Rieckens - Playing with fire (financial independence retire early): how far would you go for financial freedom?

Praise for Playing with FIRE

In Playing with FIRE, Scott Rieckens shares the essence of the FIRE movement. And he does it with deeply personal, honest, and captivating stories that keep the pages turning. If youre at all interested in financial independence, retiring early, or just putting happiness ahead of money, you will enjoy this book.

Chad Carson, creator of the blog Coach Carson and author of Retire Early with Real Estate

Scott Rieckens has done a phenomenal job of embracing the FIRE movement and making the hard choices necessary to radically alter his familys financial future. His book should be an inspiration to anyone starting in a similar life position. If you feel stuck or feel that you are not able to flex your creative talents and live a life where you are in control, then Playing with FIRE might be just the book you need.

Scott Trench, author of Set for Life and host of the BiggerPockets Money podcast

This is a fascinating, relatable, and heartfelt story about a couples transition from ultra-consumers to people who discovered that time is more valuable than belongings. It weaves together their personal journey with actionable information, and features examples of dozens of others who are leaving the rat race in search of meaning. You wont be able to put this book down.

Paula Pant, founder of affordanything.com

A truly inspirational story that proves saving is not a sacrifice. Its a path to a life you love.

Grant Sabatier, author of Financial Freedom and creator of millennialmoney.com

With the enthusiasm of a convert and a filmmakers feel for story-telling, Scott recounts his own and others journeys in pursuit of FIRE so that readers can try it on for themselves to see if it fits. Youll love meeting the bloggers and writers whove stoked the fire and the ordinary people whove been transformed by it.

Vicki Robin, coauthor of Your Money or Your Life and author of Blessing the Hands That Feed Us

The path to FIRE is not linear, and this book perfectly captures the ups and downs many people face along the way. Its rare, however, to get such an intimate view into a familys journey from the very beginning. This book gives you that and is a fantastic behind-the-scenes look at the upcoming documentary. It contains interesting backstory, endearing personal moments, and actionable advice to help you achieve your own financial goals sooner.

Brandon Ganch,Mad Fientist

What if you could change your life 180 degrees, break free of the paycheck-to-paycheck grind, and pursue financial independence? Scott and Taylor Rieckens chronicle their incredible turnaround in Playing with FIRE, and their brilliantly simple advice is applicable to anyone: Spend less than you earn, invest the difference, and create the space in your life to pursue true happiness and lifelong relationships.

Brad Barrett and Jonathan Mendonsa, cohosts of the ChooseFI podcast

To the uninitiated, pursuing financial independence seems exotic, impossible, and/or daunting. But in fact, it is simple and has roots deep in the American psyche. If you wonder what this path is like in real life and in real time, Scott and Taylor will take you along on their journey: not yet finished, a work in progress, and a very engaging tale.

JL Collins, author of The Simple Path to Wealth

Copyright 2019 by Scott Rieckens

All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, or other without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

Certain names have been changed to protect privacy.

Text design by Tona Pearce Myers and Rodrigo Calderon

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Rieckens, Scott, date, author.

Title: Playing with fire (financial independence retire early) : how far would you go for financial freedom? / Scott Rieckens.

Description: Novato, California : New World Library, [2019] | Includes index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018047667 (print) | LCCN 2018049920 (ebook) | ISBN 9781608685813 (e-book) | ISBN 9781608685806 (print : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781608685813 (Ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Early retirement. | Thriftiness. | Finance, Personal.

Classification: LCC HD7110 (ebook) | LCC HD7110 .R54 2019 (print) | DDC 332.024/014--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018047667

First printing, January 2019

ISBN 978-1-60868-580-6

Ebook ISBN 978-1-60868-581-3

Printed in Canada on 100% postconsumer-waste recycled paper

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CONTENTS

Modern life is more prosperous and fancy than it has ever been. The cars are faster, TVs are bigger, and food is cheaper (in proportion to the average income) than it has been for most of world history. So why does it seem so difficult to make ends meet?

The reason is that theres a huge, well-engineered, brilliantly marketed trap sitting between us and our real goal of living the happy and fulfilling lives we want, and it ensnares us into the busy, expensive, stressed, confusing existence almost all of us are leading these days. The trap is sometimes called consumerism, but it is so universal and well disguised that most people just refer to it as reality.

So in rich countries like the United States, almost all of us live our lives from within the jaws of this trap. We trade most of our free time for money by working the highest-paying job we can find, but then we trade most of this money for the most expensive stuff we can possibly afford, in most cases even borrowing or leasing this stuff so we can claw our way even higher up the luxury scale whenever we get the chance.

In the likely event of a money shortage, we assume we just need to go out and earn even more of it. And when this causes an even worse shortage of time, we just strap in tighter and reward ourselves with a few of the finer things in life because if were going to work this hard, we should at least get to see some of the rewards.

Stop it. Its a trap all of it!

But how can you stop, when the entire world around you is caught in the same trap and may even question or criticize you if you choose not to do the same thing as they are doing? What if your spouse refuses to give up his comfortable, roomy SUV or her well-curated wardrobe of professional clothing, even if it means spending most of your lifetime in debt?

The trap has been laid out for us with over a century of clever marketing, but its biggest strength is our built-in human weakness: our tendency to compare ourselves to those around us and assume that whatever we see in our peers is