My Origin Story & Financial Journey – Scout (Part 2)

RESUMING THE JOURNEY FROM PART 1…

Fortuitous & Life-Altering Financial Moment #3 – Discovering FIRE

One of the magazines I started reading long ago, Kiplinger Personal Finance, featured an article with a “Best List of 2016” and named Stacking Benjamins as the best podcast of 2016.  Up until this time I primarily listened to sports talk radio with an occasional generic personal finance podcast thrown in for good measure (i.e. Ric Edelman).  I was soon hooked on Stacking Benjamins due to the way money & personal finance were discussed, which was mainly light-hearted with a positive spin.  This podcast introduced me to Paula Pant from Afford Anything and opened the door to something called the “Financial Independence Retire Early” (FIRE) Movement.  Like many others who have discovered FIRE, I immediately dove head first down the rabbit hole and found other related podcasts & resources such as the Mad Fientist (Financial Independence podcast), BiggerPockets Money, and probably the most influential of all, ChooseFI.  

Needless to say, FIRE allowed me to learn some new/advanced financial techniques, but more importantly it opened my eyes to the cool things other people were doing with their lives; it gave me a new understanding of what was really possible.  Rather than accept the fate of >99.9% of the population (which traditionally meant a 9-to-5 grind for 40+ years at a job that may/may not be tolerable), I felt that I now had other options.  Not only did I find those with similar goals as myself (i.e. retiring early), but others doing things I never even imagined such as taking sabbaticals, starting businesses, traveling the world (with & without kids), etc.  Only a short time after discovering FIRE and devouring as much information as I could, I felt that I finally had more direction and an updated goal – to retire in my late 30’s/early 40’s.

Accidental FI

A few months later in mid-2018, after hearing countless stories of those who had retired much earlier than myself and with much less, I decided to run my own calculations using the 4% rule to see how close my wife and I were to achieving FI – lo & behold we were actually already there!  The decade-plus of grinding it out at work and the relentless shoveling of money into retirement accounts & taxable investing had led to accidentally becoming FI.  

Amazed, amused, and ready to quit my job right away, I broke the news to my wife over the phone while she was on business travel.  Expecting to hear excitement, loud cheering, or even just a simple “congratulations” (coupled with perhaps some tears of joy), instead I was met with silence… dead silence.  Looking back on it now, this was completely understandable and probably the most logical response.  I had always been the one in the household with an interest in personal finance & investing and while my wife fully supported this, she never paid much attention to the details and we rarely had in-depth conversations about money.  So when I found FIRE, I assumed she would also be completely onboard but I miscalculated and the result was perhaps more confusion rather than opposition.  Regardless, this phone call and the realization of Accidental FI didn’t lead simply to the more-common one-more-year syndrome, but instead the dreaded five-more-year reality.

The Straw That Broke the Camel’s Back

In the subsequent years since first finding FIRE I continued listening to podcasts & learning as much as I could, while also dreaming about being one of those people who actually pulled the trigger and left my job.  While our net worth continued to grow, I felt more & more restless and disheartened continuing to work a job every day that I was not passionate about and honestly didn’t really even like.  

COVID-19 hit in 2020 and while this was a terrible event that shook the world, the silver lining for me was that I worked virtually from home instead of driving 40+ miles (each way) into the office.  As an introvert this was delightful since I no longer had to deal with irritating co-workers and from a quality-of-life perspective this allowed me to spend more time with my family and even start a daily exercise routine.  After a while of living this new lifestyle, having a corporate job didn’t feel so negative; that is until the Summer of 2021 when we were required to return to the office.  There were others in my group who had long commutes as well, so we requested to remain virtual or at least reduce the number of days in the office.  When this request was denied, it was the ultimate turning point for me and the straw that broke the camel’s back – right then and there I set a retirement date for myself that I vowed not to change.

The Home Stretch

Yes, I set a retirement date but what I didn’t mention was that it was ~2 years in the future.  This may sound like a long time, but considering the fact I had been working towards retirement for 18 years already (and I was already comfortable with delayed gratification), it seemed that 2 years would go by in a blink of an eye.  I informed my wife of this plan and to my surprise she was okay with it – I wasn’t sure if this was due to seeing our net worth grow significantly since discovering FIRE, if she could see how physically worn down & frustrated I had become with my job, or if she finally believed in some of the FIRE concepts I had been mentioning to her from time-to-time.  Whatever the reason was, I knew better than to question it much and instead focused on my newly set retirement date. 

Fast forward to the Summer of 2023 and my last day of work finally arrived.  Much of the day itself was rather uneventful – I attended a couple regularly-scheduled meetings, cleaned up my Outlook inbox, and made sure to pass along any last-minute information to my soon-to-be ex-coworkers.  After I said my goodbyes and began my 40+ mile commute home for the very last time, things didn’t really feel much different, yet I knew that I was about to close one chapter of my life and start a completely new one.  All I could say was that I had never been happier sitting in rush-hour traffic than I was that afternoon.

R.I.P. to my working career
7/28/2003 – 7/27/2023

Links/Resources

• Kiplinger Personal Finance
• Kiplinger Personal Finance, “The Best Personal-Finance Websites, Apps and Software of 2016”
• Stacking Benjamins
• Ric Edelman
• Afford Anything
• Mad Fientist
• Financial Independence podcast
• BiggerPockets Money
• ChooseFI
• Definition of “The 4% Rule”
• The Retirement Manifesto, “The One More Year Syndrome”

Reader Questions

• Do you consider yourself part of the FIRE Movement/FI Community?  If so, how did you discover it?
• For those who are currently working, have you ever set a retirement date for yourself?  Are you still on track?  Has the date changed for any reason?
• For those who have achieved FI or have retired, describe how you felt at that point in time.

Leave your answers or comments below – or email us directly at info@epicfinancialjourney.com