[00:00:06] Viktoriia Miracle: Hello. Hello and welcome back to happy time happy money podcast and today we have Frank on Fire. She is Australian mom of two boys in her thirties who stumbled onto the fire movement in mid 2019. This movement changed her and her husband's traditional views on retirement and made them realize that they did not have to work until there were 65 years old.

[00:00:36] She created a blog Frank on Fire as a way of documenting and sharing their honest and Frank journey to financial independence. Hi and welcome Frank.

[00:00:47] Kylie (aka Frank on Fire): Hi. How are you doing?

[00:00:52] Viktoriia Miracle: And I would love to ask you for us always, we're starting this podcast from tell us more friends. What, uh, inspired you. I mean, what are you inspired you to do with your right?

[00:01:06] Kylie (aka Frank on Fire): So, as, as you've mentioned, Viktoriia, we found fire, I guess just over two years ago, we are aiming to retire in eight years. And we're on track at the moment, which is really good, but what inspires me, I guess, The desire for more freedom in my life and more choice and it's not just me. It's me and my husband.

[00:01:26] Then we have two, two children, two older kids. We had our kids very young, so we didn't get to do a lot of traveling. And so I we're really keen to start traveling a lot more. But yeah, that's what inspires us is just more freedom and more choice and so fire is that vehicle for us.

[00:01:43] Viktoriia Miracle: So how did you, like, where, where did you discover fire?

[00:01:47] Kylie (aka Frank on Fire): Ah, yeah. Good question. So we discovered it, I don't know if you know the minimalists, they are another podcast and they were featured on a documentary video by Scott , cold pint playing with fire. And so I downloaded the audio book and then the documentary came out and it was really, really inspiring to see people my own age.

[00:02:12] Who had gotten out of the rat race and, you know, had more choice and more passion in the lives. Yes. So that was, that was how I found it.

[00:02:23] Viktoriia Miracle: I love it. What is your, like, what is it? You said you're on track in eight years. So it was like, what's your motivation basically to, for achieving it early. And I see you have a beautiful kids right there behind you.

[00:02:35] If you are watching this podcast, you can totally see them, but if you're not, you can totally go to our page and watch that podcasts. So beautiful picture of your family.

[00:02:44] Kylie (aka Frank on Fire): Yeah. So my husband was actually diagnosed with cancer at 28. So that was about six years ago and has been in remission for six years.

[00:02:52] And we're really, really grateful every single day, but we've learned a lot from the journey, including the fact that tomorrow is not guaranteed. And so there's no point doing things you don't want to do. So really that's key motivation for us is to live as many days on our own terms. And not in, I guess, jobs that we don't enjoy to spend more time on our hobbies and with our kids and on travel.

[00:03:15] So for us far as a way of life, which allows us to transition to a life with more choice, more flexibility around what we do with our time.

[00:03:26] Viktoriia Miracle: Love it. So what will be your best advice for those people who are just like getting started on learning about financial independence? I like first, also the concept of fire, because I feel like maybe some people wouldn't be able, like familiar.

[00:03:41] What, what is the fire? Let's just start from that first, a little bit rewind.

[00:03:46] Kylie (aka Frank on Fire): Good question. So fire stands for financially independent retire early. So it's all around, I guess, determining what your fire number is. So your fire number is 25 times your current annual expenses and what you trying to do is aim to have that invested in income producing assets since.

[00:04:08] So income producing assets and once you have reached that that fine number, then you can retired and a lot of people choose not to retire. A lot of people choose to maybe reduce their working hours to give them more lot work-life balance. Some people may choose to change career altogether. The whole point of fire is it gives you more choices and there's no one way to do fire.

[00:04:33] I guess that's the most important thing you can do it as slowly or as quickly as you feel comfortable doing?

[00:04:40] Viktoriia Miracle: No. It's okay. So what's your advice now for to start it?

[00:04:50] Kylie (aka Frank on Fire): Well for me, I work in project management and I love the saying what gets measured gets managed. One thing I believe strongly has kept us going, because I think starting is a big issue, but once you start keeping going, motivation's really hard, especially in the middle. I think the first year, you know, you're really keen and you've got a goal, but then after that, you kind of, you could be at risk of losing.

[00:05:15] And so the big thing for me is really tracking and, you know, tracking your net worth, tracking your expenses, tracking your progress and looking back, because I guess it's quite, you can inspire yourself really as to how far you've come, especially when you've had financial setbacks, seeing how far you've come keeps you going further, I guess that's the big thing.

[00:05:40] Viktoriia Miracle: Mm. Love that. Oh my gosh. She likes keeping the progress, right. And that's what we, as humans, as the humans need sometimes not even resolved, but like the progress, like, okay, I'm making a progress, I'm doing something. It feels tangible because when there is a progress, love it.

[00:05:56] So in the last question, Go for it.

[00:05:59] Kylie (aka Frank on Fire): Oh sorry. I was just going to say one thing also is keep it visual, keep it super visual with your trackers. So put it wherever you, you feel inspired so that if that's your work office or if it's on your fridge, you know, keep yourself inspired with your progress.

[00:06:17] Viktoriia Miracle: And the last question I always ask, fill in the blank for me, please.

[00:06:22] If you really knew me, you will know that I am.

[00:06:27] Kylie (aka Frank on Fire): Oh, I, I love this one. I'm curious. I'm I'm a very curious person. I love asking lots of questions. And I think that probably comes down to my, my background, but I'm very curious. Curiosity killed the cat, but I think it's helped me. I guess always ask questions, always ask why, it leads to a lot of efficiencies.

[00:06:48] Why, why am I buying this? My spending that, yeah.

[00:06:54] Viktoriia Miracle: Awesome. I know you have an awesome free gift for us today. Could you share with more of what it is?

[00:07:01] Kylie (aka Frank on Fire): So I, as I was mentioning, I really love visual trackers and so I'm quite big on that. And so I am sharing my, one of my visual trackers, which is a monthly goal setting printable.

[00:07:12] So that's available on the site.

[00:07:16] Viktoriia Miracle: Thank you so much. Thank you so much for coming over and we will link everything you can find on the episode page where you can go, just scroll down, even though you're watching or listening to this episode. Just scroll down though the link and there, you can find all the links we mentioned all the social media and a ways, many ways to connect with Frank. Thank you so much for coming. And thank you so much for watching or listening and I, well, don't forget to go and subscribe to our channel or subscribe to our podcast and give us review or rate and subscribe and review. Okay. I'll put them all together.

[00:07:55] Well, thank you so much and I'll see you in the tomorrow. Bye.