163 How to Achieve FIRE in Your 20s - Gwen Merz, Blogger at Fiery Millennials & Co-host of FIRE Drill Podcast

For this episode, I talk with Gwen Merz, the blogger behind Fiery Millennials and the co-host of FIRE Drill Podcast. As you may have guessed, we go in-depth about FIRE, chat about Gwen achieving financial independence in her 20s, and some terms you may not have her of from the FIRE community. Long description: For this episode of the podcast, I chat with a new friend I made recently at an event called Statement. It was a women in business retreat for women in the financial blogging space, and I can’t even tell you how life changing it’s been. But that’s not what I want to share anyway. I want to share that at this event, I got to meet the amazing Gwen Merz who was able to achieve something not many 20-year-olds can! I’m talking about achieving financial independence. We chat in-depth about what that actually means, and no, it doesn’t mean she’s retired. For her, it means she saved up enough money to afford to leave her corporate job, move cities and then focus on her blog (Fiery Millennials) and podcast (FIRE Drill Podcast) full-time. It also means she saved up enough money that by retirement age, it will have grown to an amount she could easily retire on. So I know I’ve had a lot of guests on the show in the FIRE community that have been able to achieve financial independence and retire early, but Gwen’s story might actually be a bit related. She didn’t save up a million dollars and is now living an easy life. She was able to save up $200,000, bought an income property for about $80,000, but still intends to work to earn a living. She’s set things up so in the future she will earn passive income from your property and her $200,000 will have compounded into a way bigger amount she can live off of in retirement. But, she still needs to earn money for her present needs. For full episode show notes, visit https://jessicamoorhouse.com/163