Expert explains the FIRE money method

Welcome back. An investment trend is making the rounds online, and while it's not a new concept, it's quite radical. It's called FIRE, so it stands for financial independence. Retire early and it's a method that people hope to give up the grind way sooner than the average age of 65. Here to tell us whether it's a realistic system to follow is author and former financial adviser Victoria Devine, who joins us from Melbourne. Good morning, Victoria, tell us about FIRE. Some of your followers swear by it. But with the cost of living crisis continuing to hit our hip pockets, can something like that actually be achievable? Oh my gosh, yes. FIRE has surged in popularity and it is crazy. So FIRE is the concept of financial independence. Retire early. And when this happens, it means that people work up to saving approximately 80% of their incomes in the hopes that they can turbocharge the age that they retire. So instead of waiting until 65 or even 70, these days, they are retiring by 30-40 and even 50. And I have just finished writing my newest money Diaries with She's on the Money. And we even talk about this concept in there. We have really, really heartwarming stories of people who have managed to do it. But if I'm being honest, I'm not sure it's something that I could commit to because it's all about, you know, putting off the gratification. And I'm a little bit of a live in the moment kind of girl. Well, yeah. And I, I kind of think about like, you know, I'm well into my, I'm in my 50s now. You know, there must be some negatives because I think you lose purpose. I think one of the great things about working is the purpose of working and giving to a community however you want to do that. Yeah, there's actually a really good book called Ichigai that I read recently. And yeah, great book, right? And there's this concept that to live a long and happy life, you need purpose. And purpose is often drawn from work. So for me, I think it's about what works for you. I agree. I, I don't think I'm going to be the type of person that retires early, but I think that by learning about these concepts like financial independence, retire early, we're able to learn what might work for us and what might not work for us so that we can live with our values and our systems. So if you can work out whether that's something you want to achieve, maybe your purpose is charity work or maybe your purpose is, you know, living off grid. Maybe that's something you want to achieve and get out of the rat race. For me, I want to keep writing books, my friends. Yeah. Well, let's talk about it. Yeah, 'cause in this recent book, you are empowering women to rewrite their money stories. Tell us about that I am money stories is something that I am wildly passionate about. In fact, it was the first chapter of my first book and now with the community of she's on the money being more than 300,000 women with more than 1.77 million people listening to our podcast each month, I feel like we've been able to draw out 25 incredible stories from our community of people who have changed their money stories. So money stories are the way that you think and feel and act and behave around money. And my background is in psychology. It's not started in finance. I went from psychology into finance where I realised that money is inherently behavioural and it's inherently emotional. So if we can tap into that, we can actually change our entire story. We can change our journey. And I guess that's why I've written this book, Money Diaries, so that we can be writing our own story instead of letting all of our past dictate our future. I mean, yeah. And in that you breakdown a lot of stigmas, don't you? You're talking to a scam victim, a sex worker, a daughter of an ex prisoner. What are the key themes that sort of emerged for you when you were talking to them? We have such a rich community that the stories are very diverse and not predictable at all. You're right. We have a sex worker talking about how she's changed her money story. We have people who have gone from rags to riches and riches to rags. I feel like it's one of those books that the intention of writing this wasn't necessarily to be about drama, although it is filled with a lot of it because of their stories. It's actually about motivating you and getting you on the same page to go all right. Well, my money story, it's not that scary. I want to understand where my thoughts, feelings, beliefs and values around money have come from and then how I changed them to create the life that I deserve. So for me, I was just very privileged to meet with 25 money diarists from our community and whittle it down. Mean we've even got a volunteer firefighter who was out on a call and it turns out it was her house that had burnt down and how she's recovered from that. So yes, it's full of drama, which I think is what is going to be really gripping for the reader. But also it's going to be that peace that motivates you to then start your budgeting and finance journey so that maybe you can retire early or you can create the life you deserve. Because so many of us think that the answer is a budget, but it's actually about understanding where you want your money to go and what that actually looks like, right. And feeling empowered along the way. Excellent. Thank you so much, Victoria. Congrats. Thanks for having me guys. And you can grab a copy of Money Diaries with She's on the Money from any good bookstore.