249 Retiring at 30 During a Pandemic - A Purple Life, Award-Winning Blogger & Early Retiree

I’ve been following A Purple Life on Twitter for a while now. So, when I saw her tweet about finally quitting her job because she’d reached her financial independence number of half a million dollars this summer, I knew I needed to have her on the show to share her story! Purple (that’s what I’ll call her to keep things simple) started her personal finance blog back in 2015 when she was only 25 to document her journey of becoming financial independent and eventually retiring early. Originally, her plan was to have enough saved up to retire by 2025 when she would be 35. But, as she saved and invested her money, and lived well below her means, she was able to achieve FIRE five years early! Not only that, she made the decision to follow through with her plans during the pandemic. From the outside looking in, that seems like a fairly bold move, but not by Purple. As she explains in our interview, it didn’t have much effect on her plan to retire at 30. She had a solid investment plan, she understood her personal risk tolerance and didn’t freak out in March when the market tanked (unlike many of us), and she also knew that if she had to earn more income, she could through the job she was leaving. Another thing I want to point out that we didn’t really discuss in this episode is that Purple is a person of colour. You may not know that since she’s anonymous online, but I think this is very significant. When you look at the FIRE community as a whole, it’s very white. Purple is actually the first guest I’ve had on my show who achieved FIRE and isn’t white. I’m pointing this out because I’m hopeful that moving forward, and by sharing more examples like Purple, that the FIRE community will become more diverse and better represent what our world actually looks like. For full episode show notes visit https://jessicamoorhouse.com/249