I was listening to a recent podcast with Morgan Housel. I have a lot of respect for Morgan, so was disappointed to hear him say this:
Everyone I know who retired early has gone back to work.
My experience has been almost the exact opposite of Morgan’s. I know plenty early retirees and almost none have gone back to work. Those that have went back to work on interesting projects on their own terms.
But also, I live in a bubble.
A Beautiful Day In Longmont
A couple of weeks ago I was at the gym on the running track. My routine is to walk laps between sets of pull ups and push ups. I happened to look out the window and did a double-take:
I’m a cold-weather person, so views like this light me up. On the way home, I pulled over and took a look around:
Wow, just wow. It was 11:39am on a Thursday and I had just spent almost 3 hours at the gym. How fortunate am I to be able to spend this much time working on my health? How fortunate am I to live in a place that looks like this?
But it wasn’t the natural beauty that brought me to Longmont. It was the people.
An Email Reply Becomes An Inflection Point
Mindy and moved to Colorado back in 2012. But we should have given the move more thought. We strongly disliked the place we moved to. We were frugal DIY people who drove old cars and liked to walk. Our new neighbors were in a competition to outspend each other. Their high school children had nicer cars than we did. We had nothing in common.
Making friends as an adult is hard. There was no way I was going to find good community in this place. We listed our home weeks after we bought it and made plans to move back to the Midwest. Then I discovered the Mr. Money Mustache blog and soon realized that the mysterious MMM (he was anonymous at the time) lived in Colorado. His writing resonated with me and my values, so surely he must live in a better town than the one we had just moved to.
I sent MMM an email not expecting him to respond. But respond he did. In early 2013, he gave us a tour of Longmont and we decided to give the town a test run. Longmont resonated with us and we’re still here, almost 13 years later.
Something I consider often is this: It Pete hadn’t returned that email, we would have never come up to Longmont. We would have sold our home and hightailed it back to the Midwest. We probably would have been OK there, but I don’t think it would have been as good as what we have now.
Community
While Longmont has a lot to offer, what really makes it special is the community. The MMM tractor beam is strong, attracting fun people from all over the United States and even other countries. Some come to visit. Others make it their home.
Even the most awkward introvert like me needs to be around other humans. The bipeds that I’m comfortable around exist in a narrow spectrum. And it’s even harder to build relationships when everyone is at work. But because of the MMM Effect, there are lots of other folks living the same life with the same values. It’s great to get on the hiking trails on a weekday morning when the rest of the world isn’t there.
Do you want to live a long and happy life? One of the most important factors is community. And again here in Longmont, I’m so fortunate to have this. We even have a dedicated clubhouse right on beautiful Main Street.
MMM HQ Is Now The FI Collective
Some of you may know that I own the clubhouse here in Longmont with MMM-Pete. Until recently, we would have called it a coworking space. But we noticed an interesting phenomenon; most of the folks who were members didn’t use the space for work. Most had joined for the social aspect. We also received emails frequently from remote folks who happened to be in town and wanted to visit the space. Still others only wanted to use the space sporadically. So we decided to change things up.
MMM HQ Coworking is now the FI Collective. Our new focus is using the space to host and build our community. We’re adding lots of opportunities to hang out (you can see some of them here). We’ve also added an option for folks who are remote:
Interested in being a part of our community and supporting the space? Read more about memberships here.
Life Is Good
I’m so thankful that my life has turned out the way it has. I always felt like a weirdo before I discovered this community. I didn’t have a tribe.
Why is it that everyone just wants to talk about sports or TV shows?
When I discovered MMM, I thought that the FIRE space would be a temporary and short part of my life. I would learn as much as I could to get my money straight. I would document my journey to financial independence through this blog which I’d delete after 1,500 days (or whenever I made my goal). I would move on to whatever came next. It didn’t work out that way.
While I write less, I still enjoy it. So the blog is still alive 4,752 days after my first post on 1/1/2013.
And I still enjoy the personal finance space, but in a different way. I came for the money and stayed for the people. Living in an eclectic, smart and thoughtful community is a real gift.
Maybe I’ll see you around Longmont sometime?
More 1500 Days!!!
You can also find me (and the dinosaurs) at:
- YouTube: My channel is mostly devoted to home improvement, but I have some other material coming up soon too.
- Instagram: Pretty pictures of dinosaurs, sunsets, and nail guns!
- Twitter: Spontaneous, often insane, ramblings
- Coworking space: On the surface, MMM HQ is a coworking space. Look a little deeper and you’ll see that we’re really building community. The members of MMM HQ are some of the finest people I know
- Buying a Tesla? Use my referral code to get some perks!
Thanks for keeping up with posting and still contributing to this community. As I pull the trigger on my retirement this year I am looking forward to joining your FIRE “bubble” of not going back to work!
Not 100% sold on the name of the FI “Collective” too close to the “Borg” for us Star Trek geeks.
One of the ways that I talked myself into taking the leap into early retirement was telling myself that it didn’t have to be permanent and that I could always go back if I wanted to. Now that I’m two months in, I can tell you that I am NEVER going back. I get to spend my days doing interesting things and seeing gorgeous stuff. There is no job that I’ve ever had that can offer that. Plus I pay myself very well.
I don’t live in Longmont, but I went to my Choose FI local group last month and I’m going to EconoMe in March, so I’m starting to learn the joy of hanging out with likeminded people. FI’ers are good folk.
Awww I never get tired of this Jensens in Longmont Origin Story! Thanks so much for moving here and for your excellent work as Totally Still Retired Co-owner of our little FI Collective Clubhouse.
In 2026, I think we need to go back on the offensive about the FIRE movement. Much like the East Coast vs West Coast rapper battles of the ’90s, our NYC competitors like Ramit Sethi and Morgan Housel (and even the oldies like Dave Ramsey and Suze Orman) are starting to sneak in their little “FIRE movement is only for extreme cheapskates” remarks.
There are many ways to do FIRE, but if you’re doing it right the should be no negative compromises – only purposeful choices and Badass Freedom.
And yes, if you want to go back to conventional work, you can do so, but I sure as hell have never felt the Call of the Cubicle in these first 20 years of retirement!
BTW I’m writing this from a hotel in Las Vegas New Mexico, on the way back from the most beautiful Tesla Road Trip where we hit the craziest mountain and desert hikes and enjoyed one night of the best camping experience of my life so far. All on a bunch of random weekdays in January! Take that, Employment!
This needs to happen. Maybe a Battle Royal on the Tim Ferris show. Mr. Money Mustache drops the first verse from an ebike towing a solar shower, then Carl’s voice pumps out of a Tesla Bot wearing a Kirkland t-shirt.
Carl, I love the blog. I think I started reading sometime around 2016, promptly went back and read every post in order. Witnessing firsthand how your thinking and lifestyle have evolved has been immensely helpful to me.
I still hope that I can make out to CO someday and perhaps visit the FI Collective in person. :fingers-crossed:
Keep up the great work!
Thank you for another encouraging post, Carl! I couldn’t agree more that a key ingredient in life is having a healthy community around you. On that note — is anyone reading this from the Carolinas who can share info about future FIRE events or gatherings in the area? Much appreciated!
Have you checked out the new (-ish, it’s close to a year old now) ChooseFI Local Site? https://local.choosefi.com
Jonathan has been working on it for a while and it has been mentioned on the podcast several times. They are trying to get all the ChooseFI local groups to move over there from Facebook.
I will! Thanks!
Fantastic post Carl. I’m sending this from a cozy Irish apartment overlooking the North Atlantic. I too never miss my work days since my retirement in 2010… Keep up the good work and yay FI Collective! I’m a member and I live far away!
So amazing, and a little scary, how one email/decision/conversation can change a life. Same thing happened to me. I would love to be an in person collective member, but that virtual option sure is tempting.
Great idea on framing the ‘club’ experience.
I’d strongly suggest that you examine turning the ‘program’ into a legal charity a 501(c)(3) organization. Easy to set up and it allows you to get funds more broadly and those funds would be tax deductible for the donors. Especially donors with large stock holdings that have appreciated significantly.
Programs on good financial management fit this category, especially with internet delivery. A charity can pay rent and speaking fees. And other stuff.
My small island town has a few of these that do great work.
PS: (1) the name sucks…you can do better. (2) Really liking your new actually retired direction and your finally using your wealth to make a happier life.
Happy New year , Carl.
I would visit Longmont in May and excited to visit Fi-Landia.
“I came for the money and stayed for the people”
– stole my heart.
Hey Carl, it’s Kyle from East Troy.
Life took me through a few turns and I kind of went into hermit mode and stepped away from blogging. I always greatly appreciated the time you took to meet me years ago, It’s been way too long.
My Financial journey has actually gone very well since then. I owned part of a brewery for a few years, met a frugal girl and we have a son now. I find myself in a place realizing early retirement is actually very possible, though the wife can’t wrap her mind around it. If you ever have time, I’d be interested to catch up.
Hope you and your family are doing great!
Kyle! How the hell are you? Long time, no see.
I’m glad to hear you’re doing well. And yeah, let’s catch up. I think I’ll be near you this summer.