From FI to Coast FIRE
I went from Financially Independent (FI) at 48 to Coast FIRE when I was 49. Not much of a retirement!
Well, that’s the grace offered by FI. You can work for money if you want to or need to. Life happens and circumstances change. For those courageous enough to FIRE, if they can gamify finances and make early retirement a reality, they can do whatever they need to if the need arises again in retirement. Once you have FIRE’d, you have cleared some kind of hurdle, and you won’t go backward again. We all trip and fall now and again, but getting up comes naturally—those who FIRE have a Growth Mindset.
The Growth Mindset in Life After FI
I’m just going to stop growing the day I retire and never do nothing new again.
Retirement = Death
Most critics of FIRE blab this as they shame those of us ingenious enough to FIRE. They want you to think that you don’t grow at all once you retire—you stagnate.
Rather, those who FIRE have a growth mindset. We don’t stagnate, we iterate and reiterate. We plan. Life happens, and we have financial tools at our disposal to roll with the punches. Personally, I went back to work again after early retirement two years ago.
I’m FIRE transitioning to coast FIRE. It’s not like the skills aren’t easily transferable. Physicians have done it hundreds of times in their careers. The growth mindset. After all I’m a pseudo-physician.
FI and Growth Mindset
The basic point is that if you are clever enough to reach FI (or understand this blog), you win the game. Even if you have to go back to “work,” don’t tell me you couldn’t find something to do that is just fine. It might even kick ass or support your preferred way of life. You can make another once you know how to make your first million. And you have a terminal degree behind your name.
I got to FI by relentlessly investing in the stock market from 2006 until FIRE in 2021. It was as simple as maxing out my 403b/401k and accidentally picking a low-cost index fund I didn’t sell.
Though it’s an inauspicious year to retire, remind me what the stock market did if you dollar-cost averaged into low-cost index funds and had a 50-60% savings rate for the last 12-15 years? It’s impossible not to FIRE if you run those numbers; that’s how good the market has been.
Do you think we heard more about FIRE in 2021 than now? I think so; maybe that’s because the market corrected. But, we all planned for it! We understand sequence of returns risk (and retirement date risk).
From FI to Coast FIRE
The point is that most people who retire early don’t stop earning money. They are also not cheap; they spend money on what they value.
Quit thinking that retirement is death. You change all the time in retirement, especially if you FIRE.
Instead, notice that the situation has changed. The market rewards those fully invested for the long haul
How about that for optimism? But since I’m retired, I will do what is fun rather than work. I’m not working again. And I will always work. That’s the false dichotomy of retirement.
