FIRE - Financial Independence Retire Early

Early Retirement

It’s a hot topic: FIRE. Financial Independence, Retire Early. Or, in normal words, become financially independent so that you can retire early — an attractive idea. So let’s first recap the four ways we wrote about in a previous article on how to retire early.

Saving

You can start saving for your retirement today. If you put away a fixed amount every month, this will accumulate over time, and you will have a lovely little extra waiting for you once you turn 67. Safe and simple.

Do realize that in the end, saving will cost you money. This is due to inflation and the fact that the savings interest rates are currently at 0%. In 2019, inflation was 2.6%, which means your money lost 2.6% of its value. So if you have forty more years to go, your money will only be worth less and less over time.‍

Annuity policy

Another way to build capital for your retirement is to take out annuity insurance. You pay your insurer a premium every month, and they indicate the expected return. By the time you retire, they will pay you a monthly sum of your savings. The same way as things go with other pension benefits. Safe and simple, but not that flexible.

Do take additional costs into account when taking on this policy. These can run up significantly.‍

Managed investment

Several banks offer a special pension product in combination with managed investment. In most cases, you deposit the same amount every month, and the bank invests it for you. You can usually control the risk profile, but not the specific stocks, bonds and ETFs. You also won’t be able to withdraw your funds freely: you can only access this money after you retire.

Automated trading

You can also take full control of your future pension and start trading for yourself. You determine how much you invest, what risk you take, which markets you trade in and when you want to withdraw your money. When you invest for yourself, you are in complete control.

Let’s say you start trading for your retirement with the BOTS app. You can start with as little as €50. Getting started is easy. In the app, you check which bots are successful, what risk you are willing to take — and off you go. You determine how much you invest and when.

Bots are automatic trading strategies that trade for you based on algorithms, artificial intelligence and machine learning. Because they are bots, they never sleep and aren’t bothered by emotions like fear when the stock market fluctuates. Handy, right?

These automated trading strategies were only available to the wealthiest 3% of the global population back in the day. But now they are available to you — with the BOTS app: a smart way to be in total control of your pension plan and work your way towards retirement with peace of mind. And who knows, you might even manage to retire before you turn 67!

FIRE

Early retirement is a goal for many people. And to achieve just that, financial independence is a must, which makes FIRE a lifestyle. And even though this lifestyle has been around for quite some time, it is only now starting to gain ground. Why? Because you need quite a bit of patience to succeed in this lifestyle. You don’t become financially independent overnight: jackpot winners aside.

In a nutshell, FIRE is about living below your means and using the difference between your income and expenses to invest. People long thought that you could only retire at an earlier age if you had millions in the bank. But by living below your means, you can still meet your needs: just with less money!

The FIRE principle is based on the growth of the world economy. Research shows that the world economy has increased by an average of about 7% per year in the past hundred years. Instead of investing in specific companies, people who adhere to the FIRE principle invest in funds. They deposit a monthly amount, only to leave it be for a long, long time. This way, they also have the compound interest working to their advantage. The only time that investments are sold is when someone decides to stop working. But even in this situation, they’ll only sell exactly enough to live off for a year.

How long the FIRE process takes for you depends on several things. Your income, your costs and when you’d like to retire. As you can imagine, you can influence all three:

● Try to live spending less. The more you have left from your income, the more you can invest, and the less you will need to support yourself for a year.

● Earn more. The higher your income, the higher the amount you can invest monthly, and the less time it takes to grow your capital towards a retirement-worthy sum.

● Financial independence: you can always define this definition the way you want to. For some, it means no longer needing an income (from paid employment), while for others, it may be defined as being free of housing costs.

Combine these three, and you’ll be celebrating the results sooner!

There is no such thing as risk-free trading. It is possible to lose (part of) your stake

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