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This podcast is supported by State Street

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Global Advisors. From

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the New York Times, I'm Sabrina Tavernesi, and this is The Daily. Many

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Americans work their entire lives and

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retire with nothing. But

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a group of frugal obsessives is trying

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to flip that script. Today,

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my colleague Amy X Wong, on

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the people behind this growing movement, and

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their bold bid to rethink how

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long we work. It's

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Friday, June 14th. So

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Amy, you've been exploring this world of

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people who retire early. Tell me

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about that. How did you first discover this movement? Well,

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I had always been, as a child,

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like, preternaturally obsessed with money. And so

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I was constantly looking for coupons and

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blogs about how to stretch a dollar,

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how to invest smartly, things like that.

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And as part of that, I would read

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these news stories about people who were saving

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or making money in a different way. So

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I came across maybe one or two stories, 10

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or 15 years ago, about people who

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were following something called

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FIRE, Financial Independence Retire Early.

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Financial Independence Retire Early. Exactly. So

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what is that? It's really about

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strategizing to leave the workforce at an age

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of your own choosing. So say you plan

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to retire at 45 instead of 65, or

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there are even people who do it at

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35. So it's

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about freedom from work and having the time

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to yourself. Got it. So

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it's less about actually kind of retirement

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and retirement age and more about work

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and freedom from it. Right, right. It's

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a philosophical movement that's kind of wrapped

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in a bunch of financial and economic

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logistics. And were these just

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kind of different people from different walks of life?

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Like who were they? Yeah, I would have thought

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that it was people who are mostly high earners

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like bankers or surgeons or people who

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had the means to squirrel away a lot of

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money or entirely. Right, exactly. But in fact,

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I found that the range of people who are

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planning for early retirement really spans the gamut

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from that kind of surgeon upper middle class

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to the lower middle class to even people

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who are on minimum wage, you know, making

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like $35,000 and still being able to retire.

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So it was fascinating to discover all

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these different kinds of fire people. Okay,

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so it's a new philosophy around work and,

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you know, the idea that it shouldn't be

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taking up so much of our lives, so

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much space in our lives. How

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did you start reporting on this? I had

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always been keeping an eye on fire, but

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I noticed that in the pandemic, it

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really, really took off and more and

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more people were joining forums. There are

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half a million followers in the fire

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subreddit, and the financial independence subreddit is

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actually 2 million followers. And then you

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have all of these Facebook groups, all

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of these, you know, Twitter

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little enclaves and influencers on Instagram. And

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this whole ecosystem on social media is

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just millions and millions of people that

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is very, very active.

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And I wanted to know, are these real people

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who are actually doing this, who

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are actually retiring early? Hey, Ellen.

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Hello. Can you guys hear me? And I found

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someone who is really involved in the movement. Yeah.

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Can you just start with some basics of telling

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me your name and who you are? Sure.

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Yeah, my name is Alan Wong. I'm

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in my mid-30s and I've been retired

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since I was 25. His

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name is Alan Wong. He's one

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of the moderators of one of the

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biggest fire subreddits. He has retired and

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he's spent the last decade or so

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essentially coaching other people on how to

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fire in his way and sharing

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details of his story. So tell me about

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Alan. Can

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you take us back to your childhood and

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where you grew up? When

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I was growing up, I didn't really

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see much of my father. Alan

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grew up in New York City in Queens

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and he watched his immigrant parents essentially

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scrimp and save to give them

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a better life. Even my

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father, he

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originally didn't even finish high school.

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They're from rural villages in China and his

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dad in particular had a really hard life.

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He was like an orphan. His father

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had many kids and he

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couldn't afford to keep all the kids. So he just

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gave them up. So he ended

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up working in a farm that was run by the government in

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China. And

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he did not like that. He didn't want to spend his

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entire life working in a farm. And

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his dad at one point actually just so

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desperately wanted to flee his circumstances that

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he escaped from Guangzhou to Hong

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Kong. He legally

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swam to Hong Kong. By crossing the

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river illegally because it was an international

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border. And then from there was able

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to buy a plane ticket to New

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York City. And eventually he started life

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in Chinatown. Started his life over and

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escaped the trappings of poverty from where

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he was from. Amazing. If

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there's someone that I would say I

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look up to, it would probably be my father because he wanted

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to do anything possible to make sure that I had a good life. Like I

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wasn't even born yet. But he wanted to make sure

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that his kids had good life. That's why he swam to Hong Kong. That's

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why he moved to New York and all this stuff. It

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wasn't just a big deal.