00:00What is early retirement and how can all these 30 year olds just afford to do it?
00:04Millennials are fed up, stressed out, and ready to retire from work altogether.
00:08So they're joining a growing movement called FIRE.
00:12Okay, so some people would call this movement a cult, but I prefer the word community.
00:17And FIRE stands for Financial Independence Retiring Early.
00:20And it blows up this idea that we should spend our healthiest years
00:25working insane hours for someone else just to buy more stuff.
00:31Instead, financial independence favors what some would call extreme saving and investing,
00:38but all in the name of financial freedom.
00:40I talked to financial planner AJ Grosson to find out how I could have apparently retired
00:45two years ago at 30 if I had played my cards right.
00:48Here's what I didn't do, but you should do to retire early.
00:52One is tracking your expenses and saving as much money as you possibly can.
00:58Two is learning to live on a lot less than you already do,
01:01because if you can learn to live on less, you have to save less money
01:06to buy that financial freedom in the future.
01:08And the third is investing.
01:10If all of those things sound hard and boring, it's because they are.
01:14And they're also antithetical to everything our culture tells us.
01:18It's totally antithetical.
01:19I think Instagram is like 2018's answer to like keeping up with the Joneses,
01:24because, you know, you're diligently saving,
01:26you're sitting at your desk and you're working and you look at Instagram
01:27and your friends in Paris, and you're immediately like,
01:30ugh, like I hate my job, like why aren't I in Paris?
01:32Like, ugh, like I need to go out and buy something,
01:34or I need to go to Paris so I buy plane tickets.
01:37And fire is sort of a way to kind of reprioritize everything.
01:42Fire depends on drastically cutting expenses,
01:45but that means that you actually have to have disposable income in order to cut.
01:49Who can afford to do this lifestyle change in the name of never returning to work?
01:53Who can afford it?
01:54You know, people who are young and single.
01:56I think it is really appealing to millennials, especially living in big cities.
01:59You can downgrade, you can live with roommates.
02:01This might go without saying, but the fire movement is very male-dominated.
02:05And that's because there are a lot of men making great money in tech
02:09who also hate their jobs and they want out.
02:12They hate their jobs.
02:13You know, they work 12-hour days punching numbers into a computer
02:16and they just want to get out.
02:18For women, it's harder because everything's harder for women.
02:22It's just a clusterf**k of a lot of bad things, to be honest.
02:26Is that a technical term?
02:27Yes, it's a clusterf**k.
02:28This clusterf**k looks a lot like this.
02:31Women, and women of color in particular, make less, live longer,
02:35and we don't tend to invest.
02:36It's a triple threat against our livelihood.
02:40But that means we need more money to last us through retirement.
02:43So the reason that I love fire so much
02:45and why I want more women to find this movement
02:48is because it is about educating yourself
02:50and it's about learning what the stock market is
02:53and learning how you can be a part of it.
02:55But investing in the stock market
02:57seems like we're investing in capitalism,
02:58which is inherently exploitative.
03:01I thought we were tired of being exploited.
03:03I thought this whole movement was like an anti-capitalist thing.
03:08Absolutely, and capitalism is exploitative.
03:11But in order to be a successful human living in the United States,
03:15unless you want to go totally off the grid,
03:16you have to buy into capitalism
03:17and you have to make it work for you.
03:19However, it's never been easier to invest in the good guys.
03:23You might buy a specific mutual fund
03:26that excludes gun manufacturers
03:28because you don't want to invest in gun makers.
03:31If you want to support companies
03:33that value women in leadership positions,
03:35you can invest in an ETF
03:37that only invests in companies that have that.
03:40Really? There's an ETF that only allows...
03:43Yeah, it's called SHI.
03:43I say SHI is the symbol.
03:45Oh my god, that's so cool.
03:46But despite the odds stacked up against women
03:49and our historic lack of investing experience,
03:52millennial women are doing fire.
03:54They are fired as a...
03:56Women are kicking ass right now.
03:59I see a lot of women come in and say,
04:02so I worked really hard.
04:03I've saved $100,000 in a savings account.
04:06What do I do with it?
04:07And then...
04:07Wait, women are coming...
04:08Sorry, so they've saved $100,000 in a savings account.
04:12Yeah.
04:13And, you know, that's because we are...
04:14That's me too.
04:15Yeah.
04:15Yeah, I did mention that earlier.
04:17It's not easy to save $100,000
04:18by the time you're 35.
04:20That's an incredible feat.
04:21And that is so powerful.
04:24And that has not really happened throughout history.
04:26And that's why it's such an exciting time
04:28to be a woman making money.
04:30And, you know, they have harnessed the power of their own...
04:33Their own willpower to not spend the money.
04:35And they don't really know what they're saving for.
04:37So financial planning and the FIRE movement
04:39is all about goals.
04:40It's like, what are you saving for?
04:42Whether it's friendship and independence and creativity.
04:45Well, it's like, okay.
04:46So we need to figure out a way that you can use this money
04:50to fulfill your goals and still be happy.
04:53You've educated yourself
04:54and you've purchased your freedom, basically.
04:57Talking to AJ made me realize
04:58that financial independence, just like money,
05:01is super personal.
05:02But it isn't about extreme deprivation.
05:05It's actually about cutting back drastically
05:07on the things that don't add up
05:09to your personal happiness
05:11so that you have the money to double down
05:13on the things that do add up
05:15to your personal happiness.
05:16So here are the things that helped me FIRE.
05:19I maxed out my 401k contribution for the year
05:22so I can get those sweet, sweet tax breaks.
05:25And I stopped buying breakfast and lunch every day
05:28on my way into the office.
05:29Judge me.
05:30I don't care.
05:31Yeah, I did it.
05:32Now I don't.
05:33TBD on what time that happiness arrives.
05:35But it does feel good to have a plan in place
05:39and to know what I'm saving towards.
