My FIRE Plan: I Don't Want Retirement. I Want Financial Freedom.
When people hear FIRE there can be the assumption that someone wants to retire decades early (it’s in the name!) and never work again. But that isn’t my goal.
My goal is Barista FIRE.
Ok, yes, I would love to full FIRE, but that just seems very unattainable — more on this later.
For anyone who is familiar with FIRE but not the different variations, Barista FIRE generally means building enough investments to cover part of your living expenses while continuing to work. Instead of accumulating a portfolio large enough to replace your entire income, you’re building one that takes on a meaningful portion of the financial load. The name comes from one of the original examples: working part time at Starbucks for the health insurance while your portfolio covered the rest.
What appeals to me about Barista FIRE isn’t the idea of escaping work. It’s having more freedom to choose the work I do.
For me, success does not look like sitting around all day doing nothing (I would be horrible at this). It’s being able to reach a point where I can make career decisions based on whether I want to do the work instead of whether the paycheck is large enough to survive on. I would love to spend more time working with children again or in a social services field. Those jobs are important, meaningful, and unfortunately often paid terribly. In many places, they pay so little that making them work as a long-term career can be difficult without another source of financial support.
I am building that support for myself.
My big goal was to reach Barista FIRE by 45. At this point, 50 feels more realistic. Life did not exactly unfold according to plan. Divorce has a way of messing sh*t up. I have had to do a lot of rebuilding.
Part of the reason I gravitated toward Barista FIRE instead of traditional FIRE is that I don’t think the version of early retirement that gets talked about online is particularly realistic for me. I have a fairly niche set of skills that don’t easily translate into the kinds of careers that produce huge salaries. Could I potentially earn more money by completely changing directions and spending ten years doing work I hate? Maybe. But I’ve known too many people who never got the retirement they planned for. None of us know how much time we actually have. Spending the next decade grinding through work I loathe so I can stop working a few years sooner just doesn’t feel like a worthwhile trade.
I don’t actually need a particularly expensive life. I rent a tiny house in a tiny house community, and I genuinely love it. I don’t want a giant home. I don’t care about luxury cars. My hobbies are generally inexpensive, with travel being the main exception, but I still do that cheaper than most people. Comfortable, for me, is not some extravagant vision. Comfortable means slower mornings. It means not feeling stressed every time I need to make a dentist appointment. It means being able to travel during school breaks without feeling like I’m sabotaging my future. It means having the flexibility to spend a few years living abroad if I decide that’s what I want, without feeling like I’m setting myself back financially or professionally.
More than anything, though, I want a life that stands on its own financially. I don’t want my ability to pay my bills, travel, save for retirement, or feel secure to depend on having a partner. After everything I’ve been through over the last few years, independence matters to me.
When I think about what success looks like, I don’t think about a specific portfolio number. I think about freedom of choice. I’ll know I have gotten there when I can take a job because I want to do the work, not because I need the paycheck. That’s the future I’m building toward, and it’s the reason I’m pursuing FIRE in the first place.
In the future, I’ll share my actual Barista FIRE target, my full FIRE target, and the numbers behind how I’m thinking about both. For now, I wanted to start with the bigger picture.
I would love to hear about your bigger picture as well. Are you going for FIRE, Barista FIRE like me, Fat FIRE, Lean Fire? I would love to know your goals.
Book Recommendations:
I wanted to recommend two books on this topic that might help if you are new to thinking about what an alternative life might look like for you or if you are curious about what Barista FIRE has looked like to others.
The first one is Work Optional by Tanja Hester. It can help you figure out the financial independence vision that would work for you and your family, and knowing what is enough.
The second one is Deep Creek by Pam Houston. This one might not be as obvious, it is about a writer trying to buy land on her own on a low income and then turning her life into the life of her dreams. She isn’t on a FI journey, but she is on a love-life-on-her-own-terms journey.
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The information shared in The FIRE Freedom Project reflects my personal experience, opinions, and investment decisions. It is provided for educational and informational purposes only and should not be considered financial, investment, tax, or legal advice. I am not a licensed financial professional. Always do your own research and consider consulting a qualified advisor before making financial decisions.