👋 Hi everyone! Just thought I'd introduce myself to the channel. My name is Sochy Eisenberg and I've been passionate about personal finance ever since I got married and starting saving. For a while I pursued FI, but I have since been somewhat turned off by all the podcasts and blogs where all they seem to care about is getting referrals, kick backs and ads, pushing listeners to products that were sub-par in order to get commissions. I was also turned off by all the posts on FIRE reddit of people who achieved their "FIRE Number" yet still could not get themselves to stop working and stacking more cash. This put into question, in my eyes, the movement as a whole since I couldn't see what the purpose of all the sacrificing was if one cannot actually pursue their hobbies earlier on. What intrigued me about frum.finance is the clear mission statement and the desire to help other people without earning referrals and kickbacks. I also came to believe that it's not all-or-nothing and while I may not be interested in all the aspects of fire, I can still benefit from community of like minded people 😉 both in the frum and finance areas.

We are so happy to have you and thank you for the introduction! Sounds like you are looking for exactly what I am trying to create which is absolutely amazing! Have you seen the flowchart yet?? One distinction, is that frum.finance is pushing FI, not FIRE. You’ll see here where I try to make the distinction, https://twitter.com/niebloomj/status/1619483697136414723 in the quoted tweet. Given this distinction, are there any aspects of FI that you aren’t interested in?

I've reviewed the flowchart but I need to look at it in greater depth. I certainly appreciate all the work that was put into this project.

Of course! I hope it provides value to you!

I recently read a book called Die with Zero, the idea of the book is about maximizing your life experiences while you can have them (before you are older and health begins to decline). This made me reconsider the whole notion of delaying gratification to an extreme, as is common in the FI(RE) community. It's that part of FI that I came to dislike, the extreme sacrifices. I believe there is a healthy balance and for someone like myself who is naturally a saver and frugal, I found that FI(RE) was further feeding that part of me.

Take a look at my tweet. I think you'll find that you missed the FIRE to FI rebrand. Die with zero and other popular idea like the article "the tail end" which I link in my tweet have completely changed the movement to focus on living for today and drop the whole RE concept.

Glad to hear this! I will review the resources 😊

I'll probably be adding die with zero on the list also. Just need to finish it 🙂

That's great! I highly recommend it. I came across it pretty randomly, just browsing through the limited Finance section of my local library.

Yeah I've heard so many good things about it. Just need to get through it. So many books out there