It started in early 2019 when I heard a news segment on the radio that people were retiring in their 30s through a movement called FIRE: Financial Independence, Retire Early.
The premise seemed simple: Live frugally and invest aggressively until you can live off your savings and the interest for the rest of your life.
I was immediately intrigued. Six years earlier, my husband and I had opened a wine store and bar in the UK, where we’re from, and were exhausted from the long hours. Not working unless I wanted to was appealing.
In July 2019, at age 34, I started investing aggressively, and for 15 months, it was practically all I thought about. At the time, my husband and I already had around £233,000 from previous savings and the equity in our house, which we planned to sell one day, along with our business, to travel full-time.
I had no idea that just a few years later, I’d find myself in a moral dilemma over my investments, which would see me quit FIRE.
FIRE helped me quit my business and leave the UK
Traveling full-time always felt like a pipe dream, but seeing how much money we already had in assets encouraged me to jump into investing. Unlike many FIRE advocates, I wasn’t aiming to save a specific amount; I just wanted to see how much I could accumulate, and poured every spare penny into index funds. Income from our hospitality business wasn’t consistent, but we kept our monthly outgoings low so we could invest as much as possible.
In the summer of 2020, we accepted an offer to buy our business, which allowed us to inject even more cash into our index funds. Around the same time, we sold our house and most of our belongings.
That October, only 15 months after discovering FIRE and just weeks after completing our business sale, we said goodbye to the UK for a life of travel. Though we didn’t feel like we had enough saved to stop working forever, we both wanted to take a break and figure out our future as we went.
Courtesy of Charlie Brown
I felt freer than ever, but it wasn’t long before I had doubts about my investment strategy
I knew I didn’t want to be financially independent so I could sit on a beach all day, but to find time to live a meaningful life. Within a week of leaving the UK, I decided to try freelance writing. I had wanted to rid myself of the stress of running a hospitality business, and writing enabled me to earn money and do meaningful work without burning out.
We started out living for five months in the small Spanish wine-making city of Logroño. Being in the wine trade, we were excited to be surrounded by wineries, and despite the COVID-era restrictions, we loved our new life there. Once the borders opened up, we spent the next 2.5 years visiting various European countries, including Georgia, Italy, and Portugal, the latter being where we eventually settled in August 2023.
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During these travels, my attitude toward FIRE began to change. Initially, I wasn’t overly concerned with which companies I invested in; I just wanted bigger and bigger returns. But as time went on, I felt uncomfortable about where my money was going.
I’d heard about ethical investing, and began asking myself if the companies I’d invested in were contributing to a world I’d want to inhabit. Increasingly, the answer was no.
For the next couple of years, I slowly moved as many investments as I could into environmental, social, and governance funds, which exclude ethically questionable industries like tobacco or weapons.
But I still didn’t agree with the ethics of some of the companies in these funds, for instance, because of how they treated staff or the actions of their CEOs. I felt guilty about profiting off them, but I wasn’t sure what to do.
I’ve abandoned the FIRE movement for a different dream
It wasn’t until June 2025, when I wrote on Medium about the ethical implications of personal investment strategies, that I realized I could do more to practice what I preached.
Now, I’ve stopped moving money into investment funds, and I’m looking into different ways to approach my finances, including a potential investment in a new business that my husband and I can run together. It’s scary because it means spending my savings and depleting my safety net, but I want to feel comfortable with where I invest my money.
Now, instead of retiring early, I envision a future of writing and making wine with my husband in Portugal. Although my income as a writer can fluctuate, I’m glad I can write about important issues and do something I truly care about.
For me, the FIRE movement was a double-edged sword. I wouldn’t be where I am today in my career and life without it, but I’d no longer recommend it as an investment strategy.
In my experience, chasing early retirement meant prioritizing growth and profits over pretty much anything else, from where your money is invested to fully enjoying your life.
Besides, it’s much more fun to work than to retire when you have a meaningful job.
Do you have a story to share about trying to reach FIRE? Contact the editor, Charissa Cheong, at [email protected]
