The best pension plan in the world is a free life.
I quit the script in January 2011, cycled 47,000 km around the world, and retired at 34 trading prediction markets. This site is the whole exit with the working shown — the tools, the countries, the guides, and blunt 1:1 sessions on yours.
None of it is advice. All of it is lived.
FIRE in Europe, country by country.
The rules that decide an exit — capital gains, wealth taxes, exit taxes, wrappers — one page per country, every figure verified against official sources on a schedule. 31 countries so far.
Run your own numbers.
Ten tools I built to think about freedom the way I actually think about it — price the life, find the exit, weigh what each euro really costs. Use them to think, not to decide. None of it is advice.
The Exit Calculator
Years to your number, plotted — with the coast point where you can stop adding, and the one-more-year trap on the far side.
OpenThe Three Endings
Alive and funded, alive and broke, or dead — the honest odds of each, at every age from here to 105.
OpenThe Geoarbitrage Map
The same life costs wildly different amounts by country. See how much further — or less far — your money would go.
OpenThe working, written down.
The references — written once, kept current, free. Under them, the essays: where the thinking comes from.
The European FIRE guide
The system, rebuilt for this side of the Atlantic — UCITS funds, wealth taxes, exit taxes, and a state pension decades away. Free, no paywall.
OpenThe FIRE canon
The dozen writers everyone quotes — what to take from each, and where each one stops working once you're European and retiring young.
OpenThe glossary
42 terms in plain English, with what each actually means for you.
The latest essay · 10 July 2026 · 4 min read
The spreadsheet goblin
I once walked across Dublin to save a bus fare — and put my whole portfolio where the fees were lowest from day one. Which optimisations are worth it, from someone who's lived both ends of the spreadsheet.
For sport, I take other people's hardest problems.
No programme, no course, no community to join. A working session — and, if the challenge deserves it, the Full Push.
The working session
€600per session
Bring the challenge you're stuck with. Ninety minutes of my full, blunt attention on it.
- —You answer the Exit Audit first — so we start at full speed
- —You get a straight verdict, and the alternatives with their pros and cons
- —You leave with your next moves, not a warm feeling
The Full Push
€2,400the lot
For a challenge that needs working through, not just opening up. We refine as reality answers.
- —Everything in the working session, four times over
- —Follow-ups by email between sessions — walls don't wait weeks
- —You end with a plan you've already started — not one you're about to
Why €600? Because I don't need the income — the price keeps it serious for both of us. The push is exactly 4 × €600: no bundle discount, on purpose.
Proof, not promises.
No certificates, no framework, no funnel. A life used as the evidence — every claim on this site has one of these under it.
Four things I'd bet on again.
It was never about being broke — it was about being free.
I travelled on about €10 a day — hitchhiking, strangers' sofas, one month on nothing at all. The money came later. The freedom didn't wait for it.
Fear does not prevent death — it prevents life.
The line I left with in January 2011, no plan B. Everything since — the bike, the websites, the camera, the markets — started as something I didn't know how to do yet.
Trying is never a failure.
I'd never touched a camera; a year later magazines were paying for my photos and National Geographic ran a feature on the trip. Think it through properly, put your energy behind it, then actually start.
The best pension plan is a free life.
I retired from trading young. My days now: competitive sport, cooking properly, building a home, learning whatever's next.
Bring me a challenge.
The Exit Audit, then ninety minutes: a straight verdict, real alternatives with their pros and cons, and your first move. If you want someone to nod along, I’m the wrong person to pay.
Sessions online, worldwide · pablo@thefireexit.com