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1-Page Summary of Playing With Fire

Overview

Like many Americans, Scott Rieckens had been working too hard after college to afford the lifestyle he thought he needed.

Rieckens had a great job and was doing well, but he heard about the FIRE movement on a podcast. It changed his life. The FIRE movement is all about saving aggressively and investing wisely to buy back your most precious resource—time. Within five months, Rieckens left his job, cut his expenses in half, and set out to make a documentary called Playing With Fire. Two years later, he’s nine years from retirement, the movie is finished,and he wrote a book along the way.

The key points in this passage reveal how to make the most of your finances so you can live a more intentional life. As we’ll see, people have used their newfound financial freedom to retire early, pursue passion projects and simplify their lives. The FIRE lifestyle isn’t only for wealthy people; it’s for anyone who wants to live a more intentional life.

In this article, you will learn why it’s not as risky to invest all your savings in the stock market as it seems; how much money you should spend on a car; and what FIRE means.

Big Idea #1: Scott Rieckens felt trapped by his unsustainable lifestyle, until he discovered FIRE.

Most people work until their mid-sixties. They see it as the normal thing to do because they don’t have a pension plan, but that doesn’t make sense when you think about what they’re working for.

Consumer culture encourages people to work hard and overwork themselves in order to buy unnecessary luxuries. However, FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) advocates a frugal lifestyle that frees up valuable time for focusing on the important things in life.

The author, Scott Rieckens, took a job as a creative director for the company in 2016. He and his wife were making $142K per year after taxes. They thought they had enough money to afford luxuries like their Vitamix blender or eating out every night. However, there were other expenses looming on the horizon: buying a house and saving for their daughter’s college fund. As he realized how insufficient those savings really were, he began to despair about having to stay at that job forever just so they could afford necessities like these luxuries. This would also mean foregoing his dreams of being an entrepreneur. The couple needed something big if they wanted things to change in their situation.

On his way to work one morning in 2017, Rieckens listened to an interview with Mr. Money Mustache on a podcast called The Tim Ferriss Show. Mr. Money Mustache is a blogger from Canada who retired when he was thirty and has since become famous for helping people make smart financial choices so they can retire early too.

There’s a growing movement of people who are cutting expenses and saving money to be able to retire early. They’re called “Mustachians”. Using an online calculator, Scott Rieckens found that he could retire in 10 years if he cut his expenses in half and invested his savings.

The author realized that he didn’t need a big break. He needed to change his lifestyle and approach to work.

Big Idea #2: Financial independence affords you the flexibility of not having to work for money.

You might think that people who retire early are bored. However, most of them have exciting lives and don’t actually use the word “retire” to describe their lifestyle.

Financial independence is having enough money to live comfortably without needing a job. But financial independence can be achieved in a variety of ways, including through flexible career choices and other means.