Katie and Alan Donegan managed to retire when he was 40, and she was 35 Personal collection/BBC Brazil Every time winter arrived, Alan and Katie Donegan avoided turning on the heating in their home in the south of England. "Instead we would put on more layers of clothing and use hot water bottles; we turned it into a game," says Alan. "It wasn't suffering, it was strategy." The couple acknowledges that other people considered them "extremists" or "crazy" for being so obsessed with not spending money. But Alan explains that they were "totally focused on buying freedom." "Freedom" means early retirement, which the couple achieved seven years ago when Alan was 40 and Katie was just 35. They rarely ordered food for delivery and always took home-prepared lunches to work. "We saved 40 thousand pounds [R$274 thousand] in 10 years, thanks to this simple habit of taking our meals to work", explains Alan. "We even charged our cell phones outside and looked for grocery coupons that other people had discarded. You can call it madness or a masterstroke, but it worked." Alan had worked as a landscaper before opening his personal training and coaching business. Katie was a risk assessor at a financial company. In 2014, he earned the equivalent of around 63 thousand pounds (R$432 thousand) per year, and she, 58 thousand pounds (R$397 thousand). In addition to their good income, their extreme saving habits allowed them to retire early as they put all the money they could into investments. “Every pound we invested brought us a little closer to the life we ??wanted,” explains Katie. They stopped working when their savings reached £1 million. Read more Why do we spend money even when we want to save? Understand Katie and Alan Donegan were looking for all kinds of discount coupons to save Getty Images/BBC Brasil 'Financial independence, early retirement' Katie and Alan Donegan are part of a small but growing global movement known as Fire, an acronym in English for "Financial Independence, Early Retirement". This was a little-known concept 15 years ago. But today, there are almost a million members on the main forum for debating the movement on the social network Reddit. Conventional financial institutions began publishing numerous guides on the subject. The fundamental principle is to live with extreme austerity during your professional life, in order to be able to retire as soon as possible. For most, the possibility of leaving professional life early is just a dream. With the high costs of living, housing and student debt, we will work longer, not less. This is confirmed by statistics. Last year, the average retirement age in the United Kingdom reached historic highs: 65.8 years for men and 64.7 for women, according to official data. The situation is similar in the United States, where the average retirement age for men and women has been increasing steadily since the 1990s. In 2025, it reached 64.8 and 63.3 years, respectively, according to a long-term study. In Brazil, the average age for granting pensions was 57 years for men and 56 for women in 2024, according to data collected by specialist Rogério Nagamine, cited in a report by the newspaper O Globo. In 2019, the Social Security reform established 65 as the minimum retirement age for men and 62 for women. Amy Minkley worked as a teacher abroad until retiring at the age of 44 Personal collection/BBC Brazil But the followers of the Fire movement are fully committed to their objective. This is the case of Amy Minkley, 49 years old. The American high school teacher managed to retire when she was 44 years old. To achieve this, she worked abroad, in private international schools in Japan, Singapore, India and Thailand. There, she says she was able to earn more money and have a much lower cost of living than in her home state of Texas. His monthly salary reached US$6,300 (about R$32,200). Minkley also kept his spending to a minimum. “I had no interest in following the typical expat lifestyle,” she says. "I rarely bought expensive clothes, kept electronic devices until they stopped working, cooked most of my meals at home, and thought carefully before making any major purchases." “Sharing housing when I lived in Singapore and India allowed me to save even more,” she says. "Plus, in several of these countries, I didn't need a car, which kept my spending in check." Currently, Minkley lives in Bali, Indonesia. There, her retirement income yields much more than if she had returned to the United States. In the United States and the United Kingdom, the average retirement age is over 60 Getty Images/BBC Brazil Is it worth it? Carol Schleif is chief market strategist at financial consultancy BMO Private Wealth, based in Toronto, Canada. She highlights that the Fire movement remains a viable option for many people, but most focus more on achieving balance in their professional lives. So instead of rushing to retire as quickly as possible, they focus on combining a meaningful professional career with a lifestyle within their financial means. "If you retire early but don't have friends, health, or a purpose in life, you will have achieved a goal but sacrificed other things," she explains. "You have to ask if it's really worth it." "Today, people adopt a more flexible approach. They try to find a way to achieve their retirement goals while still enjoying life." In any case, Sarah Coles, responsible for personal finance at the British investment platform AJ Bell, warns that following the Fire philosophy is increasingly difficult, as most people simply cannot put it into practice. But she highlights that several principles of the Fire movement are valuable and can help people retire a little earlier. They can, for example, start saving at a young age and increase their retirement contributions after each salary increase. "A balanced path can allow you to achieve the retirement you want, when you want, without damaging your state of mind. A more flexible and realistic approach is simply needed," explains Coles. Some of the ideas from the Fire movement can be applied to most people's lives Getty Images/BBC Brasil In the Fire community, some people started to opt for this less intense path, generating the creation of subcategories, such as Fire Barista. This approach consists of saving enough so that investment income can cover most of your day-to-day expenses and supplementing the amount with part-time work. But for some followers of the movement, extreme frugality remains the main strategy for achieving early retirement, a sacrifice they consider worth it in the long run. “The principles of Fire are simple and haven’t changed,” says Minkley. "You spend less than you earn, invest the difference and give your money the time it needs to grow."