Financial Independence Retire Early (FIRE) is a movement that pushed individuals to retire as young and early as possible by achieving financial independence from a young age, and not at 65.
It’s a basic numbers game, to FIRE, you need 25X of your annual spending. This means if you spend $25000 a year, you’ll need $625K (which is $25K x 25). Which is based on the 4% withdrawal rate annually (but I’ll instead invest the $625K for 4-5% dividend returns so that my principal amount will be kept intact.
That’s that general overview, and the most important thing to consider is:
1) WHY
1a: Time freedom.
This scores highest on my list because our time on earth is limited (most average humans live 75-90 years old) and I’m not going to wait till I’m 65-70 years old to retire, leaving 10+ years to enjoy. Besides, by then, I probably can’t walk that much or may be in too much pain to enjoy retirement.
I prefer to enjoy retirement when I’m younger, when I can still have the health and energy to spend time with my wife, kids, family, friends etc; and maybe work till I die if the work is super meaningful and brings a lot of relationships together. Maybe.
1b. Flexibility to pursue
– interests such as studying law, art, philanthropy, medicine etc
– spend time with people, animals and projects that I care about
– serendipitous moments or opportunities
– happiness
2) HOW
This is the easy but boring part – the basic how is generally EARNING MORE and/or SPENDING LESS.
Spending less will help you achieve your FIRE goals much faster, but there is only so much you can save and cut back at times, and I don’t want to cut back too much until retirement isn’t fun.
This is one of the reasons why I chose entrepreneurship, to accelerate my FIRE journey and at the same time, meet and serve more people that I care and like =)

Iām the founder and writer here at NigelChua.com; as well as serial entrepreneur, therapy business entrepreneur, digital entrepreneur, investor and also happy husband, father and Christian.
Started and sold off a business for 7-figures; built another 7-figure one and growing it further, plus building/investing into other businesses and investments as well as advisory works.
Nowadays I share and teach entrepreneurship, financial independence, retiring early as well as building and living a life you love.
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