It's always fun to dig up an esoteric piece of personal financial history. I know that there are few nerds who care about this (Hello, Grant Sabatier!), but those of us who care about it really care about it.
Two years ago, I published an article on the history of financial independence, in which I noted that the first clue I could find about the concept of financial independence came from an 1872 book entitled Money and How to Make It by Hl Reade. And it was only in the 1950s that the concept of early retirement (at least in the sense that we mean it today) began to gain momentum. But despite my research, I still have questions like: what is the source of the modern FIRE MOVEMENT?
Who coined the term FIRE?
Recently, on the home page of early retirement — a site so old that it existed (and still exists) at the dawn of the web, John P. Greaney answered the question: who coined the term FIRE?
In August 2000, a member of the Motley Fool forum nicknamed "fzabaly" was the first to shorten" financially independent, early retired " to FI / RE
And, says Greaney, the first person who moved this abbreviation from FI / RE to FIRE was a board member with the pseudonym "wanderer 0692" on the 19th (the post is still worth reading today, 21 years after.)
"This is the essence of FI / RE," wanderer0692 writes. "Free from financial needs. In our matter, it is a tribute to luck and a bull market and to our adherence to the six basic principles of IF / RE.”
So, there you have it. Until someone provides evidence to the contrary, I am ready to accept Greaney's version of the early FIRE STORY. After all, the guy has been writing about this stuff online since 1996. He knows his stuff.
There is another interesting insight into this history of the origin of FIRE. Nowadays, most people (including me) believe that the acronym FIRE stands for "financial independence/early retirement". It's Banging awkward, and we all know that. In reality, the acronym FIRE originally stood for"Financially independent, retired early". That makes a lot more sense!
Still, I know it's a losing action to convince people that we're mislabeling what FIRE stands for. Heck, I've spent two years trying to get people to stop saying "savings rate" when they mean "savings rate," and it seems I haven't made a measurable difference. I think I have to put up with failure in this matter as well.
Who coined the term FIRE?
Recently, on the home page of early retirement — a site so old that it existed (and still exists) at the dawn of the web, John P. Greaney answered the question: who coined the term FIRE?
In August 2000, a member of the Motley Fool forum nicknamed "fzabaly" was the first to shorten" financially independent, early retired " to FI / RE
And, says Greaney, the first person who moved this abbreviation from FI / RE to FIRE was a board member with the pseudonym "wanderer 0692" on the 19th (the post is still worth reading today, 21 years after.)
"This is the essence of FI / RE," wanderer0692 writes. "Free from financial needs. In our matter, it is a tribute to luck and a bull market and to our adherence to the six basic principles of IF / RE.”
So, there you have it. Until someone provides evidence to the contrary, I am ready to accept Greaney's version of the early FIRE STORY. After all, the guy has been writing about this stuff online since 1996. He knows his stuff.
There is another interesting insight into this history of the origin of FIRE. Nowadays, most people (including me) believe that the acronym FIRE stands for "financial independence/early retirement". It's Banging awkward, and we all know that. In reality, the acronym FIRE originally stood for"Financially independent, retired early". That makes a lot more sense!
Still, I know it's a losing action to convince people that we're mislabeling what FIRE stands for. Heck, I've spent two years trying to get people to stop saying "savings rate" when they mean "savings rate," and it seems I haven't made a measurable difference. I think I have to put up with failure in this matter as well. 
