The Real Meaning of Financial Independence, Retire Early (FIRE): Time, Choices, and Freedom

Gin
Aug 22, 2025
8 min read

Updated: Jan 14

A woman with yellow nails holding a small red alarm clock with a look of surprise

It’s been roughly four months since I retired and almost six months since my wife did. We often talk about how this was a great choice, but early retirement wasn’t always the plan. As mentioned in my first post, I had doubts we’d be able to retire at all, let alone early. Back in 2006, we weren’t thinking of retirement. We were thinking of starting a family.

One day, I was killing time at a Borders Bookstore—remember those?—when I came across a book about how to make money in stocks. It was literally titled, “How To Make Money In Stocks,” by William O’Neil. We were broke, and finding it felt like a sign from the heavens. So, I bought the book.

It was the first book I had come across that gave clear instructions on when to buy and sell stocks. I read that book multiple times, highlighting sections and filling a 2-inch binder with notes. I was determined to use the stock market to replace one of our salaries. This way, one of us could be a stay-at-home parent. At least for a few years.

Later that year, I opened our first brokerage account with $2,000. Soon after, I bought my first stocks ever. It was just a few hundred dollars' worth, but this was real money. And it was money we didn’t have a lot of. I remember my heart beating wildly as I pressed the Buy button. I was a nervous wreck, just like in Eminem’s “Lose Yourself.”

His palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy…

I can’t remember if I ever made money off of those shares. But overall, my first venture into “beating the stock market” wasn’t successful.

After just a few months, I gave up.

But this failure wasn't the end. It only delayed the real discovery—the deeper meaning of financial independence, retire early (FIRE). I didn't know it yet, but my perspective was about to change when I started working for a new employer.

MEETING AN EARLY RETIREE

A year later, I had a new job. It was early 2007, and business was booming for the company I worked for. Buying and selling stocks was the last thing on my mind. I forgot all about my brokerage account. I was going to earn money the old-fashioned way: die working.

Then something unusual happened. Lisa, a finance manager from down the hall, announced her retirement. She was just 35.

Our company was notorious for paying its employees poorly, so there was no way she could have simply saved her way to retirement. Everyone in my department started to gossip.

“She must have found herself a sugar daddy.”

“I think she worked as a stripper on the side.”

None of the theories as to how she did it were very flattering, and they were all based on her looks.

What if she’s just really smart and figured it out, I wondered to myself. Lisa was the first—and still only—other person I’ve personally met who retired early.

It would’ve made for a great story if Lisa had taken me under her wing, like Yoda did with Luke Skywalker, and shared her financial knowledge. But, unfortunately, I didn’t know her well enough to feel comfortable asking how she did it before she left.

Lisa’s retirement did, however, inspire me to take another crack at buying and selling individual stocks. If she figured out how to escape the rat race early, then maybe I could too.

I spent the next year and a half studying to prepare to get back into the stock market.

A donkey reaching for a carrot dangling in front of his face.

THE DANGER OF THE DANGLING PAYCHECK CARROT

Not long after Lisa retired, the company’s once-booming business had shriveled.

Entire departments were laid off as my employer went into survival mode. I was fortunate, but I watched many friends draw the short straw. One day, they were at their computers. The next day, they were cleaning out their desks with shellshocked expressions. The Great Recession was a wake-up call to the fragility of job security.

It was unsettling to watch good people being unceremoniously laid off while management tried to put a positive spin on it for the survivors. “We’re not downsizing,” they chanted. “We’re rightsizing the ship! We’ll come out of this stronger than ever!”

On one hand, newly laid-off employees were trying to figure out how to explain their sudden unemployment to their spouses. On the other hand, managers were cheering on the company’s decision and going on with business as usual. It was like a scene out of “The Hunger Games” where the elite are enjoying a lavish banquet while contestants are killing themselves just to survive.

There’s nothing like layoffs to remind you that your employer holds your life in its hands when you depend on that paycheck.

HOW FUCK YOU MONEY GIVES YOU FINANCIAL CHOICES

As scary as 2009 was, that year also happened to be a terrific time to get into the stock market. I had just finished studying new investment strategies, so the timing was perfect. I deposited as much money as I could afford into my brokerage account and aggressively bought stocks that year.

By 2013, my first financial milestone was reached. Remember my original goal of replacing one salary so one of us could be a stay-at-home parent? This was the first year I made the equivalent of my salary in the stock market.

My salary was small, so it wasn’t exactly a high hurdle, but I was still proud. And it wasn’t because of the parenting plan. Earning a salary’s worth on the stock market meant I finally had fuck you money.

During this time, I was with a new company, and I was miserable. It was the only time I ever thought of quitting without a job lined up first. And having fuck you money meant my wife and I would be OK, at least in the short term, if I decided to quit.

I never ended up using my fuck you money. Mentally, it’s a huge security blanket having the option to walk away from a job on your own terms. It relieves so much of the job-related stress and fear.

Knowing I had fuck you money was enough to give me the strength to get through that tough work situation. After that milestone, my wife and I took comfort in knowing that if work ever started to affect our mental or physical health, we could walk away.

This is the power of financial independence—it gives you choices and removes your employer's grip on your life.

THE LIFE EXPECTANCY GAMBLE: WHY EARLY RETIREMENT MATTERS

I first brought up the topic of early retirement with my wife in 2018. I thought we had enough financially to live a moderate lifestyle. And I didn’t want us to end up like my dad or my friend.

A few years earlier, my dad retired at age 70. He didn’t need to work that long. He had more than enough money to retire at 66 or even a bit earlier.

But Dad had the classic Boomer mentality: there was never enough. Hoard when you can, and save everything. If it’s free, take it; it doesn’t matter what it is! And don’t throw away that old shoelace; it might come in handy one day.

Dad wasn’t about to let Uncle Sam deprive him of his full Social Security check. So he worked a job he didn’t like until his 70th birthday.

And when he retired, it was like someone flipped a switch on his health. Dad had always been athletic and active. In his 30s and 40s, he was an avid jogger and swimmer and frequently competed in biathlons. As he aged, he took on ballroom dancing and traveled the world.

But since he retired at 70, Dad has spent his golden years between hospitals getting surgery and at home recovering. He has the money and the time to enjoy retirement, but not the physical capability.

Witnessing his physical decline makes working until 70 seem foolish. He’s alive, but he’s not living. How much time did he waste just to earn extra money he’d never get to enjoy?

Even waiting until your 60s to retire is risky. Assuming you’re healthy in your 60s, you still won’t be able to physically do all the things that brought you joy when you were younger. Physical decline in aging is inevitable. Who knows how many quality years you’ll have after retiring in your 60s?

That assumes you’ll even make it to your 60s. Around the time of Dad’s retirement, I lost a friend to breast cancer. She was only 42 at the time. She left behind a husband and two children whose time with her was cut too short.

When I was still working in HR, I used to see cases of lives cut short like this all the time. One of my jobs was to process the paperwork for the final paychecks of employees who passed away. My employer had several thousand employees, so this would happen every few months.

It’s sad to see people who were working right up until they passed away. You can only hope that they loved working and weren’t just doing it for the paycheck.

We all want to believe we’ve been blessed with the luck and health to live the average life expectancy or longer, but there’s zero guarantee.

THE REAL MEANING OF FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE: TIME AND CHOICES

Despite being financially secure and seeing what happened with my dad and friend, my wife and I didn’t choose to retire in 2018. We both still enjoyed our work, and so we chose to keep working until it was no longer enjoyable.

Many people assume financial independence is about retiring. They imagine sunbathing on the beach, sipping martinis. But financial independence is really about having the ability to choose what brings you joy.

It’s your choice to keep working if it makes you happy. Or you could choose to walk away at any time. It’s your choice to take a month-long trip, take on a new hobby, or veg out on the sofa watching Netflix all day. It’s about not having a paycheck dangled in front of you like a carrot anymore.

Financial independence is also about buying time. It's the ultimate trade because none of us knows how long we have on this earth. Money buys time freedom—every hour not working for a living is an hour spent truly living.

Financial independence can’t bring back any time that has passed. And it can’t bring back any loved ones who have passed. But it can allow you to spend meaningful time right now doing the things you love with those who mean most to you.

Seeing my dad and friend never getting to enjoy the fruits of their hard worked taught me a valuable lesson. It’s not about how much money you can hoard. It’s about how much life you can safe.

That’s why I live by this motto:

Life is unpredictable, and tomorrow is not promised. So live like you could die tomorrow, but plan like you could live forever.

For me, that’s what FIRE before 50 is all about. What about you — how would you spend your time if money weren’t the deciding factor?