If you stumbled on this site looking for information about FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early), you’ve arrived at the right place. That catchy moniker – though certainly not something I came up with – seems to have worked! It certainly worked on me, when, after several years of slogging away in the fluorescent-lit confines of offices painted in unprovoking shades of beige and taupe, I decided to make a change to focus more on the future. And that focus turned out to be investing larger chunks of my salary with the goal of ending my dependence on wages, and to live a life with greater freedom of choice.
On this site, I’ll share details of my own pursuit of FIRE, including things I’ve picked up along the way while investing, trying to minimize taxes, using online brokerage accounts, strategies for saving money, plans for “early” retirement, and so on. My goal is to discuss the knowledge one might need to pursue FIRE, and that doesn’t only mean saving and investing. One of the biggest traps to watch out for when pursuing something like FIRE is avoiding a situation where you over-save and compromise your current lifestyle to the point where you get no enjoyment from it. There’s no question that FIRE involves trade-offs, but I’ll try to address achieving a balance so that you’re not depriving yourself now to the point that none of this is even worthwhile. After all, if we’re pursuing early retirement to improve our lives, making ourselves miserable along the way isn’t going to help.
I’ll add that this site is not only about early retirement. If you’re looking for information about investing generally, retirement, taxes, managing your finances, projecting your income, budgeting, and all things related, you should be able to find something here. While this site is nominally about things I’ve learned while attempting to save and invest with the goal of early retirement, because the process is so multifaceted, there’s information relevant to all things investment-related.
A little about my background. I have degrees in economics and law (see Disclaimers) and have worked for over a decade in consulting and as an attorney. I’m also very much mid-career, in that I’m not particularly close even to an “early” retirement. Generally speaking, when I refer to my own goals for “early retirement,” I mean somewhere in my mid-40s, and I’ve still got some years before I get there, meaning that my investment horizon is medium to long-term.
That’s all I’ll say about myself. As you’ll pick up if you read the site, I am very much still employed, and because this site is about investing to retire early, it’s best that I keep myself mostly anonymous.
A good portion of my work has involved finance, tax, securities, and contracts, and so it’s fair to say (at least I think so) that I have a good base of knowledge in the world of investing. Nevertheless, as I detail throughout my posts, nobody can predict how the stock market will move, and anyone who tells you they can is trying to sell you something. I have no more idea than anyone else and I’ll never claim that I do, and I’ll continually remind you that investing can result in losses.
Instead of trying to convince anyone that the way I’ve approached FIRE is the correct one, what I hope to accomplish is to provide a baseline of knowledge that you can use to make your own decisions in pursuing your investment-related goals, whether it’s FIRE, retirement generally, building a nest egg, or really anything. The choice is yours.
Ultimately, I’d like to be able to share my story of how I made it to FIRE. But until then I’ve got plenty of time and a long way to go, meaning there’s a great deal to learn, experience, and share along the way. And I hope to learn from you as well. So if you have a story or tip to share, please do. The thing about investing and saving for retirement is that we can get better with experience. Maybe not so much at predicting the market, but in learning how to manage risk, reduce taxes, and maximize savings without compromising our quality of life.
If you’ve made it this far, thanks for visiting, and I hope you enjoy the site. If you have a tip to share or a topic you’d like to see me cover, please contact me through the “Contact” page, and I’ll do my best to provide the most comprehensive information I can.
The FIRE Investor's Guide to Early Retirement 