Cooking the Books podcast: The reality of one New Zealander's journey to early retirement

Nick Carr is staying flexible in his quest for financial independence and early retirement. Photo / supplied by Nick Carr, Your Money Blueprint

Each week the NZ Herald and Newstalk ZB's Cooking the Books podcast tackles a different money problem. Today, it's how the FIRE movement works, and how New Zealanders are adapting it to their own circumstances. Hosted by Frances Cook.

Retiring decades early in your 30s, 40s, or 50s, sounds like something a millionaire would do.

And yes, it helps to have a big stack of cash to get there, but you don't have to be earning millions in order to do it.

That's the argument of the people who follow the FIRE movement, also known as Financial Independence, Retire Early.

The idea behind it is relatively simple. You work out how much you spend in a year to stay alive. You save and invest until you have 25 times that much.

Once you hit the goal, you retire, and you only withdraw 4 per cent of your investments per year. If you've invested well, that should be a safe amount to pull out for decades to come.

To help get there, the FIRE crowd is a big fan of frugal living. It's a double whammy, because of course cutting back to basics means you can save and invest more money.

It also means you need less money to hit your 25 times goal, as you've downsized the lifestyle you'll want to pay for.

So ok – how achievable is this for normal people, and how long will it take? Let's talk to someone who has given it a crack.

For the latest podcast, I talked to Nick Carr, from Your Money Blueprint.

We discussed why he's changed his original FIRE goal, the techniques he's used to achieve financial independence, and what the future looks like for him now.

For the interview watch the video above, or listen to just the audio below.

If you have a question about this podcast, or question you'd like answered in the next one, come and talk to me about it. I'm on Facebook here, Instagram here and Twitter here.

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