The 55 Stages Of Financial Independence Seekers (FIREes)

You might have heard of the Milestones or Stages of Financial Independence:

• The Milestones of FI
• The stages of financial freedom: The road to financial independence
• The 7 Stages of Financial Independence: What Stage Are You In?
• The 11 Stages of Wealth: Which Stage Of Wealth Are You At?
• 3 Major Milestones to Financial Independence
• 14 Milestones to Celebrate on the Path to Financial Independence (and Beyond!)

There is some repetition between those posts, because there are some pretty standard steps people take when walking the path to FI. Establish an emergency fund. Invest. Spend less than you earn.

These stages of financial independence are milemarkers on your path to freedom. Whether you plan to work 15 years or 50, your plan should be to achieve financial independence. After all, you don’t really want to reach age 75 and have to keep working, do you?

But they are, it has to be admitted, a bit boring. And it can take sooooo long to transition between stages.

Let’s take a more amusing look at things.

Let’s talk about the stages of being a FIREe!

(I call people in the FIRE community FIREes…like retirees…get it? You might know them as FIREwalkers or FIRE enthusiasts. Check out the bottom of the post for some other ideas from a friend.)

The (not quite) Exhaustive List of Events FIREes Experience

I’ve spent a long time in the FI community. There are certain…similarities…I’ve noticed as people learn about and get into FI. Some less important stages they go through. Some behaviors they exhibit.

Not everybody will hit every stage, and they definitely won’t all hit them in this order, but if you hang out in the FI community you’ll see some pretty familiar events here.

The Beginning

Stage 1: Financial Independence? Saving so much early on that you can just stop working in your 40s? Hahahahahaha I don’t think so!

Stage 2: Wait, what? This really is possible?

Stage 3: Well I’m in! I need to stop working NOW.

Stage 4: I gotta pay off my debt first. 😬

Let’s Talk About It

Stage 5: ::discovers the online community:: I HAVE FOUND MY PEOPLE

Stage 6: Okay, I’m ready to invest. Tell me more about VTSAX.

Stage 7: PROSELYTIZE PROSELYTIZE PROSELYTIZE

Stage 8: ::reads Your Money Or Your Life:: Whoa. Whoa.

Stage 9: Geez I spend way too much on groceries. Help?

Stage 10: ::stops spending money on things they don’t like and don’t need:: How the hell did I go from a 6% savings rate to a 33% savings rate in 2 months?

Stage 11: There’s more to FI investing than VTSAX?

Stage 12: Can somebody please explain the 4% Rule???

Stage 13: My friends won’t let me talk about money anymore.

Stage 14: Tell me about real estate investing.

Getting Smarter

Stage 15: Hey maybe it’s not work I hate. Maybe it’s my job. 😒

Stage 16: I’m maxing out my retirement accounts. What’s next?

Stage 17: How the heck do I predict my post-FI expenses when I don’t know where I’ll be living, who I’ll be living with, or what inflation will look like over the next 18 years? Somebody help!

Stage 18: FU money achieved!

Stage 19: WAIT. Maybe I don’t actually want to quit this job. Having FU money gives me so much peace of mind and it’s a pretty good paycheck. If I stay here, I could be totally FIRE’d in about 8 years.

A Couple Years In

Stage 20: Burnout. Maybe I can ratchet my savings back to only 65% of my income

Stage 21: OMG what about healthcare??? 😧

Stage 22: Travel hacking, here I come!

Stage 23: I need a side hustle that pays $80/hour, is totally flexible, costs nothing to start up, and involves my love of ukuleles.

Stage 24: Real Estate Investor, that’s me!

Turns Out, You Don’t Know It All Yet

Stage 25: Hey, shouldn’t I be putting money into taxable brokerage accounts? I need to have money before age 59.5, when I can access my 401k and my Roth IRA.

Stage 26: No but seriously, we need to talk about healthcare.

Stage 27: What is Aldi’s?

Stage 28: I don’t use the basement. Time to AirBnB!

Stage 29: Babies are damn expensive. 😐

Becoming a Wise One

Stage 30: I’m starting a blog!

Stage 31: I’m getting pretty good at this. I feel comfortable.

Stage 32: Time to downshift. I’m HalfFI/CoastFI now. It’ll all work out.

Stage 33: ::buys a brand new (to them) Honda Civic. In cash. Brags about it a lot::

Stage 34: How do I balance saving for retirement and saving for my child’s college expenses?

Stage 35: What’s Dividend Growth Investing?

Stage 36: ::close friend sees what’s happening and starts asking questions about how to fix their finances:: 🤩

Getting Super Nerdy About It

Stage 37: #VANLIFE looks pretty cool.

Stage 38: Hiking is the greatest sport of all time and hiking the Appalachian trail only costs about $1000-$1500/month. #FIREplans

Stage 39: Okay, vans are pretty small for long time periods. Maybe a tiny home. 🤨

Stage 40: I’m getting close. Maybe I need to figure out what I’ll do all day in FIRE.

Stage 41: Speaking to a new FIREe: “Calm down young pup. Yes, people having been achieving financial independence at a young age for a long time. They just didn’t talk about it. Remember your aunt and uncle that traveled a lot and always had time to be at your important events? That’s them. This isn’t just a trend.”

Stage 42: Like, maybe a smallish townhouse. Yeah. That’s perfect.

Closing In

Stage 43: One more year…okay maybe two. Gotta be certain!

Stage 44: ::lives on the actual FIRE budget for 1-2 years as a proof of concept::

Stage 45: “Hey everybody! I put in my notice today! Two months until I retire!”

Crossing the Line

Stage 46: IT’S DONE I’M FINANCIALLY INDEPENDENT AND RETIRED. PRAISE ((whoever)) I’M FREE!!

Stage 47: ::sleeps for a week, then goes on vacation::

Stage 48: ::still busy because nobody actually sits on a couch all day every day in FIRE::

Stage 49: ::scary healthcare expense that you manage to make it through::

Stage 50: How the heck did I ever have time for work? 🤔

FIRE Master

Stage 51: Hmmm….my investments are doing okay. I’m now living comfortably on a 3.5% withdrawal rate. Maybe that math does work out.

Stage 52: I can’t think of ways to spend more money. Okay charities, who needs some dollars?

Stage 53: Donor Advised Fund time.

Stage 54: Zen achieved. 😎

Stage 55: Grandpa/Grandma FI – the wise one all the new kids can look up to. You may only be age 36 at this point.

How many stages have you been through? What stage of being a FIREe did I miss?

Other names for FIREes

I asked on both Twitter and Facebook what other names people use to describe the collective group of people in the FIRE community. Apparently I didn’t phrase that question super well, because I got a lot of answers that weren’t really names for the group. One person just described FIRE to me  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

But a friend came through in spades. Check out these ideas for things you can call FIREes (FIREwalkers…FIRE enthusiasts…). Thanks J!

FIRE-UP (Unified People)
FIRE-CALL (Community And Loving Life)
FIRE-PEEP (People Educating Every Possibility) (<~~~Mil$’s favorite)
FIRE-HALF (Humans And Life Hacks)