What is Barista F.I.R.E?

In today's video I wanted to introduce the concept of "Barista Fire"

No barista fire is not when your Starbucks barista overheats the expresso machine, it's a lifestyle and a term within the personal finance community.

I think in order to understand barista fire you have to first understand the concept of F.I.R.E. which stands for financial independence retiring early. The key concepts of this are increasing your income as much as possible, sacraficing in lifestyle a bit to cut expenses as much as possible, and raising your savings rate as much as possible so you can pour as much money as you possibly can into investments.

Within the FIRE community you have another community called Lean FIRE which is basically people willing to live a very minimalist or spartan lifestyle in order to make this happen.

Now oddly enough this video I'm posting right now is the only video on Youtube about this subject matter. There are a lot of Youtube videos about coffee shops catching on fire when you search barista fire but nothing about this concept.

The concept of barista fire is someone who wants to retire early or take advantage of the FIRE lifestyle at an earlier age, but maybe isn't at the point where they don't need to earn more income, maybe they come up just a bit short in terms of being able to cover their monthly expenses without dipping into savings.

Someone interested in barista fire may have some good money put away for retirement, they may have some passive income comming in in the form of a side hustle or some profits from investments, but maybe they are a bit short of covering all their expenses. Someone in this postion may decide to barista fire meaning they leave behind their day job or corporate career they are unhappy with and take on a part time job. Barista is an example hence the name but it could be working at a golf course, working as a lifeguard, basically working a fun job that doesn't take up too much of your time, something not stressful and something you enjoy doing, and even if your only making 10k, 15k or 20k a year, that's all you really need to be able to cover your lifestyle and still continue putting some money away for retirement.

I think this is an interesting lifestyle for Entrepreneurs or people who want to be Entrepreneurs because it leaves a lot of free time to have little side hustles, start businesses, take on passion projects.

I think this lifestyle is perfect for someone who values free time, autonomy, happiness and time with friends and family over material things.

Essentially with this video I just wanted to introduce an idea of a different type of lifestyle. There's nothing wrong with working a corporate job or wanting to make a lot of money, but there's also nothing wrong with having different values and wanting to live your life on your own terms.

I'd love to hear your guys take on this. Does the barista fire lifestyle appeal to you? Are any of you already aware of the FIRE movement or the idea of barista fire and trying to make it a reality? Maybe some of you are already living this lifestyle. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Drop a comment in the comments section below.