#078 | A conversation with the ORIGINAL friends on FIRE (Mike’s dad + his friend Mark)

January 4, 2021

Episode Summary:

In this week’s episode, we talk to the original friends on FIRE, Mike’s dad Jack and his long-time friend Mark. Jack O’Leary retired at 42 in 1992, and Mark Sullivan retired at 55. They met at work, learned they had similar values and goals and became fast friends. They then collaborated on their finances and personal goals for 35+ years. We can all learn so much from the generation ahead of us on this journey, and we learned from these Baby Boomers on FIRE! Jack and Mark talk about the importance of values, accountability partners, avoiding lifestyle inflation, traveling during early retirement, and of course their love of log paper. We so enjoyed our discussion with the OG friends on FIRE, aka Grandads on FIRE, aka Baby Boomers on FIRE, aka The Pros of Dover.

Episode Notes:

Mike has shared before that his dad retired in his early 40s, and this lifestyle approach inspired Mike’s FIRE journey at a young age. Maggie has been trying to get Mike’s dad on the show for a while, and we finally succeeded when Mark and Jack invited themselves on the show.

In this discussion with Jack and Mark, we cover many topics, including:

Jack and Mark met at work, just like Mike and Maggie!
They found a common interest in saving enough money so they could jump out whenever they wanted to.
Jack and Mark nicknamed themselves the Pros of Dover.
How they each grew up and what it taught them about money.
The importance of values and how they learned early on they had the same values.
A Franklin planner influenced parts of Jack’s life and journey.
Jack read this book at 28, which inspired him on this journey: Cashing in on the American Dream: How to Retire at 35. He would not recommend this book today though!
Two books that Mark found inspiring: Rich Dad, Poor Dad and The Millionaire Next Door.
Avoiding lifestyle inflation and keeping up with the Joneses.
Accumulating money is buying yourself options for later in your life. It’s all about accumulating a big next egg so you can have options when you leave work.
At a young age, Jack realized that he had all of these other personal goals he wanted to pursue in life, outside of work.
Fairly early on, Jack got his company to agree he could take summers off to travel with his kids. He structured his job around what he wanted, and he wasn’t afraid to ask for what he wanted. He decided to keep making money as long as possible until it wasn’t fun anymore.
When he decided not to take a job when his company was moving and instead retire early to spend time with his family, he got a letter from the CEO praising his decision.
The importance of being in sync with your partner on values.
The bureaucracy and stress of some jobs can become all-consuming. Being on call 24/7 with the advance of new technology and how disruptive it can be. Keeping in mind what you’re at work for and why you’re doing it.
Jack’s love of log paper. We think this is basically graph paper, but we’re still not entirely sure. Mark still has one of their projection net worth curves from 1995!
Jack doesn’t think math is Mike’s thing. Maggie was shocked by this statement!
If performance is measured, performance improves!
If you just continue to save a lot of money and do it at a consistent rate, you’ll get there.
Jack always treated saving money as a hobby. Trying to keep the same spending level year over year became a fun challenge for him.
Value-based thinking eliminates a lot of remorse.
Regrets are difficult as you don’t know what the alternative future would have been.
The problem that Jack sees with people who want to retire early is that they don’t have a clear plan on what they are going to do post-retirement. Have a plan and vision for how you spend your life!