How to Retire Early: FIRE Movement 101

More and more people are dreaming of retiring early in their 30s or 40s. But is this actually realistic? Join Josh and Austin as they explore the F.I.R.E. movement, which is the concept of "financial independence, retire early". The guys walk you through the principles of frugality, aggressive savings, smart investments, and all the things that can help you achieve early retirement.  They also share their opinions as to whether this lifestyle is worth it. Tune in!

For the full transcript, links, and show notes, visit theinvesteddads.com/188

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Welcome to The Invested Dads Podcast, simplifying financial topics so that you can take action and make your financial situation better. Helping you to understand the current world of financial planning and investments, here are your hosts, Josh Robb and Austin Wilson.

Austin Wilson:

All right. Hey. Hey. Welcome back to The Invested Dads Podcast, a podcast where we take you on a journey to better your financial future. I'm Austin Wilson, Co-Portfolio Manager at Hixon Zuercher Capital Management.

Josh Robb:

And I'm Josh Robb, Director of Wealth Management at Hixon Zuercher Capital Management. Austin, how can people help us with our podcast?

Austin Wilson:

Well, first of all, we'd love it if you'd subscribe, if you're not subscribed, so you get new episodes when they drop each and every Thursday, as we've done for a long time.

Josh Robb:

A long time.

Austin Wilson:

Do that and we would love it if you'd leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Josh Robb:

And also...

Austin Wilson:

Ooh.

Josh Robb:

If you have not, make sure you sign up for our stock draft.

Austin Wilson:

Fourth annual.

Josh Robb:

Yes, fourth annual stock draft.

Austin Wilson:

Second half.

Josh Robb:

It's free, its fake money, so there's…

Austin Wilson:

It's free, fake money.

Josh Robb:

No worry at all. But you can get all the information on our website or if you look on social media, all the different places go backwards a little bit. It became active on June 30th, so enjoy, join us. You can join anytime.

Austin Wilson:

Absolutely. So Josh,

Josh Robb:

Yes.

Austin Wilson:

Today,

Josh Robb:

Yes.

[1:12] - What is F.I.R.E.?

Austin Wilson:

We're going to be warming up to the idea of FIRE.

Josh Robb:

FIRE.

Austin Wilson:

And I have a burning question.

Josh Robb:

Burning question.

Austin Wilson:

What is FIRE?

Josh Robb:

Yes.

Austin Wilson:

What the heck is FIRE?

Josh Robb:

FIRE is an acronym that stands for,

Austin Wilson:

Of course, it's an acronym.

Josh Robb:

F-I-R-E.

Austin Wilson:

Wait, does the finance industry have acronyms ever?

Josh Robb:

Oh, I mean everything they can shorten to something else; they're going to do it. FIRE, F-I-R-E stands for Financial Independence Retire Early. Right, and that's a movement.

Austin Wilson:

It's lit.

Josh Robb:

It is. It is on fire. This is a lifestyle and financial strategy aimed at achieving independence and retiring at a younger age than you see normally. So...

Austin Wilson:

Okay.

Josh Robb:

The average age is somewhere between 62 and 65. So they're looking to retire early. So the primary idea behind FIRE movement is to up your savings while you're working, invest a significant portion, work hard and postpone some of that enjoyment to kind get to that stage earlier.

Austin Wilson:

And that's some of the stuff we're going to talk about is the math of how this has to work.

Josh Robb:

Yes. Yeah, we're going to talk through that. There's a lot of blogs, articles that talk through this FIRE movement and we are going to link in the show notes one, which is a Forbes article, just talking in general about the idea. But if you do a Google search, you'll come up with a lot of different thoughts on it. So let's first start by breaking that down. So financial independence is really just meaning that at that point in time you no longer are reliant on future income to provide, you have enough savings that you can provide your own income for your needs. So that's the goal for everybody. I mean, that's what the point of retirement is, is at some point you've saved enough money, accumulated enough where you can cover your own expenses without needing new income from a job.

And then retire early is just saying, okay, I've reached that financial independence at an earlier age than most people. So 62, 65 in the United States is kind of the average retirement window. They're trying to get there in the 40s or 50s or some that have a more extreme one are trying to get there in their 30s,

Austin Wilson:

Yeah.

Josh Robb:

Which is crazy.

Austin Wilson:

Woo.

[3:14] - Three Factors that Bring Financial Independence

Josh Robb:

We're going to talk through the three factors that make financial independence. All right, so the first one is your savings rate. So, how much of your income are you saving? When you look at a retirement plan, you look at how much do I need? And to get to that number, you can need to know how much am I going to be taking out of the portfolio. So how big does my portfolio need to be is dependent on how much am I going to withdraw from? All right. And there's a 4% rule, we've talked about this in some of our retirement planning episodes. Historically speaking, if you had a 30-year retirement, you could take 4% out of your portfolio that first year and then adjust that for inflation going forward and have enough historically through most retirement periods to last 30 years.

Austin Wilson:

Known as a sustainable withdrawal rate.

Josh Robb:

Yes. So 4% is that, well that's for a 30-year retirement because that's what they used as they're planning. For FIRE, they are planning on retiring early, they're lengthening that window. So 4% may be a little aggressive,

Austin Wilson:

Right.

Josh Robb:

But you have to choose some withdrawal rate to then get you your future number. So if you're doing a 4% withdrawal, you need to multiply your need by 25% to get up to that withdrawal window.

Austin Wilson:

Right.

Josh Robb:

But FIRE people save 25% or higher of their income is kind of that starting threshold to be considered in that FIRE movement. But for most of them who have a shorter time period, we're talking 40, 50% of their income is being saved,

Austin Wilson:

Oh, yeah.

Josh Robb:

Per year. So it's a very, very high saves rate which results in them living pretty frugally. So that's the first one is your savings rate. The second one is investment returns. How do I know I'm financially independent if I have enough money to last my lifetime?

Austin Wilson:

Right.

Josh Robb:

And again, the unknown there is how much do I need to spend? And one factor, there's inflation. Don't know how long or how much inflation is going to be. We had some high inflation this last,

Austin Wilson:

Could be low, could be high.

Josh Robb:

Couple of years. The long-term average is about three and a half percent. And so you have to grow your money higher than that in order to keep up with inflation. So investment returns, especially during your savings period, since you're condensing it into a shorter time period, you need more consistent or higher earnings to achieve that goal. Historically speaking, eight to 10% is what the stock market gets us long-term.

Austin Wilson:

Yeah.

Josh Robb:

Now, again, for some of those people in the FIRE movement, investment returns matter a lot. And if let's say you're 25 and you start this and you want to retire at 40, you don't have a big window. And so I mean that's 15 years. And we know historically speaking, you've never lost money in the stock market over a 17-year period,

Austin Wilson:

Yep.

Josh Robb:

In the stock market. But that doesn't mean you had the average return; it just means you weren't zero or negative.

Austin Wilson:

Well, and you throw in a bear market or two, or three, in that timeframe and the timing means a lot.

Josh Robb:

Timing means a lot.

Austin Wilson:

Timing does not mean a lot when you have 30 or 40 years, right?

Josh Robb:

Correct.

Austin Wilson:

Timing's almost irrelevant if you stick to a plan over a long timeframe. But over a condensed timeframe, timing matters a whole heck of a lot.

Josh Robb:

Yep. And then I already mentioned this, your withdrawal rate, which is based off your spending. So, for FIRE people, financial independence means I'm saving enough that I'm going to reach the goal. The goal is set by knowing how much I'm going to need to spend in retirement and that one has to be a little more conservative because you're stretching the time period. And then in order to get there, I have to have some sort of assumption on my returns. And for most people in that movement, you can't assume market returns because you shortened the period of time.

Austin Wilson:

Right.

Josh Robb:

So, all that compresses into how do you get to that financial independent number. And so let's say you're going to be spending $60,000, you multiply that to get to your need at starting point and you say, okay, I'm doing 4% withdrawal, gets me up to 1.5 million or somewhere right around there. You'd then say, how much do I need to save per year in order to get there in that timeframe?

Austin Wilson:

Yep.

Josh Robb:

And you can assume some sort of growth rate, but I wouldn't use eight to 10 because it's too short. And then two, how much of my savings? So growth and savings are a factor in there.

Austin Wilson:

So, Josh, the question is, this sounds daunting, perhaps a little intimidating when you look at it, why would people want to think about FIRE?

Josh Robb:

Yeah. So, everybody's doing that and all those calculations I just threw out there, there's calculators online. If you just look up FIRE calculator, it does it all for you. So you don't have to remember all that.

Austin Wilson:

Burn rate and...

Josh Robb:

Yeah, they have all that.

Austin Wilson:

Oxygen level...

Josh Robb:

Yeah. Yes, yeah. O2 levels.

Austin Wilson:

Water.

Josh Robb:

But there's calculators that will tell you your number and your savings rate.

Austin Wilson:

Yep.

[7:35] - Why Do People Retire Early by Living Frugally?

Josh Robb:

But why don't people do that? So, they say, you know what, it's delayed gratification. That's really what this is. It's saying, you know what, I'm willing to sacrifice some stuff now so that I have more freedom earlier. And so people look at this and say maybe they're young 20s and they say, I don't have kids yet. I have pretty low expenses. If I'm really careful about my spending, I can put a lot of money away, which maybe gives me a head start or just gets me closer to that retirement number sooner. So that's the appeal to a lot of these people. Some of them, they live frugally and they're already kind of saving a good chunk of their money and just wanting to know when do I don't have to do this anymore?

Austin Wilson:

The most successful people at this that I've seen have been the ones that have an extraordinarily high level of income already.

Josh Robb:

Yes.

Austin Wilson:

So 25%, 50% of their income, whatever that number is, you pick it, it doesn't make them live an unrealistic lifestyle. And we're going to get to some of this discussion later, but your income level surely has an impact.

Josh Robb:

It does. But surprisingly, you don't need a super high income to do this because your savings rate matters. So for instance, if you made $200,000, you're right in that. If you're going to do save half your income, just take taxes out, let's say it's all net, you can still live on 100,000 and save 50%. That's a pretty nice lifestyle. But the same is true if you're doing 50. Is if your lifestyle can sustain living on $25,000, so your debt-free and your costs are pretty low, you don't spend a lot of groceries, you could do the same thing because again, it's just living below your lifestyle. But you're right, it's easier with higher income.

Austin Wilson:

Right.

Josh Robb:

For sure.

Austin Wilson:

You won't get this big of sacrifices for...

Josh Robb:

No. But there's a lot of people in the FIRE movement with what I would call blue collar moderate incomes that have successfully done this because they are very aware of their spending. Because that's really the key that you control a lot of, and a lot of them will do side hustles, get extra income just during that phase where they're supercharging their savings.

Austin Wilson:

So Josh, I've skimmed ahead in your notes here.

Josh Robb:

Yes.

[9:32] - Three Approaches to the F.I.R.E Method

Austin Wilson:

And I've noticed that there is a Forbes article that talks about three different approaches to FIRE. Talk about the different levels that you could look at when you go into this.

Josh Robb:

Yeah, it's kind of a broad topic. Means a lot of different things to different people.

Austin Wilson:

Yeah.

Josh Robb:

And so these are in the Forbes article, they kind of broken into three categories. These are the terms they use. I think across my research, you see these pop up a lot. So there's one that they call Fat FIRE.

Austin Wilson:

That's me.

Josh Robb:

Yeah. So the concept there is,

Austin Wilson:

Fat FIRE.

Josh Robb:

You want to retire without altering your current standard of living. And so I talked about all those different things you control. If you say, I don't really want to reduce my spending, then how much income I have and how much I save and return, those are important, but I don't want to adjust how much I am spending right now. So that's a Fat FIRE movement. Then there's the opposite, which is Lean FIRE, which is saying, Hey, I'm really going to cut my expenses, so I'm going to live very lean in order to achieve this. Some of the articles you read about, they're living on $25,000 for a family, which is just crazy because they're not spending on anything.

Austin Wilson:

Right.

Josh Robb:

They're eating the cheapest stuff they can. They blog about couponing and all the things they can do to cut their costs and they're using their spending level as they're key point to achieve that financial independence. And then there's the Barista FIRE, which is, that's the term I've seen used all different types of terms for that one. But the idea being it's somewhere in between where you're a more moderate lifestyle, but also increasing that with finding more income. So it's like I'm still spending some, I'm not as frugal as those Lean FIRE people, but I'm also not spending like most people in my income bracket would. I'm kind of in the middle.

Austin Wilson:

And I might work.

Josh Robb:

Yeah. Or post hitting your FIRE number, what do people do? Because that's the key, and I think that's one of the most deceptive things of this FIRE movement is from the outside, people see this and think, oh, once they hit that number, they retire at 35 and they're done. But most people, part of their financial independence is some sort of passive income or earned income. Some of them one or the other. The passive income side is maybe they invested some of their savings into rental properties, things like that. So they're getting a stream of income coming in while they're retired, but they're not working a normal job. And then the other part, like you mentioned is gig work or part-time work. A lot of these blog people, that's how they're earning money...

Austin Wilson:

Oh, yeah.

Josh Robb:

They're blogging about their FIRE lifestyle,

Austin Wilson:

And either have subscription costs,

Josh Robb:

And they're making money. Yep.

Austin Wilson:

Or advertising.

Josh Robb:

And so they have income in retirement, but it's at their leisure. So again, financial independence or retirement for most people in this group means I'm only working at my pace doing what I want to do at my flexibility.

Austin Wilson:

Right.

Josh Robb:

They're still work involved, there's still income involved, but they're no longer tied to the job because they need the income. They're doing income to supplement at their pace. So yes. So I think the best way to describe that FIRE movement, like you were mentioning is financial independence means I don't have to work the way I was before and I have enough saved that provides the majority of my needs.

Austin Wilson:

Right.

Josh Robb:

Some just may need some extra income or choose to have extra income to enhance what they want to do in retirement.

Austin Wilson:

So it sounds like it kind of depends on what your goals are for retirement as in timeframe and all of that.

Josh Robb:

Yes.

Austin Wilson:

And what you want retirement to look like, whether which of those approaches is going to work best for you. Gotcha.

Josh Robb:

Yeah.

[12:50] - Dad Joke of the Week

Austin Wilson:

All right Josh, I have some FIRE related dad jokes.

Josh Robb:

Ooh, I'm excited.

Austin Wilson:

So close your ears if you're sensitive to fire or if you're a pyromania, close your ears. All right Josh, what did the flame say to his buddies after he fell in love?

Josh Robb:

Ooh, I don't know.

Austin Wilson:

I found the perfect match.

Josh Robb:

Match.

Austin Wilson:

What happens when wildfire tells you a joke?

Josh Robb:

I don't know. What? What?

Austin Wilson:

You get burned.

Josh Robb:

You get burned.

Austin Wilson:

So those are some good ones there.

Josh Robb:

I like it.

Austin Wilson:

All right,

Josh Robb:

I like it.

[13:16] - Steps to Financial Independence Retire Early

Austin Wilson:

So if you're thinking about FIRE.

Josh Robb:

Yeah.

Austin Wilson:

There's certainly a lot of thought process that goes into this. So let's talk about some of the principles, some of the steps that go into really considering this movement.

Josh Robb:

So we'll talk about if you're interested in some of the things you need to do to start planning, and I'm going to follow this up with some things to think about because a lot of times you're going to read these blogs of people -

Austin Wilson:

Sounds great.

Josh Robb:

- Doing it and they make it sound amazing. But I want to point out a couple things to think about.

Austin Wilson:

Yep, agreed.

Josh Robb:

All right. So the first one is, first thing you got to do, and this is true with any financial planning, is define your goals. Start by clarifying exactly what it is that you're trying to achieve. And I've said this before we've talked about it. Because if you don't know where you're going or what you're trying to do, it's hard to stick with a plan.

Austin Wilson:

Yep.

Josh Robb:

You got to know the endpoint. So determine what age would you like to be financially independent, how much money do you need when you do retire? And then also how much can I save? And then see if those match. Because if you're saying I want to retire in five years, I don't have anything saved, I might be able to save 5%, probably not going to get there. But you can tweak some of those things and maybe make it work.

Lifestyle expenses. So for most people I ask, what do you need in retirement to live on? They'll say, I don't know. And I'll say, okay, a good starting point, what are you spending now? Because most people when they transition from work to retirement, this is not FIRE, but just in general is your expenses are pretty close to what you're doing at this point. Not a lot of people go backwards in retirement. Now you could get some cost savings because you're not working. So maybe less clothes purchases that you have to wear. Maybe your food budget and gas is changing because you're not going to work all the time if you're eating out at work, those things. But in general, you're going to spend 80, 90% of what you're spending pre-retirement. Now these FIRE people though, they may be artificially reducing their spending to get to that point. So again, you can't just look at your current spending. You got to say, what will it look like in retirement,

Austin Wilson:

Right.

Josh Robb:

And try to extrapolate that. So track your current expenses and then identify where can I cut back now if I need more savings and where will things change when I do retire? If I have extra time, am I going to find some hobbies that cost money? Am I going to do more travel? What is my time going to be spent on? And then the next step is once you get that goal and know you're spending, how much do I save? Again, the FIRE movement is saving. The minimum for the FIRE really is about 25%. Most people are 30, 40, 50%. It's a pretty aggressive savings pattern. How do you save more? Two ways, you increase your income, or you reduce your expenses.

So you got to walk through those and say, okay, which of those two is high priority for me? You may not be able to increase your income as much because of where you currently work may have some restrictions, or you just don't have time to do extra. So then it comes to cutting expenses. Or you may say, you know what? I've got a pretty lean budget. I got to find some extra work. And then you go that route. So that's the next step. We got goals, we got our spending, we got our savings planned. So then it looks at, okay, that budget piece. One of the top things most of these FIRE people do is they get rid of debt. They do not want debt once they hit that financial independence, any kind of obligation.

Austin Wilson:

And they're talking yeah, mortgages included everything.

Josh Robb:

Everything. Yes, paying off a mortgage before like 35, 40 years old, just getting rid of everything. That also frees up your income for more savings. The investing part is next. Since you're shortening up your timeframe, you had to be aware of what could happen. Last year is a great example. Last year the stock market was down. If you're in that FIRE movement, if you're in the saving phase, that's okay. You're,

Austin Wilson:

You're buying more.

Josh Robb:

Still popping money in.

Austin Wilson:

Right.

Josh Robb:

A lot of money there that's going to recover.

Austin Wilson:

Last year was a detrimental year to start the FIRE movement in terms of getting retired.

Josh Robb:

Yes, if that's where your financial independent number, you may have had to push it back a year.

Austin Wilson:

Yeah. Yeah.

Josh Robb:

So invest wisely based on a good market assumption that you think you can achieve. The second piece of that is invest wisely in where you put your money.

Austin Wilson:

Yeah.

Josh Robb:

And this is going to be something in one of my things to consider, but since you're planning in retiring early retirement accounts, traditional retirement accounts, 401Ks, 403(b)s, IRAs, they have a restriction up until 59 and a half that there's a penalty if you take your money out. And so you got to be careful where you put your money, not just how much you're saving or how you're investing it.

Austin Wilson:

And you're taking my thunder already because that was one of my challenges later on. And that's going to be one of the things we talked about.

Josh Robb:

Now, they do encourage you and I agree to try to maximize those retirement accounts because from a tax savings down the road,

Austin Wilson:

It's the best. Yeah.

Josh Robb:

Even if you retire early and you need some money outside of there, you're going to utilize those later and you can get tax-free or tax deferred growth depending on the type of account for those later years. So while it is important to have money that you can access before that, you still need some of that money because that's the best way to save long term because of the tax advantages.

Austin Wilson:

Absolutely.

Josh Robb:

And then like any plan you need to reassess it based on what's going on around you. Maybe new goals popped up, maybe you started this plan and then you started having kids and it readjusted your priorities. Who knows? But readjust it, make those adjustments along the way. Again, a financial advisor is very helpful in helping you plan for these type of things. So people in the FIRE movement, they have a goal. It's really not stopping work. It's working at their pace, doing what they want to do. A lot of times you'll see somebody that was maybe in a corporate job and they just maybe got burned out so they worked hard and then now they're doing something that's more enjoyable for them.

Austin Wilson:

Right.

[18:46] - Josh's Thoughts on the FIRE Movement

Josh Robb:

That's a lot of times, when I think of the FIRE movement, I don't think of people hitting a number and then just stopping. It's usually they do something different, something that's more enjoyable to them at a younger age. And so that's kind of how I always view this. Before we get to your thoughts and we kind of go through what we've seen and how we feel about the FIRE movement, here's some things I put down as considerations. You may have a couple extra add to this, but my thoughts were, first of all, understand the trade-off. You are delaying gratification. In other words, you're taking away some things you could be doing now for a future event.

Austin Wilson:

Great.

Josh Robb:

The problem is there's no guarantee for the future.

Austin Wilson:

That's one of my thoughts as well.

Josh Robb:

Yeah. And so, I think it's great, and I've seen people do this. It's awesome. Pretty successful. It gives them freedom a lot. Younger age, pretty cool. I've also seen people save and then the thing they thought they were going to be able to achieve, something comes up, life happens. Maybe they're taking care of a family member so they can't do the travel or the things they wanted to do.

Maybe there's something that happens to their health and they're unable to continue doing what they were hoping to do. So, I'm more of a moderation type of guy. We've talked about this. I think saving for the future is hugely important, but you also need to enjoy life now and take advantage of the opportunities as you can. So, FIRE movement isn't as appealing to me in the full extreme end. Maybe the more barista style where you're shortening that retirement period, but still enjoying some stuff now. The other one that is a consideration is, boy, are you exposed to the market volatility.

Austin Wilson:

Oh, absolutely.

Josh Robb:

At 2030 when you really should be dumping a bunch of money in.

Austin Wilson:

You shouldn't be worrying about it.

Josh Robb:

And not worrying about it or planning on touching anytime soon. You get a lot closer to that. You shorten your investment period. Now you still need money to grow post the FIRE movement where you officially change into financial independence. But up to that point, there's just a lot of volatility and I've seen people really freak out as they get close to that number and take a lot less volatility when really, they're young and could be compounding. The stress, satisfaction, tradeoff is, again, if you're going all gung-ho on this or anything in general, paying off debt, saving money, saving 50% of your income, you could really burn yourself out and sometimes figure out, is this really worth it? Is all the extra hours I'm working to get there worth it? Or am I giving up or trading off something that's more important?

The other one I thought of, and this is something that depending on what article you read or where you go, they don't really address this, healthcare. If you retire early and you have to find private insurance, it's not cheap. Private healthcare is expensive and you're going to be stretching that time period when you're going to need it. So, make sure you factor that into your expenses, that there is a lot of costs that go into healthcare when you don't have a company retirement plan. If you are working shorter, all your benefits are reduced. So social security, everything you're paying into is reduced. Even your 401Ks and matches, everything is going to be reduced. So a shorter career can impact other things. While you get some financial freedom, the end result may be that down the road, future benefits maybe aren't as good as it could have been.

Austin Wilson:

Right.

[21:47] - Austin's Thoughts on the FIRE Movement

Josh Robb:

So those are my thoughts. Austin, what do you have?

Austin Wilson:

Yeah. Do I see myself doing this? No, I think a number of factors go into that. Number one, it kind of depends on desires for your family too. Because if I look at my life and I say, okay, I have two little girls at home and a wife at home, and I'm the sole provider for our family, is this a practical lifestyle for someone like me in the way that I like to live? No. No, no, no, no. I think that my job as a provider, it gives me a lot of responsibility to work hard to give them everything they need, of course and some fun things along the way as well. And I don't want to turn some of those off.

Josh Robb:

Yep.

Austin Wilson:

So I think there's a lot of flexibility that that gets taken out of. I've seen some of the shacks that these people live in or campers, and then that's not super appealing to me. And I'm a guy who likes stability and I think that this is not the most stable way to go long term. I've actually, the flip side of this is that, yeah, a lot of these people achieve retirement at an early age to be a little bit more flexible. But the 40-hour work week kind of normal career is actually one of the most underrated ways to become a millionaire.

Josh Robb:

Yeah.

Austin Wilson:

And it's really not that bad. And we're made to work. We've been made to work from the beginning. So it's not like it's going to be healthy to just do nothing,

Josh Robb:

Right.

Austin Wilson:

In your 40s or whatever. So, I have problems with this. Some people do it well, I'm sure. Absolutely. I think that and the amount of current spending that I'd have to give up to get there too would be a really stressful thing. We already don't live too extravagantly; I don't think sometimes. But to be able to do this would be like, nah, I'm not willing to eat ramen all week.

Josh Robb:

Yeah, and that's where I come down to is I enjoy what I do, so it's not like I'm trying to get out quickly. I like being a financial planner. I like helping people set those plans and get there. And I hope to be able to do this for a long time. So, I'm not even in the mindset where I'm trying to hurry and get there.

Austin Wilson:

Yeah.

Josh Robb:

I've known people that I have, and they just didn't enjoy what they're doing or things like that, and they just needed to get out and this was a way to do it. But yeah, I'm with you in that the ability to enjoy some things now as well as save for the future makes more sense to me. I am not opposed, if I'm helping somebody plan and we can set up a plan like this, I'm not opposed to help them do it. I just will be always very clear, here's the things you're going to trade for, here's the things you're going to have to be aware of. And there may be a point later on that you may have to go back to work. And if you have a 10-year gap in your work history, it may be a little harder to get back to where you were.

Austin Wilson:

Yeah.

Josh Robb:

And so just making aware of all those situations. But for me, it's not appealing. I don't want to burn myself out now because I do something I love. Now I will say I did know a couple people, one of which retired earlier and ended up doing a lot of charity stuff. And so it was fulfilling for this person to be able to swing from working to doing things that helped other people. And he was financially able to do that. Great.

Austin Wilson:

Yeah.

Josh Robb:

And there was purpose and passion and fulfillment there, kind of unique situation. And they were fine with that. And their income was good, their assets were good, but it's not for everyone. And again, keeping and maintaining that passion is important. Finding something that gives you purpose.

Austin Wilson:

I mean, I think you hit the nail on the head that's like, yeah, you don't feel the pressure when you come to work each day because you like what you do, you like where you work, you like the people you work with, all of those things. I think if everyone found that, then the pressure to be burning the candle at both ends to get to the finish line early wouldn't necessarily be there.

Josh Robb:

No.

Austin Wilson:

And you could enjoy life along the way because if you work at a place that values, you and values your family and values all this stuff, you're not going to have that burnout anyway.

Josh Robb:

No.

Austin Wilson:

So, this isn't going to be as tempting while again, it could be for some, it's not going to be if you're in that situation.

Josh Robb:

Correct.

Austin Wilson:

So, we would probably encourage people to look for that as a plan A.

Josh Robb:

Yeah.

Austin Wilson:

That's going to be a lot less stress on you and your family and as family guys ourselves, again, this is something that would be a big challenge.

Josh Robb:

Yep. And again, if you're interested in learning more, check it out. You can Google it, find it online. There's a lot of information out there floating around.

Austin Wilson:

All right. So yeah, thanks for being here this week and tune in next week. We'll have another episode for you. If you know someone who was asking about what FIRE was and we're not talking about starting one in a cave, send them the link to this episode. We'd love it if you subscribe and give us a nice review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And until next week, have a great week. All right, talk to you later. Bye.

Thank you for listening to The Invested Dads Podcast. This episode has ended, but your journey towards a better financial future doesn't have to. Head over to theinvesteddads.com to access all the links and resources mentioned in today's show. If you enjoyed this episode and we had a positive impact on your life, leave us a review. Click subscribe and don't miss the next episode.

Josh Robb and Austin Wilson work for Hixon Zuercher Capital Management. All opinions expressed by Josh, Austin or any podcast guest are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Hixon Zuercher Capital Management. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon for investment decisions. Clients of Hixon Zuercher Capital Management may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast. There is no guarantee that the statements, opinions or forecasts provided herein will prove to be correct. Past performance may not be indicative of future results. Indices are not available for direct investment. Any investor who attempts to mimic the performance of an index would incur fees and expenses which would reduce returns. Securities investing involves risk, including the potential for loss of principle. There is no assurance that any investment plan or strategy will be successful.