Boring FI
Boring FI
Here in the financial independence community we like to categorize ourselves. We can categorize based on our vision of enough. There is leanFIRE, and fatFIRE, and even morbidly obese FIRE. There are also different pathways to achieve financial freedom. Some focus on frugality, others on W2 generation, and yet others on real estate. When I began this blog, I called myself DiverseFI because in many ways I don’t fit in these categories. I am not your average FI. But there is one category that glaringly comes to mind when I think about my origin story (or lack thereof). I am Boring FI.
That’s right. My beginnings are humdrum at best. They are yawnable. Let’s just say I won’t get days and days worth of blog material from my humble upbringing.
But there’s value in the straightforward path.
First, however, I would like to explore why it was so boring.
Good Role Models
I have a perfectly good reason for not being a financial moron. Two great parents.
My parents taught me so many important lessons about managing and building my finances. Although no specific didactic curriculum existed, they were excellent fiscal models. I grew up in a house where stealth was the modus operandi.
My parents loved their jobs and both became business owners, consultants, and even landlords. They saved most of the accrued profits, and invested for the long-term. These investments grew over the years as fast as my parents net worth.
How can I not be Boring FI when I grew up with such great role models?
No Debt
I have never had a lick of debt outside of my mortgage. Lamentably, my father’s life insurance money paid for all of my college and medical school costs. Of course I would have rather not had that money, but it created a clear advantage in my Boring FI trajectory.
There is nothing better for a financial blogger than to have an origin story of being buried in debt. Five figures are good but six is even better. Legitimacy comes with overcoming great barriers. In this blog, I can’t boast that same legitimacy.
Although I would never say that it came easy, I certainly find myself quietly listening as others recall their harrowing journeys involving student loans.
My path was a little more straightforward. Boring.
Boring FI
High W2
I definitely worked my way up the W2 ladder. But again, there is no surprise there. My beginning salary of $120K/year back in 2002 was nothing to sneeze at. In fact, it is safe to say that my wage back then was higher than most financial independence enthusiasts.
And the climb upward from there was nothing less than boring. I built a successful practice and pursued some lazy side hustles here and there.
Eventually I parlayed the extra cash into rental condos, became an art mogul, and began a blog.
It’s not that there was no struggle. But that struggle wasn’t the big hairy audacious struggle we usually associate with financial independence. It was plain struggle.
It was Boring FI.
Sound Familiar?
Does this all sound familiar? It may not to you, but it will eventually to some of your family members.
I’m talking about your kids.
If you do this thing right, your kids will end up just like me. They will have parents who were the OG stealth practitioners who climbed out of debt, built a W2 empire, saved like the dickens, and paid for their college.
They will be Second Generation FI.
Or as I like to say…Boring FI.
I hope my daughter is Boring FI which means I did something right.
My journey as you know was the complete opposite of boring and had tons of financial mistakes, which I chronicled, to overcome. I’m not sure how I would have turned out without those obstacles. I credit my lowest point in my divorce post as the impetus to seeing the financial light and doing a complete turnaround.
May you have many boring years to come!
I’m like you Doc, self made stealth millionaires next door for parents and I never had any debt and I always was a high earner with a stay at home domestic engineer wife as my life partner. My son, a doctor in residency proudly showed me the new car he bought last night, a 2004 Toyota! He plans on driving it from Arkansas to Patagonia between the end of his residency and starting his radiation oncology career. Third generation boring FI looks to be in good shape.
Maybe it’s third generation we should dub Boring FI
We can totally relate to the idea of Boring FI. We didn’t know of the concept of FI until last year and after running the math we realized we were already at FI. Since we weren’t very good at tracking expenses and net worth in prior years, there wasn’t a good story we could tell on how we achieved FI. We didn’t have any debt or overcome any insurmountable obstacles. Just constantly saving money, staying employed, and not living above our means.
Outside of the blogosphere, this is probably the predominant story.
Definitely something to hope for with the little ones. For better or worse those of us first gens didn’t have it boring. But everyone hopes better for our kids.
Your kids will grow up with the right direction and tools.
Hahah, sorry, i think i love the boring path! There’s definitely a whole lot of self awareness in this post, and while by all means you had a host of advantages along your FI path…. you still had to make conscious decisions to get to where you are today.
$120K in 2002…. wow! Definitely nothing to sniff at. Cheers man!
Thanks Half Life. It appears your path hasn’t become too boring yet.
My strategy was boring, and I’d like to think of myself as at least semi-exiting. But I’ll stick with “accidental” 🙂
Your hobbies are exiting!
My strategy was unconscious investing. When plan A (savings) to pay for medical school failed (due to inflation). I went plan B and joined the Navy because I decided I wasn’t going into debt. I got a hell of a deal 2 years for 2 years. My residency pay was $18K per year and I came out of residency with money in the bank and a new wife. My Navy pay was $32K per year plus a bonus which was about $50K. I moonlighted and had close to half a million 2 years out. I went into locums practice for a couple years while I decided what kind of practice to bind myself, and lived off the per deim while living in a condo on the beach. I banked my weekly pay and worked as much overtime as they would allow. I wound up taking a gig as fee for service private practice solo practioneer and started making some real money. I bought a right sized house with a right sized mortgage all the while stuffing dough into the market. I set up a pain practice to side by side with my anesthesia practice and banked nearly all of those proceeds. I got old and downsized from a full bore anesthesia practice to a SDSC practice and kept the pain practice alive at a reduced footprint. Eventually I sold the practice and became employed. One day I was looking at my Medicare earnings at SS.gov, totaled them up and realized I had twice as much in the bank as I spent living the past 49 years. I knew I wasn’t living another 49 years so 2 months later I was retired. I didn’t worry over buying cars or paying for college or traveling the world. In my practice we built in 10 weeks a year vaca so it wasn’t hard to get away. The point is live your life and let your money accumulation be unconsciously disciplined. You net 10 bux, save 8 or 5 or 3 or even 2. In my locum years I was banking virtually the whole shootin’ match. I never read a Bogel book in my life or never visited a FIRE blog till 2 months after I was retired. I never worried about stealth this or that, I just tried to be a positive impact on the medical and patient community in my town a good husband to my wife and a good father to my kids. Most of all I showed up. The drama of financial life can be fun, but it’s drama not living.
I just did what what was required and then retired.
I think purposeful paths to FI without struggle are the “Boring FI” stories but no less important. Like you, the financial independence blogosphere was an afterthought.
We are so boring FI too. I’m lucky to have a great family. My grandfather was dirt poor when he was young. But he saved and worked so much including sides hustles. He invested into lands and later bought real estates. He was able to send my mother to university and pay for it. My parents were both professional and had good financial flair. We learn how to be money savvy. They paid for my own university degree and my husband and I are now FI. We still enjoy working though. Our oldest daughter is entering university this fall and we will pay all her fees. They have learned from an early age and they both contribute to their saving account since their early teen. I feel really bless to be boring FI and that my children will probably follow our path.
It sounds like to me that you are working on fourth generation FI. Well done!