The other day my partner and I sat down to do our regular FIRE (Financial Independence/Retire Early) calculations, but this time the results were different. Originally I calculated that given my current spending and saving level in NYC I could retire in 10 years. My partner calculated something similar, but wanted a larger nest egg to sit on so he was going to work about 5 years longer. This time when we did our calculations and accounted for moving to a much less expensive city (Seattle) he discovered that he too could retire in 10 years. It was time to celebrate!He had the great idea of having a FIRE party to celebrate us both being 10 years from retirement. For the ceremony we first gathered the bowl of change that had been accumulating on our desk for about a year and a half and took it to the bank to become real money. We bet how much money the change bag would turn out to hold and we were both way off – it had 3.5 times the amount either of us guessed. And we split it and put it right into our retirement funds.
Then we planned a steak dinner with all the trimmings and after each having a huge piece of steak each the meal came out to a whopping $10, compared to the $100 it would have easily cost at a restaurant. We usually buy food based on what’s on sale, but this time we even bought the full price steak (big change). That was the extent of our splurging for the occasion. We also planned how to make a crockpot chili and a dish of mac and cheese for the week. Delicious.
I’m so excited that my partner will be able to join me in early retirement. He’s decided to work part time as a programmer for a few months of the year, which will give him that larger nest egg he’s looking for. I haven’t ruled out part time work for myself, but it would be in a different field – or happen after I get this industry out of my system for a while. A friend of mine mentioned the other day how advertising is not actually about selling products, but communication. Specifically effective communication. That put a slightly different spin on how I’ve always viewed this seemingly bloodsucking industry. Though I admit his role in agencies is quite different from mine – he is responsible for effective communication while I am responsible for an increase in product sales. Still – it was an interesting thought.
During our FIRE celebration I was also so pleased to see examples of this new life we’ve created for ourselves everywhere. In the past to celebrate we would usually go out to dinner and a bar for drinks because that’s what people did. I realized even then that I would prefer to be at home in comfy clothes, eating with just the two of us. Which is why that’s the date I usually ask for for on birthdays and anniversaries. Instead we created something – we learned something (see the Waffle Disaster of 2015) and we grew as people. It’s so exciting that I feel free to celebrate in a way that I find so much more fun and it’s just icing on the cake that it aligns with my FIRE goals. 10 years and counting!