passion without worrying about the financial implications. But even before you retire, you will have reduced financial stress in your life. To me it just sounds like your life will be more enjoyable before and after retirement, so why wouldn’t I want that? I can achieve this, so why wouldn’t I want to pursue something that could bring me this freedom.

So in summary, I choose FIRE because I want FREEDOM and TIME, and NO STRESS