4 Signs You May be Obsessed With the FIRE Movement
There is a good balance to everything in life — including FIRE.
There is a good balance to everything in life — including FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early). FIRE is a movement that has gained momentum over the last couple of years. The prospect of retiring early and “getting out of the rat race” appealed to many — including me.
They Promised Freedom
As a bright-eyed fresh college grad, I caught wind of this movement. I started browsing FIRE forums and blogs. I read about people who became financially independent and retired early, or what they call FIRE’d, and now live in freedom.
Say no more. I wanted that to be me. I was hooked.
So, what does it mean to live a FIRE lifestyle?
FIRE’s core principles are to live frugally, save money, invest wisely, and to retire when your net worth reaches a certain multiple of your annual spending. Generally, you want to cut expenses in areas that don’t bring value to your life, and only spend money in areas that do.
Life Changes
At the beginning, I was doing exactly that.
I was taking a healthy approach to this newfound ideology. I cut out expensive hobbies that weren’t bringing me as much joy and focused on cheaper, more fulfilling hobbies.
For example, I stopped collecting sneakers. Sneaker collecting is an expensive hobby. I would jump on any new sneaker drop, and if I couldn’t grab one because of limited supply, I would buy it resale from someone else at an even higher price. Needless to say, sneaker collecting was draining my wallet.
I decided to shift that focus onto my other hobby — basketball.
Much cheaper. All you really need is a basketball and a park with a basketball court. Basketball brought much more value to my life.
Basketball gave me exercise and new friends. On the other hand, sneaker collecting allowed me to wear a different pair of shoes for each day of the month…
Additionally, I found ways to reduce the cost of monthly subscriptions. I used my sisters Netflix, my girlfriends Hulu, my friends HBO, and switched to a family plan on Spotify. I stopped eating out as much, cooked more, and lowered my consumption of boba and coffee.
I was on the right track — until I became obsessive.
The Signs
1. You obsess over your net worth
I have this mobile app called Mint that manages your personal finance. Mint tells you your credit score, monthly spending, and your remaining budget.
More importantly, Mint tells you your net worth in big, green text on the front page.
I started to track my net worth obsessively, and it started to consume me. I began treating this number on my screen as if it was part of my identity. If my net worth went up, I somehow felt more of an accomplished human being. Accordingly, every bit of spending or decrease in net worth felt like I was throwing away all my hard work.
As a result, I started seeing any kind of spending as bad. You’ll see how this was the catalyst for all the other symptoms.
2. You start cutting out things that make you happy
I stopped eating the foods I loved.
I mainly stopped eating pricey Asian food, which made up much of my childhood. Korean BBQ, hotpot, dim sum, and boba were purged from my diet.
My meals became mostly composed of chili and McDonald’s. Chili cost around 3 dollars a meal, and I would use the McDonald’s app to find deals to get cheap food in bulk. The repetition of chili and McDonald’s cycling through my body was draining me physically and mentally.
This process made me realize that even though eating was a drag on my wallet, food made me happy.
Yummy food allowed me to experience and appreciate other cultures and to revisit my own culture. Food was also a vehicle for me to reconnect with friends and family and form new connections.
I threw all that away because I thought my increasing my net worth would somehow make me happier.
3. You start ignoring your health
I have a desk job, so my job requires me to sit in a chair all day and use a mouse and keyboard. A quality ergonomic mouse and keyboard could cost hundreds of dollars, and a chair could even cost up to a thousand.
Like every other 22 year old who freshly joined the workforce, I felt invincible.
Why would I waste so much money on a mouse and keyboard? My company already gives them to me for free. How much damage could an Apple Magic Mouse and keyboard do anyway? Turns out quite a bit.
The magic keyboard was okay, but oh man, if you’ve ever used a Magic Mouse before, you’d know they’re a b*tch to use. Unless you have hamster-sized hands, you’d have to awkwardly grip the mouse with your fingertips with your hand forming a claw.
After a couple of months of using these peripherals, I started experiencing sharp pains in both my wrists. Uh oh.
It was only then I realized that I was, in fact, not invincible. I immediately bought a new keyboard and a Logitech MX Master 2 and haven’t looked back. They may have been pricey, but my health is worth more than a couple of hundred bucks.
4. You joined the cult
Some parts of the FIRE community feels cultish.
And you definitely don’t want to fall into this trap. Like most other cults, members of the cult will all parrot the same narrative and look down on anyone who dares stray away.
Want to eat red meat? Too bad, rice and beans are cheaper. Girlfriend doesn’t want to eat rice and beans for the rest of her life? Too bad, get a new girlfriend.
I never actually became this cynical, but I definitely started judging others for their purchases.
I recall scrolling through Instagram and seeing a picture from an old acquaintance next to his new car. I caught myself thinking: “Wow, what a bozo. This dudes going to be drowning from fat car payments every month”.
I didn’t know his financial status. He could very well afford that lifestyle. I didn’t know what brought value to his life. Maybe a new car does bring him value. Even then, it’s his life and none of my business.
If you catch yourself starting to do the same, take a step back, and remember to focus on yourself.
Remember Why You Started
Remember that the principles of FIRE are not a universal standard to live by. It’s just an ideal. We’re all unique. We have to interpret what FIRE means to us individually and mold it to fit our lives.
After all, the essence of FIRE is to optimize what matters to you and get what you want out of life. Don’t obsess over your net worth at the expense of your happiness.
It took me a couple of months to realize that I was overdoing FIRE.
I was not only cutting out unnecessary expenses but also cutting out the things that made me happy. However, this experience allowed me to re-evaluate my life and discover what truly mattered to me. I never came into this journey, wanting to eat rice and beans for the rest of my life, but I somehow found myself near that territory.
After deciding to bring my life back to equilibrium, I went to a Korean BBQ restaurant again and ate until I nearly puked. It was liberating.
