What’s the Difference?

Love at first sight. That’s what I felt when I discovered The Missus FIRE. From the New Yorker article on Mr. Money Mustache that introduced me to both him and the concept of FIRE I’ve since been a little nutty for in the FIRE world. IRL and virtual Heck, you may know that I have my own FIRE-focused blog, too. Cuz you’re reading it right now! My Dear Readers are nothing if not smart like ‘dat. 

Perfectly optimizing strategies and tactics to reach FIRE f’sho takes brains. Maybe much work and time, too. This or that strategy or tactic therefore may not be for one person or another. Maybe lots of strategies and tactics won’t be for one person or another. Maybe most strategies and tactics won’t be for one person or another. But the core strategies and tactics are pretty darned simple. If you ask me, they couldn’t be simpler, even if the mix of them understandably may differ for each person. 

I also think most of us (me, f’sho) once we learn new strategies and tactics at least consider whether they’ll work for us, if not implement them and/or tailor them for our unique situations. Probly we tweak along the way, too, as we learn more and/or experience changes for which change may be good. Think a scientist in a chemistry lab. Some of us mad scientists. Others not as much, but still experimenting.

And the payoff? Well, financial independence is awesome ain’t bad.

And you wanna talk about not just an incredibly friendly group of people but one that’s bursting with super smart and creative people who love little more than freely sharing their personal finance knowledge with anyone who’ll listen (rather than hoarding that knowledge so that others don’t gain at their expense)? That, Dear Reader, is the FIRE community. 

Unsurprisingly I’m completely baffled not just by people who discover the concept of FIRE but then just shrug. Or *clutches pearls* just disregard it. 

Perfectly simple

So, what is it that makes FIRE folks . . . well . . . FIRE folks? Why do we positively shudder at mindlessly taking on massive debt to live a YOLO lifestyle, but (for me some of the nerdiest among us) delight in researching how to optimize for Obamacare premium tax credits? And, more generally, that we’re fiscally responsible while so many others are . . . uuummm . . . not at all? I’ve pondered this a lot.

The subject recently came up on a hike with a super smart and accomplished early retiree. We’ll call this person Fi. Cuz why not. 

Fi thinks it’s cuz we’re most of us on the spectrum. Some, a little. Others, a lot. Stripping out the possible political incorrectness of the hypothesis, I considered it on the merits and ultimately rejected the notion.

Sure, we’re many of us quirky, f’sho. But lots of FIRE and non-FIRE people are quirky. And quirky doesn’t necessarily mean anything beyond quirky. 

Well, what then? 

Here’s my theory. I think a few things going hand in hand are at play: (1) we’ve learned that there’s a thing called financial independence, and (2) that knowledge completely transforms our relationship to money and personal finances such that we’ve solved for an issue (money) that’s so commonly a source of massive (and, for some, maybe even seemingly existential) angst and, in doing so, entered a “chill” zone. 

Finish, the job

If you ask me, learning that financial independence is even a thing is nothing short of game changing. Absent knowledge of it most of us know not what we’re aiming for financially other than maybe some amorphous “more.” Because more is always better, right? And we believe that the end point of our efforts comes at or near age 65—because retirement is of course an age, not a financial number, right?—so we must work until then and hope for the best. Because quantifying that we have “enough” to retire is impossible, right?

Even if we don’t have enough money to retire then, many of us still will. Because we’re 65. And as noted that’s when you retire. Duh! For those who do, their actual finances may catch up to them eventually. And I suspect many will be confused when that happens. Terribly confused.

If you’re always striving for an unknown “more” and you don’t even know the race’s course then you’re likely never done running the race (until, as mentioned, age 65, The Official Retirement Age). You’re just left assuming that there is a course, that it has an official end (age 65), and that once you reach it, you’ll magically be financially OKish. 

Knowing of, and striving for, financial independence, we FIRE folks know the race course: earning, saving, and investing and then passive income (and active income if we choose so). And we know its end: a financial number and/or set of financial streams in place.

Put another way, we’re no longer running a race that we must win, or at least place as high as possible in—the consequence of which is that everyone else loses—just one we must finish. No longer are we in a competitive marathon against others on an unknown route. We’re on a completely personal run on a course for which we know the route. 

We can run fast and faster, or enjoy the route more and go slower. Either way, our progress and good fortune need not come at others’ expense. Heck, others’ good fortune actually helps us. 

As investors, we want them to do well in their job and finances and keep the economy humming along. As lessors, we want them to make money so they can pay the rent. As entrepreneurs, we want them to do well as our employees. 

Problem solved

With this knowledge, we’ve essentially solved for the angst-inducing issue of money and gained immeasurable clarity that likely previously was absent. Sure, some of us may still wring our hands about the speed at which to proceed and strategies and tactics to adopt. But we know that there are systems we can put in place to address all that. Or we at least know about them and ultimately implement (at least some of) them. And when we learn new things, we wanna explore and maybe execute on those, too. We also know and can quantify how much we need, and that once we have it, we can peace out and no longer be beholden to any employer (including ourselves). 

Many non-FIRE folks experience decades of financial uncertainty and insecurity. “Fear” is another way to put it. Keep working/grinding. Keep making more money (through a job, cuz, duh, that’s how you make money). Keep striving for that next step up and beating back any and all competitors for it. Keep keeping up with the Joneses—regardless of debt—because what they have is what we want! All toward some amorphous unknown. Blech.

We FIRE folks, however, have the “boring middle.” We’ve been educated, developed and implemented our plan, and are watching things move up and to the right until we hit our FIRE number. We’re focused on what we can do for ourselves. Not how we can gain at the expense of others. We’ll tweak and optimize and reassess occasionally. But it’s inward focused.

So, sure, we FIRE folks seem weird. But if you ask me, that’s because we and most non-FIRE folks are running different races. Them on a routeless course with an assumed and arbitrary end. Us on a far clearer route with a far clearer and less arbitrary end. They look at us like we’re crazy. And we do the same to them.

And in the end . . . 

Near the end of the movie, When Harry Met Sally, Harry has an epiphany, understanding what love really is and that he loves Sally. He races through Manhattan to find Sally and when he does, after some back and forth, says, “When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.” Tweaking that quote for FIRE folks, and I think explaining why we are like we are, the exclamation might as well be “When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life financially independent, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.”