If you think achieving financial independence, retire early (FIRE) is only about how you spend your working hours, you're missing the majority of the effort it actually takes.
Achieving financial independence and having the luxury of choice when it comes to the nature and location of how you work is a pursuit that takes both effort and strategy. Young FIRE starters don't just turn on their jets at work and the turn them off once they leave. FIRE starters are constantly in mission-mode, thinking of ways in which to accelerate their path to financial freedom. Driven by a mission, FIRE starters do not think in terms of hours of a working day - they think in terms of how far along the path they have progressed. Seeing the finish line far off in the distance drives those pursuing FIRE to buckle down and try to close that gap. Rather than see the path to retirement as an exercise in endurance, FIRE starters see it as a sprint. This list of 6 activities FIRE starters do after work highlights the techniques they use to optimize their time all the time.
#6 - After Work, They Go To Work
Not all FIRE starters have a second or third job, but for those who see the finish line very far down the road, a second or third job is the least complicated way to help accelerate their approach. The moment you start a second job, your earnings can be applied to the mission of achieving FIRE - there is no ramp up period, or waiting game that would be present with investing or starting a new business. A second or third job demands a great deal of effort, and so may not be realistic for people to continue long term. But if you are a young person brimming with energy who has dreams of FIRE, it only makes sense to take advantage of your situation now and try to get that FIRE blazing.
#5 - After Work, They Plan
One of the hidden keys to success for achieving FIRE - or a wide variety of initiatives that take discipline - is to track and review your spending habits and then adjust your plan going forward. By being aware on a daily basis of how your progress is going you can make small adjustments to help ward off painful outcomes in the long term. Tracking earning, spending and savings habits can highlight where changes needed to be made. By performing this task daily, changes can have an immediate impact. For example, realizing that daily lunch costs are creeping up, you can immediately switch gears and plan on how to bring a lunch to work each day. That plan may require some special consideration, such as putting your lunch together the night before you go to work, so you are not scrambling in the morning trying to complete another task in an already overloaded block of time.
#4 - After Work, They Network
Networking for some is actually work. Not everyone who achieves FIRE is an extrovert. Introverted FIRE starters would probably rather have daily a root canal than spend time each day networking. But networking pays off. By having a large network of professional peers, options open up. It may not have the immediate effect of improving the earning or savings ability of a FIRE starter. But it will provide them with an early notification of new job prospects or investment ideas shared during networking events.
#3 - After Work, They Volunteer
This one seems odd, because after all achieving financial independence is supposed to be about earning money and saving it for later. Volunteering does not have the option to earn money. But volunteering does have one huge benefit to FIRE starters: it provides a soul soothing means to spend time without spending money. Many, many people turn to retail therapy to help alleviate stress and improve their self esteem. And while there may be merit to shopping in this regard, the downside is that shopping drains your savings. But volunteering, FIRE starters get that positive sense of accomplishment, while doing their community a positive service. In the process, they achieve improved self-esteem while keeping their wallets full.
#2 - After Work, They Teach
FIRE starters are shrewd folks who have amassed knowledge in various subject areas. In those areas of strength, they offer to teach at local colleges and high schools. Even your local library would probably love to have you volunteer to teach a subject you know well. Gaining teaching experience eventually leads to paying gigs for FIRE starters, and also helps reinforce their knowledge about a subject. FIRE starters who really want to accelerate their path to achieving FIRE teach others about financial strategies to retire early. In that way they have the opportunity to get paid for that service while also learning more about the subject from the questions their students ask them during class. Teaching others is a huge win for those pursing FIRE.
#1 - After Work, They Blog
Taking to the airwaves, so to speak, is a means to teach, volunteer and earn both in real time and over the long haul. Great content posted online does not stop being great content after an arbitrary amount of time. Internet surfers do tend to seek out new updates, but when they want insights into what it takes to achieve FIRE, excellent blogs like Mr. Money Mustache or Money Under 30 have content that echo throughout time. These sites earn revenue through advertising and affiliate links, which means that while spending their time blogging, no only are they not spending their money, they are earning money for their current post as well as the long tail of all of their prior posts as well. Combining blogging with networking has an amplifying effect, because the more people who know about your blog, the more traffic you will see, and that will lead to more advertising revenue, as well as requests for content that people crave. By delivering this on-point content in a blog, FIRE starters have the chance to greatly accelerate their path to retirement with relatively little effort.
Summary
Using these 6 techniques, FIRE starters pursue their mission of achieving financial independence and retire early beyond the constraints of the nine-to-five working day. FIRE starters leverage their energy, time and knowledge to make strategic decisions that yield real results in both their ability to earn and save money. By employing techniques that help funnel their behavior toward success, FIRE starters spend less time catching up because they do the correct actions in real time.
Do you do activities outside of work that help drive you toward FIRE? What techniques are you familiar with that are not in the list above? Have you implemented any of the above 6 activities in your pursuit of FIRE?