Five years ago, I didn’t know what FIRE was.
I mean, I knew what fire was — something to gather ’round to drink beers, tell stories, and burn marshmallows.
But I was oblivious to the acronym that has since become life changing: Financial Independence, Retire Early.
Now, four years later, you could say FIRE is my middle name. Except you’d be wrong. It’s my last name — “on” is my middle name. But that’s neither here nor there.
I learned what it meant to be financially independent. I took advantage of my FI status by working less and adventuring more. I finally put the RE in FIRE in August of 2019, retiring from medicine at the age of 43.
First, there was FIRE. You save up at least 25 times your anticipated annual spending and you’ve got a 97% or better chance of that money lasting at least thirty years.
That was based upon a typical level of spending, whatever that might be for the individual of the family.