FIRE: How Indians achieve financial independence

Four people relate their experiences about financial independence and retirement plans

And that is also the case with Vijay Tangirala, 45 who decided to quit his corporate job. He’s one of the few dads in a gathering of moms at his daughter’s school meetings.

Handa, Datta, Agarwal and Tangirala are among the few people who have a lot of time on their hands, thanks to FIRE. The acronym stands for financial independence, retire early. Mint interviewed them to find out how they have taken advantage of FIRE.

Accumulation

Lockdown was a life-changing period for Handa. He realized that his job did not excite him anymore. By that time, he had accumulated nearly ₹7 crore. His business (Handa Ka Funda) was already very profitable and he had invested a huge chunk of his savings, nearly 70%, in equity mutual funds.

“My job paid me well but I didn’t want to work anymore. I wanted to spend more time with my newborn too," said Handa, who decided to retire at 38. Around this time, his company was acquired by Unacademy but Handa said the payoff from that formed just a minuscule portion of his retirement corpus. He retired with ₹12 crore, invested across various financial assets.

Datta was 40 years old when he convinced himself to leave the corporate world before he could turn 50. He retired from Axis MF at 48. “You can either earn more money or invest in yourself between the ages of 50 and 60," says Datta, who is now training to find a spot in India’s athletics team for the 55-60 age group .

What helped accelerate his retirement was a combination of stock options and bonuses that he got. He also had a systematic investment plan (SIP) book that was running for more than a decade. It helped that he also owned a house in Delhi. Earlier, he stayed in a rented accommodation in Mumbai. Datta retired with a corpus of ₹18 crore.