Book Review – Playing with FIRE

I’ve been hearing about the book and documentary Playing with FIRE for a while now, and was super excited to dig in and read it.  In the true spirit of minimalism and achieving financial independence, I put a hold request on the book at my local public library and once it was ready, I picked it up and excitedly dug in.  It typically takes me a week or two to finish a book as I am fairly busy and I’m constantly interrupted by my children, work, phone, the urge to watch TV, and just life in general.  I read this book in two days over a weekend.  I couldn’t put it down.  It was such a personal story on a topic I really relate to and care about; I really enjoyed it.  And then I had the pleasure of watching the Playing with FIRE documentary premier in Atlanta, GA and got to see the writers and Rich + Regular speak after the filming.  I highly recommend watching the movie and reading the book, and I don’t think the order really matters.  If you’re having trouble getting started, then watch the movie first to get yourself motivated and then the book will give you more practical tools and tips to implement in your life.

My top 10 takeaways from the book and documentary Playing with FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early): How Far Would You Go for Financial Freedom? By Scott Rieckens.

1. Money and Life – The foreword by Money Mustache was just a few pages, but he said so much and really set the tone for the book. He wrote about the trap we all fall in – we know that money and nice stuff doesn’t buy happiness, “yet many of us remain stuck. In a cycle of overworking and overspending, reaching for instant gratification instead of seeking deeper and more durable satisfaction.”  He also wrote about how he was born frugal and had a like minded-partner and as a result some of this may have come easier to him.  I’ve thought about it before, but his reference to this was just a reminder of how much my childhood had an impact on my own financial values and beliefs about money.  In short, we had enough growing up, but we often had less than others around us, and that made me think we had less.  Now that I have the world perspective to know what true struggling actually is, I know we had plenty and so much to be thankful for.  I also had to work very hard for most of what I had, so it made me appreciate it that much more.  And I now have significantly more than my parents ever had, and that has also made me incredibly appreciative and thankful.  My family doesn’t have the financial worries or stress that my parents had when I was growing up.  I stress about a lot of things, but money isn’t one of them.  And for that I am quite thankful.

2.  Retirement + Mandatory Work. A great quote from the book is, “it’s not about retiring, it’s about having financial freedom and flexibility to pursue your passions, whether or not it makes you money.”  In the film they use the term “mandatory work” a lot, and I love that.  The idea of “early retirement” might be confusing and feel unattainable to many, but the idea of getting to a place where you don’t have “mandatory work” feels more approachable and attainable to me.  I may still work, but it will be on my terms and doing something I want to do and not something I feel like I have to do in order to maintain an overly inflated lifestyle I’ve created for myself.

3.  You are in control. You control the choices you make in life.    You may feel as though you have no choice but to keep working, but for many people that’s because of how they’ve chosen to live their life.  You control where you live.  You control the type of house you live in.  You control what you spend your money on.  You control the financial habits and practices you’re teaching to your children.  You control if you walk into Target and buy $200 worth of stuff you don’t really need.  The Mad Fientist also had a few awesome quotes in the documentary, including:

• • “We value our freedom and yet we are not free”
  • “It’s a lot more fun to be rich than look rich”

4.  Spend less, save more, invest the difference. That’s the formula of FIRE.  It’s quite simple.  The psychology and emotions are the hard part.

5.  FIRE is flexible. There is room for flexibility, just like the idea of “mostly” in mostly minimal life.  It’s about living a mostly minimal life, it’s not an all or nothing game.  You should feel encouraged to pursue FIRE in your own way.  This is ultimately what converted the author’s wife over to FIRE.  She listened to a Choose FI podcast called “The Pillars of FI” where the host Brad talked about how they aren’t prophesizing you need to live your life in a certain way, but that you should think about the choices you’re willing to  make and what’s important to you.  And throughout the film they keep showing different real-time choices they’ve made and the impact it’s having on their projected financial independent date.  It’s a great way to think about things, in terms of the tradeoff and if you’re willing to make it or not.  If you buy a fancy new car, are you willing to add 2-3 years onto your working life?  Or does it just add 6 months for you and that makes it worth it?  It’s different for everyone, but just know your math and what you’re trading off.

6.  Stick with it, but don’t obsess. The authors talk about how it felt really hard at first because they were making massive changes to their life and changing everything they had previously held as important or part of their identity.  And they struggled at times, but after a couple of months they were “inspired by the transformative effects of living a simpler, lower-cost lifestyle.”  The goal is also not to remove all of the fun from your life, so mix together the point that it can be flexible, and you shouldn’t obsess about it, and find your mostly spot on this journey.  For me and my family it’s constantly changing.  I find myself obsessing at times, I find myself splurging at times; the balance that comes out in the end works for us.

7.  The basic math. There is a lot of debate on how much money you truly need to “retire,” but the basic math of the FIRE community is… “If you can save 25 times your annual spending, and then invest it so you can get a 5% return on average after inflation, then you can live on those investments for eternity if you only withdraw 4% a year.”  So if you can get your annual expenses to $50,000 per year, then you need $1.25 million dollars saved in order to retire.  Again, there are a lot of different points of view out there and some think this is not conservative enough and doesn’t take into account rising healthcare costs, a big emergency, etc. but I do think it’s a good general rule.  I personally build more buffer into my goal number as I want to assume some emergencies, some needs to splurge and go over budget, etc.

8.  Track your expenses – Tracking your expenses is really important. It’s important to know what you’re spending your money on, and also how much you spend on average in a year.  I have tracked my expenses on and off over the years, but I admittedly have not done it in the last few years.  I was good about saving money and felt like that was enough.  As I’ve started tracking my expenses more closely in the last few months it’s really opened my eyes to where my money is going, and how I can cut some things back.  I actually find myself feeling a no-spending high!  As you are tracking and considering your expenses, think about the tradeoffs you’re willing to make between that expenses and how much longer you’ll have to work to afford it.  People often focus more on what they are giving up vs. what they are getting.  Consider calculating how many additional days you have to work to afford something, and start thinking about your expenses in that way.

9.  The 7 Steps to FIRE – At the end of the book they recap 7 steps to take action and achieve FIRE.  Read the book to check them out.  My top 10 takeaways are meant to get you excited to learn more; I highly recommend reading the book yourself.  It could be one of the best investments you ever make in your future.  Purchase the paper book, the audio book, a kindle version, or better yet check it out from your local library for free.  And now you can watch the documentary

10.  The top 10 things that make you happy. The author and his wife did this exercise where they each wrote down 10 things that make them happy.  When they were done they compared their lists with each other, and the lists were mostly full of things that cost very little or nothing at all.  It was a powerful exercise because it reminded them both what was really important to them, and it helped them on their FIRE journey.  The author admitted, “We had gotten off track somehow and become convinced that we had to spend money to enjoy life.”  I did this exercise with my husband and really enjoyed it.  Here’s my list of 10 things that make me happy:

1. 1. 1. 1. 1. Lazy mornings in bed with my husband (and coffee)
            2. Riding bikes with my kids
            3. Cuddling in bed with the kids
            4. Being intimate with my husband (that was my PG explanation)
            5. Taking the kids on an adventure (ice cream, a trip, etc.)
            6. Reading a good book / listening to a good podcast
            7. Doing physical work/labor, and seeing the product of my work
            8. A good cup of coffee with a dessert
            9. Watching survivor or amazing race with the kids and hearing their comments
            10. Watching my kids listen/dance to music, or do creative stuff

Fun Fact + Trivia Question– I started writing this blog post six months ago when I first read the Playing with FIRE book, and I’ve just been busy.  And then I watched the Playing with FIRE documentary a few months later, and was re-inspired but still hadn’t gotten around to finishing it.  I’ve finally just finished this now, while on vacation in San Deigo.  I am sitting in my hotel room looking across the bay at Coronado Island.  Who can tell me the relevance of this to Playing with FIRE?

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