RIBLETS!
Welcome back to the channel riblets and welcome to life on fire a youtube mini-series where we document my experiences with financial independence and early retirement in today’s episode we’re going to talk about the meaning of fire or financial independence retire early let’s start with the fi of fire the fi stands for financial independence what this means
Is that you’re not dependent on others and in particular you’re not dependent on an employer or a job or anything like that for your day-to-day income and typically what this means is that a person has a career or some other source of income and over the course of several years through saving and investing one’s net worth is increased more and more until the
Investment portfolio can throw off enough income to sustain your life so once that happens you just put in your resignation and retire right well not exactly for some people that may be the case that certainly falls well within the umbrella of fire but for many others myself included the fi or financial independence aspect of fire is much more important at a very
Basic level financial independence means that at the very least finances are never a primary concern in life it’s never a question of whether we can afford to get a car repaired or afford to send our children to college now don’t get me wrong this doesn’t mean that we can just go out and buy a lamborghini on any given day all it means is that having enough money
For our day-to-day needs and our basic requirements is never a question let’s take a moment to consider what happens as one becomes more and more financially independent in the earliest stages we’re not financially independent in the slightest we might have a net worth of zero or even well in the negatives we might be deeply in debt in these stages we’re wholly
Dependent on our employers or if we’re self-employed we’re wholly dependent on our customers and if we’re not then we’re completely dependent on the government to take care of us now if you’re a person with an independent spirit then this is just no way to be so what do we do about that well we cut expenses we work hard we earn raises we work for promotions
And we get better and better jobs we earn more than we spend and we save the difference we put those savings into high quality long-term investments and get the highest gains we can over the course of many years our aim is to get compounding growth einstein called it one of the most powerful forces in the universe as our investment gains compound and our net
Worth increases we gain more and more leverage we’re able to go into negotiations with higher levels of confidence we’re able to take higher and higher levels of risk to try to get promotions and better jobs we can afford to go a few weeks or even a few months without income and once we’ve reached this stage it really won’t be long until finally we reach a point
Where we no longer depend on our employer or our customers or whatever our former source of income was and it’s at this time that we gain infinitely more control over our own time in a way we can do whatever we want but not really fire or financial independence and early retirement only has to do with finances and ultimately that’s only a small part of life so
We have a choice do we remain productive how hard do we work do we work at all or do we just chill and have wine and charcuterie on the hillside well for me the answer is that i have to remain productive there’s simply no other choice there’s no way in hell that i’m going to sit still and not do anything productive my absolute top priority is to make the most of
This life with my family and when it comes to work finances and productivity i’m on a new mission to be continued all right riblets hope this video helped you get a better understanding of what exactly fire or financial independence retire early really is and what it can mean to different people so if you liked it make sure to click that like button because it
Really helps this channel grow and make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss any of our future content and as always good luck have fun and have a great day
Transcribed from video
True Meaning of Financial Independence, Retire Early (FIRE) – Life on FIRE! – Ep. 1 By BrisketRib
