I started my FIRE journey a lot younger than others.
As a teenager just getting into the official work force I was already thinking ahead of retiring by forty years old.
Why forty? Well that seemed to be the age that I kept hearing from others being mentioned often as a grand goal and an achievement of sorts.
The context was often “He retired at 40! I wish I could”. And so with a little thought I set myself a goal to retire at 40.
Of course I had absolutely no idea what retirement meant or what I would do as retired, I just liked the idea of not having to work every morning.
To back track a bit, I grew up mostly on a farm so the idea of work was not foreign. On a farm there is always work to do and there is always a back log of things that need doing.
Feeding cows, cleaning chicken coups, pig pens, rabbit cages, digging dirt, planting crops, watering crops, fertilizing crops, fixing fences on and on and on.
So the idea and concept of being retired at 40 was appealing.
Fortunately for me I also had relatives and friends who were fairly well off and supposedly “retired”. I had no clue how they retired and most of them seem to actually work long hours most days. They did have nice cars, big houses and many other perks that most of us could not afford.
My father was not wealthy or retired. He was self employed and worked the early hours of the day. It was nice at the time that he was always there when I got home from school. And now looking back I realize how different it was to most others.
We were lower middle class and generally a frugal family. I was the last person I knew to get a land phone, color TV, video games.
On the other hand I did spend lots of time doing activities and playing sports.
And so without having a clue about anything I set off as a 18yo to become wealthy and retired at 40 on an interesting and sometimes crazy journey that would put me at odds with most of my peers and friends.