The Financial Independence Retire Early (FIRE) movement appears to be an impossible task for many persons. Still, Kiersten and Julien Saunders thinks otherwise and are ready to prove it to the public.
Just like other black entrepreneurs, the couple started their blog “Rich and Regular” in debt. Within the last eight years, the couple has been able to pay $200,000 for their debts, has also procured rental properties, make money through their blog and invested in businesses. Julien quit his job so as to concentrate fully on blogging but his wife still works in the service industry. They plan on retiring by mid -2021.
Initially, they estimated to save about $1 million for their retirement, which equals around 25 times their baseline (this is the rule applicable to all member of FIRE). But their fire number has been increased to $1.3 million because they now have a child and have also included other family members to their plans.
The fire number of an individual depends on various factors such as monthly expenses, debt repayment plan, expected (and emergency) cost, salary etc. Some persons like to be on a safer side, and hence will save 40-50 times their annual expenses (which they call fat FIRE), while some other will save below the general rule of 25 times their annual spending and plans on leaving on a frugal lifestyle (known as lean Fire).
The Saunders doesn’t like the idea of a fixed Fire number and believes it is a significant shortcoming of the FIRE movement because the annual expenses of every individual change from time to time, especially when new members are added to the families or there is an expansion of the business.
Despite the above issue, the Saunders have been able to adjust their lifestyle to achieve their goals. They spend about $5000 monthly, with much of that money being used to sort out mortgage and day care. The family has disconnected their cable, procure cars produced over ten years ago. Even Julien’s wife does not do her work out in the basement instead of patronizing the gym.
The couple is using their blog to introduce its blog readers, especially black Americans, to FIRE. They hope to create more black millionaires with this move of theirs. The inspiration to start blogging came from their honeymoon visit to South Africa because there they felt relaxed and had a sense of belonging even though they were black and wealthy.
The couple explained that the idea behind FIRE is not to compel people to be too economical to the extent that they will deprive themselves of things that will bring joy to their home. The couple explained that occasionally they still treat themselves and have fun.
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