Tenets of folkefire

In my late 30’s I did a complete 180 with my personal finances in about three years – not including the three years before that where I was slowly stumbling toward the right path but didn’t have a coordinated strategy. The more I’ve shared my learnings among my personal network, the more I’ve recognized a dearth of relevant financial knowledge and the more my friends have enjoyed success as well.

Then I discovered F.I.R.E. The acronym translates to, Financial Independence, Retire Early. The more I dove in, the more I became determined to transition from a person with a negative net worth to someone bucking the traditional retirement trajectory and in pursuit of more financial freedom.

I created the following to share with anyone exploring how to prepare for financial security but aren’t sure where to begin. The following isn’t financial advice, I am merely providing resources that inspired my own enlightenment to encourage your own journey.

My Personal Finance Checklist

Step 1 – Explore Shockingly Simple Math
One of the realizations that transformed my own perception of retirement savings was thinking about savings as a percentage of income versus a specific dollar amount. This blog (and thought leader) helps to explain the importance in doing so: https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/…/the-shockingly…/

Step 2 – Actively Choose Financial Independence
I began to observe and incorporate relevant ideas from the ChooseFi podcast community. The hosts are younger adults that retired in approx. 10 years. I highly recommend listening to at least the first five episodes on the following list: https://www.choosefi.com/essential-listening-guide-2/

Note: The episode with JL Collins is especially interesting to me – he’s my favorite thought leader in the community.

Step 3 – Learn As Much As Possible
In addition to the links and podcasts provided on this page, I bolstered these themes with popular and relevant books on the subject – for free. I created a free Audible account at audible.com. (You can also download the Libby app from the app store and borrow most of these for free from your local public library.) Check out: The Simple Path to Wealth by JL Collins, I Will Teach You to Be Rich by Ramit Sethi, and The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas J. Stanley. If you’re still having fun with these, try Your Money or Your Life by Vicki Robin. These books offer the fundamental knowledge I didn’t learn in school (HS, Undergrad, Grad) to reach retirement goals.

Step 4 – Pay off Debt, Track Spending
I listened to a couple dozen Dave Ramsey episodes and downloaded the ‘EveryDollar’ app for free from the app store to track monthly spending. This has been an effective way to analyze and eliminate unnecessary spending, and ensure I pay myself first and reach my desired savings percentage from Step 1.

Step 5 – Tax Advantaged Accounts
I opened a new ROTH IRA at Charles Schwab and began maxing out my contribution using the investing strategy found in the earlier steps. One may choose to put their remaining investment income in a work-provided retirement account (if you have one) or open a traditional IRA and dump any remaining scraps there.

Step 6 – Folk Music
Through folkefire I hope to reach an earning point where I max out my ROTH IRA every year performing music – while enjoying something that encourages me to live life. 

Step 7 – Network
I realized at one point that I had a vital component missing from my FIRE equation - community! For the past couple years I have been leading a FIRE Meetup in Portland, aptly named The Portland FIRE Meetup. If you do some digging on socials I bet you’ll have luck finding a group in your community. If not, there’s groups for any persuasion on reddit and likely some on Facebook, too.