Hello from Germany

Say hello!!
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TomBombadil
Posts: 13
Joined: Tue Dec 27, 2016 1:27 pm

Hello from Germany

Post by TomBombadil »

After reading about FIRE for almost half a year now I decided to join into the discussion. I'm often pretty hesitant to share
information about myself, though I think it is always a good idea to share thoughts with other people to get a better result in
the end.

So for my background:
MBTI is somehow interesting. I took the test a couple of years ago during grad school and went out as INTP. In the last weeks
I took it again here https://www.16personalities.com/personality-types and the result was INFJ. The discrimination between
T/F and P/J is pretty insignificant (in both runs). So I definitively am in the upper left corner (IN) https://www.16personalities.com/personality-types, but the rest is still kind of a puzzle for me.

My educational/training background is in the sciences. Like the forum host, I do hold a PhD in theoretical astrophysics.
But I left academia right after finishing my PhD. Besides the theoretical training, I volunteered as a scout leader for several years
which taught me a lot about live and interactions between people.
I always have the feeling that I need (and want) to change the world to be a better place, which kind of speaks for the INFJ.
I had a lot of trouble to come up with a concrete idea (there are some daydreams, but nothing that had enough substance yet - maybe
I will write about that later) on what to do in my life and talked to a bunch of people during the last years.
The main motivation for me to join the business world was to see something new, see the "third part" of the human world besides
science (my formal education) and teaching/education (my informal volunteer work).
So with that background the next step after academia was the business world, where I currently still work in the financial sector.


Concerning my life style and financial situation, I'm probably already living to a some of the principals shared here.
I ride my bike to work/university for more than a decade now. Never owned a car and I still don't feel the urge to do so.
I built two bikes up from scratch (even the spokewheels), and though that was not really the cheapest way, it taught me quite a lot
about bikes. Currently I'm riding a fixer upper that I got via classifieds. I really enjoy to cook and create my own food from
basic ingredients. Although this is still some of my "weak spots" - during worktime I almost always eat out with colleagues
due to the fact that we do not have a kitchen and I want to spend some time with my team. I also enjoy going out with my wife, so
that puts the "food" of my expenses on the first place.
On the other hand I sometimes feel a bit like scrooge - I even wear second hand clothes in the white collar business... -
but after having read a lot here, I just think my values are just different from greater parts of the society around me.

My financial situation is pretty solid at the moment. I did have some luck in the birth lottery which resulted in the possibility
of rent cheap living and some basis for the stock market. If I would go really frugal by now and only account for myself I think
I could already be FI. But I do only have numbers from the inflow part for a longer period of time. I just started recording my expenses
a couple of weeks before I stumbled upon the first FI sites (I think it was MMM back then), so I do only have data for the outflow
part half a year or so. In addition I started to like parts of my current job over the last year, so I'm probably not going to retire
in the immediate future, but most probably within less than a decade from now.


And why am I here?
Although I'm German and still living in Germany and there is a community of FI bloggers here, I did like the stimulus from the ERE blog,
forum and book most. Also I do have the impression that ERE has more philosophical depth than most other FI related sites.
I'm still searching for what to do in my life and I figure that being FI and possibly RE gives a pretty solid foundation. So the
question remained between starting my own blog, commenting on existing ones, sticking to my notes or joining one of the boards.
I currently do not feel that I can add a lot of new thoughts in FIRE context but as I mentioned in the beginning I think it is always
good to join a discussion in order to enhance ones understanding of a topic. Also I think it as an opportunity to meet some interesting
people. It sometimes is hard to find people with whom you can sit by a camp fire, enjoying your long johns and simple life
and in the same time chat about how to manage six figure assets in order to be able to retire early.
So currently no blog for me, but some involvement here might happen and thus I say hello :)

George the original one
Posts: 5404
Joined: Wed Jul 28, 2010 3:28 am
Location: Wettest corner of Orygun

Re: Hello from Germany

Post by George the original one »

Welcome! Is there a Goldberry?

TomBombadil
Posts: 13
Joined: Tue Dec 27, 2016 1:27 pm

Re: Hello from Germany

Post by TomBombadil »

Hi George, in the depths of my musings, a small hint can be found.

wolf
Posts: 1102
Joined: Fri Jan 06, 2017 5:09 pm
Location: Germany

Re: Hello from Germany

Post by wolf »

Hi TomBombadil.
Good to see there is another one from Germany who is looking for FI. What are your plans? Do you have a goal in mind? It would be interesting to share some knowledge about living and working in Germany, e.g. cost of living, lessons learned and so on.

TomBombadil
Posts: 13
Joined: Tue Dec 27, 2016 1:27 pm

Re: Hello from Germany

Post by TomBombadil »

Hi MDFIRE2024,

clarifying my goals is my main goal at the moment.
Concerning FI, I think my main goal is to avoid lifestyle inflation. If I learned one thing in the last couple of months, it's keeping superfluous cost low. Spending money is no problem, if you spend it on things that advance yourself, otherwise it can get you dependent really fast.
I have a couple of ideas that I try to follow, some on investing, some on getting basic ingredients for everyday life.
I might post about those at some point, but most can be read elsewhere here on the forums.

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