Tanja Hester

Tanja Hester is a German-American author, activist, FIRE movement leader, former Democratic political consultant, and opinion columnist for MarketWatch. She is best known for retiring early at the age of 38, for pushing the personal finance community to address systemic racism, and for her bestselling book Work Optional, published by Hachette Book Group in 2019, and her second book Wallet Activism, published by BenBella Books and Penguin Random House in 2021. The New York Times called her the "matriarch of the women's FIRE movement" because of her efforts to make the early retirement focused FIRE movement more inclusive.
== Life ==
Hester grew up in Green Bay, Wisconsin, graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, with a BA in English, and went on to work as a public radio journalist and a consultant to Democratic candidates and causes. She is married to Mark Bunge, a former Democratic pollster. They say they talked about how much they each earned on their first date. They previously lived in Los Angeles, California, and now live near Lake Tahoe in Northern California. In 2021, Hester announced that she affirmed her German citizenship and received her passport thanks to her mother being born in Germany, and is now a dual German-American citizen. Hester has publicly talked about her disability, Ehlers–Danlos syndromes, as well as the primary immunodeficiency she's had since childhood. She has cited her father, who was forced into early retirement at age 42 by his disability, as the motivation behind her own early retirement journey. Hester volunteers for environmental causes.
== Early retirement ==
Hester and her husband announced their early retirement in October 2017, when she was 38. They saved in earnest for early retirement for six years, though they previously had some retirement savings and home equity, and focused on investing in index funds and on saving all raises and bonuses, as well as avoiding costly purchases like new cars and moving into bigger homes. They have stated that they keep their home at 55 degrees Fahrenheit in the winter, though say they do it for energy-saving and climate change reasons more than to save money. Hester has cited "unequal opportunities" in the U.S. as a big part of how she was able to retire early. She has also said that luck played a big role, and that not everyone can retire early, though nearly everyone can make work a smaller part of their life through various money-saving approaches. Hester is one of the only major FIRE writers to consistently address health care under the Affordable Care Act for early retirees, which she says in inspired by her own health issues.
== Works ==
Hester's work has focused on personal finance through the lens of environmental and social justice. She has worked to debunk bad financial advice online. She has been critical of cryptocurrency and encourages people to focus on "boring" investment methods that are safer and more ethical. She encourages people to reconsider consumerism altogether rather than aiming for conscious or ethical consumerism, for both environmental and money-saving reasons. She has also pushed content creators in the FIRE movement and personal finance community to be more transparent with readers about how they make money.
=== Work Optional ===
Hester announced on her blog in 2018 that she had a deal to publish her first book. That book, Work Optional: Retire Early the Non-Penny-Pinching Way, was published in February 2019 by Hachette Books, a division of Hachette Book Group. The book takes some of the principles of the FIRE movement and makes them more inclusive to people in a wider range of income levels and ability, and urges readers to focus their newfound free time on service and giving back. Unlike others in the FIRE movement, she preaches moderation, rather than obsessive saving at all costs that can lead to feeling miserable. She also urges would-be retirees to focus on life and relationship planning before they actually retire so as not to set themselves up for unhappiness. Her approach has won over FIRE skeptics within the finance industry. Work Optional was awarded the 2019 Plutus Award for best new personal finance book. Hester narrated the audiobook.
=== Wallet Activism ===
Hester's second book, Wallet Activism: How to Use Every Dollar You Spend, Earn, and Save as a Force for Change, was published in November 2021. In it, Hester encourages readers to align their financial decisions to their values in ways that benefit the planet and climate as well as other people. Hester focuses in the book on arming consumers with the tools to see through marketing lies that lead to harm, such as understanding that "vegan leather" is really just harmful plastic. She also encourages people to focus more on where they bank than on how they invest. She encourages investors to use their power as shareholders to force companies to change their ways, and to divest from things like fossil fuels. She says that using your money ethically doesn't need to cost more, and can work for people at all budget levels. Wallet Activism was featured on C-SPAN BookTV in January 2022. Hester narrated the audiobook version of the book.
=== Our Next Life ===
Hester began writing about early retirement and personal finance on her blog, Our Next Life, which she launched in 2015. Our Next Life was one of the first prominent women-authored FIRE blogs within the FIRE movement, and it was awarded the 2017 Plutus Award for best FIRE blog, and the 2018 award for blog of the year.
=== The Fairer Cents ===
From 2017 to 2020, Hester co-hosted The Fairer Cents podcast about women and economic inequality. Real Simple wrote about it, "If you add only one finance podcast to your queue, make it this show." The Fairer Cents won numerous Plutus Awards, including the 2020 award for best financial content for women and the 2019 award for best personal finance podcast for women.
=== Speaking and community ===
Hester has given keynote addresses at FinCon, Google, and a range of financial events. She created and hosted the Cents Positive community event series for women to talk about money. She regularly appears on CapRadio|Capital Public Radio in Sacramento, California, to offer personal finance tips and discuss her books. Hester won the 2019 Plutus Award for community building for her work to create inclusive financial spaces.
== Common topics ==
Hester's writing frequently covers topics including:
* Racial Diversity|Diversity within personal finance
* Early retirement
* Financial independence
* Anti-consumerism
* Ethical consumerism
* Consumer activism
* Environmental, social and corporate governance|ESG investing
* Racial and gender wealth and income gaps
* Climate change and the climate crisis
* Disability
* Ableism
* Philanthropy
* Gardening and self-reliance
Category:American authors
Category:Activists
Category:Political consultants