I’d lived in a certain Midwest city since my birth during The So, So Long Ago some time ago. Well, technically that’s not true. From about a day or three after my birth, I spent ages 0–22 either in the suburbs or in my college town in the same state. But I’d yearned to move to part of the country for quite some time. And then I discovered a few things that changed everything for me: (1) FIRE and (2) there are mountains in the Mountain West (who knew?!); (3) chicks dig the longball, but I dig the mountains.
The mountains are what drew me to the West, but my discovery of FIRE is what gave me the push and confidence I needed to make the change.
When it’s time to change, you’ve got to rearrange
Things happened pretty quickly after that discovery. Whereas I’d been droning on and on about moving away for at least a decade, once I discovered FIRE, made a buncha financial and some lifestyle changes, and gained a hitherto unknown awareness and positive outlook (and mind you, I can be a professional pessimist), our decision to move followed about 18 months later (for you, that might be a glacial pace; for me, it’s lightning fast). But for our having kids and giving much thought to the effects of a move on them, we’d likely have made the move even earlier.
What I mean to suggest, Dear Reader, is that getting your financial house in order with a goal of achieving FIRE can (more) quickly get you to a point where you are financially able to make drastic but positive changes. And you often need not have reached FIRE to make these changes. If a doofus guy like me can do it, then a lot of people can.
If you live in or near the mountains, you’re probably like me and drinking up all that the area has to offer.
