tfs

Hello readers, and welcome to the FIREstarter blog!

I am a 32 year old normal (ish) bloke living in the South of England, and I have a crazy, hare-brained scheme to retire from my corporate job in 5 years, starting from a Net Worth of practically zero.

Think it can’t be done? Check out the Early Retirement (ER for short) superstars over at Early Retirement Extreme and Mr Money Mustache (affectionately known as ERE and MMM*) – plus the hundreds more on their respective forums.

Yea, so I’m obviously not going to bullshit you and pretend I came up with these ideas, but starting my own blog seemed like a good idea for following reasons:

  • Following my progress (was going to say “journey” but I bloody hate that word – way too X-Factor for my liking!) might be fun and hopefully enlightening for readers, to show that it can be done. It will also keep me in check and on the right path. No slacking allowed once you’ve put your intentions out into the public domain!
  • I live in the UK – I haven’t really found many UK blogs on the subject, especially those attempting getting out in such a short amount of time. There are plenty of great UK based personal finance and investment advice blogs out there already but not so many focused on ER, and they tend to be fairly mundane and are just a bit, well… British I guess 🙂
  • I’ve got plenty of fresh ideas to write about the general subject of ER, tips and tricks, money saving ideas, frugal food recipes (I love food!) and to be honest just loads of other random ideas swilling around my brain and I need to get them down on paper! I’ve probably got a years worth of blog ideas already – just need to find the time to write them now!
  • Spreading the word! I’ve only recently been shown the light by randomly discovering the MMM website one day and it really has changed my outlook on life, in fact its probably not an overstatement to say it has changed my life full stop. I would like to extend this amazing feeling that you can achieve something seemingly impossible, and this new way of financial and cultural thinking, or as Jacob from ERE befittingly describes it as having taken the red pill from the movie The Matrix, to as many others as I can. There is plenty of room on the Internet left for 1000’s more blogs on the subject, and the more out there, the more people will get the message. I feel like there is a real movement out there and it’s already gathering a head of steam, I’d like to be a part of that movement no matter how small or large this blog becomes.

So then for the uninitiated readers amongst you I guess you are either wondering:

  1. How the hell am I going to achieve this feat…?!
  2. Am I really just bat-shit crazy?!

If you want to find out the answer to either of the above questions, or just follow my progress, sign up via email or the RSS link here – my next post will be detailing my “get out of jail” plan – could be interesting as I’ve not finalised everything in my own head yet!

*Important note – that terrible photo of me is a poor attempt at humour – poking a slight bit of fun at MMM’s first post. I do not normally sport a goatee and/or sunglasses when it’s cloudy 😉