Hey! Thanks for reading my blog. If you’re new to FIRE and don’t really get what it is, then it might be worth checking out the Mr Money Mustache blog first. It’s a great introduction to the ideas and does all of that stuff better than I could 🙂
Ready? Let’s go…
I’ve been kind of into being frugal since I started part-time work, and kind of into the Financial Independence/Retire Early (FIRE, but I prefer just FI) movement since the start of 2019.
FI has a bit of a public relations problem though, doesn’t it?
Especially for those of us on the left.
People I know who’ve heard of FI mostly have the impression that it’s a bunch of money obsessed nuts who want to work 80 hour weeks for ten years, sail away on a yacht, and leave the blue pill proles to their conventional lives.
At its worst the FI community can seem like an embodiment of elitist ‘pull yourself up by your bootstraps’ attitudes.
In other words, debates about financial independence can turn into a battle over two competing explanations of how success happens. The right emphasises personal responsibility, the left focuses on the social and economic structures that bind us into inequality.
Obviously I think FI has a lot more to offer than this.
I want to use this blog to talk about the topic. I thought this could include:
- delving into the reputation. Is it justified, and are there sub groups in the community that are worth more attention?
- sharing my own stories about how I got into and how I’m trying to achieve financial independence
- sharing the stories of other people who have a left wing approach to FI
- discussing the case for FI from a leftist perspective
Left FI 