Want to know everything about me? You’ve come to the right page. Let’s dive right in!
Hello, Welcome to Radical FIRE!
Radical FIRE is a personal finance platform that is all about financial independence. At Radical FIRE, you will learn to save money, make more money, and invest to optimize your way to freedom. We want you to reach your financial goals and have fun while doing it!
I’m Marjolein, and I decided in 2018 to turn my finances around. I want to become financially free and live the life of my dreams.
I’m doing everything in my power to minimize my time to financial freedom and maximize my joy on the way.
I started this site 1.5 years ago as a way to track my journal to financial independence. I was in $20,000 of student loan debt, spent my money on things I didn’t even value, and didn’t enjoy my day job at all.
One day I desperately typed into Google: ‘how to be financially free’ and I found the awesome corner of the internet that is called the FIRE (financial independence or retire early) community. I crunched my numbers and noticed that I could be financially free in 10 years if I would stop spending like it was 23:59 pm on Black Friday.
That’s When Things Got Serious
I took financial independence serious by:
- Always Negotiating – I’ve increased my salary from 24K in 2018 to 42K in 2020. That’s a 75% increase.
- Lived On Half My Income – by living with roommates until I was 25, spending $70 on groceries monthly, and not having a car.
- Started A Side Hustle – at the moment mainly this blog, freelance writing, and selling things around the house.
- Start Investing – mainly in one low-cost index fund that saves me thousands per year by having low fees at 0.2%.
- Spend Aligned With My Values – start to track my spending, see where I spent the most, and cut back on spending that didn’t make me happy. This enabled me to:
- Take two mini-retirements, one in 2017 and one in 2019, for exploring the world.
- While traveling for 4 months in 2019, still hitting my savings goals and spending under $9,000 in the entire year.
My Mission
My intention with this website is to educate myself and others around Financial Independence and Retire Early (FIRE). I want to empower you to take control of your finances. I believe everyone can be financially independent and retire early if they want it.
This Radical FIRE community is where I’ll hope to find like-minded people who are sharing a similar view! If you have a passion for your personal finances and the FIRE movement, this is the place for you!
I would love to help you by providing you with FREE resources in my free resource library!
Fun Facts About Me:
- I love Christmas so much that every time I was out and about traveling the world, I came back literally the day before Christmas to celebrate.
- I am very big on women supporting women. This is super important to me. I am giving EVERYTHING to lift women up, get them confident with their finances & see themselves as the boss babe they are.
- My dream life would be living in an RV, a tiny house, or a van. To test my minimalist tendencies and see if I can declutter that much.
- I love to travel, I’ve been to North America, South America, Africa & Europe. Next year I’m planning to visit Asia as well!
Want to ask me something more? Let me know below or contact me directly.
Every young person should read this!
Here I am at sixty-seven years old, stuck in a job I don’t enjoy any more and not seeing an end in sight. I’ve bee a registered nurse for forty-six years and I’m tired of the massive messed-up medical system, the lack of a voice and my how my salary has hardly changed in years. I’m very healthy so that is almost everything for happiness! I sold my car two years ago and live in a 400sq ft apartment in the lovely area of Philadelphia.
I’m sending this to every young person I know-especially my three adult children. They’re good with money and are making smart choices.
My dream is to travel again and visit people I know around this beautiful world.
I’m looking forward to reading your past and future posts!
All the best to you,
Nina
Thanks for your lovely comment, Nina. I’m happy to read that you’ve done so much for your kids, you can be very proud of yourself. Hopefully you get to travel the world soon!
Hi we are on our journey to be debt free and I mean totally debt free.as we’re both just fed up with living a life of deprivation. And yes I know it’s totally caused by not having the knowledge as I have now with dealing with money. On a monthly basis. But we just want to part company with debt and now start to keep on the road to budgeting and living a life as with doing what we need to do. To sort this problem out once and for all.and live the life that god intended for us to live. And give more and not have all the stress with the problems that we’re both facing now. And now are both Working so hard now so we can have a better life later.
Hi Diane, thanks for stopping by! That’s a great goal you have there. Getting a hold of your money takes a lot of effort in the beginning. Once you’ve figured it out, it becomes a habit & something you don’t think about as often. I’m 100% positive that you got this!
I am on a similar journey too. At one point, I cashed out my retirement account at the age of 22. I have been trying to recoup for the loss ever since. Last year I started investing in index funds and contribute 15% to retirement. I want to retire early and live free(ish) by FIRE!
In a short amount of time, you have amassed some great resources! Thanks for sharing!
Thank you!
Hi Marjolein,
This is Javi from Spain. I took a similar decision back in 2017 when I was working for a big audit firm (not the job of my life and quite stressful). I moved to the Netherlands in 2019 and I am also working hard to save as much as possible (currently +50%, sadly not as radical as you), invest in RE/index funds and avoid personal debt (unless I am financing a RE project). I hope in a few years I will be able to say that I’m financially free!
Hope to see you around one day. Nice blog!
Keep your hard work 🙂
That sounds amazing Javi, keep up the good work!
Do you mind if I quote a few of your posts as long as I provide credit and sources back to your weblog? My blog site is in the very same niche as yours and my users would definitely benefit from some of the information you provide here. Please let me know if this okay with you. Regards!
Thanks for your comment, as long as you link back to the original post feel free to quote. If you have any additional questions feel free to reach out to info@radicalfire.com