How To Retire By 40

As Implausible As It Sounds, A Subversive New Movement Claims That Any Of Us Can Attain Financial Independence – And Before The Grey Hairs Take Hold. All It Requires Is The Total Dismantling Of Our Attitudes To Saving And Spending. It’s Worked For Some. Could It Work For You Too?

- Richard Goodwin + Kieran Legg

This is an article about personal finance.

Sorry about that. You probably didn’t come here to be told you could save money on your car insurance. And you don’t need to be reminded that you could easily afford a house somewhere you don’t want to live if you would only scrimp on flat whites and avocados. At MH, we pride ourselves on not being your father-in-law.

But something has been stirring on the personal finance dark web – something subversive, and perhaps a little cultish.

“I see earning money like a game that I want to beat,” writes the anonymous Saving Ninja on his or her blog of the same name. “It’s fun. Being a completionist is in my nature. I need to get that high score.” The Saving Ninja is part of FIRE, a movement built around the twin aims of achieving “Financial Independence” and “Retiring Early”, ideally in your thirties or forties.

Success requires an obsession with your balance sheet, as well as iron discipline regarding the pastries at your favourite café. It also demands an anti-consumerist spirit, and the level of commitment you’d need for any training regime. Indeed, for many of FIRE’s adherents, the discipline required to put away 40% (or even 80%) of each pay cheque derives benefit from training of a more literal sort.

“If you want the mentality to do this, first you need to improve the clarity of your thinking,” says Barney Whiter, 48, who blogs about personal finance at theescapeartist.me. “If you’re a cubicle rat leading a sedentary lifestyle, it’s a natural reaction to comfort-spend on holidays and takeaways and so on. People get run down.”