Image shows wood burning intensly in a backgarden firepit
FIRE: Financial Independence, Retire Early.
For a long time, FIRE was seen as a "finance bro" thing. Part, initially, of masculine ambition, and, more recently, of toxic masculinity. However, within the past month, Chelsea Fagan of The Financial Diet has put out a blog talking about her path to FIRE, which will almost certainly result in something that's been damned as "toxic masculinity" being claimed by women as "necessary feminine preparedness", or something of that ilk.
Much of my mid-late twenties, and almost all of my thirties, was lost first to a frantic "how the heck can I get into a job that will pay me enough to achieve FIRE?", and then to resentment, frustration, anger, and despair that I was never going to make it.
I turned 30 when the UK yanked up the last drawbridge for the majority of its citizens who didn't already have a path to financial success to acquire it, with Brexit making it harder to access opportunities in Europe from the UK, mutual benefit schemes disappearing, and EU businesses, which tend to be better at being productive than the UK, whilst simultaneously being better at giving their employees a decent life than America. At the same time, America saw the first round of Donald Trump, in his "warming up to wreck the United States as a concept" phase. That felt like 90% of doors to FIRE slamming before I'd even been able to get within sight of the corridors those doors were located on. I angrily raged at the uselessness of the UK, the gatekeeping and "we don't care what you are capable, no one here went to school with you" attitudes, the way the entire country basically acts like the worst kind of village when it comes to enabling people to succeed, the bullshit of an education system that, every five to ten years, completely tears everything up, meaning that, just because of when you happened to be born, and thus when you were compelled to go to school, you can face a reality where you're just as capable and competent as you've ever been, but you no longer have a widely-accepted way to prove that, because, wow, look, we don't give a shit about those qualifications any more, your generation benefitted from grade-inflation, actually, education itself is a pointless waste of time, and who the hell do you think you are talking about this academic shit? You're a waste of space, because academic people can't fucking do anything in the real world! You're gonna end up dying homeless in the streets, because that's what academic snobs like you fucking deserve! And if you're already in the workplace when those attitude changes happen, you won't even know about it until you try to level up.
I turned 34 two months and change after the first lockdown. As a shielding household, my 35th birthday was also a lockdown birthday.
I came out of lockdown fixated on building a career - I was aware that the "early" part of FIRE, for me, would no longer be between 45-50, but maybe I could get there by 55?
Yeah...if wishes were horses, beggars would ride, as the saying goes. 35-38 basically got destroyed by finding out I was going blind. (I have 4 separate, formally diagnosed sight loss conditions. All of them degenerative. None of them able to be addressed by the NHS. The sight I currently have left is 40% of the centre field of my left visual field. Nothing else. And I'll likely use that in the next 10-15yrs.)
If I'm honest, I don't remember much of the past decade. Genuinely. I remember the big, international things. I remember sitting in that hospital room, hearing that I was going blind, and there was basically nothing they could do about any of the reasons I was going blind.
It's only been in the past year, eighteen months that I've really come back to myself.
I couldn't tell you where I'd been in that time, but I brought back a changed mindset.
At first, it was just a quiet acceptance that, not only would FIRE probably never happen for me, retirement was very unlikely. I wouldn't be able to work long enough to meet the qualifying threshold for the State pension, alongside my history of jobs being ended by schizophrenia, public transport logistics, and company take overs that saw mine and others' jobs no longer exist. I couldn't see a future where I'd earn enough to contribute sufficiently for a private pension to be a reliable source of income. Not being able to drive, and with the UK government increasingly insisting that the only ID they'd ever accept was a driving licence (which I'm not legally allowed to hold) or a passport
For a long time, FIRE was seen as a "finance bro" thing. Part, initially, of masculine ambition, and, more recently, of toxic masculinity. However, within the past month, Chelsea Fagan of The Financial Diet has put out a blog talking about her path to FIRE, which will almost certainly result in something that's been damned as "toxic masculinity" being claimed by women as "necessary feminine preparedness", or something of that ilk.
Much of my mid-late twenties, and almost all of my thirties, was lost first to a frantic "how the heck can I get into a job that will pay me enough to achieve FIRE?", and then to resentment, frustration, anger, and despair that I was never going to make it.
I turned 30 when the UK yanked up the last drawbridge for the majority of its citizens who didn't already have a path to financial success to acquire it, with Brexit making it harder to access opportunities in Europe from the UK, mutual benefit schemes disappearing, and EU businesses, which tend to be better at being productive than the UK, whilst simultaneously being better at giving their employees a decent life than America. At the same time, America saw the first round of Donald Trump, in his "warming up to wreck the United States as a concept" phase. That felt like 90% of doors to FIRE slamming before I'd even been able to get within sight of the corridors those doors were located on. I angrily raged at the uselessness of the UK, the gatekeeping and "we don't care what you are capable, no one here went to school with you" attitudes, the way the entire country basically acts like the worst kind of village when it comes to enabling people to succeed, the bullshit of an education system that, every five to ten years, completely tears everything up, meaning that, just because of when you happened to be born, and thus when you were compelled to go to school, you can face a reality where you're just as capable and competent as you've ever been, but you no longer have a widely-accepted way to prove that, because, wow, look, we don't give a shit about those qualifications any more, your generation benefitted from grade-inflation, actually, education itself is a pointless waste of time, and who the hell do you think you are talking about this academic shit? You're a waste of space, because academic people can't fucking do anything in the real world! You're gonna end up dying homeless in the streets, because that's what academic snobs like you fucking deserve! And if you're already in the workplace when those attitude changes happen, you won't even know about it until you try to level up.
I turned 34 two months and change after the first lockdown. As a shielding household, my 35th birthday was also a lockdown birthday.
I came out of lockdown fixated on building a career - I was aware that the "early" part of FIRE, for me, would no longer be between 45-50, but maybe I could get there by 55?
Yeah...if wishes were horses, beggars would ride, as the saying goes. 35-38 basically got destroyed by finding out I was going blind. (I have 4 separate, formally diagnosed sight loss conditions. All of them degenerative. None of them able to be addressed by the NHS. The sight I currently have left is 40% of the centre field of my left visual field. Nothing else. And I'll likely use that in the next 10-15yrs.)
If I'm honest, I don't remember much of the past decade. Genuinely. I remember the big, international things. I remember sitting in that hospital room, hearing that I was going blind, and there was basically nothing they could do about any of the reasons I was going blind.
It's only been in the past year, eighteen months that I've really come back to myself.
I couldn't tell you where I'd been in that time, but I brought back a changed mindset.
At first, it was just a quiet acceptance that, not only would FIRE probably never happen for me, retirement was very unlikely. I wouldn't be able to work long enough to meet the qualifying threshold for the State pension, alongside my history of jobs being ended by schizophrenia, public transport logistics, and company take overs that saw mine and others' jobs no longer exist. I couldn't see a future where I'd earn enough to contribute sufficiently for a private pension to be a reliable source of income. Not being able to drive, and with the UK government increasingly insisting that the only ID they'd ever accept was a driving licence (which I'm not legally allowed to hold) or a passport
(which I genuinely can't find anyone I can feel confident I won't lose the best part of £100 when the application gets rejected to countersign for me - I did a low stakes "trial run" with someone who would be eligible to countersign a passport application doing so for a CitizenCard - I lost £17 because "your referee was unable to be contacted on their workplace landline number" - yeah, that's because they work in social fucking services; they're probably never anywhere near a landline phone, especially when you fuckwits are just like "yeah, we won't give a time that we'll call, because you're probably some lying scumbag immigrant who doesn't deserve recognised ID for this wonderful nation!" I can't afford to lose almost £100 on a passport application. So I don't have a passport, either), as the only ID they'll "accept as evidence of British citizenship and Right to Work", getting any job was becoming an increasingly tenuous proposition.
(Seriously...I don't believe any of the shit the tabloid and socials scumbags post about "immigrants" - because I know how fucking ridiculous the UK government is about preventing people from, essentially, giving up the majority of their short time on earth so they can afford to pay taxes.)
In the past couple of months, literally, I've come to realise I'm done with FIRE. I no longer resent the fact that it won't happen. I'm not angry or depressed about the barriers that are going to keep me from FIRE - and I actually no longer have any interest in FIRE as a concept.
(Seriously...I don't believe any of the shit the tabloid and socials scumbags post about "immigrants" - because I know how fucking ridiculous the UK government is about preventing people from, essentially, giving up the majority of their short time on earth so they can afford to pay taxes.)
In the past couple of months, literally, I've come to realise I'm done with FIRE. I no longer resent the fact that it won't happen. I'm not angry or depressed about the barriers that are going to keep me from FIRE - and I actually no longer have any interest in FIRE as a concept.
I'm firing FIRE.
FIRE forces a focus on "do it shit, just do it fast." I prefer doing it with excellence, and I'm increasingly comfortable with that excellence being the work of a lifetime. I have never turned in work that was "85% done, but shipped" - I finish at 100%, usually ahead of deadline, rarely even slightly over budget. To me, that should be deserving of a place at any table.
FIRE forces a focus on "do it shit, just do it fast." I prefer doing it with excellence, and I'm increasingly comfortable with that excellence being the work of a lifetime. I have never turned in work that was "85% done, but shipped" - I finish at 100%, usually ahead of deadline, rarely even slightly over budget. To me, that should be deserving of a place at any table.
FIRE reduces life beyond a point that holds meaning to me. I already live very simply, not "because it's what I gotta do to have the life I want", but because this is the life I want, for the most part. I've never had expensive tastes - and I don't say that as some kind of moral superiority thing; that would require that I had once had expensive tastes, but "taught myself better" - those tastes just never showed up for me.
I find a lot to interest me in affordable UK holidays - the internet allows me to learn more about countries and cultures further away; I don't need to travel.
I'm not particularly interested in food and drink, and I'm not really a fan of restaurants.
While I would love to be living in a bungalow with a bit of a garden, or at least be able to afford to fix my roof, which insurance refuses to pay out for, and reliably be able to afford to hire tradespeople to fix smaller irks around the house properly, rather than me sticking the DIY equivalent of a cheap sticking plaster over it, wrapping it in duct tape, and hoping for the best, I'm mostly at peace with the fact that these things won't happen until tradespeople can cope with the idea that they absolutely know how to price 80% of jobs off the top of their heads, so could just put that up on a basic website/blog/Facebook page, so those of us whose insurers find a way to nope out can figure out how long we're going to need to save for, I'm okay where I am. My fixes work, they're just short-term, and they do not look pretty. We're walking distance to the town centre, a train station that connects to the main line, and buses to pretty much anywhere you might want to go within 10-20miles.
I'm not particularly interested in food and drink, and I'm not really a fan of restaurants.
While I would love to be living in a bungalow with a bit of a garden, or at least be able to afford to fix my roof, which insurance refuses to pay out for, and reliably be able to afford to hire tradespeople to fix smaller irks around the house properly, rather than me sticking the DIY equivalent of a cheap sticking plaster over it, wrapping it in duct tape, and hoping for the best, I'm mostly at peace with the fact that these things won't happen until tradespeople can cope with the idea that they absolutely know how to price 80% of jobs off the top of their heads, so could just put that up on a basic website/blog/Facebook page, so those of us whose insurers find a way to nope out can figure out how long we're going to need to save for, I'm okay where I am. My fixes work, they're just short-term, and they do not look pretty. We're walking distance to the town centre, a train station that connects to the main line, and buses to pretty much anywhere you might want to go within 10-20miles.
There's five corner shops within a maximum five minute walk in any direction, and a good variety of food delivery options.
The hospital is a 20minute bus ride away.
The vets is just 10mins down the road.
It's 20minutes walk one way to a sprawling, restful park, which goes down to a promenade along the part of the coastline which has been lost to coastal erosion, so there's no beach any more, and 20minutes walk the other way to a sand-and-pebble beach.
There's a cool pet shop whose birds and reptiles I visit regularly just four streets away.
I don't care about designer clothing or flash jewellery.
Probably the only things I actually spend money on are my pets - which I don't have any interest in buying more of for the next few years - and my Lowestoft porcelain collection, which I'm not exactly obsessive about.
I spend reasonably on food - I don't consider £250 a month for two people to be "expensive", by any means, and that gets me the type of food my body works best on (high protein), accommodates my wife's needs (high carb), and allows us to enjoy a range of food, with plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables.
I don't want to reduce my lifestyle further for a future I may not have. My Dad died at 62. My grandmother died at 63. I have a second cousin who died by suicide in her late 30s, and another second cousin who died at 59. And that's the problem with FIRE; it tells you that if you "live hard" for 25-30 years, you'll be able to have everything you want for the rest of your life, without any guarantee that there will be a "rest of your life" past those 25-30 years; I've had two friends die before they turned 20, both in accidents. I've had two other friends die in their mid-twenties, in active combat. The future is never promised.
You've seen one half of my genetics - relatively early death.
The other half has people making it to 90+, in one case almost 107.
I don't know if I'm planning for another 20yrs, or another 40-50yrs. That logistical anomaly makes FIRE literally impossible, because of the wide variable of just how many years you need to ensure you have a cushy life for.
So, what comes after FIRE?
SMOULDER.
Simple Mindset, Ongoing Usefulness, Life Direction: Employed Restfulness.
I don't care about designer clothing or flash jewellery.
Probably the only things I actually spend money on are my pets - which I don't have any interest in buying more of for the next few years - and my Lowestoft porcelain collection, which I'm not exactly obsessive about.
I spend reasonably on food - I don't consider £250 a month for two people to be "expensive", by any means, and that gets me the type of food my body works best on (high protein), accommodates my wife's needs (high carb), and allows us to enjoy a range of food, with plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables.
I don't want to reduce my lifestyle further for a future I may not have. My Dad died at 62. My grandmother died at 63. I have a second cousin who died by suicide in her late 30s, and another second cousin who died at 59. And that's the problem with FIRE; it tells you that if you "live hard" for 25-30 years, you'll be able to have everything you want for the rest of your life, without any guarantee that there will be a "rest of your life" past those 25-30 years; I've had two friends die before they turned 20, both in accidents. I've had two other friends die in their mid-twenties, in active combat. The future is never promised.
You've seen one half of my genetics - relatively early death.
The other half has people making it to 90+, in one case almost 107.
I don't know if I'm planning for another 20yrs, or another 40-50yrs. That logistical anomaly makes FIRE literally impossible, because of the wide variable of just how many years you need to ensure you have a cushy life for.
So, what comes after FIRE?
SMOULDER.
Simple Mindset, Ongoing Usefulness, Life Direction: Employed Restfulness.
Simple Mindset: What's the "rich life" you can live now?
For example, in my case, since I'll never be able to drive, my rich life would be having a chauffeur. The element of that rich life I can live now is being okay with spending money on a taxi if it will reduce my stress or anxiety. While I'm happy to walk during the daytime (I'm completely night blind, so night strolls aren't accessible or safe for me), or hop on a bus (I'll travel 2hrs+ by bus if I need to), I know I don't cope well with quick transitions, rushing, or unfamiliar places - so, sometimes, taking a taxi resolves those issues. And, since we only have independent cab firms operating in our area, it helps someone else make their living, too.
Ongoing Usefulness: What work can you reasonably see yourself able to do until the very end of your natural life, or the point of severe mental impairment?
For me, that's writing and consultancy. I have a natural ability to touch type, and I'm learning to be okay with speech-to-text (which, in turn, is learning to be okay with understanding my vocal quality!), I'm comfortable using text-to-speech for editing (I hear errors easier than I can see them, these days), and there will always be someone who, whether for kinship or pay, I can ask to proofread things for me, so even when I lose my sight entirely, if that does happen, I can still produce written work. Consultancy on a freelance basis allows me to structure the work in a way that works for me; for me, that's "facilitative consultancy", or "supporting people to discover the answers for themselves."
Life Direction: Employed Restfulness
For example, in my case, since I'll never be able to drive, my rich life would be having a chauffeur. The element of that rich life I can live now is being okay with spending money on a taxi if it will reduce my stress or anxiety. While I'm happy to walk during the daytime (I'm completely night blind, so night strolls aren't accessible or safe for me), or hop on a bus (I'll travel 2hrs+ by bus if I need to), I know I don't cope well with quick transitions, rushing, or unfamiliar places - so, sometimes, taking a taxi resolves those issues. And, since we only have independent cab firms operating in our area, it helps someone else make their living, too.
Ongoing Usefulness: What work can you reasonably see yourself able to do until the very end of your natural life, or the point of severe mental impairment?
For me, that's writing and consultancy. I have a natural ability to touch type, and I'm learning to be okay with speech-to-text (which, in turn, is learning to be okay with understanding my vocal quality!), I'm comfortable using text-to-speech for editing (I hear errors easier than I can see them, these days), and there will always be someone who, whether for kinship or pay, I can ask to proofread things for me, so even when I lose my sight entirely, if that does happen, I can still produce written work. Consultancy on a freelance basis allows me to structure the work in a way that works for me; for me, that's "facilitative consultancy", or "supporting people to discover the answers for themselves."
Life Direction: Employed Restfulness
Essentially, true work/life balance. Where relaxation is a genuine rest from work, and work is a genuine rest from relaxation. It's working at a pace and in a way that means you're neither bored nor burned out. (This is something I'm still working on - I need to get better at appreciating that relaxation is work, and is essential in order to work effectively.)
If you want someone to coach you into a SMOULDER that works for you, reach out - theproductivepessimist@yahoo.com
If you want someone to coach you into a SMOULDER that works for you, reach out - theproductivepessimist@yahoo.com
.jfif)
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