Every winter, Alan and Katie Donegan would avoid turning on the heating at their home in the south of England. Instead, they wore extra layers and used hot water bottles. “We turned it into a game,” says Alan. “It wasn’t suffering, it was strategy.”
Their friends thought they were “extreme” or “mad” to put so much emphasis on not spending money. But Alan explains they were “laser-focused on buying freedom”. By freedom he means early retirement – which the couple achieved seven years ago when Alan was 40 and Katie just 35.
“A couple retired at 40 and 35 by taking packed lunches, turning off heating, and investing aggressively.”
The two rarely had takeaways and always took packed lunches to work. “We were £40,000 better off over 10 years from just that one lunch habit,” says Alan. “We even charged our phones while out and hunted for discarded Nectar vouchers. You can decide if that’s crazy or genius, but it worked.”
Alan had worked as a landscape gardener before launching a training and life-coaching business, while Katie was an actuary for a financial firm. Their extreme saving habits, combined with good incomes, meant they could pour as much as possible into investments. “Every pound we invested was a step closer to the life we wanted,” says Katie. They quit work after their savings hit £1m.
The Donegans are part of a small but growing global movement called Fire, which stands for “Financially Independent, Retire Early”. The central tenet: live extremely frugally during your working life to retire as soon as possible. From a little-known concept 15 years ago, there are now almost a million members of the main Fire discussion board on Reddit, and mainstream financial institutions publish numerous guides on the topic.
For most of us, early retirement remains a dream. Last year, average retirement ages in the UK hit record highs of 65.8 years for men and 64.7 for women, official data showed. In the US, a long-term study found that average retirement ages had risen steadily since the 1990s to 64.8 for men and 63.3 for women in 2025.
Yet Fire devotees like 49-year-old American middle-school teacher Amy Minkley remain committed. She was able to retire when she was just 44, helped by working abroad at international schools.