It’s NOT about depriving yourself and cutting out everything (like the media often presents it), it’s about spending money on what you value in an efficient way. Reducing expenses is often the easiest and quickest way to boost our savings. Optimizing your spending can help you build some financial security fast!

This is so that you have a buffer for when something unexpected (and expensive) happens. This is your first line of defense (social security is part of your defense too).

This is the other way of increasing your savings. It’s usually harder to do but it’s well worth spending time figuring this out. While there is a limit on how much you can cut your spending, there isn’t one on how much you can earn (provided you are willing to learn and work for it).

This is an essential part of the FIRE approach. You want your savings to work hard for you, in a way that is sustainable in the long term and that matches your risk capacity. Here we like index investing because it’s probably the most efficient way to build wealth completely passively.

This is based on the 4% guideline often used in the FIRE community. It’s just a guideline which needs to be adapted to your personal situation (age, other sources of income, pension, social security, etc.).

This is when you do not depend on your job income to pay for your living expenses. You can live off the returns of your investments, doing minimal work. When you’re FIRE, you can choose what to do with your time, without money being a major constraints. You can choose to travel, enjoy your hobbies, spend time with your loved ones, start a passion project or you can choose to continue to work. The goal is for you to find what brings you fulfillment (and doing nothing rarely achieves that 🙂