Playing with FIRE by Scott Rieckens: An Honest Review

📖 What is Playing with FIRE about?🔗

In 2017, Scott Rieckens heard a podcast about the FIRE movement (Financial Independence Retire Early) and had one of those moments where everything clicks. He was living in Coronado, San Diego, earning good money and spending almost all of it. Nice car, nice lifestyle, no real financial runway. He told his wife Taylor. She was not immediately thrilled.

What follows is a memoir of the couple's decision to radically restructure their finances: they sold the BMW, moved from expensive Coronado to the much cheaper Bend, Oregon, started tracking every dollar, dramatically lifted their savings rate, and began investing in low-cost index funds, shortening their projected retirement timeline dramatically. The book accompanies a 2019 documentary of the same name and features conversations with big names in the FIRE world (Mr Money Mustache wrote the foreword; Vicki Robin, JL Collins and the Mad Fientist all appear). Think of it as a gateway to all of them. It's not a technical how-to: Rieckens is a filmmaker, not a financial planner, and the book reads that way, accessible, personal, and honest about the emotional difficulty of the process, especially for Taylor, whose initially reluctant perspective adds a lot of weight.

⚖️ Strengths and weaknesses🔗

👤 Who should read it, and who should skip it?🔗

🔍 What do critics say?🔗

There aren't major mainstream media reviews of Playing with FIRE; coverage lives mostly in personal finance blogs and reader platforms, which tells you something about its audience. The most accurate one-line summary from reviewers is that the approach sounds easy but isn't pain-free. The consistent critical theme: the strategy is considerably more accessible for high-income and dual-income households, so a couple cutting from a high lifestyle has more room to move than someone on an average wage in a major city. Where critics broadly agree: it's an excellent entry point to the FIRE movement for newcomers, with limited depth for anyone already familiar with the ideas.

💬 What do readers say? Goodreads and Reddit🔗

On Goodreads it holds around 3.75 out of 5 from thousands of ratings, a solid bell curve sitting just above average. On r/financialindependence it's consistently described as easy to read and relatable, a good introduction for people who've never encountered the movement, with the common caveat of limited new value for those already in the community.

🇦🇺 The Australian angle🔗

This is the section that matters most on an Australian personal finance site:

• The core maths translates. Save aggressively, invest in low-cost index funds, withdraw roughly 4% a year in retirement. The higher your savings rate, the faster you reach financial independence. That part is universal.
• Superannuation complicates things. Super is the most tax-efficient long-term vehicle here (15% contributions tax, 0% in pension phase), but you can't access it until preservation age (currently 60 for most people born after 1 July 1964). Retire at 40 or 45 and you need a separate, non-super "bridge" portfolio to cover the gap years.
• ASX ETFs are the Australian equivalent of the US index funds Rieckens uses, and franking credits on Australian dividend-paying ETFs add a tax-efficiency layer with no US equivalent.
• The savings-rate reality check. With high housing costs in Sydney and Melbourne, hitting a 50 to 70% savings rate is harder here than for a dual-income household in Bend, Oregon. The principle holds; the starting conditions differ.
• The US tax specifics don't apply. The Australian framework: maximise concessional super contributions up to the annual cap, then build a non-super ETF portfolio for the years before preservation age.

For genuinely Australian FIRE mechanics, our Money School review (Lacey Filipich) and Quit Like a Millionaire review (the Yield Shield and the bridge concept) are the natural next reads.

💰 The verdict🔗

For Australian readers this lands at 3.5 out of 5, a notch below the global Goodreads average, and the reason is simple: the US-centric content requires constant mental translation, and the book never acknowledges that the mechanics look quite different outside America. What it is, though, is a motivating entry point, a human story that makes FIRE feel possible rather than theoretical. If you're FIRE-curious and want a quick, readable book to get you thinking differently about money, read it, then graduate to more technical resources for the Australian mechanics. It won't give you a plan, but it might give you the motivation to go and find one.

❓ Frequently asked questions🔗