You don’t have to be planning to retire at 32 to get value out of the F.I.R.E. movement. For those uninitiated, the acronym F.I.R.E. stands for “financial independence, retirement early” and is about achieving financial freedom at an early age.
For some people, “financial freedom” means retiring early and to others it’s simply having the freedom to do what you really want to do in life rather than being a slave to a paycheck. It’s also about unshackling yourself from some of the norms of our consumer driven culture in order to save a large portion of your income each year to achieve financial independence as soon as possible.
Led by bloggers such as Mr. Money Mustache and Early Retirement Extreme, the concept of F.I.R.E is slowly penetrating the mainstream.
If you aren’t ready to jump all in on the F.I.R.E. bandwagon, getting familiar with some of its champions is a great way to get inspired and stay on track to meet your own financial goals even if they are of the more conventional variety like retiring in your 60’s rather than your 30’s.
One thing that stands out when reading F.I.R.E. blogs is how supportive the F.I.R.E. community is of each other and in spreading the gospel of financial independence. Another shocking aspect is how transparent they are with their own net worth. Most of us are more likely to be comfortable getting naked in public than sharing with the world our net worth and retirement savings. However, that is exactly what these bloggers do each month, sharing the minutia of their net worth and savings and the ups and downs they experience each month.
To that end, here’s a run down of some of my favorite F.I.R.E. blogs beyond the ones you may already be familiar with.
If you’ve ever day dreamed about packing your bags and country hopping all over the world, Go Curry Cracker is a F.I.R.E. blogger actually doing it and living a lot more cheaply than most of us do staying put in the U.S. Jeremy and his wife retired in their early 30s after living super frugally and have traveled the world ever since—what they call being “location independent.” His posts, whether on reducing your tax bill, or his best travel mistakes, are equally entertaining. Not surprisingly, he’s also an expert on travel reward credit cards.
Budgets Are Sexy is written by a F.I.R.E. blogger who goes by the name “J. Money.” No one makes talking about money more fun than J. Money. And he’s not afraid to get personal. Each month he publicly tracks his net worth and breaks down in detail where he’s up and where he’s down and what financial goals or decisions he’s grappling with at the moment. The power behind Budgets Are Sexy and why he has such a loyal following is that he’s a regular guy with no particular financial training. He has slugged it out month after month, including bouncing back from bad financial decisions, to achieve his goals. In short, if he can do it, we can too.
Physician on Fire is a F.I.R.E. blog purportedly for doctors but it has really practical advice that applies to a much broader audience including resources on student loan refinancing, step by step guides with screenshots for doing backdoor Roth contributions, and recommendations on the best credit cards for small businesses and cards for those who love free travel. He also gives out handy Excel-based financial calculators to play around with such as his tax drag calculator.
Another one to follow is The Mad Fientist who does a great job of breaking down complex financial analysis making it easy for everyone to understand and apply like his popular post on safe retirement withdrawal rates which summarizes all the latest research in this area.
There are so many F.I.R.E. bloggers out there and they can all be found on a handy directory on Rock Star Finance. You can sort by category or by different life stages to find various F.I.R.E. blogs and also more conventional personal finance blogs that interest you.
One word of caution is that many F.I.R.E. bloggers do make money off of their blogs by promoting various budgeting apps, books and software which means that they receive compensation if you click on a product or make a purchase. So they may not be totally unbiased in their recommendations. But as long as you know that you can still enjoy their content and find inspiration on your own road to financial independence.
Investing involves substantial risk and has the potential for partial or complete loss of funds invested. Investments mentioned may not be suitable for all investors. Before investing in any investment product, potential investors should consult their financial advisor, tax advisor, accountant, or attorney with regard to their specific situation.
