• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
Good Financial Cents®
Content is based on in-depth research & analysis. Opinions are our own. We may earn a commission when you click or make a purchase from links on our site. Learn more.
  • Make Money
    • Get Money Now
      • Ultimate Guide to Making Money
      • Need Money Now
      • Get Free Money Fast
      • Make Money Fast
      • Make $1K Per Month
      • Make $100 Per Day
    • Control Your Destiny
      • Self Employed Jobs
      • Make Money from Home
      • Hobbies That Make Money
      • How to Become a Freelance Writer
      • Small Business Ideas to Start
      • How to Become an Independent Contractor
      • Best Online Jobs
    • Passive Income
      • Passive Income Ideas
      • Multiple Streams of Income
      • Extra Income
      • Residual Income Ideas
      • Learn to Sell e-Books
      • Make Money on Facebook
      • Make Money on Tiktok
      • Best Online Survey Sites to Make Money
    • Explore More
      • Best Side Hustle Ideas
      • Make Money for Teens
      • Best Online Colleges
      • Best Jobs No College Degree
      • Become a Millionaire
      • Careers for the Future
  • Manage Money
    • Best Of
      • Budgeting Tools
      • Personal Finance Software
      • Best Cashback Cards
    • Company Reviews
      • Personal Capital vs Mint
      • Personal Capital Review
      • SmartAsset Review
    • Guides
      • Buy or Lease a Car
      • What is Liquid Net Worth?
      • Setting Financial Goals
      • How to Budget
      • Ways to Save Money
    • Explore More
      • How Much Car Can I Afford?
      • Best Auto Refinance Companies
  • Invest
    • Best Of
      • Best Short and Long-Term Investments
      • Best Low Risk Investments
      • Best Online Stock Brokers
      • Best Crypto Exchanges
      • Best Short Term Investments
      • Best Long Term Investments
      • Best Trading Platforms
      • Best Investment Apps
    • Company Reviews
      • Lending Club
      • Robinhood
      • M1 Finance
      • Ally
      • TD Ameritrade
      • Fundrise
      • Betterment
      • Etrade
      • Wealthfront
    • Guides
      • Investing for Beginners
      • Investing Small Amounts of Money
      • Investing in Real Estate
      • No Money Down Real Estate
      • Bonds vs Stocks
      • Peer to Peer Lending
      • Best Hedges Against Inflation
      • Safe Bitcoin Investing in 2023
    • Explore More
      • Bitcoin vs. Real Estate
      • Betterment vs Wealthfront
      • Investing for College Students
      • Stock Market Alternatives
    • By Investment Amount
      • How to Invest $100
      • How to Invest $1K
      • How to Invest $2k-$3k
      • How to Invest $5K
      • How to Invest $10K
      • How to Invest $15k
      • How to Invest $20K
      • How to Invest $30k
      • How to Invest $50K
      • How to Invest $100K
      • How to Invest $200K
      • How to Invest $500K
      • How to Invest $1M
  • Taxes
    • Best Of
      • Best Tax Relief Companies
      • Best Tax Software
    • Guides
      • Federal Income Tax Guide 2023
      • Taxes and Cryptocurrency
      • How to Do Your Own Taxes
      • How to Invest Your Tax Refund
      • Hiring a Professional Tax Preparer
      • Tax Tips for Freelancers
    • Company Reviews
      • TurboTax Review
      • H&R Block Review
      • Taxslayer
      • Tax Act
  • Insurance
    • Best Of
      • Best Life Insurance
      • Best Home Insurance
      • Best Auto Insurance
      • Cheap Term Life Insurance
      • Car Insurance For Young Adults
    • Guides
      • Term vs Whole Life
      • Different Types of Car Insurance
      • Average Cost of Car Insurance
    • Explore More
      • Life Insurance Over 50
      • Life Insurance Over 80
      • $1 Million Life Insurance
      • $2 Million Life Insurance
      • $3 Million Life Insurance
    • Company Reviews
      • Banner Life Insurance
      • Ladder Life Insurance
      • Health IQ
      • Haven Life
      • Policygenius
      • State Farm Auto Insurance Review
  • Retirement
    • Roth IRA
      • Best Places to Open a Roth IRA
      • Best Investments for Roth IRA
      • 7 Roth IRA Secrets
      • Roth IRA Conversion Guide
      • Roth IRA Rules
      • Roth IRA vs Roth 401k
      • Are Roth IRA Contributions Tax Deductible?
    • 401(k)
      • 401(k) Limits
      • 401(k) to Roth Rollover
      • Is 401(k) Enough for Retirement?
      • Maxed Out 401(k): What's next?
    • Traditional IRA
      • Traditional IRA Rules and Limits
      • Traditional IRA vs. 401(k)
      • Simple IRA Rules
      • SEP IRA Rules
      • How Much Do You Need to Start an IRA?
    • Explore More
      • SEP IRA vs. Roth IRA
      • 457 Plan for Successful Retirement
      • 401a Rollover Rules
      • How to Retire at 50
      • How to Retire at 55
  • Banking
    • Best Of
      • Best National Banks
      • Best High-Yield Savings Accounts
      • Best Checking Accounts
      • Best Savings Accounts
      • Best CD Rates
      • Best Money Market Accounts
    • Company Reviews
      • BBVA
      • Synchrony
      • Wells Fargo
    • Explore More
      • 9 Banking Alternatives for 2023
      • What is a Credit Union?
  • Home
    • Best Of
      • Best Mortgage Lenders
      • Best Mortgage Refinance Companies
      • Best Home Warranties
      • Best Homeowners Insurance
      • Best VA Loans
      • Best Mortgage Rates
      • Best Moving Companies
      • Best Home Security
    • Guides
      • Home Buying Checklist
      • Online Home Appraisal
      • How Much House Can I Afford?
      • First-time Homebuyer Programs
      • How to Get Approved for a Home Loan
      • Save Money When Building a House
      • How to Save for a Downpayment
      • When to Refinance Your Mortgage
    • Explore More
      • 15 vs. 30-year Mortgage
      • Home Warranty vs. Home Insurance
      • Veterans United Home Loan Review
      • Quicken Loans Review
      • HELOC vs Second Mortgage
      • DCU Mortgage Review
      • Costco Mortgage Program Review
      • USAA Mortgage Loan Review
  • Credit
    • Best Of
      • Best Credit Repair Companies
      • Best ID Theft Protection Services
      • Best Credit Report Options
      • Best Bad Credit Loans
    • Guides
      • How to Build Your Credit Score
      • How to Raise Your Credit Score in 5 Months
      • How to Dispute Your Credit Report
      • Hot to Remove Collections from Your Credit Reports
      • How Identity Theft Destroys Your Credit Score
    • Explore More
      • What is a Good Credit Score?
      • What is a Bad Credit Score?
  • Debt
    • Best Of
      • Best Debt Consolidation Loans
      • Best Personal Loans
      • Best Student Loans
      • Best Student Loan Refinance
    • Guides
      • What is Debt Consolidation?
      • How to Get Out of Debt
      • How to Get a Personal Loan Approved
      • How to Pay Off Student Loans Faster
      • Should I Consolidate My Debts?
      • Should I File for Bankruptcy?
    • Company Reviews
      • Credible
      • Sofi

6 Reasons to Try the FIRE Movement

https://www.goodfinancialcents.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/MG_5503-150x150.jpg
  • Written By:
    Jeff Rose, CFP®

    Jeff Rose, CFP®

    Jeff Rose, CFP® is a Certified Financial Planner™, founder of Good Financial Cents, and author of the personal finance...

    Read More
  • Updated: September 3, 2021
  • 6 Min Read
  • Advertising Disclosure

    Advertising Disclosure

    GoodFinancialCents® has an advertising relationship with the companies included on this page. All of our content is based on objective analysis, and the opinions are our own. For more information, please check out our full disclaimer and complete list of partners.

Quality Verified THE GFC® PROMISE
shield check icon
Quality Verified

GoodFinancialCents® partners with outside experts to ensure we are providing accurate financial content.

These reviewers are industry leaders and professional writers who regularly contribute to reputable publications such as the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.

Our expert reviewers review our articles and recommend changes to ensure we are upholding our high standards for accuracy and professionalism.

Our expert reviewers hold advanced degrees and certifications and have years of experience with personal finances, retirement planning and investments.

shield check icon
Why You Can Trust GoodFinancialCents®

GoodFinancialCents® partners with outside experts to ensure we are providing accurate financial content.

These reviewers are industry leaders and professional writers who regularly contribute to reputable publications such as the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.

Our expert reviewers review our articles and recommend changes to ensure we are upholding our high standards for accuracy and professionalism.

Our expert reviewers hold advanced degrees and certifications and have years of experience with personal finances, retirement planning and investments.

The idea behind FIRE is if you can earn more money, live on less, and save and invest the rest, you can cut years — or even decades — off of your working career. Of course, the FIRE movement has its problems. 

Not everyone can save 50% or more of their income to work toward FIRE. And most who retire early continue working in some capacity to avoid running out of money early. Also, achieving FIRE is considerably easier during times of economic prosperity — no matter what anyone says, it would’ve been a lot harder to get excited about FIRE in 2008 when the Dow dropped by 33.84%!

I’ve learned that there are benefits to cutting expenses, saving money, and investing more. Some advantages to FIRE don’t even have anything to do with money at all.

Achieving FIRE and retiring early sounds good in theory, but it’s actually very hard to execute in a real-world sense. But here’s why you should try anyway.

6 Reasons FIRE Still Works

But, you know what? I would argue that anyone who can, should at least try to pursue FIRE anyway. As I’ve become more interested in financial independence, I’ve learned that there are side benefits to cutting expenses and learning to save money and invest more. Some advantages to FIRE don’t even have anything to do with money at all.

If you’re on the fence about FIRE, here are some of the reasons you might want to change your way of thinking and get on board.

1. Encourages Living With Intention

After reading Michael Hyatt’s book, Living Forward, its concept of “drifting” stuck with me. Drifting occurs any time you’re going through the motions in life, but living without any concrete plans or goals. 

Maybe you’re going to work every day, taking care of your kids, and keeping up with bills. But in these day-to-day tasks, you’re not actively achieving anything in particular. 

You’re just waking up and getting by.

With the FIRE movement though, you learn to live with intentionality because you’re forced to focus on your spending, and the specific goals necessary to reach financial independence. 

As you pursue FIRE, you can’t simply drift through life in hopes that the numbers work out in your favor. To have enough money to retire early, you need a plan. You have no choice but to set goals, and the act of doing so forces you to get real about how you’re living and what you really want in life. 

Are you saving to buy a house? Are you saving to pay for college? Are you saving to retire early? Whatever your goals are, FIRE forces you to reverse engineer your long-term plan so it’s actionable and intentional today.

2. Feels More Financially Secure

Here’s another potential side benefit of pursuing FIRE — you get the opportunity to feel more secure and sleep better at night. This is something I personally experienced when I started becoming FIRE-minded, but it’s also backed up by research. 

In fact, a 2019 survey from Schwab showed that 63% of people with a written financial plan said they felt financially stable, compared to only 28% of those without a financial plan. Further, 56% of people with a financial plan said they felt “very confident” about reaching their financial goals.

If you’ve ever felt helpless about your finances before, then this probably makes total sense. Having a plan provides some comfort — even if you are far away from your goal. At least you’re working toward something, and that provides peace of mind. 

3. Forces You to Take Control

I don’t always agree with everything Dave Ramsey says, but I do love some of his best quotes. One example is:

“You must gain control over your money or the lack of it will forever control you.” — Dave Ramsey

The point I’m making is that, if you don’t ask yourself important, uncomfortable questions, you might never get control of your finances — or your life. 

Think about it this way. If you’re drifting through life and spending money without really saving for a goal, you’re at the mercy of your job and outside factors that affect your income and savings. But if you learn to take control of your spending, you’ll also learn to take control of your future finances in ways you probably never realized before.

When most people start pursuing FIRE, they realize right away that the biggest part that’s in their control is their spending. The other side of that coin is, of course, how much you’re able to save.

A recent survey from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis shows the average American set aside 5% to 8% of their income in savings. In contrast, those who pursue FIRE, frequently save 50% to 70% of their incomes toward their goals. 

When you find a way to save a large percentage of your income, this means you’ve taken control of the reins. You have goals and you have a purpose, and your money is no longer controlling your future. You are.

4. Empowers You with Information

According to a joint study from PwC US and the Global Financial Literacy Excellence Center (GFLEC) at the George Washington University, only 24% of millennials demonstrate basic financial literacy. And, even with minimal knowledge of their own, only 27% had sought out professional financial advice. 

This is one area where even studying FIRE can leave you dramatically ahead. After all, pursuing FIRE or even reading about it forces empowers you with information about saving and investing for the long haul. 

For example, through FIRE you’ll randomly learn personal finance lessons like the 4% rule for retirement and how to create a budget. These are cornerstone concepts of the FIRE movement. 

You’re also forced to think about your income and your financial situation in a brand new way. This includes questions, like “How much are you actually earning?” and “How much interest are you paying toward debt every month?”

As a financial advisor, I can tell you for sure that a lot of people don’t know the answer to any of these questions because they’ve never thought about it before. You wind up learning so much that can help you along the way toward your goal.

5. Learn How to Budget and Question Yourself

I remember back in the day when my wife and I first started getting serious about budgeting. We’d sit down to look over our bills, and were shocked by some of our ongoing expenses and subscriptions. 

These budgeting “meetings” made a big difference in how we worked together to achieve our financial goals. When we sat down to look over our expenses, our income, and where we were headed, we found ways to spend less without affecting our quality of life.

Now, I hate budgeting, but I do think it’s an important part of pursuing FIRE — especially at first. After all, you can’t really work toward major financial goals if you have no idea where your money is going every month. 

And, the thing is, you can’t really argue anything when you start budgeting and tracking your expenses. You get the chance to see where your money went, in black and white, and you get the opportunity to act accordingly. This may sound like a huge buzzkill, but I’ve found that taking control and budgeting is actually really empowering. 

Crazily enough, not enough people have any idea how they spend the income they work so hard to earn. In fact, a recent survey from the budgeting app Mint found that 65% of respondents had no idea how much they spent last month. 

When you ask someone pursuing FIRE how much they save each month, these people know. In fact, they often know their savings amount down to the penny. 

6. FIRE Helps You Be Grateful

Finally, there’s one more major benefit of FIRE that goes largely ignored. I’m going to call it the “contentment factor”. It’s the ability to be content with what you have. 

Everything involved with FIRE — tracking your spending, cutting things you don’t care about, creating long-term goals — can really put your life in perspective for you. It also makes you realize you might have more power over your life than you realized. That’s a pretty amazing lesson. 

And of course, learning contentment leads to learning how to feel grateful. How amazing is it that, in this broken world we live in, you can earn a living, care for your family, and set aside something for the future? How amazing is it that you have the chance to work hard and retire early, and then spend decades doing whatever it is you love?

This brings me to a quote I love from Oprah:

“Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.” ―

Oprah Winfrey

This is what I love about FIRE; it really encourages you to be grateful and teaches you to be content with what you have. After all, there is no way you could ever save 50% or even 30% of your income without these lessons. 

Pursuing FIRE teaches you that you don’t need the hottest pair of sneakers, and that you might not need that cable television package you pay for each month. It teaches you that a huge car payment isn’t worth it, and that any “friend” who judges your car probably isn’t a good one. 

Learning about FIRE makes you ask yourself all of these questions, and sometimes, that’s all it takes to realize how good you have it.

Garth Brooks once said that “you aren’t wealthy until you have something money can’t buy.” 

And perhaps that’s the greatest benefit of pursuing FIRE. You learn that happiness and true contentment comes from within. And that, my friends, is priceless.

Related: What Is Financial Independence And How Do I Achieve It?
Facebook LinkedIn Twitter

About the Author

Jeff Rose, CFP® is a Certified Financial Planner™, founder of Good Financial Cents, and author of the personal finance book Soldier of Finance. He was a financial planner for 16+ years having founded, Alliance Wealth Management, a SEC Registered Investment Advisory firm, before selling it to focus on his passion - educating the masses on the importance of financial freedom through this blog, his podcast, and YouTube channel.


Jeff holds a Bachelors in Science in Finance and minor in Accounting from Southern Illinois University - Carbondale. In addition to his CFP® designation, he also earned the marks of AAMS® - Accredited Asset Management Specialist - and CRPC® - Chartered Retirement Planning Counselor.

While a practicing financial advisor, Jeff was named to Investopedia's distinguished list of Top 100 advisors (as high as #6) multiple times and CNBC's Digital Advisory Council.

Jeff is an Iraqi combat veteran and served 9 years in the Army National Guard. His work is regularly featured in Forbes, Business Insider, Inc.com and Entrepreneur.

Facebook Twitter LinkedIn


You Might Also Enjoy

Roth IRA vs Traditional IRA: Understand the Difference

Roth IRA vs Traditional IRA: Understand the Difference

How to Retire at 50 in 7 Easy Steps

How to Retire at 50 in 7 Easy Steps

How to Check Your 401(k) Balance

How to Check Your 401(k) Balance

Pre-tax vs. Roth (after-tax) 401k Contributions

Pre-tax vs. Roth (after-tax) 401k Contributions

7 Things You Need to Know About a Simple IRA for 2023

7 Things You Need to Know About a Simple IRA for 2023

Roth IRA Rules and Contribution Limits for 2023

Roth IRA Rules and Contribution Limits for 2023

Leave a Reply

Cancel reply

  • Make Money
  • Manage Money
  • Invest
  • Taxes
  • Insurance
  • Retirement
  • Banking
  • Home
  • Credit
  • Debt
  • About
  • Contact
  • Facebook LinkedIn Twitter

© 2023 Good Financial Cents®. All Rights Reserved. | Privacy Policy | Disclaimer

All written content on this site is for information purposes only. Opinions expressed herein are solely those of AWM, unless otherwise specifically cited. Material presented is believed to be from reliable sources and no representations are made by our firm as to another parties’ informational accuracy or completeness. All information or ideas provided should be discussed in detail with an advisor, accountant or legal counsel prior to implementation.

All third party trademarks, including logos and icons, referenced in this website, are the property of their respective owners. Unless otherwise indicated, the use of third party trademarks herein does not imply or indicate any relationship, sponsorship, or endorsement between Good Financial Cents® and the owners of those trademarks. Any reference in this website to third party trademarks is to identify the corresponding third party goods and/or services.