Enough

[Humanofearth]

Once daily investment income (cash on cash) > monthly expenses, does finance lower in importance?

In the past month, I took 5 trips, ate lobster twice, indulged every desire I could, spent less than 2 days of cash on cash returns.

Hard to see putting in more effort to growing the stash as improving my future more than focus on 1) health, 2) relationships, and 3) learning tech to help loved ones protect themselves from the ongoing currency collapse.

I feel more focused than before but with less stress and more diversity in activities.

Priorities now:
Health> Relationships > Crypto> Original Work.

What are your experiences with this shift?

I imagine it happens around the 1-2%wr for most.

[zbigi]

3) learning tech to help loved ones protect themselves from the ongoing currency collapse.

This doesn't sound like a difficult problem - just don't hold currency? Instead, hold anything else that people value that that isn't directly tied to currency - so basically most asset classes, incl. stocks, precious metals, real estate, rare artifacts (art, collectibles) etc. etc. The major exclusion should be debt denominated in currency predicted to collapse.

[Humanofearth]

Stocks and real estate are contracts with a brokerage and government respectively to custody / protect the asset for you and subject to high/increasing taxes.

Metals and artifacts are easy to steal. Multi signature cryptographically protected property is by far the safest but is hard to set up and scary for old people.

But onto the original question, how did your priorities shift once you reached a sub 1% wr or daily investment income exceeded monthly expenses?

[zbigi]

But onto the original question, how did your priorities shift once you reached a sub 1% wr or daily investment income exceeded monthly expenses?

I'm currently undergoing this transition. I stopped working terrible jobs for money (I just quit a week ago). Now the plan is to mostly follow what feels right, and see what comes out of that. I've already attempted to do that in the past, but always with an underlying pressure to, fairly quickly, find some other source of income. This wasn't a good mindset, because any setbacks I've experienced could (and did) easily lead me to thinking "well, this thing is not so great, so I might as well return to a tech job and least make much more in return for the discomfort".

Now, I have saved about twice the amount that I expect to spend through the rest of my life, so further financial aspect of my activities is not so important (it no longer matter if if an activity pays $5/h or $100/h). I basically feel free for the first time in my life.

[Humanofearth]

Now the plan is to mostly follow what feels right, and see what comes out of that.

Congratulations, that is quite a feat. I hope it goes well for you. Thank you for sharing.

So your #1 is to follow what feels right from a place of freedom? Sounds like the perfect time to drink ayahuasca in the Amazon with a good shaman.

[GandK]

Once daily investment income (cash on cash) > monthly expenses, does finance lower in importance?

...

I feel more focused than before but with less stress and more diversity in activities.

Priorities now:
Health> Relationships > Crypto> Original Work.

What are your experiences with this shift?

This has been my experience, yes, and I recently wrote about it in my journal. 9 years out from pulling the plug, my stack is now something like:

Family > my son's education (we homeschool) > community service > self, to include health > 5 or 6 other things > the financial machine that makes this possible

Managing finances now feels a lot more like maintenance than like striving and winning. Like vacuuming, scrubbing, changing the air filter. No longer sexy in the least. We just hope that neither we nor the government do something more stupid than usual between now and end game.

[IlliniDave]

Unless you get higher in the Wheaton stratosphere than the average person like me can even comprehend, the financial engine retains some importance. The way I invest, income is deliberately minimized and gains (unrealized) are uneven and sometimes negative. But I still agree with your basic premise: Once one reaches a degree of financial independence that suits their temperament, the relative importance of continuing to build wealth can be relegated to a lower priority. Some people just like the game of making money through investing, so for them growing the stash might retain high priority. For many of us, though, set-and-(largely)forget allows attention to be spent on higher priority interests and concerns.

I need to think about my hierarchy a little more. Off the top of my head: family->well being (contentment)->health are where my focus is as a grizzled veteran of 6 months and 17 days career-free.

[zbigi]

Congratulations, that is quite a feat. I hope it goes well for you. Thank you for sharing.

So your #1 is to follow what feels right from a place of freedom? Sounds like the perfect time to drink ayahuasca in the Amazon with a good shaman.

Thank you for the kind words.

Re: psychedelics, I'm not really interested in them right now. I had a good friend in college who, after some experimentation with drugs, ended up in a psychiatric ward for a good couple of months and now a big part of his mind and personality are gone forever. Another guy from my neighboorhood that I played with regularly as a child did the same thing to himself when he was 16 or 17 - now he's on disability and basically a shadow of a person.

I'm already cautious and conservative by nature, but seeing the lives of those two great guys destroyed made me stay away from strong psychactive substances. So I guess I'll have to wait till psychedelics hit mainstream adoption and we know much more about benefits and risks before I personally jump on the bandwagon.

[7Wannabe5]

Aren’t health, relationships, purpose, and spirituality always of higher or equal priority? It seems to me that money is unique or “not like the others” only in the sense that it can be “solved.”

Although, come to think of it, all of my relationships seem to be in maintenance mode at this point in my life, yet I can well remember the days when I couldn’t use the bathroom without somebody needing my attention.

[WFJ]

Currency collapse will result in total lack of goods, all your relatives will starve to death, unless crypto currencies are edible. Get a job that produces something of value to society, maybe a truck driver.

Water, food, shelter, meaning; money is only valuable in regards to how it fills the needs of a person. Most of the people who have more money than they need never had money as a desired objective and don't change a thing when commas are added to their AUM.

Watch "Lottery changed my life" for examples of rapid wealth has on people's lives (most are worse after riches). I'm indifferent to a -75% decrease or 100x increase in wealth (probably only buy a bigger car or only use a driving service at that level of wealth).

"For many men, the acquisition of wealth does not end their troubles, it only changes them"
Seneca

[Humanofearth]

@GandK
That seems relaxing, like money is water for you now. I’m still in the adjustment period but you and Illinidave share a similarity in that family, connection, is higher value than capital, and surprisingly, health as well. I imagine I’ll reach that point as well once my health feels to be at a level I feel will allow me to make the most of life.

Illinidave, I felt more surprise that finance dropped so much as a priority once reaching this level. I was expecting it to be #2 but even that felt off. It’s still important until I reach another couple of doublings but it used to be all consuming for me. Feels night and day still.

@zbigi
I’m sorry to hear that. I understand your reluctance. I would be too given your experiences.

@wfj
Consider multiple passports and unseizable directly held assets to have more options so you don’t get stuck like the Venezuelans who thought the party would go on forever. Not all countries are in collapse. Singapore and rural East Asia will be more than fine.

I trust AI to drive a truck better than me, with less fatalities and more energy efficiency. My contribution is greatest in providing liquidity to emerging financial systems and coding would be a clear back up if that were not an option. I have been saving 80%+ over a decade to reach where I am, I started with metals, then stocks and bonds, crypto is new to me compared to either of the former asset classes but it’s clearly developing quicker than either of the others. Greater than the mightiest armies, an idea who’s time has come. Many sovereign individuals are born at this time, seems some are here on this board and they are happy living life focused on their family and loved ones first.

I’d like to move in that direction as well and learn from them.

[IlliniDave]

Illinidave, I felt more surprise that finance dropped so much as a priority once reaching this level. I was expecting it to be #2 but even that felt off. It’s still important until I reach another couple of doublings but it used to be all consuming for me. Feels night and day still.

I started the journey in my mid-40s relatively broke considering my earning history to that point. Lots of reasons for that which I won't revisit here. But I started from an emotional place of near desperation, so yeah, it was all-consuming for a while. The last year or so before I pulled the plug, attention to finances began to feel a little perfunctory. The little boy inside me was squealing, "You won! You won!" but adult-me stuck to the process because the process is what got me to where I was and the task was not 100% complete. Old habits die hard in me so once I actuated the FI potential I started by deliberately restricting the attention I gave to the stash. Turns out, it wasn't hard. In 10-12 minutes I was a new man in that regard, and I shared your sense of surprise. I like to think it's because I am a wise and balanced individual who can get obsessed when its important while being unafraid to shift gears as circumstances warrant. More likely it's because the little kid in me overthrew the tyrant adult-me. Way back in my journal I used to title the part where I talked about financial progress "Dull Numbers". Beacuse it really is rather boring (to me) when you get right down to it.

Sorry, got is little off track there. Point is I think what you've experienced is not terrible abnormal and is a good sign in the long run.

[MBBboy]

Timely for me, because I hit this same place a few months ago. The whole purpose of me starting to spend time here was to replace the time I was spending tending to and reading about all of my money. I realized I was in a place of diminishing returns, and my attention was better spent elsewhere.

Elsewhere is still a work in progress. So far "elsewhere" has meant being more deliberate about my prepping, preparing for the birth of our first child, and contemplating the shape of our "Post FI" life in a few years.

I've been going through each of our budget categories and trying to analyze them from a new, "ERE" perspective because I still can't shake the habit of thinking about the financial aspect of life. It's what I'm most well versed in, and so I'm trying to practice new concepts and points of view in that space before moving on to everything else.

My job isn't a real problem, as I'm typically working in the 25-30 hours a week range, from home. And no, it's not a software job.

So no, you're not abnormal. This is referred to in other places as "the boring middle" where you just need to let time and the process keep doing their thing until the goal is achieved. How you spend that time is up to you, as long as you don't ruin the good things happening.

[Humanofearth]

@IlliniDave
Thank you for your perspective. Starting at 40 and still winning is impressive . I agree about the dullness of numbers. It feels useful now to keep learning while I'm young. I stagnated before when I was just working, saving, and indexing and it didn't feel healthy but the other extreme of stressing or overworking is even worse.

@MBBboy
You're right, it's keep on moving forward while letting the priorities shift to health for me or your new family for you. At our age, it still requires a bit of focus on the stash but we can finally begin calming down.