The FIRE movement is misunderstood. The drama of the last two weeks proves it. The question is, how can we fix this? Ohhh we have a new supporter!! Last week, Suze Orman called FIRE “dumb and stupid.” “When I was 30 I was dumb and stupid as well, okay?,” she said in an interview with Yahoo! Finance, adding that she’s “pissed off” at people pursuing early retirement. But since then, she’s taken more time to learn about the movement — and she’s in support. In a Facebook post titled “What I Hate — and Love — about FIRE,” Suze writes: “Financial independence – count me in! “Retire early[…]
Category: Retirement
“Two Million Dollars is Nothing. It’s Pennies,” says Suze Orman
Want to retire early? You’ll need at least $5 million, more likely $10 million, says famous financial personality Suze Orman. I should know. She said that to me, directly, on my podcast. I asked Suze for her opinion about a frugal, flexible person who wants to retire early with a $2 million portfolio. She warned that retiring would be a massive mistake. “Two million dollars is nothing,” Suze said. “It’s nothing. It’s pennies in today’s world, to tell you the truth.” Wait,[…]
Here’s a Counterintuitive Idea for Your Retirement …
Once upon a time, in southern California in 1994, there lived a man named William Bengen.⠀ His friends called him Bill. Bill was born in Brooklyn, and he studied aeronautics at MIT. He wrote a big paper on advanced model rocketry. Then he became an executive at a soft drink company. Finally, 17 years later, he retired to sunny southern California. Well, kinda. Bill was smart and full of energy. He couldn’t stay retired for long. He decided to get a masters in financial planning. He opened his own firm. And he started reading papers that … bemused him. You see, at this time, many financial planners were claiming that since[…]
Does Your Lack of Savings Halt Your Dreams?
Several weeks ago, I invited new email subscribers to share their answers to two deeply personal questions: What’s your wildest dream, and what’s preventing you from getting there? The answers poured in to a degree I couldn’t believe. My Inbox flooded with hopes and sorrows. Some people shared brief-but-honest answers; others wrote memoirs. People from all walks of life and all corners of the globe responded. While each person’s dreams and obstacles are unique, a few common threads[…]
Mini-Retirements, Semi-Retirement, Early Retirement — What’s the Most Awesome Lifestyle?
This recent reader email struck a chord: I’m a software engineer trying to plan my plunge [into freedom]. I’m young, so I figured I would grind it out, save a lot, and retire early. But after a health scare, I realize mini-retirements might trump early retirements, and I want to achieve a lifestyle similar to yours. It’s difficult to figure out what I should be prioritizing, however. Side hustles, remote work, rentals, starting a business? Oohhh!! I love this email. On the surface, it’s a tactical “how-to” inquiry: Should I launch a business? Buy a rental property? But under the surface, this reader hints at a deeper question: What’s the optimal lifestyle? Mini-retirements? Early retirement? Something[…]
This 72-Year-Old is Retiring the Right Way …
My 72-year-old dad just announced that he’s learning to drive a stick-shift. Why? Because he wants to drive – instead of relying on taxis or buses – when he travels to countries that only have manual transmissions. And he goes to a lot of other countries. Last year he and my 72-year-old mom flew to Russia. “Why Russia?,” I asked my parents. “Because we’ve never seen it,” they replied. When they returned, they bought a ticket to Brazil. This year, they invited me to join them in Iceland. My parents, in short, have the coolest retirement ever. And what’s crazy is that they didn’t start saving for retirement until their 40s. That flies in the face of conventional wisdom, which says[…]
There’s No Such Thing As Paid Vacation. (But There’s Something Even Better!)
Today is my first day back at work after a one-week “unpaid” vacation. I’ll earn less this month than I did in the previous few months, since I only worked three-fourths of the time. This is because I trade my time for money. I have a huge limitation on how much I can earn. Everything I do these days – including my pledge to invest 100 percent of my income – is intended to cut the relationship between time and money. I’ll have “real” wealth the day I can unplug for one year without suffering a hit to my income. Wealth is measured in time, not dollars. Some people believe that they already have stints in which they get paid[…]
The Surprising Reason I Read AARP Magazine … In My Twenties
What will you want to cultivate? Guess what magazine I’m always reading? If you guessed something targeted at 20-somethings or 30-somethings, you’re wrong. I love AARP magazine — the bimonthly publication of the American Association of Retired Persons. It shows up in the mailbox at my 70-year-old parents suburban home, but I steal it away to my city apartment and devour it page-by-page. My parents never even get a chance. But I’m 27 years old. Why the enthusiasm to read a magazine aimed at seniors? Quite simply, its because AARP Magazine is a window into the future: it discusses the issues that we young ‘uns have in store for us,[…]
Why Retirement is an Old-Fashioned Idea
I was reading through the January/February 2011 edition of AARP Magazine* which featured an interview with George W. Bush. Regardless of how you feel about his Presidency, one comment he made that rang true: retirement is an “old-fashioned” term. You never retire. More people are beginning to recognize that retirement – the notion that one day, despite your good health, you withdraw from work – is an outdated idea. As long as you’re in good health, you are going to stay active and engaged. The question is: will your efforts center on working, or will your efforts center on some other pursuit, such as gardening, skiing, mountain biking, or heck, even running for Congress? The clock is ticking – are[…]
You Are Not Entitled to Retirement (and That’s Great News)
Will you work during your sunset years? Retirement is such a part of our cultural fabric that it’s viewed as a basic human right. It’s the final chapter in the American Dream: a home, a family, a secure retirement. But it hasn’t always been this way. For much of American history, people worked until they were too sick to work anymore. The idea that a healthy person would voluntarily stop working — regardless of their age — was considered an extravagance privy only to the ultra-rich. American culture changed after World War II. Retirement shifted from a luxury to a basic right, an entitlement of age. Corporate pensions, coupled[…]
