My name is Frank, I live in Hamburg, Germany, I am 37yrs old and my personality type is INTP.
It's long (2010) ago since I first read through Jacobs posts as well as the many great comments and I gratefully remember it as an eye-opening time.
Back then, I was studying Chemistry and later Bioinformatics. While that, I started my engagement in a local Transition Town/Permaculture community and spent about 2011-2014 workings part-time and upping my self-sufficiency capabilities (gardening, minimalism, domestic work) and consuming very little.
Although I did not make much, I managed to save about 30-35% between 2011-2013 by sharing one room and later only a small apartment with my GF then. While splitting up, I, unfortunately, “lost” two-thirds of my acquired capital which left me with about 3000 EUR.
Oct 2014 I began to work full-time for a startup and my savings rate jumped to 65%. This was also the time, I seriously began investing.
After a cesura of 3 months not working and to get a foretaste of ERE living in spring 2017, I realised, that I really like working. No so much to not keep saving and eventually arriving at FI but it seriously made living while working a lot easier for me. Before that, I often felt rather bad working and now, knowing what I missed not working, I felt better doing it.
Up until then, I portrayed my journey on my German blog genughaben.de.
In Summer 2017, I became a software/data science freelancer working for education, luxury brands, sustainable finance, namely a company that calculates climate impacts and possible trajectories on how to reduce their climate impacts by a simple but elegant KPI called X degree Celsius which effectively indicates, that if every company would operate the same way it does, the world would heat up to your X degree celsius.
I regard myself as environmentally concerned (especially biodiversity loss and climate change) and am grateful to have found an opportunity to earn at least part of my income in working for cause and company, that is in alignment with my personal values.
Until last year I kept lifestyle quite aligned with minimalistic values and then it lost me, step by step.
My GF, JH, moved to another city for a job. Albeit temporarily, this led to a rise in rent expenses by almost 50%. In addition, my travel expenses spiked.
But this was not the only issue. Despite earning somewhat more money, my financial/lifestyle discipline crumbled. I began spending an additional 100-150 EUR for electronic gadgets and games per month. I also started spending more on food and used quite a bit more public transport instead of my bike. Subsequently, I gained weight and watched a lot more series and read and wrote a lot less. Like really a lot more and less respectively.
The result was a downing of my savings rate from previously 60-70% (despite earning less) to 44% excluding and 57% including capital gain. I also weigh about 15kg more than I am comfortable with and that after having been quite a health nut most of my life.
Also, as children may play part in my life in a not too distant future, and I would like to move to a less urbanised area someday, too, I want to regain practical financial/frugal prowess.
I do want to return to the path of virtue and that’s also the reason to finally start my Journal here.
I also would like to connect with like-minded people after my gardening initiative went dormant about environmental issues but also the minimalism and, of cause finance and health.
In terms of finance: I am increasingly confused about the stock market and the CAPE rising and rising (??) what am I missing and what do you think about this and what indicators/information are you particularly pay attention to these days?
I want to start with kind of an overhaul again and portray it hear and also a bit on my blog, too. Maybe this program, yet to be fully specified, will serve as an antidote (again) to loosen the grip of consumerism regained on me.
Finances
* My last years' spending was about 2.7 JAFIs.
* My current capital / private pension amounts are about 10.2 JAFIs
Immediate actions:
* Log my expenses from January to March and reinstate my neglected personal finance spreadsheets
* Getting a clearer picture about my different challenges and goals
* Come up with a plan for concrete expense reduction, i.e.:
** remove at least 1 subscription
** cancel 2 consumer insurances
** start to eat more simple again, especially at work (take-home prepared food to work, at least once a week, limit eating out with collogues to once a week, eat simpler food like kale+backed beans for lunch)
* …
* Sell unnecessary stuff (again)
** Put 3 electronic gadgets on eBay, that I bought and did not use much anyway
* Find another FI book to accompany me coming to terms again
* Define goals for 2020
I am looking forward to reading about your journeys and dialogues ahead!
Kind regards
Frank