Fired up for early retirement

Achieving true financial independence is well within your reach

- JONATHAN TAGG

I'M an advocate of the F.I.R.E. (financially independent, retire early) movement and am on track to retire early, aged 57.

At school, I wasn't taught about pensions.

Retirement was something that happened to you when you couldn't work anymore, before you died, but it wasn't presented as anything to look forward to.

Fast forward some 30+ years and despite being 'educated' to degree level and bilingual in French, I am working in a low-paid job within healthcare. Perceived generally as an underachiever by most who know me, perhaps I am. Perhaps I'm lazy, and perhaps I've simply disengaged from the system.

While I lean towards the less conventional, the niche and some would say, the alternative, my tendencies have been tempered by influential people in my life.

That was the case until a few years ago, when I first began to learn about the FIRE movement. It stands for Financial Independence, Retire Early.

In essence, it's a movement that has sprung up, mostly in North America, which describes a way to beat the system financially. When someone becomes financially independent or has 'hit F.I.' they no longer need to rely on employment to survive financially. Most of all, what F.I. affords you is options. You have the option to cease working, if you choose to.

Hypothetically, you become time rich.