I was recently speaking at a pan-Asian media conference (supposed to be hosted in Singapore in March but unfortunately moved to a June virtual event due to the pandemic), and listening to the keynote by Maria Ressa. She is the founder and editor of Rappler, but also recently convicted in a Philippine court for cyber libel. Her talk really made me appreciate the freedom of the press that we have in the United States.
While there have been some distressing instances of journalists coming under fire in this very country during the recent protests, there are still strong protections for reporting freedom and freedom of expression. We should not take these valuable freedoms for granted, as we celebrate our country’s independence day.
On a lighter note, freedom is one of the key benefits that achieving FIRE brings. It certainly is what inspired us to shift gears in our 40’s and focus on hitting at least our FIRE Plan B. Even if we didn’t RE (retire early) since we loved our work, we would at least have the freedom, or FI (financial independence), of expanded choices.
Specifically, there are three freedoms that FIRE brings:
1 – Earning freedom to work at what you love
I’m a recovering Type A workaholic – after all, I spent four decades in New York City, whose advertising slogan is “the city that never sleeps” (apparently, that describes the work culture too!).
My first career was the intersection of strategy consulting and investment banking –two Type A+ careers, if there were such a term. Nowadays, I start my day with a two-hour trip to the beach, then a leisurely hot breakfast. I still work because it keeps me challenged, and I meet really interesting people and contribute to fun and important projects. But I can choose to only work at what I love.
Interestingly, my current work is 100% related to my last traditional job before venturing into entrepreneurship and a few years later the FIRE journey. I’m a career coach and HR consultant, and my last job was in corporate HR for a media company. Same field, but completely different working conditions.
I loved my job at the media company and only have fond memories of my time there. But the freedom I have in my current schedule, in my current project pipeline makes a world of difference.
2 – Time freedom to optimize our days, weeks, months and years
Day-to-day, time freedom shows up in a new morning routine (the beach) and in better integrating work and home life – e.g., we run household errands during the week when stores aren’t crowded. My weekly schedule is also atypical, as I start to lose steam by Thursday and definitely by Friday. Yet, I love to write on Sundays, which is other people’s typical rest day. So my weekend is late Thursday, Friday and Saturday, and Sunday feels like the start of the workweek. I don’t always do it this way, but I have found my natural rhythm prefers this, and time freedom courtesy of FIRE allows it.
Looking out even further to months and years, we can plan road trips around Scott’s quest to run a marathon in each of the 50 states. Of course, this year our travel plans are in flux, but we had an amazing trip to Arizona built around the Tucson Marathon in 2019. In 2018, a cheap airfare to the Philippines let us escape an April snowstorm (seriously) in New York. In 2017, a chance to teach in India meant we could join our oldest daughter (who was interning there for a couple of months) on a two and a half week unforgettable trip. Unfortunately, we weren’t blogging at the time so don’t have the itinerary easily summarized, but we have some photos:
3 – Location freedom to stay anywhere (or keep moving)
To be fair, FIRE is only partly responsible for the location freedom. We are empty-nesters now, and that gives us the freedom to be anywhere during the academic year. Just last year, we dropped off our youngest at college and headed to Costa Rica for a whole, sweet month.
Summer and holiday location freedom is thanks to FIRE. We’re now in Florida majority time (hence the new beach morning routine), and until the pandemic shut down travel, we had Singapore, Portugal and another month in Costa Rica on the docket for 2020. Oh well, fingers crossed for a subsiding in the pandemic and open borders again.
“You are free to invent your life” – Fortune Cookie
Reinvention is a great way to sum up the freedoms that FIRE brings. I was making a lot of choices on automatic – traditional employment, standard work-week, living in the same place for years.
Not everyone wants or needs to reinvent, but mid-career, I felt a strong pull to travel a lot and start a business – two things I never expected to want earlier in my adult life.
Thank goodness for the freedom to start again. You don’t need to achieve FIRE to give yourself permission to reinvent, but for a risk-averse person like me, it definitely helped.
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Are you on the path to FIRE? Was freedom a driving factor, or something else?
We are Scott and Caroline, 50-somethings who spent the first 20+ years of our adult lives in New York City, working traditional careers and raising 2 kids. We left full-time work in our mid-40’s for location-independent, part-time consulting projects and real estate investing, in order to create a more flexible and travel-centric lifestyle. 
Financial independence and early retirement is not something we originally focused on, but over time realized it was possible. Our free report, 
All great reasons to FIRE–but love the location flexibility. Still working on FIRE but always good to see reminders of WHY it’s such a priority.
Yes, location flex was big for us b/c we married young, had kids young and therefore traveled very little. Wanderlust came on strong mid-career, and there are so many places to go…Plans have been tabled during the pandemic of course but since we already have the lifestyle in place we can pick up when borders reopen. Keep plugging away at FIRE — it’s worth it.
So glad to see you and Scott adapting so well to the FIRE lifestyle!
Since you, Scott, Bridgett and I chatted last October we’ve gone to Costa Rica and have falling in love with it! Like you, we were planning to go to Portugal this summer, but the pandemic has obviously changed that.
How are you all adjusting to running your rental properties virtually, and not being able to visit them in person?
This pandemic feels like forever but it’s just been a few months, and we have strong property managers. That said, our plan was to visit in September and that doesn’t seem feasible based on how things are going in the US. We’re grateful to be healthy and able to wait, though of course, our preference would be to be enjoying Costa Rica! Keep us posted on your move!