Working towards Financial Independence?

[hmarkway]

Over the past few months I've been reading and listening to anything that I can get my hands on pertaining to achieving financial independence (FI) as soon as possible. In particular, I've been binge listening to the ChooseFI podcast - which focuses on the Financial Independence portion of FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early). FIRE is an active movement in the personal finance world. FIRE is about controlling your money so you can live your dream life.

ChooseFI also has an extremely active facebook group (7,090 and counting), where everyone can bring their discussions about investing, and saving, and wins/speed-bumps on the road to financial independence. As a federal employee, the road to financial independence and eventual "retirement" will look somewhat different (pension/partial pension, TSP, healthcare) than for those outside of the government, so an offshoot of the main ChooseFI facebook group was created specifically for feds, aptly named ChooseFI Feds.

I'd like to invite any of you who might be interested in financial independence and/or early retirement to join us over at the main ChooseFI facebook group and the ChooseFI Feds facebook group. The ChooseFI Feds group is very new, but we already have 119 people and we're actively discussing all things FI as it relates to feds.

Come join us!
Heather

http://www.facebook.com/groups/ChooseFI
http://www.facebook.com/groups/ChooseFIFeds

[evilanne]

I don't do facebook groups but a couple of websites/forums on FIRE that you may find interesting are http://www.mrmoneymustache.com and http://www.early-retirement.org

[rgncajun68]

I'm already in the chooseFI group and just joined the chooseFI feds group. I have been using most of my spare time reading Mrmoneymustache blog and listening to the mad fientist podcast. I'm retired military and currently have 7 years of FERS. My plan is to take a deferred retirement and early retire at the age of 50.

[ksmoly04]

Two additional blogs I'd like to offer are ournextlife and frugalwoods. Both are in the FIRE realm, and the couple behind ournextlife are retiring early in a matter of days at ages 41 & 40.

I'm on the FI train now myself. Currently have 7 years FERS service but, with my mil service buyback, I'll hit 25 years service in 2027 and be eligible for early retirement--which was a huge revelation and one that has completely changed my outlook.

[cb14]

I recently found the ChooseFI podcast, which led me to follow both Choose FI, and Choose FI Feds facebook groups -- really good stuff.

My wife and I have always been debt free (except for mortgage) and have been maxing out TSP ..but until finding this FI community, have never contemplated early retirement.

Its great to see a Fed specific group and I'm looking forward to continually learning.