FIRECracker is a world-travelling early retiree. She used to live in one of the most expensive cities in Canada, but instead of drowning in debt, she rejected home ownership. What resulted was a 7-figure portfolio, which has allowed her and her husband to retire at 31 and travel the world. Their story has been featured on CBC, the Huffington Post, CNBC, BNN, Business Insider, and Yahoo Finance. To date, it is the most shared story in CBC history and their viral video on CBC’s On the Money has garnered 4.5 Million views.
“How do I get my family and friends onboard the FIRE train? We’ve had little success. Some friends are excited in the beginning but lose steam over time. Others aren’t interest at all and think it’s deprivation. Some friends even lost touch with us because they think we’re no longer relatable.”
I’ve heard these experiences from at least 3 different couples/families after retiring early and quitting their jobs. It’s understandable when you discover this magical formula to a life of freedom that you want to bring as many of your favourite people along as possible. After all, FIRE can be lonely if you don’t find like-minded people to hang out with after leaving your work social circle.
Wouldn’t it be nice to have all the time in the world to spend with friends that get you, doing whatever you want, whenever you want, instead of only squeezing out a few precious hours on the weekend, once a month, because you have to go back to work?
The thing is, I’ve tried this exact thing. And the number of friends and family members that I’ve gotten to retire early is….wait for it….
Zilch. Nada. Zero.
It’s ironic, given that complete strangers have written in and told me they’ve completely changed their lives after reading our book, going from homelessness to $100K in just 1 year, and then reaching $850K in net worth 4 years later! Yet, friend after friend, whom we’ve known for over 10+ years, haven’t changed their lifestyles one bit.
Here’s the brutal truth: You will lose friends after FIRE.
This is because when you’re working and have limited time, friendships aren’t built on who you are. They’re built on where you are.
You were cubical soldiers together, connected by shared stress, deadlines, and corporate bullshit. But when you stop chasing these things that people believe you’re supposed to chase—money, material things, promotions—you no longer have much in common.
Suddenly, you’re no longer relatable. You still feel the same, but to them, you’re a entirely different person now.
Why?
Because your existence now forces people to confront their shit. When you say, “I don’t need to work anymore”, they hear “I’m no longer interested in living the life you chose.”
You won’t even speak the same language anymore because while you talk about “slow mornings”, “freedom”, and hippie sounding shit like “self-actualization”, they’re stressing about work politics, childcare logistics, and traffic jams.
Even if you have the best intentions to help them do the same, it won’t matter. Regardless of whether you are pushy or supportive about their FIRE journey, you will still piss people off just by existing. They will see you as “out of touch” and “weird”.
What I learned from 10+ years of retiring and inadvertently losing friends is that it’s about them, not you.
Prior to retiring, you were struggling and in the trenches with your friends. But now you’re out, doing your victory lap and they’re still stuck, trying to dig their way out.
They may not resent your success, but they do resent what your success says about them. You’ve lived out their “what if” scenario and taken the path they didn’t choose.
Only the people who are secure in their finances and life choices will be happy for you. This is the exception rather than the rule. Most people don’t have the time and bandwidth to fix their insecurities. This is something that took me years to do and it was extremely unconformable. And the first step is realizing that you are insecure in the first place, and that success addiction is bad, which is impossible since society is hellbent on glorifying it and social media amplifies it.
They may not even be aware that you’re jealous of your lifestyle and appear very supportive and onboard the FIRE train on the surface, but inside they are secretly resentful or simply don’t believe FIRE is attainable for them.
This is not to say you should give up on FIRE because you’ll die friendless and alone. It’s just that you’ll have to find a new circle of friends who match your new values and have unlimited free time.
First take some time and mourn those lost friendships. They were real and they mattered, and losing them sucks, even if you love this new life.
The next step is to find new friends.
I’m going to be honest. It’s not going to be easy. Making friends as an adult is already way harder than as a kid, but even harder when you can’t commiserate about work. But it’s not impossible either. You could:
Join the ChooseFI groups for local meetups. Start your own FIRE meetups. Go to FIRE conferences like Econome. Find other adjacent groups that aren’t FIRE, but have similar values—like the digital nomads and WorldSchoolers.
It’s going to be weird and awkward in the beginning. It’ll also take many repeat meetups before you go from an acquaintance to a friend. You have to keep watering that friendship to help it grow.
Here are a few tips I’ve found useful when meeting new people:
Focus on activities, not just “hanging out”
Grabbing a cup of coffee is easy when you already know the person and have lots to talk about. But when it comes to meeting strangers, pick something to DO together. Join a running club. Take a cooking class. Go learn something and chances are you’ll find a lot of like-minded people who want to learn that thing too.
Listen more than you talk
A lot of people try to impress others by talking a lot. Be the opposite. Ask questions, be curious about the other person, and practice listening deeply to their answers and connecting with them. It’s not about you, it’s about them.
Give gifts and favours
One of the easiest ways to make friends is to just give gifts or do favours for the other person. Humans are generally reciprocal people and when other people are nice to then, they’ll want to be nice back.
Ask for advice
People love giving advice to others and feeling smart. Let them feel smart by asking them for advice (even if you don’t need it). This immediately breaks the ice and helps you get to know them better while making the other person feel good about themselves.
Obviously, these tips won’t work on every person you meet. There will be many people who don’t become lifelong friends but you have to go out there and try. The first time you might fail, but keep trying. Making new friends takes effort but is worth it. Some of our closest friends now are people we’ve met after retiring and they have much more in common with us than the friends we’ve lost.
What do you think? Have you tried getting any family or friends onboard the FIRE train? How did it go? Do you have any tips for making new friends after retiring?
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