When I said this on a podcast on #FIRE, I received a lot of questions:
💠 Why aim for financial independence if you don’t want to retire early?
💠 Are you just chasing more money?
💠 Maybe you haven’t saved enough and are scared to retire?

These were some of the most common reactions. But to truly understand my perspective, you need to know what triggered our FIRE journey.

Ranjani Mani and I both come from middle-class Indian families, where saving was always a priority. We always planned our finances well, but FIRE wasn’t our initial goal.

We became debt-free in January 2019. Before that, nearly 25% of our combined income went toward home loan EMIs. Our monthly expenses remained close to what they are today, so we managed to save around 40% of our income, with most of it going toward prepaying our home loan.

👉 That’s how we closed a 20-year loan in just six years.

2019 was the first year we had extra cash to invest. And then COVID happened. We lost many close relatives. Those two years changed our perspective on life.

In February 2022, we caught the Omicron variant of COVID while on a workcation in Madikeri (Below is the photo of the beautiful place). That break turned into a forced time-out to recover—and that’s when we seriously committed to our Financial Independence journey.
COVID taught us one thing: nothing in life is guaranteed.

That realization pushed us to achieve financial independence as quickly as possible for three key reasons:
1️⃣ To manage our health, especially stress levels
2️⃣ To have the flexibility to focus on things that truly matter
3️⃣ Tech jobs aren’t secure anymore—so why take chances?

This is why I said I won’t retire even after reaching financial independence.
I don’t see being productive and earning money as something negative. In fact, I want to keep creating, working, and generating income for as long as my body allows.

For us, retiring early was never the goal. The real goal has always been the freedom to choose how we work and live.