What Do I Plan To FIRE To?
Hello FOGA Readers! Fairly recently The Luxe Strategist posted a question on Twitter:
There were quite a few replies to her tweet.
- Shawn over at New Millennial Investor wants to open a pizza place with his brother.
- Moriah over at Our Table 4 Two wants to run an after-school program with her husband that teaches job skills to low-income teens.
- Richard over at Side Hustle Rich wants to FIRE to a lifestyle where he is more in control over his time. He may still work, but only on things that add value to his time.
- Josh over at Josh Overmyer wants to hit the beach and golf. High five!
All of these are fantastic goals for after FIRE. The question did get me thinking more about what I want to do after FIRE. I have thought about what I am firing to but in fairly generic far away terms. Luxe’s question was asking for something a little more concrete.
So this was my reply:
While I think that was a great response, I don’t think I got everything. In my defense, I was at work, and there’s only so much you can say in 280 characters. Planning for a life that is over ten years away is a little crazy, but it’s something I have been thinking of for a while now (and more intensely over the past two days). So, now that I have the time and space. Let’s get to it.
What Do I Plan to FIRE to?
Travel
It was obviously going to be the first thing considering it was my reply. I have always said that I want to be paid to be a professional traveler. FIRE is a way to pay myself to do it.
The main thing I want to be able to do is to spend two-three months in a country or a city and experience it. You can only get so much in the two-three weeks of allotted vacation time most jobs give you in the states. This would be living like a resident for really being in a different culture. I love that, and I cannot wait to be able to experience it.
I’ve got a whole bucket list and I’d like to check some stuff off.
Freedom
More abstract, but no less accurate. Freedom is one of the big things that appealed to me about FIRE: being able to be in complete control of your life without being tied to a job. In America, a job pays you, covers part of your health care, and if you lose it heaven help you. I’ve been in fear of losing my job due to situations I couldn’t control. I have no intention of going through that again if I can help it.
Even more than that, I am not a fan of working. I do it because it’s a necessary evil. I always planned to retire when I was 55, and EVERYONE (even Mr. FOGA) told me that was crazy. Then I learned about FIRE and realized that you could do it even earlier. Not sure why that didn’t occur to me, but thank God it did. Now, I’ve knocked it down another ten years, but that is mainly to save the funds to do what I want to do comfortably. I am probably more towards FatFIRE.
But think about all the time that is wasted (yes I said wasted) at work doing something I don’t even like. The ability to put that towards literally anything else is fantastic. That is one of the main things I am excited about.
Time With Family & Friends
Another big one for me. Right now, my schedule is atypical. I work every weekend, and I am off during the week. Due to that, I don’t get to see my friends or family as much as I would like. Add in that a large number of my friends and family are out of state, and it’s nearly impossible. When I FIRE, I plan on being able to visit everyone as much as I would like.
Another part of this is Mr. FOGA. For the majority of our entire relationship, we have been on conflicting schedules. Hell, for the past month, I have seen him maybe seven to ten hours a week. Maybe. It would be nice to be able to spend time with him for a change (although his plans to go into IT may help with that as well).
Videogames
Do you know just how many videogames I don’t get to play due to lack of time? The last Mass Effect game came out seven years ago. I found out about it two years ago. I am still getting through the third game.
The Sims is one of my favorite game series. A Purple Life and I bond over this. I have no time to play this either. There are so many challenges I would love to try out (started the Black Widow challenge in January and haven’t even gotten back to it).
I know I choose how to spend my time, but if I had more of it, a lot more games would get played. I find that much more enjoyable than going to work.
Blogging
Yep! From One Geek to Another will still exist after FIRE. 🙂
It will more than likely change into more of a travel/finance/whatever blog versus a FIRE/real estate/whatever else blog. Honestly, I won’t know until it happens, but I do plan on keeping FOGA going.
Hobbies
There are a lot of things I would like to try that I don’t have the time for right now. Did you know that the majority of clubs and groups meet on the weekend? Since I work every Saturday and Sunday, I miss out on a lot of things I would like to attend. So, there are a lot of things I would like to try out once I FIRE.
We went to the renaissance festival back in March, and I had to request time off to go. While that works sometimes, it cuts into our ability to travel, so I don’t make a habit of it. If I did even half of what I would like to do on weekends, I would not be traveling at all during the year, which is not acceptable to me. Note that my first point was that I want to travel.
Unknown
In the end, while I do have some solid stuff I want to do, Stop(ped) Ironing Shirts put it best:
In many ways, I am not 100% sure what I’ll do once it hits that I do not have to go back to work. Right now, it’s working towards a goal, but once the fog clears, everything is on the table. Can’t wait to get there and see what happens.
Photo by Christopher Burns on Unsplash
In Summation
So, that’s What I Plan to FIRE to. What do you think? Love it? Hate it?
What do you guys plan to FIRE to (if you are planning to FIRE that is)? Let me know in the comments.
Until Next Time!
-Ms. FOGA
LOVE IT!! Your plan is basically the same as mine. I want to travel more than my 3 weeks of PTO allow, see the world, see my family and friends while I still can and of course play more Sims! Seems like a solid plan to me!
I know you would understand my goals! lol Hopefully we can play sims together in the future.
Thanks for reading!
We totally should. That would be hilarious. You can even be on our Twitch stream if you want lol!
I am on board. Will need to update all of my Sims stuff to Sims 4. Still hanging out in Sims 3/Sims 2 world. lol
This is a great plan! I honestly don’t have any plans to “FIRE” per say, but maybe I will write a post about my plans for AFTER the military, in which my goal is to be FI so I can decide if I actually want to work more or not. You’ve given me a lot of thoughts! 🙂
Your goals and plans are perfect!
Thanks Liz. I would definitely be interested in reading that if you decide to write it. 🙂
Thanks for reading!
I think you’re right, you don’t know exactly what you’re retiring to unless you have experienced it, but I think having a plan is great. Plans are there to give a certain direction, while still being able to adjust or completely change the plan.
I love this post, great ideas and a great plan to FIRE to. I’m also big on the travel, freedom, and friends & family part. Seems like a good plan!
Thank you and thanks for reading!
My plan is to downshift. I want to work less for fewer hours. That’s really the end of it for me. That’s all I really want. I know that may not sound like much, but that’s really it.
Like you, I will travel more. I will play more. I will read more. More likely than not, I will write more. I will still write code, as I suspect I will contribute to some open source stuff, and write code of my own.
I got a bit of a late start thanks to some “unfrugal” choices in my late 20s; living it up in NYC is not cheap, but it was fun. The net result is 55 is my plan or a bit earlier if the market is kind.
Downshifting sounds cool! You have more control over time and can do more of what you want to do. Sounds fantastic. 55 is still early in my book.
Thanks for reading!
Yes to all of this! I want to travel, have more freedom, see friends and family and play more videogames! 😁
I was just thinking about this the other day. I hardly ever play videogames anymore, unless I’m hanging out with friends. For some reason I can’t enjoy them as much because I always feel like I should be doing something “more productive”.
When you’re FIRE you don’t have to worry about being productive 😉.
Great plan!
Exactly! I look forward to being as unproductive as possible!. 😀
Thanks for reading!
I loved reading this! Like you, I plan on hanging out with family much more. I moved away for job reasons, and the price I pay is traveling to see family is always a logistical puzzle to solve!
I think for me I’ve gone through lots of periods of unemployment so that made it easier for me to see what I might end up doing in full retirement.
Thanks again for the inspiration; it was a great topic. 🙂
I have thought about taking a career break for 3-6 months, but that’s not feasible right now especially with my job.
Thanks for reading!
I’ll definitely be jealous of the travel part! I wouldn’t mind being in other countries for extended periods of time (in theory, anyway). But at the very least it’d be nice to not have to choose just one place to go to a year based on how much time I could afford to take off from work.
Exactly! That’s the battle we fight now. We end up going on cruises because they work best for planning time off with limited vacation time (when you live in Florida anyway), but extended travel is the goal.
Thanks for reading!