The Many Paths That Lead to FI – A Case Study

Do you ever feel like you were the odd one out?  I think, in many ways, that has been me for as long as I can remember.  I didn’t really know my place in school. I didn’t know myself at university, and by the time I graduated, I still didn’t really know my place in the workforce.  My parents bought me a computer when I was 16, and it was the best investment they ever made for me.  I learned to code.  At first, it was just basic HTML, but soon I was making custom eCommerce solutions back before it was a thing.  By the time I finished university in 2004, I didn’t need to find a job.  I had enough work coming in as a web developer.  I formed my own agency and started developing websites.

Over the years, I have freelanced, worked for agencies and contracted.  These days I am contracting full-time and enjoy it.  The money is good, which has allowed us to save up to 75% of our income.  Income has been my big trump card when it comes to pursuing FIRE.

I am originally from New Zealand.  In 2010 I met my now wife in a pub in Galway, Ireland.  One thing led to another, and in 2011 I moved to Ireland to be with her.  I recall coming with €50 in my wallet when I arrived here.  But I worked hard, and by 2017 we had bought a house, had been married and had just had our third child.  But something was bothering me.  We were earning more money than ever before, but it was going out just as quickly.  Our weekends were spent going shopping.  I specifically recall one Saturday when I was carrying the bags upstairs after a shopping trip for “stuff” when I opened the door to the spare room to place the bags in, only to see the “stuff” we had bought the week before still sitting there in their bags, untouched.  We were simply spending for the sake of it!

Get up, work, spend, get up, work spend – we were in the rat race.

This is when I started looking for alternatives.  I had to find a better way.  I recall hearing about FIRE on a podcast – I don’t remember which one.  I was consuming everything at the time.  A few people recommended the book “Rich Dad Poor Dad”.  This was pretty powerful for me.  Not that it gave the answers, but it talked about the power of money.  It was clear we had failed to think about saving, or investing for that matter.  We were, at least, at ground zero and not below it.  We had no consumer debt or personal loans.  We had a very small mortgage.  So while we had nothing in terms of savings and investments, we were at least at break even.

2018 was the year it all started for me.  Our savings rate was low at first – we started off with a savings rate of 10%.  These days, we are up to 75% – it is crazy how that has increased in five years.  My reasons for pursuing FIRE are likely not unique.  Like so many, I wanted out of the rat race.  I felt trapped at work – I HAD to go to work. It wasn’t optional.  For my family to survive each day, I had to go to work.  There was no plan B.  As a freelancer/contractor, I had no safety net.  It’s a horrible feeling when you have to do something just to keep ahead and on top of the bills.

Five years in, and I think we have done a pretty good job.  Our FI number has been calculated at €800,000, and our FIRE portfolio stands at around €360,000 as of February 2023.  We are saving a LOT at the moment as I have really put my head down and found a few projects that pay well.  We save around €10k a month after tax – and if we keep this up, we are only around three years from hitting our FI number.

But this is where things get somewhat ironic.  My whole reason for starting this journey in the first place was that I wanted not to HAVE to work.  But ironically, the closer I get to FIRE, the more I enjoy work.  I like earning money, I enjoy saving, and it can be hard to turn down good opportunities.  It can be hard to leave money on the table, especially when it has taken me years to perfect my skill as a software developer, and I am finally at a place where I feel well rewarded financially for what I do.

I love a lot about what you write, Tina, and you constantly challenge my own thinking on FIRE.  I was in a dark place with FIRE in 2021.  Three years in, I realised that I was still years and years away from hitting our FI number.  That was when I discovered your blog, and I felt so much better about where I was at.  Since then, I found ways to increase my income further, and it has allowed me to push my progress along a lot further, but the key takeaway is that there is more than one way to do this.

I love the idea of cutting back and am hoping to this year.  Learning to say no has been my big thing.  Even on my current numbers, I am already well past my Coast FI number and now only a few months away from Flamingo FI.  I like the idea of cutting back but still contributing a little to my investments.  Even small monthly contributions make a big difference. 

In many ways, all of this is somewhat relative.  For me, saving €10k a month has been an extreme, so the thought of cutting back and saving €5k a month (while still a great savings rate), feels like a walk in the park.  For this reason, I think income is a huge, underappreciated factor when it comes to FIRE.  Bloggers talk about reducing expenses and investing, but hardly ever income.  MMM might have been frugal, but it is likely between himself and his wife (who was also a software developer), they were likely pulling in $200,000 USD a year – this was the real reason why they were able to retire early.

I tend to talk about income a lot because I have somehow managed to increase mine three times over since I started my FIRE journey in 2018.  I never thought it was possible to do, but it turns out that if you make it a priority, it can be done.  I think the FIRE movement focuses too much on expenses and investing – my trick has been to focus on the income side.

I am definitely obsessed with FIRE and think about it every day.  With the FIRE movement, I finally have found my place where I fit in.  I love talking about FIRE with people, and in many ways, have found non-FIRE-related topics harder to discuss.  It has changed my friendship group a lot too.  My friends these days tend to be older and well along their own FI paths.

FIRE has given my family and me so much.  We are in such a strong financial position because of it.  While we still save a lot, we have also been able to help our families in tricky situations – help them avoid credit card debt, help them find their own houses to buy and provide financial support when they are going through tough times.  There is so much good about the FIRE movement that happens long before you reach FIRE.

Finally, I just want to point out the power of your savings rate.  In our case, with a 75% savings rate, there is this really amazing thing that happens – you can walk away at any stage.  For example, in a typical month for me, five working days cover our family’s expenses, and 15 days go into investments.  This means I could work 75% less than I am now, and our lifestyle would be exactly as it is now.  I think this is an amazing thing – almost as powerful as compounding interest itself.  Knowing that you can step away at any point and embrace semi-retirement is a wonderful feeling.  This is where your blog has helped me, Tina, as while I haven’t cut back yet, I know at any point I could, and this in itself is motivating.  For now, I am happy to keep powering on, but I know at some point (hopefully this year), I will cut back and start enjoying some of the amazing benefits FIRE has brought us.