What is Quiet Financial Independence?

What is Quiet FI… to me?

If you are new to the site, you might be asking yourself: what is up with the name My Quiet Financial Independence?  What does that mean?  What is this Quiet FI?

The easy answer is that I don’t think that it can be defined, however, I’m going to do my best to steer you in the right direction.

Let me tell you a little story…

The other day I was reflecting on generations – how are they defined/categorized?  Are the cutoffs clear or are they messy, because as we all know, people are messy.  They come with a lot of baggage.  And no matter how confident we might appear, we are all just fragile creatures underneath seeking some form of approval.

The more I looked into my generational place in history, the more I determined that like anything in life, it is painted in all different shades of grey, and I concluded that I just happened to be one of those inbetweeners, a small category that seems to have been left behind by the masses to fend for ourselves and create our own identity.  My birthdate year is 1981, and this puts me right on the edge of being too young to be considered Generation X and too old to be considered a Millennial (per Wikipedia, though I do feel a lot more like a Gen Xer than Millennial).  In a society that likes to put labels on everything, and constantly keep score of our progress for keeping up with the Joneses, I admit to being a little lost.

Where do myself and my fellow inbetweeners actually fit in?

And for you too, it might be a little confusing with all of the categories and subcategories of FI, where do you actually belong?

When I looked at myself in the mirror at age 37 from my FI lenses, I found myself to be an inbetweener again.  I was already too old to be one of the Millennial FI’ers retiring in my late twenties or early thirties, yet I wouldn’t be sticking to the traditional retirement model at age 65 either.  My wife and I don’t want to live on Lean FI, and at the same time we won’t be pursuing Fat Fire either.  We don’t ride bicycles daily to save the environment, but we are conscious of over-consumption and try to make green decisions as much as we can.  We aren’t minimalists but we have cut down on excess possessions and lead a more simplistic lifestyle.

So where does that leave me?

In a nutshell, I think Quiet FI boils down to the individual pursuit of your own goals on your own terms. 

The beauty is, you get to define it for yourself.  Whether that means aggressive saving or pursuing something as simple as a gentle nudge or subtle change toward financial improvement, it’s up to you.  And the most important part is, you don’t have to worry about the question of where you fit in.  Because it doesn’t matter anymore.  With Quiet FI, we all belong.

So come join me and we’ll quietly pursue changing our own lives for the better, and as a ripple effect on the world, see where the current takes us.

I’m looking forward to our journey together.  And think about, just for today, how can I improve in one simple area of my life? Quietly.

Stay positive my friends, life is all about shifting perspective.

-Q-FI

P.S. Let me know below in the comments:  What does Quiet FI mean to you?