Scott Rieckens remembers a time when his lifestyle seemed to control his spending choices. He and his wife Taylor were living an upwardly mobile lifestyle in San Diego, but it turned out their budget was upwardly mobile, too.
“We lived in a beautiful beach town, drove a BMW, dined at high-end restaurants and often indulged in expensive hobbies. Essentially, as our income increased, so did our spending,” Rieckens, 39, tells CNBC Make It. “Instead of saving or investing, we were using any additional income to inflate our lifestyle while keeping our heads in the sand. We found this to be the easiest way to avoid our financial insecurity.”
When Rieckens discovered the FIRE movement — short for financial independence, retire early — a light went on. “It was basically describing a way out of my situation,” he says.
In 2017, the couple embarked on a series of cuts to a monthly budget that was hovering around $10,000. “It didn’t take much to slash that in half,” Rieckens says.
Like many FIRE adherents, the couple aimed to save as much of their income as possible in order to invest their savings in low-cost index funds. The goal: amassing enough savings to be able to safely live on withdrawals from their portfolio in perpetuity.
At first, the couple went full-throttle, even going so far as to briefly move in — with a brand-new baby in tow — with Rieckens’ parents in Bellvue, Iowa. As they had in San Diego, the couple worked full-time, relying on Rieckens’ parents to provide some free childcare.
With their expenses down to practically nothing, the Rieckenses saved 78% of their income.
Watch the documentary about their journey toward early retirement — Playing With FIRE — and you’ll quickly understand that this lifestyle was occasionally trying for the young couple.
“Looking back, we might’ve been too extreme, tipping into misery, not from deprivation but the unending focus on finances,” Rieckens says. “The experience taught us our limits, but I wouldn’t recommend…
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