Financial Independence (or FIRE – Financial Independence, Retire Early) is the point at which you have accumulated enough income-producing assets to cover your living expenses indefinitely. Once you reach FIRE, you don’t have to earn an active income anymore and are free to retire if you wish to.
FIRE followers usually spend 10-15 years working and saving hard to reach this point. We refer to this path as Traditional FIRE.
Besides Traditional FIRE, there are several alternative FIRE strategies that will get you to the end goal (Financial Freedom), but that have a slightly different path. Most of these are geared towards people who don’t want to fully retire and would prefer to work part-time. For them, a more gentle semi-retirement approach is suitable. Depending on when you want to semi-retire, there are different options that use semi-retirement strategies – Coast FI and Flamingo FI are two examples.
Depending on your lifestyle goal in retirement, you could opt for Lean FIRE (suited for very frugal people who want to retire as soon as possible), Fat Fire / HIFIRE (for those who want a more comfortable retirement with lots of travel) or normal FIRE (somewhere in the middle).
As you can see there are many different options and strategies. Money Flamingo focuses on the less mainstream FIRE strategies to help you design the lifestyle you really want, before and after you reach Financial Independence. You can find an overview of our Alternative FIRE Strategies page.
Flexibility is an important factor in making our financial independence plans a success. Semi-Retirees are, by default, a flexible bunch. We are able to scale our active income up or down as needed because we are not fully retired. So far, it has been difficult to put numbers around the impact of flexibility and active … Read more
One of the most common questions people ask me about mini-retirements and sabbaticals is how much to save. Financial planning is an important part of the mini-retirement preparation process. In this article, I’ll walk you through the three steps you should take to ensure your finances are ready for your time away from work. We’ll … Read more
Have you considered taking a mini-retirement? Whether you feel burnt out and need some time away from your full-time career, want to travel, start a business, or refocus and plan out your future – a mini-retirement or sabbatical might be an ideal break for you. Mr. Flamingo and I have taken several mini-retirements (some of … Read more
Have you watched your investment portfolio tank recently? There are dark clouds on the Financial Independence horizon at the moment – high inflation, food shortages, the energy crisis, supply chain issues, rising interest rates… I find that times like these expose one of the FIRE community’s greatest flaws: our all-or-nothing attitude. Let me explain. How … Read more
One major focus of this blog is to showcase alternative FIRE strategies that help you claim your time back sooner so you can live your best life. I firmly believe that we don’t have to (and most definitely shouldn’t) wait until we reach our “magic number” before we start enjoying the benefits of the FIRE … Read more
We can use principles from different Financial Independence approaches like Barista FI and Coast FI to create a custom-built FIRE strategy to suit your lifestyle and goals. One of my favourite combo strategies is what I call the “Barista-Coast approach” (a mouthful, I know). Let me explain. With Coast FI, we cover our living expenses … Read more
Barista FIRE is an alternative Financial Independence approach. While traditional FIRE is still the main goal for most members of the FIRE movement, alternative methods are becoming more popular. Barista FIRE is particularly popular in the US because of the health insurance benefits this approach offers. Barista FI consists of two phases – the accumulation … Read more
I started my first “real” job in early 2012. 10 years ago at the time of writing. A lot has changed in those 10 years. I went from being broke and feeling stuck to enjoying a fabulous semi-retired lifestyle with my family. Time for a look back. This article is a mix of personal reflection … Read more
It’s time for another FIRE FAQ post where I answer some of the most common questions I receive from readers. This time we’ll tackle three housing-related questions. As you might be aware Mr. Flamingo and I are currently in the early stages of the house-hunting process and hope to buy our semi-retirement home soon. I … Read more
If there is one skill you need in order to reach Financial Independence it is this one: delayed gratification. The FIRE community as a whole is very good at it. Maybe a little too good…