A Pair of Pyromaniacs

OUR ADDICTION TO FREEDOM

Growing up, I was impervious to the ins and outs of money. When I think about my childhood through early adulthood, it is hard to remember any type of lesson that was instilled in me regarding financial matters. I was shielded from a lot of financial hardship by my parents who worked hard and earnestly to pave a brighter future for me and my brother. Perhaps the biggest lesson to learn, and one did I not fully understand until my late 20s, was all the immaterial things that money could buy.

Though I was not the most financially literate, I was still able to appreciate the gargantuan support from my parents who paid for my all my schooling and housing through college. I was not blind to their sacrifice. Throughout medical school, I was still living within my means: good habits from my upbringing combined with an imposing amount of student loan debt.

Even under the tremendous amount of debt, I held onto a delusion of reprieve: that the hardship was short-lived and I would soon be rewarded for my efforts as a physician with a big paycheck. This delusion allowed me to work through medical school without overwhelming worry for my future, perhaps as a defense of sorts. The fixed (and faulty) belief at hand, of course, was that financial bliss awaited me after medical training.

Physicians easily earn within the top 5% of incomes in the United States currently. One may wonder: if that isn’t financial bliss, then what is? The sacrifice of time, relationships, and earning potential is an enormous cost for a medical education.

Due to the amount of debt, late start to any form of retirement contributions, and lifestyle inflation, many physicians end up working for the entirety of their lives—some by choice, and others out of necessity. My idea of financial security, the very basis of my delusion, was deeply flawed. I had to redefine for myself what financial security really meant, because it definitely is not simply a big paycheck.

I remember at my medical school graduation talking with one of my bright and financially savvy anesthesiology colleagues. He casually mentioned plans of maxing out several retirement accounts during residency. He had a road map devised.

I was 28 years old at this time and had no clue what these words even meant—what the heck is a Roth IRA? For a reason barely conscious to me at that time, panic set in. I went straight to reading up on the basics of financial literacy and building a retirement egg. The internal distress only grew at the realization of how much I actually sacrificed when considering the power of compounding.

Moreover, the $320,000 that I had taken out in medical school loans was set at a staggering 6% interest rate. I’d be paying down this debt for the remainder of my life if I wasn’t smart with my money. I had to figure out how to manage this enormous debt that I thought would magically be addressed once an attending.

My apprehension only built as I prepared for my foray into residency—but I was determined. Anyone familiar with the medical training system knows that residents are essentially indentured servants of their respective hospitals. It was the first time I truly had to budget. My base residency salary was lower than the amount I was borrowing yearly in loans as a student, but I was now carving buckets aside for retirement contributions.

Year after year, I stashed money away into my Roth IRA. In my third and fourth years of residency when moonlighting (working extra shifts) became a possibility, I stuffed all my savings into my institution’s 403b plan (an equivalent of a 401k).

I logged into my Roth IRA account yesterday to check the impact of the current geopolitical climate on my savings. 2025 marks my 6th year of contribution and yet the value is double the principal amount. My money was growing without having to do anything. For the first quarter of my life, my naiveté had me believing saving dollars was the proper approach. To simply save money without any form of investment is to lose money over time due to inflation.

To this day, I continue to max out any and all tax advantaged accounts. I went from being just a nerdy aspiring student doctor to a physician who is consciously planning for his financial future. In this process, I discovered a Facebook group called Physicians on FIRE. The FIRE ideology is rooted in the fact that anyone can become financially independent and retire early.

This group functions as my daily dose of education for any physician who wants to become more savvy given the unique financial situation we’re thrust into. On this forum, I get to read through quick useful tidbits, incorporate tricks into my own journey, and think critically about my own position.

The reasons for FIRE are many, and this journey is a very individual one—at least superficially. Though, the more I reflect, the more I find that any and all reasons for FIRE are rooted in deeply existential concerns: regaining time to live one’s life fully, finding meaning through other avenues if or when traditional work loses its luster, mastering one’s own sense of freedom, and escaping the perdition of an isolative life of work.

I do not wish to be beholden to any employer or even the need to work in the traditional sense. I want to choose to work. To this end, financial security means having enough to walk away from work when and if I want.

Peter’s journey into the FIRE movement was very similar, albeit started much earlier. He was introduced to the concept while he was still in college at UCSD. Needless to say, he’s adhered to a very principled lifestyle.

From being very deliberate in his purchases to living very minimally over the past decade, he now has more freedom in how he spends his time and money. He still spends significant time learning about ways to make his money grow and work for him. The FIRE movement, for Peter, is now as much an enjoyable game as it is an ideology.

I currently am saving and investing about two thirds of my net income. Some of it sits in buckets from which I cannot withdraw until retirement age; the rest sits in more fluid accounts for access should an opportunity (i.e. home purchasing) arises. I’ve still found ways to enjoy life with smaller or more mindful purchases. After all, a life devoid of any pleasure is an insufferable one. But I want to spend in a way that I am not borrowing from my future unnecessarily.

Between me and Peter, our cost of living is about 16% of our combined gross incomes. We are pretty proud about that number and are always looking for ways to suppress that further while aggressively funding our retirement vehicles.

I follow a fairly straightforward investment strategy, but Peter is a little more diversified and adventurous. Whatever the case, we aim for at least market returns even if not huge risk takers. That is, we look for very safe avenues to guarantee stability and security in the future.

In the end, it is not that I am averse to work. I actually find my work to be very gratifying and consider myself blessed everyday to be in my position. There is so much meaning I draw from the care I provide for my patients.

However, I want to work on my own terms, and to be the driver of my own freedom. Ultimately, the pursuit of financial freedom is one of psychological grounds—one that can be so liberating of some very primal existential concerns.

XOXO,

Howard and Peter