FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) is a new lifestyle movement, popular amongst millennials, that aims to see some of us retire in our early forties, thirties or even (ambitiously) our twenties.

The concept is simple: spend less, save more and invest. The method recommends that people save up to 25 times what they would regularly spend in a year. Ideally, more than 50% of their income.

While some insist that the movement is suitable for anyone - with suggestions of lowering household costs, cutting down on eating out and foregoing new cars for second-hand ones - others suggest that it's only viable with higher salaries.

We caught up with Financial planner Eoin McGee to find out what he thought of the movement.

Eoin McGee

Independence Day

"Everything I do in my private practice is about financial independence. Financial independence is the day in your life when you have created enough wealth that you don't have to work again and you don't have to worry about money.

"Not worrying about money is the important thing. You want to be able to live the life you want to live without worrying that your money can support that. Some people will get financial independence at 92, some people will get there at 42 but the important thing is to know when you get there.

"A couple of times a year, we get the privilege of being able to go through someone's finances and you can tell the client that they're there. They have managed to get financial independence and they can stop working."

Tune into How to be Good with Money tonight on RTÉ One

Early retirement?

So, if financial independence is indeed attainable at an early age, does this mean we can expect to see Millennial retirees flooding Ireland's golf courses in the near future? Not necessarily, says Eoin.

"I had one guy who came into us because he had worked it out that he could retire in ten years time (he was 49 at the time) and he came to me because he wanted to see if it was possible to pull that timeline back. He wanted to get his finances to work harder for him because he hated his job.

"At the end of the process, we had worked it out that he could retire in six months time when he turned 50. He was a brand new client and it was just a case of restructuring and making sure things were set up.

"The interesting thing was that six months later he was still working in that same job and he's still working there today because now he works because he wants to not because he needs to. He loves it because he can throw his hat in any time."

Tonight on RTÉ One, Eoin McGee sits down with Rachel Byrne

Pension Pot

"People try to get this magic date for financial independence but it's becoming more and more elusive for all of us. The days of spending 40 years in the same job, for most people, are gone. The phase of defined benefit schemes, for more people, are gone.

"The reality is that you need to produce a pension pot of 1.2 or 1.3 million, to get 32 grand per year. It's a massive amount of money. The idea that you get to a certain date and then stop working forever is becoming less and less viable."

As an alternative, Eoin advises his clients to take 'mini-retirements'. Interested? We'll be sharing all the details on RTÉ.ie/LifeStyle next Thursday!

A travel addict needs to curb her spending & stop living from month to month...@EoinMcGee is on the case! tonight at half eight #HowToBeGoodWithMoney pic.twitter.com/UaBcdTYBB3 — RTE One (@RTEOne) February 7, 2019

On tonight's episode...

Financial planner Eoin McGee meets compulsive spender and travel addict 27-year-old Rachel Byrne from Dublin.

Although Rachel has a steady job earning €34,000, she’s always broke at the end of the month. Her dream is to buy a car and to start feeling responsible – and one day – to buy a house.

After assessing Rachel’s finances, Eoin identifies just where she’s going wrong - from hair extensions to frequent holidays.

Soon, he comes up with a plan as to how she gets on the right foot but will she be able to follow it? Over the course of a couple of months, we follow Rachel as she tries to implement her new financial plan.

Watch How to be Good with Money tonight, Thursday 7th February at 8.30pm on RTÉ One.