What is financial independence?
Financial independence (FI), generally means you have enough passive income to cover your expenses. You’re no longer the grom looking for scraps of waves to ride on the inside, you’re at J Bay in the final heat with only one other surfer out and you’ve got priority.
What is the FIRE Movement?
The Financial Independence, Retire Early (FIRE) movement has gained a lot of popularity for obvious reasons. Who doesn’t want more freedom? And who doesn’t want it early?
If you ask the United States Social Security Administration, “normal” retirement age is 67 for people born 1960 or later. If you ask the US Census, life expectancy for males born 1960 is 66.6 years. No joke, that’s less than a year between “normal” retirement and lights out. What the heck? Females tend to live a little longer, at 73.1, but still, this is messed up!
Life expectancy has fortunately increased since 1960, and if you were born yesterday (ie 2024), it’s projected to be an average of 79.9 years. Gettin’ better but if you want more time to surf while you’re still in good health, early retirement or at least more freedom in your day sounds like the way to go.
Lifestyle Design
Retirement doesn’t have to be lounging around at Margaritaville or playing shuffleboard on a cruise ship. Although that does sound fun in moderation.
Retirement in terms of FIRE is that you don’t NEED to work. Most early retirees take some time to decompress from their prior career, notch down their to-do-list but then get the itch to do something productive again.
Your Personal Why
Maybe you want to pursue a passion project that you haven’t had time for in the past. Maybe you want to volunteer more.
Maybe you want to:
- enjoy more time with your family
- shape surfboards
- take surf photos
- travel more
Maybe you want to write a blog like I’m doing here. See “About Me” for more on my personal why.
Aligning your interests with a business can bring great joy, develop your skills, enhance your community and as an added benefit, has great tax benefits.
With a strong “personal why”, it’s like having a tow team support you in getting into waves and getting back out to the lineup when the going gets tough. Without it, you will likely fall victim to a #kookslam.
Write your personal why down to help it stick. Remind yourself of your why when the going gets tough. Add it to the comments section below to inspire yourself and others.
The American Dream or Your Dream
Choose your path wisely, for your path will become your life, young grasshopper.
The antiquated American Dream is what society pushes us toward. Get good grades in school, go to a good college (at a hefty price tag), maybe pursue higher level college (at an even heftier price tag), get a good job, finance a new car, get married, buy a house, have 2.5 kids, go on vacation two weeks per year, get those promotions that somehow become your identity in response to the question, “so, what do you do?”, plug away until retirement at age 65 to rest your tired body.
Your Dream is yours. All yours. What do you want it to be?
What will it take to live your dream life?
To live your dream life, it will take courage to stray from the norm.
- If you knew that you could not fail, what would you do?
- What values do you hold most dear? Are you living up to them?
In addition to courage, it takes money.
The sad truth is that there are countless people in pretty rough financial situations:
- Student debt
- House poor
- Credit card debt
- Living paycheck to paycheck
The good news is all of this can be overcome with courage, financial education and action. My hope is that this community of happy, surfy people can do it together.
If you haven’t yet, type in your personal why in the comments below.
