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Family On FIRE Journey

Welcome to our Family on F.I.R.E blog! What is F.I.R.E exactly? It stands for Financial Independence, Retire Early. Exciting right?! Right? I can promise you that it is! Our family is on the road to FIRE and it is one very exciting ride. We can’t WAIT to share it with you and maybe even help and inspire you and your family to achieve financial independence too.

We’ll let you in on a little secret – achieving financial independence is actually really simple, as simple as basic maths. There is no need to win the lottery (although we can always dream!), be the recipient of long-lost relative’s large estate or be earning a larger than average wage. EVERYONE can achieve F.I.R.E with basic maths.

So, who is the Family on F.I.R.E?

We are Cam & Trish, a married couple in our early 40’s and parents to three very busy and gorgeous school-aged children. We are an active family who enjoy being outdoors, holidays at the beach, surfing and laughing a lot!

We were an item from our first surfing date (Yes real surf at Phillip Island!) in 1999 – married in 2002, where Cam & I (Trish) have lived a life conscious of our spending. From the very beginning our shared goal was to be financially independent by the time we retire – one driving factor for us has always been that we cannot guarantee that there will be a pension available to us by the time we reach that stage of life. Economy and government policy can change at any time. The other factor is that we have always hoped to set ourselves up so that we could retire at an age where we are still fit and able to enjoy life.

A number of years ago Cam’s own father suffered a severe stroke at the young age of 60, not long before he had planned to retire. The stroke has left him physically limited and with a brain injury. He lives permanently in a nursing home and we feel so sad that did not have the opportunity to enjoy the things he had planned to do in retirement. His situation really hit home to us and has pushed us to reach financial independence early.

Anyone can reach F.I.R.E

Yes, that means you! By simply becoming conscious of your financial incomings and outgoings and setting goals, you too can reach F.I.R.E. You don’t need to earn a huge income, you don’t need two people earning a wage at all times. Cam and I have been reaching our goal all the while:

Raising our family of three kids.
I have been a stay-at-home Mum while Cam is the main income earner.
I, for many years now, have had the freedom to work from home for my small business ventures and side-hustles.
Weathering an unexpected life event – In 2012 I was diagnosed with a golf ball-sized benign brain tumour (known as a meningioma) and underwent a craniotomy to have it removed in 2013. This took almost 12 months to recover fully from.
Paying our home mortgage off in a short amount of time.
Purchasing shares and investment properties.
Achieving our dream of purchasing a holiday home at the beach (which has become a profitable holiday rental business as well).

All of these things have not stopped us from reaching the goal we have set – amazing hey?! If you stick by the same principle – spend less than what you earn, save/invest what you don’t spend – YOU can reach F.I.R.E too.

We can’t wait to share our own personal journey with you! We hope it will be a source of inspiration in your own road to F.I.R.E.

Cam & Trish

Join the Family On FIRE community!

As we have shared our journey since 2019 we have been asked to appear on a number of larger podcasts and even on TV show The Project – however we have always declined due to work situations. The reason for these requests is that there isn’t always a lot of coverage specifically about FIRE with a family and we are told families want to know more. Hence one of the reasons we have set up this private group as others might be in the same situation.