the Blog
The Role of Frugality in FIRE
Dive into the transformative world of financial independence with a refreshing take on frugality versus being cheap. Embrace the art of living well without living beyond your means, and find out how being frugal, not cheap, can unlock the door to your financial liberation.
Understanding the 4% Rule
Retirement withdrawal strategies are anything but one-size-fits-all. For many FIRE fans, determining how much to withdraw each year requires a balance between ensuring your savings last and meeting your current financial needs.
The Importance of Savings Rate in FIRE
Explore the essential role of savings rate in the FIRE movement for achieving financial independence and early retirement. Learn how to balance frugality, investment strategies, and lifestyle to accelerate your journey towards financial freedom.
Trust vs. Living Will: Setting Up Your Estate Plan
Estate Planning is an often overlooked, yet incredibly important step in your path to Financial Independence. Let's dive into the world of Trusts and Wills, and why you need to create one as soon as you can.
Achieving Financial Independence: A Step-by-Step Guide
Explore a step-by-step guide to achieving financial independence. Understand the core principles of the FIRE movement and strategies for early retirement.
Playing with FIRE Foreword
Playing with FIRE book foreword written by Pete Adeney, a.k.a. Mr. Money Mustache
Mega-Backdoor Roth Strategy: Maximizing Your Retirement Savings
Individuals with high incomes are usually not allowed to use a Roth IRA, but a mega-backdoor Roth conversion strategy is one way for these individuals to contribute up to $39,500 to a Roth IRA, get the tax-free benefits on the growth of these monies, and then withdraw the funds in retirement.
Debt Snowball vs. Avalanche: Choosing the Best Repayment Method
Debt plays an important part in our society, but it’s a double-edged sword for those who don’t wield the sword carefully. It can help us jumpstart our lives, or it can financially cripple us for years. If the latter happens, there are two popular methods to help get our finances back on track: the debt snowball method and the debt avalanche method. But which is better?
Building an Emergency Fund: How Much and Why It's Essential
How much should I save and why is this emergency fund thing so important? For us, establishing the fund was our first taste of financial freedom.
Understanding Investment Fees: The Hidden Wealth Eroders
They silently kill wealth for several reasons: they are absolute, appear small, increase the required rate of return to beat inflation, are hidden by account gains, and are likely paying for a service that has no value.
Personal Capital: The Best Money Tracking App For FIRE?
When you’re working towards FI, knowing where your money goes is important. You know that we’re all about hacking the system — figuring out the best way to do something to shorten our path to retirement, help us travel, and ultimately live a life that we love. Part of that comes with knowing the best tools to use. Is Personal Capital the best tool for FIRE?
Should I Refinance My Mortgage?
When used correctly, refinancing a mortgage can be a great choice. While refinancing can save you money, it’s not always a slam-dunk decision, especially when it comes to financial independence (FI).
How to Pay Off Student Loans Fast on Your Path to FIRE
Student loan debt shouldn’t keep you from pursuing your financial independence dreams. There’s a lot that you can do to ensure you’re getting yourself out of debt as quickly as possible and paying off those student loans fast.
Can Taking Out a Personal Loan Help You Reach FI Faster?
Debt can feel like a huge hurdle to clear at the beginning. But you may be able to find help in an unlikely place: with a personal loan. We give you the rundown on how personal loans work, when to use them, and when to avoid them.
It’s time to take action
I benefit from white privilege. I think I’ve been aware of that fact for quite some time. But the past 3 years, during my financial awakening, it has come into sharp focus.
Is Playing with FIRE on Netflix?
We figured it was high time to address the most frequently asked questions about Playing with FIRE. Since the early days of this project, we dreamed of landing our movie on a streaming site to minimize the barrier to entry and share these FIRE concepts with the world.
FIRE Email Kit
So you’ve introduced FIRE to your family or friends, and they are interested in learning more. Here’s a template for sharing all the things they’ll need to get started.
Director’s Take: Why I Made a Documentary About FIRE
I try to imagine the long term consequences on our societies and on our environment from people taking charge of their own lives, freed to bring positive change. What happens when 10 million more millionaires are free to dedicate their creative efforts to improving our world?
Why We Love Chautauqua and You Will Too
We’ve had the most amazing two years. As Taylor and I have immersed ourselves in the FIRE community, we’ve enjoyed experiences beyond our wildest dreams.
Meet our Director: Travis Shakespeare
On the new American Dream, his near-death experience and why the mainstream needs the FIRE movement.
Mustachianism Goes Mobile
In 2016, we attended Camp Mustache and Chautauqua where we decided to leave our fancypants jobs and build the Mr Money Mustache App for the Mustachian community.
A Letter to You
I want to extend a heartfelt thank you to the influencers in the FIRE community and the FIRE community at large.
Now that you’ve calculated your time horizon to financial independence, we strongly encourage you to start tracking your money. We believe that Empower is the most comprehensive free financial tool you can find online to manage your finances and track towards your FI date.
We love the free features Empower offers, including the ability to:
- Track and manage your income and expenses
- Track your net worth
- Analyze your investment portfolios for excessive fees (this is especially important early on in your FI journey)
- Analyze your investment portfolios for proper asset allocation
- Run various retirement planning calculations with their amazing retirement calculators
Our favorite financial management tool is free to use and take less than a minute to sign up. Though you must create Empower login credentials to use them, you don't need to enroll in Empower's advisory service. As you may know, we always try to avoid fees whenever possible. We also strongly recommend fee-only financial advisors, so you know how much you're paying up front and avoid advice with conflicts of interest. By signing up with Empower for free and aggregating all your accounts in one place, you'll be well on your way toward financial independence.
