“Dad, You’re Stressing Me Out” FIRE! (Part II)

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Living a lifestyle where you spend 50% less than your “normal” spending doesn’t sound like much fun. But that’s exactly what many members of the FIRE movement are doing. FIRE standing for Financial Independence, Retire Early.

I’ve been studying this movement big-time, because there’s a lot for you and me to learn by understanding what others are doing. This is not some hypothetical model of how you’ll live your life off your investments. This is real. It’s a lifestyle.

When I brought up living a FIRE-centered life to my daughter she said, “Dad please stop with the FIRE, you’re stressing me out.”

“Don’t you want to hear about the Savings Sherpa?” I asked.

The Savings Sherpa, for example, on an Air Force officer’s salary of just over $100k (these are not deadbeats) or $90k after-tax, went on a 12-day vacation to Hawaii on a $725 budget. How is that possible? With creativity.

When he travels, he uses his lounge memberships and often arrives the night before his flight, eats dinner for free, sleeps comfortably in his sleeping bag on his feather soft foam pad, has breakfast for free, and makes his flight in the morning.

He travels with food containers and saves what he doesn’t eat to have later or bring home to his girlfriend who loves their lifestyle. It actually sounds fun and becomes like a game once you start reading these stories.

Now this may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but what I’ve said from the very beginning when studying this FIRE movement is that, we can all certainly learn from what they are doing.

It’s romantic. It’s the frontier of discovering what you need in your life. And there’s thousands of examples of FIRE lifestyles. Stay tuned.

Follow along with my entire series on FIRE here.

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E.J. Smith - Your Survival Guy

E.J. Smith is Founder of YourSurvivalGuy.com, Managing Director at Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd., a Managing Editor of Richardcyoung.com, and Editor-in-Chief of Youngresearch.com. E.J. graduated from Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, with a B.S. in finance and investments. In 1995, E.J. began his investment career at Fidelity Investments in Boston before joining Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd. in 1998. E.J. has trained at Sig Sauer Academy in Epping, NH. His first drum set was a 5-piece Slingerland with Zilldjians. He grew-up worshiping Neil Peart of the band Rush, and loves the song Tom Sawyer—the name of his family’s boat, a Grady-White Canyon 306. He grew up in Mattapoisett, MA, an idyllic small town on the water near Cape Cod. He spends time in Newport, RI and Bartlett, NH—both as far away from Wall Street as one could mentally get. The Newport office is on a quiet, tree lined street not far from the harbor and the log cabin in Bartlett, NH, the “Live Free or Die” state, sits on the edge of the White Mountain National Forest. He enjoys spending time in Key West and Paris. Please get in touch with E.J. at ejsmith@yoursurvivalguy.com

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