Welcome to the special edition …

Today, March 14, we celebrate Pie Day!!!  It also happens to be the birthday of Albert Einstein, The Papa of Pi.

Get it… 3.14 is Albert Einstein’s birthday!  How do these things work out?  🙂

Happy Birthday Albert!!

This is the Piece Of the Pie and as Pie Lady FI, I couldn't let this day go by without a special Pie Day post to celebrate Pie Day!!!

Pie Day and FIRE have more in common than you realize (at least, more than I realized), so this was a lot of fun to research as well as educational.  Who doesn't love learning?

For example, did you know that In 2009 Congress officially claimed 3.14 as Pi Day.

The resolution states, and I quote, “The House of Representatives supports the designation of a ‘Pi Day' and its celebration around the world … and encourages schools and educators to observe the day with appropriate activities that teach students about Pi and engage them about the study of mathematics.”

If you thought that was interesting, wait until you see the rest…  on with the countdown to FIRE and Pi similarities:

10. Pi is Never Ending

There are a never ending number of ways to go about achieving FIRE too.  Most commonly known ways are a) don’t carry debt, b) save and invest half your income and c) build multiple streams of passive income.  It doesn’t stop there google ways to earn passive income and literally pages of links come up.

9. Pi is Simple and Unique

The beauty of Pi is in its simplicity and uniqueness, just life FIRE.  The concept of FIRE is not complicated.  To sum up FIRE, take income divide by two, live on half, invest the rest while maintaining an emergency fund and no debt lifestyle.  All done for 5, 10, 15 years instead of the 30, 40, 50 years of traditional retirement planning.  What could be simpler?

8. More Pi, More better.  Not so fast.

While Pi is never ending (and cannot be converted into a fraction), writing Pi out to the trillionth place doesn’t give us a better definition of Pi.  Even NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory only needs to use just 15 places, or 3.141592653589793, for its robotic space and earth science mission.  Implementing even 15 ways to achieve FIRE is not be necessary.  When putting FIRE in your life, pick the top 3-5 things that excite you where you can earn passive income.  Not sure where that is, go back to my first point of never ending options.

7. Pattern to follow?

In fact, as Pi is calculated out to the trillions of digits, there is NO pattern.  Just like your path to FIRE, Pi is unique unto itself.  It doesn’t match or come close to any other mathematical formula.  Make your own unique FIRE formula that fits your lifestyle.

6. Rounding Pi to 3.2?

Ok now that is just crazy talk! But in 1897, Dr Edwin Goodwin proposed such a bill in the Indiana state legislature. (He even copyrighted the idea and planned to charge royalties.  Hehe).  Thank goodness the politicians thought it was silly and it failed to pass.  Don’t try to change FIRE.  It works.  Just keep it simple and unique to you.

5. Memorizing 70,000 decimal places of Pi?

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, Rajveer Meena recited just that on March 21, 2015, he was 21 at the time.  Is there someone out there that can recite 70,000 ways to achieve FIRE?  Not that I am aware f… but if you are that person, I want to hear from you!!!  🙂

I just thought this was cool!  If you are up for the challenge, here are a couple of brain exercises you can do to prepare, should you decide to take up the challenge and beat Rajveer's record.

4. Real World Uses

While Pi is a lot of fun it’s also used daily to make all kinds of important calculations, like volume of a sphere, area of a circle, and volume of a cylinder.  These smaller calculations can and do roll up into larger calculations.

Did you know that the GPS system in your car and phone use Pi to calculate specific locations on earth?

FIRE is also used every day in our lives.  Every day we wake up and make daily decisions on how our hard earned money is spent.  It is the very basis of achieving the greater formula of FIRE, just like a GPS system.

3. Famous in there own right

Pi and FIRE are both famous!  Ok, maybe Pi is a little more well-known than the FIRE movement, but we are closing the gap… maybe next year!  🙂

2. FIRE and Pi both go the distance.

Did you know if you printed Pi to the billion decimal values, in 12-point font, it would stretch from New York City to Kansas, roughly half way across the US?  True fun fact.

Just for kicks and giggles, here is a picture of Pi to the first million digits.

1. Having Fun

Let's face it, Pi and FIRE are fun!  Who says math can’t be fun?  Not me!  Just to prove it…  Why should you never talk to Pi?

Because they’ll go on forever.  LOL!

Ok, yes, that was corny, but it made you smile!  So does FIRE, when you see your net worth grow.  BOOM!

I could go on and on (and on) about Pi day and FIRE, but don't worry, I won't.  🙂

So in honor of Pi day, I would like to make a toast.

Please stand tall and raise a slice of yummy goodness!

Thank you Albert for your mathematical genius and allowing your light to shine!!  Thank you for taking a chance and teaching us that we all have a little Albert within.  We all have an opportunity to be great in our own right if we chose too.    

Happy Pi Day!!

How will you celebrate?