Owen Raskovitch

Yep.

You learn about your philosophy of life.

So I feel like it's an umbrella goal because working towards achieving financial independence has like a hundred mini steps along the way.

Yeah, it's not just this one big picture.

It's one big thing that you need to achieve.

It's all these little things, these little sacrifices that go into it.

But basically, to just bring it home for some listeners, FIRE, and you've written here, is all about increasing your savings rate, so the amount of money that you save from your after-tax income, so the amount of money that you take home, consuming less, pursuing happiness, and having the financial freedom and flexibility to choose if, how, and when you work.

Sounds pretty good.

Yeah, I wrote that, but I think it sums up my thoughts on the matter.

Yeah, fair enough.

And you've also got another note here that says fire is not necessarily about frugality, so not about being a tight ass necessarily and not spending your money or being a miser is another way to put it more diplomatically.

But it's not necessarily about being frugal and retiring to do nothing.

There's so much that goes in between those two extremes, which we'll get to in just a moment.

And I think that's probably one of the biggest misconceptions that has made it a hot topic because you're just imagining people retiring at 40 and sitting at home and watching Netflix all day.

Yeah.

I've used that example.

Using someone else's account.

Yeah.

The friend's Netflix.

But really most people that have the sort of aptitude and dedication to achieve financial independence earlier than traditional retirement age are not the kind of people that are going to sit and watch Netflix all day.