Financial Independence Without Buzzwords
I don't care to belong to any club that would have me as a member" - Groucho Marx
You can get to financial independence without buzzwords. These words just remind me of marketing junk. Can't we just do something positive and leave it at that? Here's a rant on the subject.
Fred isn't much of a joiner.
Buckle up for my anit-buzzword financial independence rant!
Today you will be treated to my misguided tirade about conformity of what I consider a few beaten-right-to-death terms in the FI/RE community. It pained me to even type "FI/RE" into that last sentence. As an independent minded person I never was much interested in clubs and fraternities and the like. I guess the closest I got were a couple some track and cross country teams in high school and college.
What I am saying is the "independence" part to me is the most important concept of the bunch. The reason for all of this hubbub is to be able to do what you want when you want to do it in your life. I have always thought that with independence came a certain non-conformity and healthy skepticism for established patterns and processes. So for me that acronym and the term "side hustle" can just go away from my personal vocabulary and take "amazing" and "actually" with them.
It reminds me of the punk rock scene in the 1980's where I noticed that everybody was rebelling together against something (and turning out a boatload of kickass music) but taken as a group they all had the same uniform. In their rebellion and independence they all looked kinda the same. No leather jacket? Sorry, you're not in the club. I'm not here to judge anybody's writing, just to blow off some steam about trends in society in general. That way I don't have to go home and do it and Mrs. Smidlap gets a break from my ranting nonsensical gibberish for an evening. She deserves that break at the very least. Maybe it's all unfair, the things I say, but I'll go ahead and own them and be an outsider.
More crappy financial independence buzzwords
Why can't "side hustle" just be called something else 5% of the time? I get that it's a useful term and very descriptive but isn't there any other way for a bunch of independent freedom lovers to say it? "Actually" is the worst offender of the bunch. I thought for awhile today's youth had claimed the word as their own fake intellectual modifier of choice but I've noticed it creepy into more and more mainstream stuff and used by adults more. Listen closely some time and count the number of "actuallys" and "amazings" you hear per paragraph. It's like they hand out free fucking donuts in the writer's room if you can work both of those into every paragraph.
I still like all the interesting writing and sharing that goes with the personal finance space and I have learned a ton just reading what's out there on this internet. Nobody even charged me for the lessons and we'll be chugging along happily down the path to shangri-la with our money and priorities straight, but I'll be writing about it without the de rigueur buzzwords. Got any favorite list of hated or just overused words on your list? Let me know or just gimme your vitriol.
That's all I got. I'm clearly not cut out for the club.
related: We’re Not Retired but Here’s How We’re Using Our Financial Independence