If you’ve never heard of F.I.R.E., it stands for: Financial Independence, Retire Early. A few years ago, after I’d paid off my credit card debt and continued to read personal finance books and blogs, somewhere along the way I stumbled across this movement. It immediately appealed to me! Retiring before than 65?! Yes!!!
My goal was born out of my fear. Fear of being stuck: in a place, in a relationship, in a situation, in anything.
When I start to feel stuck it’s a reflex to run like the wind!
To me, money is a way to never feel stuck again:
- If I have a terrible boss, I’ll quit.
- If the politics get bad in my state or country, I’ll move.
- If my bf cheats on me, I’ll dump his ass.
Basically, I just want to have the freedom to live how I want and be worry-free.
I don’t really care to buy a lot of stuff. I mainly enjoy spending my money on travel and experiences. I do like food very much. I’ve loved craft beers since I was in college, though I hardly drink now. Whatever it is I enjoy, I want to spend my money on it and not use too much of it on things I don’t like or care about.
I originally set out to quit as soon as I had $883,000. This amount was 25 times my yearly expenses at the time, including the taxes that I thought I would have to pay. (Now I know I most likely won’t be paying any taxes, so I need even less.)
Since I’m planning on using geoarbitrage, or geographic arbitrage (which is a fancy way of saying: moving to where I can enjoy my life more and on less money), I know I can live on a lot less than $35k a year, so I don’t think I need to wait until I have $883k invested. My most recent estimates put my number at about $500-750k. I know that’s a big range lol. If I planned on staying where I am it would likely be $800k, but by being a nomad I’m sure I can live well with a lot less. I’m planning a year off soon, so based on that year off I’ll adjust my plan.
One thing you’ll learn about me is I’m not afraid to change my mind. I adjust whenever I think it’s a good idea and if I think it should be adjusted the next time I learn something new, I’ll do it again. This is a big reason why I want to be financially independent; I want to be sure my life is 100% up to me.
While I know I’ll achieve F.I.R.E. at some point anyway, it’s more important to me to be able to quit sooner, lol. This was originally because I hated my boss and my co-worker. Now that I have a decent boss and colleagues, I could stay put, but my goal is still to quit sooner rather than later because life is too short and I want to explore as much of the world as I can!
I envision living a nomadic lifestyle where I move to a new place every 3-6 months, however long I can stay in a country without needing a visa. I want to learn the language, make friends, and enjoy a slow paced life not worrying about how I’m going to pay for it.
The first two years of my mission, were actually during the pandemic, so it was a really big boost to my investments since I couldn’t travel. I did still go on little trips around the U.S., but they were a lot shorter and I didn’t spend very much.
Now I’m working on striking a balance between investing heavily and also enjoying my life solely on my salary. Ever since I was in college, I’ve always had side gigs. When I got my first job I figured I wouldn’t have to do side gigs anymore because now I had a stable job, but since I love traveling, I always ended up doing extra work to earn more travel money.
Each time I’ve made the jump to a higher paying job, I’ve told myself: I don’t have to do side gigs now! Inevitably, I’ve always gone back. My salary now (75k) pays me what I made at my last job, plus my extra work, so I’m really going to try not to work extra.
My budget gives me a monthly fun allowance that I’m comfortable with, and don’t usually fully use it anyway, along with a monthly travel savings that will keep me enjoying my life until I retire. Plus, I’m automatically investing 35% of my salary. I was doing 51% for a few years but now I want to shift to relaxation mode.
Tomorrow, I’ll show you how I came up with my budget.
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