If you’ve been following along so far, then you’ve heard me preach mindset, saving and sacrifice. Now here’s where it all leads: the FIRE movement for the middle class, and why it might be your only escape from the paycheck to paycheck trap!
Ask most of the middle class what retirement looks like and they will probably think of career stagnation. Burnout. Rising costs. And layoffs.
Most people accept these as the price of getting older. But if you’re smart, they don’t have to be…
The Harsh Truth
When you’re young and starting your career, you probably have visions of moving up, one day becoming the HMFIC! Eventually retiring and living the good life like we were promised. This was exactly what I thought for myself when I started my first job. My goal was to get as high as possible as fast as possible. But why?
The truth is:
- Pensions are gone
- Wages are flat, with housing and other things far outpacing salary increases
- Job security no longer exists
- The days of working 40+ years for the same company because “you showed up every day” are over
It doesn’t really matter if you work hard and show up, layoffs are more prominent than ever. Businesses are constantly evolving to keep up with the times, and people are let go simply because management is “going in a new direction”. People either get burnt out or pushed out.
Many people wonder, “can the middle class achieve FIRE?” The answer is yes!
What Is The FIRE Movement
This is where things start to get exciting. For those of you that might just be discovering this concept, FIRE stands for Financial Independence, Retire Early.
Financial Independence (FI) = You no longer need to work to cover your expenses. Your money works for you through investments, passive income, and low-cost living.
Retire Early (RE) = Not necessarily quitting all work forever, but walking away from work you have to do, and choosing what you want to do instead.
The FIRE movement isn’t just for the rich. I designed this blog specifically for the middle class in mind. That’s where I constantly see the most pessimists. Always talking about it’s so hard to get ahead in the middle class. The FIRE movement for the middle class is about taking control.
Being a part of the FIRE movement just comes down to one simple thing…not income, but CHOICE.
Once you choose to:
- Save that extra $10 instead of spending it on some cheap thing
- Start budgeting your money
- Stop thinking investing is “too hard and complicated”
- Question everything society told you was “normal”
When you choose these things, you are choosing FREEDOM!
The FIRE movement allows freedom. The emotional feeling you get from going from dreading Mondays to having a plan is worth it alone. You no longer feel like your just living another day.
“Don’t live the same year 75 times and call it a life.”
Robin Sharma
The goal isn’t necessarily to never work again. it’s to never be trapped again. Even if you don’t want to FIRE and retire early, there are at least 6 reasons why you still need to save and invest your money.
Look What I Created. I Have Made FIRE!
Discovering FIRE is where my own life started to change. It was like the scene from Castaway where Tom Hanks, after struggling for days, finally managed to create fire. It was the moment where he shifts from helpless to powerful!
First I changed my mindset. (There’s that word again. I know some of you are probably sick of it by now!) I had the idea in my head that maybe getting ahead in life wasn’t so hard. Just maybe I could escape the middle class trap.
But then the excuses almost got to me…
“How the hell am I going to retire before the normal age of 65?”
It didn’t really seem possible at first. I was only making a lower middle class income. I didn’t have any clue how to invest. Hell, I was still living at home with my parents, so I didn’t even own any assets! How could I become FIRED!?
How It Started
Let’s take a small step back for minute. I want to talk about how that mindset shift started. As I said, I was 27 years old, still living with my parents after graduating college a few years earlier. I had a “job” making $10.50 an hour.
Ya, glamorous stuff right!?
Up until then, I just figured I’d continue to live a “normal” middle class life. End up renting an apartment. Maybe finally being able to afford a house sometime in my late 30s. Working the next 40 years at a job I didn’t really love.
It doesn’t sound all that terrible right? I mean plenty of middle class people live great lives just like that and are perfectly happy, right?
No! It sounds absolutely horrendous! If working 9 to 5 for 40+ years, barely scraping by, so you can eventually retire just in time to “relax” for a few years before you die, sounds great to you, then my site is definitely not for you! Anyways, back to my story…
The Book That Changed My Life
One day out of the blue, my mom recommended a book to me: The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason. Outside of the required readings in school, I had never actually read a book on my own. Seriously! At that point in my life I hated reading! I was more of a SportsCenter kind of guy for all my knowledge of the world!
But she talked so great of it and I respected her opinion so much that I thought what the hell, it’s a tiny book so lets give it a go!
As soon as I started, I was hooked! The concepts were extremely easy. Simple things that quite literally anyone can do and understand. That was the beauty of it. It wasn’t some advanced investing book with foreign concepts.
Once I knew it was POSSIBLE, I started doing the small steps it talked about:
- Saving 10%
- Living below my means
- Investing
- Protecting my money and seeking knowledge
- Saving for a home
- Planning for retirement
- Investing in myself
FIRED and Inspired? Or TIRED and Trapped?
When thinking about your money over the course of your working career, you basically have 2 choices. You can choose to say “I FIRED” and retire early. Or you can choose to live paycheck to paycheck, spending every raise you ever get and eventually end up at 65+ years old, still working full time.
Guess what you become then, instead of being FIRED, you become TIRED.
Literally!
Ask anyone that’s still working a full time job while trying to enjoy life at that age. They’re tired. Even the ones who love their job. It’s tiring doing the same thing over and over for 40-50 years. You get tired of:
- Waking up early 5 days a week
- Commuting through reckless traffic twice a day
- Having someone tell you when to take breaks and lunch
- Always being judged by your performance
That’s the cycle so many want to break. It’s not just about retiring, it’s about how to escape the 9 to 5 grind.
These things take a toll on you mentally, physically, and emotionally. The longer you are stuck in the rat race, the more TIRED you become!
Saying “I FIRED” Is Easier Than You Think
If you save and invest, becoming financially independent on a middle class income is easier than you think. Let’s do some simple investing math to show you what I mean. All of my examples assume a 10% rate of return. Why 10% you ask? Because that’s the historical stock market return over the last century.
Let’s assume a pretty average scenario here:
- Starting later in life at 30 years old
- We’ll say you have done just ok so far and have $3,000 to start
- Your income is the median household income of $80,610 (as of the most recent census)
With a household income of 80k, you should EASILY be able to afford $500/mo to invest. (If not, we will soon get into how you start saving more money each month) That’s also assuming you don’t get free money through a 401k match. Which is highly unlikely these days.
At 40 years young, you’re already at $110k! Not life changing, but right about where someone your age should be. At 50 years old you then have 400k, which is almost DOUBLE the net worth of someone your age!
And finally at 60, a good 5 years earlier than the “normal” retirement age, you are at a whopping $1.2 million!
Final Thoughts
The middle class was promised stability, but that promise is gone. What’s left is a choice:
You can keep doing what everyone else is doing and hope things work out…
Or you can choose FIRE and start building the kind of life most people only dream about.
No, it won’t be easy. But it’s possible. I’m living proof.
I didn’t start with six figures and didn’t get rich overnight. I just made one choice after another. Small, boring, consistent and let the results compound.
Learn. Save. Invest. Break free.
Because at the end of the day, it’s simple:
You can be FIRED… or you can be TIRED.
How do you want to spend your future?
Drop your comment below. I want to hear your FIRE story!
