Pursuing early retirement led financial coach to marriage counseling
About ten years ago Andy Hill was looking for a change.
Hill, now 44, was feeling burned out at her job in corporate event marketing. While frequent travel and weekend activities were fun when Hill was in her 20s, work began to lose its luster after she got married and started a family.
Hill began hosting a side gig in 2016. “Marriage Children and Money” podcastwhere he and his guests discuss their journeys and stories about family finances. It was around this time that he became interested in FIRE, an acronym for “financial independence, retire early.”
The strategy usually involves saving a high percentage of your income to serve aggressive investments. Save enough and you can purchase income-producing investments like real estate or start withdrawing from your stock portfolio to replace the income you get from a 9-to-5 job.
Hill was all there.
“I’m very intrigued by fast charging, like traditional FIRE, get me out of here,” Hill tells CNBC Make It, referring to an old FIRE model that prioritizes cutting spending to maximize savings and retire quickly. “I want to save as much as possible and I don’t care what happens right now. That hasn’t worked well in my life.”
Hill and his wife saved more than 50% of their dual income, often eliminating many of life’s niceties to do so. They shopped at lower-cost grocery stores and sold anything they determined they didn’t need at home. They were saying “no thanks” when family, friends, or colleagues invited them to events that didn’t fit into a strict budget.
In many ways it worked; The couple wiped out $50,000 in debt and built a portfolio worth $500,000. But Hill says money discussions start turning into money fights when he suggests saving more to retire as quickly as possible.
“We did the ‘super-saving’ thing for a while, and that led us to marriage counseling,” says Hill.
Talking during counseling gave Hill and his wife a new approach to managing their marriage; an approach based on compromise, communication and empathy with each other’s feelings.
They’ve also taken a new approach to money that he and some other financial professionals have dubbed “Coast FIRE”: When you save enough to ensure your portfolio can grow to where you want it in retirement, you take your foot off the gas, savings-wise and “coastal.”
It’s a philosophy he shares his new book“Own Your Time: 10 Financial Steps to Put Your Family First and Avoid Corporate Torment.” Particularly for couples, she says, taking this approach allows you to spend more money or time pursuing the things in life you value together.
“[It’s about] Starting from a position of personal dreaming and sharing those dreams with your partner, asking them to do the same, so you can come together for great family goals that work for both of you,” says Hill.
finding the middle ground
Hill discovered that the aggressive FIRE strategy meant sacrifices on both sides. Not only was the pressure to cut expenses limiting what the family could do, but the hope of putting as much money in the bank as possible meant that work was taking him away from the people he loved.
“I was traveling for my children’s birthdays, working with managers who rated my performance based on how late I could stay in the office, and generally spending far more time working than I did caring for my health or family,” she says.
Yet abandoning the strategy dashed Hill’s hopes of leaving his job altogether; His plan was to save enough to invest in rental properties. It says passive income.
Hill’s wife suggested that he take the money he had been saving for rental property and use it to turn his side hustle, which he enjoyed much more than his day job, into a full-fledged business.
“It was an epiphany moment,” he says. Instead of waiting for the finish line of early retirement, he could use some of his savings to buy the time and space to pursue his passion.
Hill kept his podcast and started his own business full-time in 2020, adding financial coaching and speaking engagements. When he quit his job, he was making about $180,000 a year working 40 to 50 hours a week. These days he pays himself about $100,000 but works about 20 to 25 hours a week.
As for the savings rate, “We found a middle ground,” Hill says. “So we said, ‘We can continue to save and invest, but maybe dial it back at a cool 20%, 25%, and then put some of that back into our lifestyle.'”
Unlocking time freedom
Hill says his transition to the Beach FIRE lifestyle has allowed him and his wife to focus on time freedom. If you can build enough of a retirement nest egg, the thinking goes, you can let it grow in the background and use the money you spend to enrich your life in the form of spending more or finding a different approach to work.
“Do we want to inflate our lifestyle and have more fun, or do we both want to work less?” Hill says. “Wouldn’t it be nice to work 20 to 25 hours a week until we’re in our 60s and then enjoy more time now?”
Hill and his wife took the second approach. The couple had accumulated nearly $500,000 by the time they turned 40 and have since increased their net worth to over $1 million. They used their financial flexibility to downsize at work. While Hill was building his business, his wife realized she was tired of working all hours for clients at her marketing agency.
“He said, ‘I’ve always wanted to work with my hands. I’ve always wanted to do something where I’m done when the work day is done,'” Hill says.
So she went back to school to become an esthetician. She now works part-time at a dermatologist’s office, and when the practice closes, she returns to her own life.
The goal is to find the balance between saving for the future and living a fulfilling life now, Hill says. The duo spend their Mondays sipping coffee and exercising together after sending the kids to school. Hill cooks family meals twice a week. They took dance lessons together and are learning pickleball.
“With an extra 20 to 25 hours when we’re not working, we can take care of our health,” Hill says. “We can make time for our marriage so we can actually chat with each other and not be sidetracked by arguments. We can be more present parents and be there for the moments that matter for our kids.”
Do you want to advance the workplace with artificial intelligence? Sign up for CNBC’s new online course, Beyond the Basics: How to Use Artificial Intelligence to Power Your Business.. Learn advanced AI skills like creating custom GPTs and using AI agents to increase your productivity today.
