Playing with FIRE: trailer

The FIRE concept (Financial Independence Retire Early) seems to be a new one to many people.

There's a brand new documentary about it: Playing with FIRE by Scott Reickens. It's his family's journey into the FIRE movement. Their attempt to buck the consumer culture and bring forward financial freedom.

Check out the trailer.

I was stunned that 69% of Americans have less than $1,000 in savings - and that one-third have no savings at all. It seems US advertisers have milked Americans for every last dollar they earn.

Who is Scott?

If you want to know more about the leadup to how Scott Rieckens got into this you may want to check out this episode of the Choose FI podcast.

His earlier life

Scott talks about "lifestyle creep" - moving to bigger places and buying stuff just to fill the space. He was paying $2850/mth for rent (that's $34,200 a year).

On top of that he paid a nanny to watch his kid (which he'd prefer to do himself) and realising that half the time he was at work to pay for the nanny so he could be at work. He describes this as the definition of being on the hamster wheel.

Together the rent and the nanny totalled $64,000 per year in expenses- equal to about $100,000 before tax.

His wife's happiness

Scott asked his wife to list things that make her happy on a weekly basis. She wrote:

read her baby a book
listen to her baby laugh
have coffee with her husband
have a glass of wine at night
eat delicious chocolate
ride bikes with our family
go for a walk
spend time with our parents and family

Most of those things are free. For very little money we can have both happiness and "financial stability for decades to come".

What is the FIRE community?

The host describes the community of FIRE people as "a community that has utterly crushed the hamster wheel. By being willing to make some slightly more optimised choices over an extended period of time they have purchased their freedom. Now they can dedicate that space to the people they care about and the projects they are passionate about."

Where can I see the film?

[Update] Since I wrote this article, the live screenings have ended. The movie is now available on iTunes, Amazon, Google Play or Vimeo. Or you can buy the DVD on Amazon.

PS. In the podcast they mention Zillow, a US website for comparing housing costs. In Australia the best equivalent I've found is Real Estate's Neighbourhoods. I refer to it in my article on how to save thousands in rent. Domain's Suburb Profiles has good info for purchasing but rental data is less user-friendly.

Comments

Ethical Investing for Australians

I write about investing, because it's a key part of life. Spending less and investing means an automatic income. An automatic income means we can work less (if we choose) and definitely stress less. But where to invest? What to invest in? Many people expect their money to be invested responsibly and ethically - rather than making money through things like cigarettes, weapons, casinos, adult entertainment, environmental destruction, and pollution from fossil fuels. Those are all things we could probably do with less of. So how do we invest to get good returns - and to have a positive effect on the world? Here are some sources I've seen: Ethical Investing in Australia At Frugality and Freedom , Michelle has done a fair bit of research into Ethical Investing in Australia . For herself, she's chosen Bank Australia for banking, Australian Ethical for superannuation, and two exchange-traded funds ( FAIR and ETHI ) for her share investing outside of super. She also gives detail...

How to waste a year's wages

A friend recently asked me why it is that so many people (on good incomes) are struggling to save. Often the big three money areas are housing, transport and food. In one sense these are necessary items. But what we spend on them is often way more than necessary. I crunched some numbers on how much extra my wife and I could spend on these things - if for some reason we wanted to burn our money. 1. Housing Our apartment is fairly nice, but also cost-effective. I've mentioned how choosing it saves us $1,800 per year , compared to a similar one we saw. The high end of 2-bedroom apartments in our suburb is $305 per week more than our apartment. Not $305 per week. $305 per week more than ours is. I cannot get over that. Sure it's new and modern-looking, but that's a lot of money. It's an extra $15,860 per year above what we pay. 2. Transport The Australian Automobile Association lists the costs of owning and running a car. It includes many often-overlooked c...

Don't dump on charities

Netflix causes mass dumping. Here's an alternative. January is usually a big month for physical donations to charity. In 2019 it's been over-the-top (literally) as charity donation bins have been overflowing with items. The Netflix series "Tidying Up" by famous declutterer Marie Kondo (see her book ) has inspired many to declutter their homes. But in the process they've cluttered the streets. What's so bad about donating? When the bins overflow the extra items are thrown away. Having been in the weather, the rain and on the ground, they are classified as contaminated and cannot be sold. To make it worse, much of what fills the bins is not good enough to sell, and is also dumped. Bad donations hurt charities 13 million dollars. That's how much it costs charities to deal with all the junk we dump on them - 60,000 tonnes a year. Lifeline says half its stores have stopped accepting donations. We might think we're helping, but that's a lot ...

But wait... there's less!

Search This Blog