I have a confession to make: I didn’t come to all these wonderful conclusions about how to retire at 30 all by myself. In fact, there were years where I completely resisted the idea. My partner actually convinced me to try FIRE and I’m here to share all the gory details.
My partner is an avid redditor and in 2012 he stumbled upon /r/personalfinance where they mentioned the concept of ‘FIRE’. This subreddit eventually led him to /r/financialindependence and Mr. Money Mustache where he learned more about the concept of early retirement.
At the time, he had just started receiving a paycheck from his first full-time job. He was making money and already living frugally so he quickly got onboard with the idea of early retirement and tried to convert me as well. As I’ll show you, I was…resistant to the idea (to say the least). Here’s a fun snippet from a Google Hangouts chat in 2012:
Partner: When are you set to retire now?
Me: Not for a while I think. Planning to put 12k into my 401K, but that’s not enough to retire anytime soon…Learning I might not want to though. (Current Me: What are you talking about?!?!)
So what got me over the hump? What steps led me to overturning my entire life, moving to the other coast and striving to retire by 30 instead of some unknown, far away date in the future? It started with a conversation on a Greyhound bus. My partner and I were busing from Manhattan to see his family and on the bus my partner knew it was the perfect time to strike because he had a captive audience (AKA me).
On this fateful ride, he showed me how the math behind early retirement worked with the 4% rule of thumb. I wasn’t very open to the idea. I didn’t know if I even wanted to retire. I didn’t want to give up the luxuries I thought I needed and I wasn’t fully convinced retiring that early could even work.
My Mom retired at 55 after not even investing in stocks until 40. That was my general goal and it seemed so far away I didn’t feel the need to think about it. I was already saving a little in my 401k and had an emergency fund – wasn’t that enough?! My acceptance of the idea went through stages over the next several years, which has been documented by our Google Hangouts chats (why does Google still save this stuff?!):
First, I Ignored The Idea
Partner [after sending a Mr. Money Mustache article on how to retire early]: I want to do this! I want to work until the returns on investments are greater than my cost of living!
Me:…What do you want from the grocery store?
Then, I Got Annoyed By It
Partner: We’ve got to find some way to cut our housing costs.
Me: Damn it – I’m too stressed to think about that right now.
(Current Me: Hey! Be nice to your partner! No cursing at him.)
And Finally, I Accepted It – And Began Arguing Retirement Semantics Because Why Not?
Partner: Things aren’t looking so good for our early retirement plans.
Me: What?! How so?!
Partner: Cause of vacations to the Maldives and all my food spending and getting new computer parts and all our clothes shopping.
Me: Uh – no. I’m still right on track thank you. And I’m not going to enjoy myself less so i can retire ridiculously soon. That doesn’t work for my lifestyle.
Partner: What’s your current retirement plan have you retiring at?
Me: No idea – whenever i feel like it. I’m still on track for early retirement. Early = before social security kicks in at 67
Partner: That’s barely early. Early retirement means something like Mr. Money Mustache, i.e. pre 40.
Me: One shopping trip of $54 isn’t getting me off track.
Partner: It’s not about one, it’s about lifestyle.
It took years for me to come around. It wasn’t until late 2014 that everything clicked and I dove in with both feet and quickly surpassed my partner’s obsession with FIRE. Based on my experience being the ‘convincee’ in this scenario, here are my tips for convincing a partner to early retire:
1. Be Patient
This is the hardest step I imagine and for me it was the most important. Those 2+ years where my partner tried to convince me gave me time to experience more of life. Time to realize that even a job that checked all my boxes wasn’t good enough, time for me to find a position that was less stressful and allowed me time to think and reflect on what I wanted out of life. I know that the fact that we don’t combine finances is what allowed us to take this time. It’s obviously harder to wait when two people are sharing finances and working at cross-purposes, but I found that having that time was what made me finally come around to his way of thinking. Depending on someone’s current situation they might not be ready to hear about FIRE or early retirement.
2. Provide Non-Judgmental Insights
I recommend providing more information like my partner did on the Greyhound bus and less like my partner did with our argument over semantics. Providing logic and numbers to back up your findings is great, but arguing over minute details or things that don’t matter is not very helpful. Keep your insights non-judgmental (I’ll go to the Maldives AND retire early if I want to!) and provide resources based on your partner’s interests and concerns.
3. Talk About Your Perfect Day
My last post described me realizing that my perfect day is also how I plan to spend my days in retirement. Chatting with my partner about what we want out of life and how we can get it was the final step to me realizing that I needed to try and retire early. The activities in my perfect day are not compatible with a 9-to-5 job, so I dove in.
Conclusion
And that’s it. I hope my experience can help someone else if their partner is waffling on trying FIRE. Since we’ve aligned our goals, having both partners on the FIRE train makes it feel turbocharged. We are both striving towards the same goal and can provide motivation and encouragement when the going gets tough.
Have you tried to convince a significant other to try FIRE or early retirement? How did it go?
i overlook a lot of little stuff, like those 54 bucks. i even encourage those kinds of irregular expenditures. sometimes i find myself asking idiotic questions about stupid purchases like take-out food and just have to take a step back. our life is good and we got there in 15 years or so, except for the wine luxury that keeps me working.
we did stuff almost like that maldives trip when we were younger and single. it wasn’t to that extent but i still have a gucci shirt and tie from rodeo drive in 1996 and they still look great. if you didn’t grow up with this luxury stuff sometimes you gotta get it out of your system and then get it together.
I’m with you: I try not to sweat the small stuff. I went way over eating out this week? Let’s see how I can make it up next month. I already have my big expenses set low so the fluctuation of that small stuff doesn’t have a large effect.
Gucci? Rodeo drive? Oh you fancy! Glad that stuff is holding up after so many years! And yes I definitely had my spendy times. I was young and still figuring out what made me happy. Turns out fancy stuff didn’t do it 🙂 , but I wasn’t sure until I tried. Thank you for stopping by!
I think that the key thing here us helping our partners to come to the conclusion themselves. The journey takes so long that you have to really believe in it yourself otherwise you just can’t stay the course.
I’m in the patient stage with my wife at the moment. She’s completely on board with the idea of not wasting money, not having debt and having decent savings. Where she isn’t quite there is on why she would want to retire early (or before the age of 60 or so). Like your perfect day post I don’t think that she has quite got her head around what she would do at that point.
I think that’s in part as she has a vocation rather than just a job so her emotions about work are very different to mine.
It’s not a major issue though as she is also very happy with the idea of us building our stash!
I think you’re exactly right. Having them come to the conclusion themselves and find their “why” seems to change everything.
It sounds like she’s halfway there! And since she has a vocation I totally get it – if I actually enjoyed my work I doubt I’d ever want to retire unless something drastic happened. So happy she’s onboard with building the stash! Sounds like y’all have it figured out.
Hi,
It’s great for you to find a partner with the common idea as you. I think that two makes better chance than one.
Good luck in your FIRE journey and wish you achieve FIRE in a shorter time.
WTK
Hi! Yeah we got lucky in that regard. Having a partner on the same page definitely helps. Thanks so much for stopping by!
It’s important that spending is aligned with values and priorities, not just a particular amount. A $54 expense can be wasteful if one does it mindlessly (like emotional eating leading to weight gain). But a $5,400 expense might still fit right into spending priorities. I regret more of the $50 dinners here and there than the thousands, tens of thousands over the years, spent on travel. But travel is a priority for us, and we’re not foodies. On the other hand, I have friends who are foodies and would make a very different tradeoff and that works for them.
I’m completely with you and it’s cool to hear your priorities. I can’t imagine not being obsessed with food personally 🙂 . I have a problem lol. I’m still working to solidify my spending in relation to my values. For example, I try to not ever buy alcohol out, but if my partner asks me to to go somewhere new with him and grab a drink in the sun I’ll do it because I value that time with him and the new experience enough to pay $7 for something I would pay $1 for at home. I think my priorities would be: Time with loved ones (flights to see them etc) > Travel > Food. It’s cool to actually write this out. I think it will help me make value decisions in the future. Thank you for stopping by!
Great post. Talking about money in a relationship is the only way it works long-term IMO. I’ve written a couple of posts on the topic myself. One on marriage and money https://moneywithapurpose.com/have-a-healthy-marriage/. The other on knowing your why https://moneywithapurpose.com/gain-financial-freedom/.
Agreeing to disagree in a healthy way is also critical. I’ve learned (the hard way) I’m never going to argue my way to a point. Patience is the key, which you rightly put in the #1 position.
Keep up the good work.
Agreed! And super cool to see those posts – I’ll check them out. And yes agreeing to disagree can be huge. Continuing to argue can sometimes make people act defensive and ‘dig their heels in’ in my experience. Glad you agree with the focus on patience! And thank you!
Nice story, I didn’t expect that! I though you were a natural born FIRE person, what an amazing story. I wish I could make Mrs RIP surpass me on the FIRE scale, but I guess it’s close to impossible.
I loved the “talk about your perfect day” strategy. I do that all the time. A minor variation though, since I can’t put all the stuff I want to do in a single day. I have a set of “perfect days templates”: the perfect outdoor day, the perfect travel day, the perfect writing day, the perfect leisure day and a mix of all of these.
Hi Mr. RIP! It was so funny to see your comment pop up because I was just reading your latest post. And yeah it was time to come clean. I was one of those skeptics. I’m so glad my partner didn’t give up on trying to convince me. I can’t even imagine who I’d be at this age if I wasn’t pursuing FIRE. Good luck with Mrs RIP – there’s always hope!
Oooh I love the idea of perfect day templates! That’s really cool. Now I need to figure out what my perfect writing day is. I’ve literally never thought of that. Hmm. Thank you so much for stopping by!
Loved this! Also omg this is like me trying to convince Mr. Mod on the same time line and same medium 😂 good ol’ hangouts. Things clicked for him in 2014 as well.
Incredible to see the change in a few short years! Look at you now, so close to FIRE :D.
So glad you liked it! Yeeeah lol – embarrassed to say I was on the wrong side of that argument lol 🙂 . Good ol’ hangouts indeed. What was going on in 2014?! It seems like the year of revelations! Glad you got him onboard. And yeah let’s see what the next few months brings!!
I’m really sure that you two are great couples. After some years he really did convinced you to FIRE. Good luck on your journey and thank you for sharing us your story.
I think we’re pretty great lol. And thank you!!
You’re open with each other and he didn’t stop on reminding you to FIRE until you really got convinced. I think you’re also a great partner to have. Thanks for sharing us your story!!
Anytime 🙂 ! Good observations on why this might have worked out 😉 .