When Kylie from Frank On FIRE recently announced that reaching Flamingo FI was her big goal for 2022 I was really excited for her and her family.
Kylie is a fellow Australian FIRE blogger and lives in the beautiful Adelaide Hills with her husband and two sons. Like many others in the community, Kylie didn’t find out about Financial Independence until she was in her 30s.
She and her husband have been trying to make up for lost time over the last couple of years by saving and investing as much as they could. When Kylie eventually wanted to slow down a bit she started looking for alternatives to the standard path to Financial Independence. That’s when she stumbled upon Flamingo FI.
It is so good to see that others in the community are also making changes to their FI plans, pursuing alternative strategies, taking a slower approach and claiming their freedom back sooner.
Flamingo FI has changed my family’s life for the better and it is the reason we were able to semi-retire in 2020.
I started this blog to share our strategy and motivate others to consider it as an option as well. So naturally, I was very excited to hear all about Kylie’s decision to pursue Flamingo FI and the reasons behind it.
If you are a new reader and not familiar with Flamingo FI you can read all about it here. If you want to find out more about our strategy you can find out more in this post.
In today’s interview, we’ll cover the following:
- Kylie’s FIRE journey so far
- Why she has decided to pursue Flamingo FI
- What she and her husband are planning to do after they reach their goal
- What she wished she had done differently on her path to FI
- Kylie’s advice for others chasing FIRE with a family
Let’s get started!
Q1: Hi Kylie, please tell us a little about yourself and your motivation to reach FIRE.
I’m 35, married and have two teenage sons. My husband works as a teacher and I work in IT.
Growing up we both knew the value of saving money and frugality, but until we came across the concept of FIRE we had never invested a cent in anything other than our house. We learnt about the concept of FIRE via the Scott Rickens book ‘Playing with FIRE’ in mid-2019 after hearing about it whilst listening to The Minimalists. I was hooked immediately on Scott and Taylor’s journey and the idea that regular people could retire earlier than the conventional age of 65.
I think the concept was made even more alluring to us as my husband is a cancer survivor, and we are always worried about what might be around the corner. So naturally, we were drawn into the idea of retiring early and spending more time with our children and passions.
In mid-2019 I started tracking and sharing our journey to financial independence via my Instagram (Frank on FIRE) as a way to keep myself accountable and motivated.
Q2: What has your FIRE journey been like so far?
I would be lying if I said that our FIRE journey has not been easy, although to the outsider following along via Instagram it might look like it. It took us 17 months to invest our first 100k, but this was achieved at a huge cost personally.
We both worked full-time, side hustled, said ‘no’ a lot, held our nerve during the COVID-19 market crash and lived extremely frugally. This unsurprisingly led to us both becoming completely burnt out, and in 2021 I was forced to reduce my hours and switched jobs for better work culture and conditions.
Eventually, we got back on track and despite the setbacks, we ended 2021 with 200k in our investment portfolio. So far 2022 has had a shaky start with market conditions, but we are staying focused on our plan and continuing to invest regularly via dollar-cost averaging.
We’ve also started to Airbnb our house which will help us reach this year’s goal of Flamingo FI which for us is having 500k in FIRE assets by the end of 2022.
Q3: Your big goal for 2022 is to reach Flamingo FI. Why have you chosen this goal?
As our FIRE journey has progressed so has our exposure to the many different ways you can reach financial independence.
When we first started our journey towards financial independence we had only heard of regular FIRE where you invest as much of your income as possible until you reach your retirement number and then retire. So that’s what we did for the first year of FIRE in 2020, but it simply wasn’t a sustainable way of living.
In early 2021 I was extremely burnt out and stumbled onto the term Slow FI and eventually Flamingo FI. Discovering different types of financial independence gave us a second wind, and we realised that financial independence was closer than we thought if we were willing to take a different route.
So we decided that Flamingo FI suited us best as we could manage a few short years of pain working at our butts off until we hit our Flamingo FI number, which is 50% of our FIRE number. Then once we hit our number we could slowly reduce our hours and coast towards reaching our regular FIRE number by age 45.
Q4: Flamingo FI is a big milestone. What are your plans after you hit this goal? Are you considering semi-retirement?
Our plan is really simple once we reach Flamingo FI, and that is to take the gas off the accelerator and slow down.
We plan to reduce our hours in our main jobs and explore our passions more. I’m keen to do a few short courses in baking and patisserie and improve my photography skills.
My husband plans to spend more time on his woodwork and metalwork projects, and eventually start selling his items on Etsy and markets.
So we’ll be semi-retired in a sense from our regular careers, but we’ll be as busy as always doing more of what we love. We expect to reach full FIRE by age 45, but neither my husband nor I believe we’ll be retired – we’ll simply be doing more of what we love and less of what we don’t.
Q5: Is owning a paid-off home part of your longer-term plan?
We plan on selling our home once the kids have finished High School in just under 8 years. We have done well with purchasing our home, and plan to significantly downsize our home (buy something about a 1/4 of the cost in cash).
In order to find something that matches our needs, we are going to do a lap around Australia to visit a bunch of different rural locations and make a decision at the end.
Q6: Do you have any regrets about working so hard to get to FI that you ended up burnt out or do you feel the sacrifices in the early stages of your journey were worth it?
I don’t believe in regrets, but I definitely have times I wish we didn’t take on as much as we do.
For example, in the middle of last year, we decided to renovate half the house and turn it into an Airbnb. This was despite never owning or running an Airbnb before, and not having the cash for the renovations.
The whole thing put a lot of strain on us both, and although we don’t regret anything it might have been better to do a bit more investigation and planning before committing to something we hadn’t completely thought out.
Q7: What advice would you give someone in the situation you were in when you started your FIRE journey 2.5 years ago (in your 30s and with kids and responsibilities)?
When we first started our financial independence journey there wasn’t a lot of information specifically for families or for those that were a little older.
So it took us a bit of trial and error to find our rhythm and what worked for us. We found a lot of the traditional FIRE advice didn’t work for us due to our situation, and last year I wrote an article about ‘How to pursue financial independence with a family‘ where I outlined six key things that helped us.
- Accept what you can’t control
- Find your accountability tribe
- Find the type of FIRE that works for you
- Get the family on the same page
- Be flexible and prepared to adjust your plan
- Gratitude and happiness over comparison and self-loathing
Thanks for sharing your story, Kylie!
I’m sure anyone who found out about FIRE in their 30s or 40s can relate to Kylie’s experience. Financial Independence and the sacrifices involved are different for those who already have a family, a mortgage and lots of commitments.
Also, the fact that Kylie’s husband is a cancer survivor obviously serves as a strong motivator – both for pursuing FIRE but also for finding ways to get more time back sooner. It was the same for Mark, who I interviewed a while ago. He got serious about semi-retiring and enjoying his life after he almost died in an accident.
It is only natural to go extra hard when you try to make up for lost time. However, burning yourself out in the name of Financial Freedom will only work in the short term. I think Kylie’s story illustrates this very well.
I think Flamingo FI is a great strategy for Kylie and her family. However, I hope that they don’t burn themselves out again trying to get there in 2022. It’s a very ambitious goal and at the end of the day, the market also has to perform accordingly, so it’s not completely in their control.
If they get there a year or two later (but are less stressed along the way), that is still a great achievement. Plus, even if they get there a little later they will likely still reach full FI by age 50 at the latest (depending on market performance).
It is great to hear all the plans Kylie and her husband have for the future. I think if I was them I would start slowing down a bit as soon as possible and work towards these passion projects now, even if it pushes the FI timeline out a bit.
I love the six pieces of advice Kylie offered for people pursuing FI with a family. I definitely agree with all of them.
I am looking forward to following Kylie’s progress towards Flamingo FI and beyond – whether she gets there this year or a bit later.
If you also want to follow along you can check out her blog Frank On FIRE or her Instagram profile.
What do you think about Kylie’s story? Can you relate to her experience? If you also found out about FIRE a bit later in life, do you have any advice for others in the same situation?
Great story…. And I’m “The Mark” mentioned at the end.
Come Say hi when your on your lap, we are in Geraldton WA and recently built or downsize dream home close to the beach 😀 (find me in the semi retirement group on Facebook)
Mark aka Ice Cream FI! 🙂 Maybe Airbnbing might be another little side hustle for you?
Hi Mark, Thanks for the kind offer will do. It’s always nice meeting other likeminded people. I’ve always wanted to check out Geraldton (added to the list).
I love this! We are also a Flamingo FI family. We reached Coast FIRE a year ago and decided to keep going, the goal is to reach Flamingo in the next 3 or so years and fully retire by 50! Can’t wait for semi retirement in 3 years at age 40!! 🙂 Thank you for sharing your ideas with the world, it makes all the differences for families like ours, the Flamingo approach bridges the gap between Coast FIRE and full FIRE, it is just what we needed to find. And we did! Good luck Kylie!!
Only three years to go, that’s awesome. You won’t look back, semi-retirement is great! And I’m glad you find the content on the blog helpful. 🙂
Thank Natalie for the kind words and support. So nice to hear other doing it and so glad we stumbled upon flamingo fi . All the best ❤️
Interesting, I’d never heard of this particular blog. Good to see other Aussies hitting their FI goals. Pattisserie, metal and photography work sound like excellent “retirement” jobs. I’m more of a hands on guy as well, working away in my backyard, doing up old cars, that kind of thing. Thanks for sharing and good luck, might be a stretch to get there this year though. Love the ambition.
I’ve always been envious of mechanically minded people who know their way around a car. My husband and I are hopeless in that area, but love cars. It’s a huge stretch getting to flamingo fi at the end of the year. As long as we’re closer than we were at the start of the year we’ll be happy. Progress over perfection
Great story and love their planning and transparency. I can’t wait to read the Kylie’s posts.
Just wondering:
1. Doesn’t Airbnb impact capital gains?
2. Downsize to 1/4 in cash – sounds interesting – how feasible is this – what if its not not possible in 8 years?
3. Also Downsize, I would assume that will free up a great deal of cash to invest. Is that when they will fully retire?
Great questions.
1. Yes absolutely Airbnb has a capital gains associated with it. We sought out professional advice from an accountant prior to making the decision.
2. Definitely feasible for us. We have no desire or need to live in a big home and so downsizing is 100% happening. We also intend to move to a much more affordable location which will assist in this plan.
3. Definitely downsizing will free up enough cash that we won’t need to work. But whether we actually retire at that point I’m not sure. Who knows where we will be by then.
Thanks for your questions.
We recently downsized… Built a lovely modern 3X2 beach house not 400m from the sea (I can see the dunes as i type this)…
All up 500k including new furnishings 🙂
Geraldton one of the few places i know i could achieve living this close to the beach for that sort of price and yet just be 10mis away from the CBD as well
So tempting, but a little too remote for most I’d say.
Nice article. A couple of Q’s: I had a look at her socials, seems more the “influencer” type, I wonder if making money from that is part of the (not so public) strategy? And regarding the kids – are they in private school, what are the plans around their further education/uni? Cheers.
Thanks for the question.
Nope I’m not the influencer type at all. Blogging costs me more money than it makes and thankfully our retirement plan is not dependent on earning a cent from it. I started my Instagram to initially track my progress (and kept myself honest), and for some reason people started following along. I do enjoy posting about my passions which are frugality, fire and side hustles.
Our kids both attend public primary and secondary schools. We have no plans for them beyond that. My husband never finished high school (he did adult entry to uni later on), and I left home at 17. I’m not sure what our kids will do but I look forward to seeing how they use the financial education we’ve provided them. All the best.
I agree with this, I think many people completely overestimate how much bloggers make. And it’s no secret how I feel about some of these “finfluencers”, so I would never have invited Kylie to do an interview here on the blog if she wasn’t one of the good ones! 😉
Three cheers for public education!
As someone who grew up in the Adelaide Hills and went to the local schools, this was probably the best ‘value for money’ lesson my parents ever gave me (although they are profligate in other ways).
Plus, the value of public libraries and community sports and arts organisations for accessing learning opportunities at a reasonable cost.
Speaking as a parent with kids in their 20’s and (recently) their 30’s… (yikes! How did THAT happen???)
I have 2 kids still living with me. You may find that your plan to downsize when the kids finish secondary school will have to be put back. Housing is horrendously expensive, especially for kids just starting out. Of my four sons, all of them have moved out and then come home at some stage.
You may find that this part of your plan will have to be flexible, assuming the housing market in 8 years’ time is similar.
What is slow fi? there are so many fi types these days!!
I think it’s not really a type or strategy like Flamingo FIRE. Slow FI is supposed to be like slow food haha