This week I’m chatting with a number of people who identify as members of the FIRE movement, which stands for Financial Independence Retire EarlY. The mission is to intensely save and invest —over half your income—so you can retire sometime by 40 or sooner. The movement is often associated with white men who have high earning careers in software engineering or finance. And as a result the FIRE saving and investing advice and pursuit of FIRE  can be inapplicable to many..  So this week we’re speaking to the minority members of the FIRE group that are making the movement more diverse, more inclusive and more relevant.
Today we’re speaking with Paula Pant, a prominent leader of the Financial Independence Retire Early movement and an enthusiastic investor with a soft spot for spreadsheets. She is the Founder of Afford Anything, a personal finance and financial independence website and host of the award-winning Afford Anything podcast.
Paula’s core belief that “you can afford anything, but not everything” is the backbone of Afford Anything. Through expert interviews and bi-weekly “Ask Paula” episodes, listeners learn to think critically about how they spend limited resources like time, money, and energy.
Paula survived Covid 19 earlier this spring so our conversation starts there…and we dive into her financial belief systems in this unusual time…have they changed?