Good Financial Reads: The FIRE Movement Explained

The FIRE movement continues to rapidly gain popularity. If you aren’t familiar with it yet, get familiar. FIRE stands for Financially Independent, Retire Early.

This concept first became popular from Vicki Robbin’s book Your Money or Your Life. This book talks about how people sacrifice time in the endless pursuit of money. This explains the title – you pick either your money or your life.   

This really resonated with me because we live in a society where success is usually measured by money. The more money you have, the more successful your life is. But at what cost? Your time.  

One of the most significant movements to come along in recent years in the personal finance space is the “FIRE” movement. If you haven’t heard of it, “FIRE” stand for “Financial Independence Retire Early”. This movement has been slowly building over the past decade. However, in the past two to three years it has exploded into the mainstream world of personal finance to include tremendously helpful blogs and podcasts (ChooseFI, Mr. Money Mustashe, Mad Fientist, BiggerPockets Money etc.) and even a documentary (Playing with FIRE).

Financial freedom sounds like the ultimate goal for most people. It means that you have enough assets that independently generate enough income for you to live off of — and you're free from the need to earn a paycheck to fund your lifestyle.

In theory, this is an ideal way to go. But you need to be careful. The pursuit of independence can actually leave you with fewer options and feeling very much financially stuck.

Many people think the ultimate financial goal is financial freedom or independence — but what if I told you there was an even better way to use your money to enjoy your life now AND in the future?

If you’ve listened to this podcast for any amount of time, you’ll know that one of the most important things to both of us is FREEDOM.