Set Your Life On FIRE, and Maybe Somebody Else’s

Need Some Visual FIRE Motivation? Want To Inspire Others? I Gotcha Covered!

Recently I was checking out Facebook and came across a post in a military forum. This forum is not money-related in any way, it’s just a mentorship area. The poster was asking how to introduce the concept of FIRE (financial independence/retire early) to coworkers without being inappropriate.

To say I was excited is quite the understatement.

After some discussion, I decided a good way to spread the word in a non-obtrusive way would be to create a document that could be posted at your desk at work. (I understand this isn’t feasible for everybody. Keep reading) It’d be designed to serve as personal motivation, but it could also be used to stimulate conversation. After all, if you put up this flyer right next to a picture of your family, chances are somebody is going to ask about it eventually. That’s a great way to introduce the concept of FIRE without being the annoying coworker.

And if they don’t want to talk to you about it, well, you’ve listed enough information to introduce the topic right on the sheet! So they can sneak a peek when you aren’t around and check out the sites and forums on their own.

Introducing the FIRE Flyer

I created the FIRE Flyer with a bevy of objectives:

• Inspire and motivate you on your path to FIRE
• Provide a simple introduction to what FIRE means
• Serve as a daily reminder of your “Why of FI”
• Provide a snapshot of good resources
• Record when you started down the path to FIRE, who is helping you along the way, and when you expect to reach your goal
• Serve as a checklist for income sources in retirement – maybe you’ll use this to decide which one to start next!
• Track some of the major milestones as you progress towards FIRE

Don’t think you should put this up at work? No problem. This flyer can serve the same purposes at home or anywhere else.

And if you do have a coworker, friend, or family member who asks about it? Well, you will have lots of information at the ready to inspire some conversation!

To download the flyer, simply click on the image below. It will take you to a page where you can download the FIRE Flyer and print it out from any computer with a printer. It’s free and you don’t have to sign up for my email list to get it (although you can if you want…sign up is on the right hand side of the screen). Just download and go.

The FIRE Flyer fits nicely on an 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper and comes in PDF form, so all you have to do is print and start writing. Fill it out and tack it up somewhere that feels right to you, work or otherwise. Maybe it can go next to the kids’ artwork on the fridge?

The FIRE Flyer

There are five sections to the FIRE Flyer:

1. Definition of FIRE
2. History and Future
3. Motivation
4. The How
5. Milestones

I’ll show you some screen shots of my own as we go through so you see how I envision it being filled out.

Definition of FIRE

Simple – this one presents an easy to understand definition of FIRE, broken down into the FI and RE portions. I chose the definitions I did for a reason.

First, a lot of people like to define FI as “25x expenses.” Well, not really. After all, what does that even mean? If you have 25x your annual expenses in a savings account, is that good enough? (no it’s not)

And the 25x expenses definition ignores other sources of income, like Social Security, pensions, real estate income, residual business income, etc. I know a lot of people like to say “well I can’t rely on that money” but you can’t rely on market investments 100% either, now can you? Face it, FI is a risk no matter how well you plan.

So really, what you should be focused on is reliably replacing paid work income with other types of income that meets or exceeds your annual expenses. That’s what FI really is.

And for the RE part, I know a lot of people don’t like that part of the acronym because they think retirement means no more working. Personally, I don’t know any retired people who do literally nothing productive, so I’ve never thought that. But since it bothers so many people, I made it explicit that that is not how we define retirement in the FIRE community.

History and Future

Just as this flyer may help you introduce the topic of FIRE to somebody, chances are someone sparked your interest once upon a time. Maybe it was a conversation with a family member, or you ran across a FIRE blog by accident, or you were reading a book or magazine left behind on a plane. Either way, you probably started looking into the topic more and found one person (or many!) who you really connected with. Whether they know it or not, they became your FIRE mentor.

I’ve also noticed a lot of people mention the day they “discovered FIRE” when they introduce themselves in a FIRE community. It can be a bit of a lifechanging moment, and one you may want to document.

That’s why I wanted to include these things on the FIRE Flyer. That way, when you have been doing this for 10+ years you can think back to exactly how and when it all started. And maybe you’ll serve as someone else’s FIRE mentor!

And of course, you gotta include your projected FIRE date!

Motivation

This section is composed of three parts – your “why of FI,” your favorite FI resources, and the communities you go to when you want to communicate with the FI community.

Why of FI: this can either be a list (which is what I’ve done) or a paragraph. The important part is you think about why you are pursuing this weird, counter-culture concept of FI.

Favorite Resources: where do you look when you want to learn more? What blogs, vlogs, and podcasts do you read and listen to inspire you on the path to FI?

Favorite Communities: do you have a group of people you turn to when you want to talk about FIRE? If not, check out the ones on my list!

The How

Being FIRE is about more than money, but we can’t ignore that money is a necessary component. You can be FIRE without having a Why of FI, following any bloggers or podcasters, or being part of the FIRE community. But you can’t be FIRE without a way to pay your bills.

This area can be used as a checklist of potential FIRE income sources. By no means do I expect anybody to check off every box – that would be damn impressive! Instead, this will give you a way to track what you have opened and ideas for what you could look into starting next.

Some of the items are listed twice – a #1 and #2. The reason I did this was to allow couples to used the FIRE Flyer together, but still account for each person’s accounts. If you are just tracking yourself you can also use the #1 and #2 to track if you open multiple 401(k)s, IRAs, etc. Or just lump them together (meaning, if you have both a traditional IRA and a Roth IRA, you could check off “IRA #1” and write “Traditional and Roth” next to it).

There are also plenty of blank lines for you to enter in anything I’ve left out!

Non-US readers: I’m sorry, but this part of the FIRE Flyer is definitely US-centric. I simply don’t know enough about retirement and investing in other countries to do it any differently. Plus my audience is 99.5% US citizens. Sorry! If you want to build one for your own country let me know and I’ll share with you how I built the FIRE Flyer.

Milestones

There are also a lot of milestones that aren’t quite as concrete as “Open a Roth IRA.” That’s what is listed in this section. As you progress along the path to FI, you can mark off each milestone. There is no exact order, so just mark them off as you hit them. I prefer using colored pencils or highlighters so you can still see the milestone. If you aren’t interested in a milestone or never expect to meet it, you can either ignore it or blacken the block.

If you haven’t already downloaded the FIRE Flyer, here’s that link again.

That’s it! The FIRE Flyer. A motivation tool, tracking method, and inspirational tool. How will you use it?