- The FIRE movement is for people who are motivated to save up enough to retire early.
- The movement started in the 1990s but has drastically grown in popularity in recent years.
- There are many types of FIRE based on your individual spending and needs to choose from.
For those who have dreamed of retiring early — and having their days freed from the obligations and pressures of a 9-to-5 job — there’s a rapidly-growing movement where everyday people prioritize this theme of enjoying their best years at a younger age. The Financial Independence; Retire Early (FIRE) movement is all about actually achieving that dream through extreme frugality, super saving, and investing early.
The origins of the FIRE movement can be traced back to the 1992 book Your Money or Your Life by Joseph Dominguez and Vicki Robin.
Vicki Robin was an aspiring actress who inherited about $20,000 in 1968 (equivalent to about $160,000 in 2022 dollars) from her grandmother and decided to take a road trip through the United States and Mexico. During her travels, she met Dominquez, who was a technical stock analyst on Wall Street, who retired in 1969 at the age of 31 after accumulating about $80,000 in wealth (equivalent to almost $650,000 in today’s dollars).
