If you are fortunate, you may be one of the millions of full-time workers who can work remotely during the COVID-19 quarantine. For those who are on the path to FIRE, you may be thinking “this shelter-in-place thing is basically a dry run for the FIRE lifestyle.” 

I would say “yes, and no.” Having achieved FIRE in early 2015, Allison and I can speak from experience about living the FIRE life.

In some respects the Shelter in Place (SIP) has hardly impacted our daily lives. But in other areas, there are significant differences. Let’s take a look…

 

What’s Similar...

Being with your spouse 24/7

If you’re not used to being with your spouse, partner, kids, roommates, or pets everyday all day, then the quarantine will definitely take some getting used to. It took a few months for Allison and me to become accustomed to it as well, but now it works great.

The key is setting up a daily routine with personal time and space. We each do our own thing for half of the day, and get together for the other half. In the mornings, I work in our home office in our spare bedroom. 

Allison does her thing in the kitchen and living room. She does all of our cooking and meal preparation. After breakfast, she’ll watch some TV and connect with friends and online groups and chats. 

We then get together midday to work out, eat lunch, and walk around the waterfront.  Then we go back to our “home offices” to continue working on whatever we were doing in the morning. And finally we reconvene in the evening to eat dinner, watch TV, and read.

FIRE Tip: It’s really helpful to set up a daily and weekly routine with your spouse / partner. Once you get into a nice groove, it becomes second nature. The second tip is to occasionally break out of your routine and do something totally different every once in a while.

 

Working from home projects

Before the pandemic, Allison and I were working on several projects that we could do from the comfort and convenience of our own home. These include blogging, working on our website, and writing a book.

This hasn’t changed at all during the shutdown. The only difference is that we have even more time to focus on these projects. Fortunately, we have these fun and challenging projects to keep us busy and engaged.

FIRE Tip: It’s always a good idea to have at least one project in the works (if not more than one). It allows you to continue being creative and productive. And it doesn’t have to be an online activity. You could work on a home improvement project, a piece of art, or a fitness goal.

 

Cooking at home

I’m very lucky, because Allison loves food and loves to cook. Pre- and post-quarantine, she prepares about 90% of our meals at home. For the last six weeks, she’s kept track of our dinners on an online spreadsheet so that we get variety in our meals and can watch over our food supplies. 

We do still get food from nearby restaurants, usually lunch on Tuesday and Thursday, to support our local businesses. Before the pandemic, we would also typically eat dinner out every week.

FIRE Tip: Cooking at home is a great habit to get into, as it’s healthier and less expensive than eating out. Try to plan out your meals for up to two weeks, purchase as much as you can in bulk, and find recipes online. 

 

Staying healthy

We have always been conscious about maintaining our health by eating nutritious food, exercising regularly, and getting outside for fresh air and sunshine. With the coronavirus pandemic, we’re focusing even more on health and wellness.

We do strength training with weights, exercise bands, and body weight. We get our cardio in by walking or hiking everyday, using elliptical machines, and swimming or biking. For flexibility, we do stretching and yoga. And we make sure to take multivitamins and extra vitamins C and D (supplemented by daily exposure to the sun, while wearing sunscreen, of course!). 

FIRE Tip: The best way to keep an exercise routine going is to do things you enjoy doing. Make sure to include a combination of strength, cardio, and flexibility exercises. And if you can, try to get outdoors as much as possible.

 

What’s Different...

Being unable to travel

The biggest change we’ve experienced from the SIP is not being able to travel or even plan for any big trips. Being able to travel is one of the best parts of retiring early. We’ve been able to travel to over 20 countries since leaving the workforce five years ago. Our travels have provided us with amazing experiences and memories that will last a lifetime.

Fortunately, we were able to complete our 10-week trip to Spain, Portugal, Ecuador, Peru, and Chile in January. That trip satisfied our travel bug for a while, but we had hoped to do at least one big international trip per year. 

We had several domestic trips planned for this spring and summer (including the first Financial Freedom Summit) that have been postponed until later in the year. We were also looking forward to exploring a new continent (Africa, Australia) in early 2021 ; however, an international trip may have to wait until late 2021 or even 2022. As much as we would like to get traveling again, we realize it’s just not going to be feasible for some time.

FIRE Tip: Planning your trips is half the fun of traveling itself. Normally, we would start planning, researching, and booking our next trip shortly after completing our last trip. We do online research on sites like Travelzoo and Tripadvisor, on travel groups on Facebook, and travel guides from the library (e.g., Rick Steves, Fodor’s, etc.).

 

Staying indoors for fun

When you’ve FIREd, you can go out and do fun things whenever you want. Before the pandemic, we loved going out to a nice dinner, exploring museums, seeing movies, and enjoying our local parks and beaches. We also loved meeting up with friends, family, and neighbors for coffee, drinks, parties, or just catching up.

Now we get our entertainment inside watching TV and Netflix, reading, and listening to music. We do the occasional Zoom chat room with friends that we can’t see in person, and when we do see friends or neighbors on our daily walks, we catch up at a safe six-foot distance. 

We’re certainly not complaining. It’s not often that you can help society by being a couch potato, but we are definitely starting to miss getting out and seeing people and doing things in person.

FIRE Tip: It’s easy to lose social interactions after you FIRE, so you have to work a little harder to keep them in place. Once it’s safe again, make the effort to get together with people in person as often as possible. And be sure to take advantage of your free time by enjoying your local museums, theatres, and recreational areas.

 

Living with additional stress

Prior to COVID-19, our lives were not that stressful. Our biggest concern was how we were going to fit in all the travel and fun events into our schedule (boo hoo, right?). Now that we’re immersed in this pandemic, we obviously have more concerns about health, safety, and finances. 

We’re not overly concerned about our own situation. We are very fortunate to still have enough financial resources, we live in a nice condo in a beautiful neighborhood, and we’re able to exercise and eat well to stay as healthy as possible.

However, we do worry about others who don’t have it as good as we do. We stress about our older family members, friends, and neighbors who are in higher risk groups. We’re very concerned about the small business owners in our area, many of whom we’ve gotten to know personally over the years. And we’re worried about the global economy and all the people who live paycheck to paycheck and are no longer working.

We’re doing what we can to help out others who need help. We shop for our senior neighbors, we check in regularly with our parents, and we donate our time and resources wherever we can.

FIRE Tip: While it’s natural to be concerned about others, it’s important to take care of yourself first. It’s like when they tell you on an airplane to put your oxygen mask on first before helping your child. Make a point of getting and staying in good shape, both physically and financially, and then you can focus on helping others!

 

Making financial moves

For the most part, we haven’t done anything too differently with our finances during this pandemic. During periods of crisis and uncertainty, it’s usually not a good idea to make any big financial moves. 

However, since we no longer receive a regular paycheck from a full-time job, we need to plan a little differently to protect and preserve our nest egg. We made three subtle changes to our finances.

First, we reduced our spending. This was more of a consequence of the quarantine than a conscious decision on our part. The upside to not traveling and going out to do things is that we’re spending a lot less money on those endeavors ($0 in fact).

Second, we’re keeping more money in cash. We don’t earn much now that we have FIRE’d, but we do make some money from blogging, writing, dividends, etc. Rather than investing those earnings, we’re keeping them primarily in cash or money market accounts. We want to have one year’s worth of expenses liquid so that we don’t have to sell any equities while the market is in flux.

And third, we’ve done some rebalancing in our portfolios. The quick and steep downturn in the stock market caused our asset allocation to shift more heavily to bonds. The beauty of bonds during a downtown is that they retain (and even increase) their value, so our bond portfolio actually grew while the stock market tanked. We decided to dollar cost average some of that money back into equities over the next couple of months.

FIRE Tip: It’s good to have a financial plan during your FIRE years that incorporates a drawdown strategy, regularly assessing your asset allocation and rebalancing as necessary, and a plan for emergencies.

 

Conclusion

So, overall, does the quarantine make a good dry run for FIRE? Sure, it will give you a feel for the lifestyle, but honestly you really miss out on a lot of what makes FIRE so awesome.

You might consider it “FIRE Lite,” because you only get the very basic level of FIRE benefits. You get a taste of the freedom that FIRE delivers, but it’s nothing like a “Full FIRE” experience.  

The real benefits of FIRE come from the freedom to go where you want, when you want, and how you want. Until we tame the coronavirus and get back to normal life, the full-blown 100% FIRE lifestyle is somewhat on pause. 

But once the lockdowns are over, you can bet that we’ll be reporting to you from an African safari, a boat trip to Antarctica, or a scuba dive in the Great Barrier Reef!