During a really stressful day at work in 2012, a Colorado man decided he needed to make a change with his life, so he Googled "How to retire early."

"The thought I had that day: 'There is no way I can continue this for the next 25 years of my life,'" Carl Jensen told the New York Times

Just five years later at age 43, he retired from his job, after securing financial independence using a method dubbed the "FIRE movement," or "Financial Independence, Retire Early."

After learning about the FIRE method, he told his wife, Mindy, that he wanted to quit his job. To his surprise, Mindy gave him the green light to pack it in last year, after 15 years at his company.

The FIRE movement boils down to what you can save. "You're really analyzing your budget down to the penny and making sure you can put away 50, 60, 70% of your income and you're living very lean," Arielle O'Shea, of the financial site Nerdwallet.com, told ABC News.

To get to retirement, the family moved into a more modest house, maxed out their retirement savings, reduced expenses and saved a huge portion of their income over the next five years -- until they were worth about $1.2 million.

The retired couple and their two daughters will live on approximately $40,000 a year generated from investments.

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