Mr Scott Rieckens explains the principles behind the Fire movement.

Ever dreamt of telling your boss where they can stick their job without making yourself destitute? Well, dream no more.

According to a recent article in The New York Times, disaffected workers across the US are joining the Fire (Financial Independence Retire Early) movement in order to hack their way into early retirement. By saving between 50 and 70 per cent of your total income and then investing it in sensible low-cost tracker funds, they believe it’s possible to retire in 10 years, as opposed to the 30 or so it would normally take.

Two-times Emmy-nominated filmmaker Mr Scott Rieckens was so taken with the Fire philosophy that he wrote a book and produced a documentary film, Playing With FIRE, which uncovers the growing community who choose financial independence and early retirement over careless consumerism.

“Using an online retirement calculator, my wife and I realised that we would need to work in our marketing and recruitment jobs until our eighties before we could retire, which was pretty scary,” says Mr Rieckens. “I was 33 when I found Fire, and with the many changes we’ve implemented since, I hope to reach financial independence at the age of 41.”

Here’s how to shave decades off of your working life using Fire.

“Before you can begin the work of spending down and saving up, you have to track where your money is going,” says Mr Rieckens.

Personal finance apps and sites such as mint.com make it easier to see how you’re spending your money. Mr Rieckens advises that you carefully go through two months of expenditure. With Fire, the aim is to save between 50 and 70 per cent of your income. Generally, the top three outgoings will be housing, transport and food, so focus on these first.

“Figure out needs vs wants,” says Mr Rieckens. “Ask yourself what brings you the most happiness. Write down the 10 things that make you happy on a weekly basis. For my wife and me, it was going for bike rides and walks with our daughter and cooking meals with our friends and family. You soon realise you don’t value material things that much.”

“When we lived in an expensive beach town in San Diego, my wife used to drive a BMW to client meetings,” says Mr Rieckens. By using online retirement calculators, such as mustachecalc.com from Mr Peter Adeney, aka Mr Money Mustache, one of the leading practitioners of Fire, Mr Rieckens was able to work out how much his expenditure cost not only in money, but also retirement time. “The cost of the BMW was equivalent to three years’ worth of retirement. So the choice was the BMW or three extra years with our daughter. Now we drive a second-hand car and live in a cheaper area where we can either cycle or walk as much as possible.”

Eating out is always a large expenditure. “We used to spend $2,000 to $3,000 per month on restaurants,” says Mr Rieckens. “With meal plans and bulk buying, we got it down to $500 per month. Now when we do go out for a meal it’s a special event. We’re excited.”

Mr Rieckens stresses that by taking care of the big-ticket items first, you don’t have to totally deprive yourself. “Mr Money Mustache retired at the age of 30 and lives on $27,000 per year, and leads a very happy and fulfilled life,” he says.

The Fire philosophy advocates that in order to retire you need to have a net worth of 25 times your annual expenditure. So, if you spend £50,000 per year, you will need £1.25m. The money should then be invested in a low-cost tracker fund, which should pay out on average of four per cent a year, with the aim that you live off the interest.

“The site that explains the maths behind Fire the best is mrmoneymustache.com,” says Mr Rieckens. “In terms of exciting new investment technology and sites [in the US], I would recommend checking out Betterment. You can invest in index funds while they also handle automatic rebalancing and minimising your tax costs. JL Collins wrote a book called The Simple Path To Wealth, which is a wonderful description and breakdown of the mental strategies and tactics behind investing in index funds. There is also a wonderful new book by my friend Chad Carson called Retire Early With Real Estate, which breaks down the how and why of real-estate investing as another powerful wealth-building tool.”

Finally, Mr Rieckens says: “When you work full time, there’s an element of lifestyle creep. My wife and I ended up spending money on things we didn’t need, with money we didn’t really have in order to impress people we don’t know. We’re now about four to six-and-a-half years away from retirement, which means we can focus on the work and people that we really care about. But it’s a discipline that you have to grow into. Don’t deprive yourself into depression.”