Part time work full time happiness

[thrifty++]

Thats 6.5 years of expenses. Though I think its probably more in the sense that I think my spending could be substantially cut if I was not working 50/60 hours a week and had more time and energy to spend on more expense minimisation. And I live in a very high COL area for my job,

[wolf]

Great thrifty++. Congrats on your debt-free life. Your NW went highly up within six months, of about 30k€. Keep on Going. Do you have any milestones or goals, you want to achieve? If I may ask of course. A debt-free life could be seen as one milestone towards a free and independent life. Take care.

[thrifty++]

Thanks MDFIRE.

Yes my net worth seems to keep growing at a faster rate due to compounding investments plus my spending keeps decreasing as I develop new systems. I think it increased about $60k in the last year.

The next milestone is $200k which according to my forecast I should hit by May 2018. But it could well be sooner as my NW keeps on increasing faster than my forecasts.

[cmonkey]

Congratulations on paying off that debt and having such a high NW! You're reaching run-away status now.

[thrifty++]

Thanks CMonkey. Yes I never really imagined myself being at this point a few years ago. But all the little system changes start stacking things up really fast. I will start to feel well on my way once I hit about 200k. Hopefully not too far off

[thrifty++]

It looks like I am going to finally live up to my journal name.

I am heading off overseas for a number of months. I thought I might have to resign but my work granted me time off. I like my job very much and am quite far off financial independence so this is an awesome outcome! But I guess I have FU money which gave me the confidence to do it even if they said no and tell them thats what I was going to do.

I dont want to wait until I am completely FI to have adventures requiring time off work. This next one is the first of a few I think. Mini retirements.

I currently have a net worth of $186,500. I also have a consultancy income for consulting work I can do from overseas which annualized is between 15k an 20k depending on how much time I have/can be bothered doing. Probably more towards 20k or maybe a bit more since I will soon have an abundance of time. I will probably end up continuing to grow my net worth while overseas, albeit at a slower rate.

[Smashter]

Congrats and have a great time! FU money seems like a wonderful thing

[thrifty++]

Woohooo!!! I just hit another milestone! I broke the $200k barrier.

Now sitting at a NW of around $201k. Such a good feeling. I broke $100k NW around 22 months ago so thats how long its taken for me to amass another $100k.

I am also about to be heading on a lengthy travel sojourn as well so its well timed I have hit this milestone, so I can feel like I have achieved something massive before my earnings drop substantially.

I hope to maintain my existing NW while I am travelling. But who knows it may well increase marginally. We will see.

I am soooo looking forward to having time off my main job and just relaxing, going for swims, hiking, sitting in the sun, reading. Ahh it will be so blissful. Im actually feeling quite burnt out from it all so its quite perfectly timed.

[wolf]

wow! Great news! Congratulations to your milestone! When will your sabbatical start? Where will you travel to?

[thrifty++]

Thanks Wolf! Im heading away next week.
I prefer not to share where I am going as too many people in the real world know

[wolf]

Ok. No problem. I wish you a great adventure! Take care!

[thrifty++]

Ok so I have been away for over a week so far and am thoroughly enjoying it.

Been in two locations so far but now am planting myself in one spot to have a more relaxed and richer experience. Thats definitely how I prefer to travel, at a snails pace. I get stressed by constant buses and trains and flights, having to meet deadlines etc. Thats too similar to work.

I am pleased that thus far my NW has continued to increase. Now up to $204k. I am somewhat cheating in that I am still getting paid annual leave for a while. This will carry on for the next few weeks. So I expect my NW to increase for that period of time and then to just stagnate rather than decrease fr the rest with my consulting income plus investment income.

Most of the expensive part of travelling has occurred and I am now living in a room in a nice shared place with other foreigners. The rent and expenses are slightly less than half what they are for me in NZ and I have already paid for this whole month. Now I can just explore from my base and get to know the nature, the culture and language.

[JustAGuyReally]

Hey thrifty,

Any updates? How are things on your end?

[thrifty++]

I havent posted for a while.

I went overseas and had a great time. A nice experience. And I can speak another language now.

I have been back to regular life again. It has taken me a while to pick my net worth back up again as I ended up spending and not earning much for a while due to the OE and the stock market crashing just as I got back.

I have been saving as much as I can since I got back and the stock market picked up again. So I am up to a new net worth high of $208k now.

I am finding it difficult to get back into big savings percentages now as I think I had a great deal on rent in my old place since I was there for a while. The rent is really expensive where I live. I am not sure how I am going to FI in NZ to be honest. Is so very expensive here and the pay is not high. I will have to try and work something out. I think it will just take me a bit of time to get into high savings rate territory again.

[wolf]

Good to hear that you had a great time thrifty++
Traveling to NZ and maybe living there for a while is a dream of mine. I have read about the high cost of living in NZ, but I couldn't imagine that it is so challenging. You wanna work and save again?

Btw: what does OE stand for?

[thrifty++]

Yes I am working and saving again. I forget OE is probably an NZ term - Overseas Exchange. Everywhere else is overseas from NZ.

Yes I think I could geo-artbitrage somewhere else. I am certainly open to that. I could move to a smaller town in NZ but I think NZ in general is very expensive - unless I decide to go total bush hermit and live in the bush for free - some people do this in NZ - but dont think thats for me lol. But overseas could probably be a better option.

I am thinking maybe I will relocate before FIRE. Somewhere that the pay and cost of living ratio - purchasing power - is much better. But I would like to build more capital first. Maybe like to $300k and then go overseas and keep working. My career being based in NZ woudl mean my income would likely take quite a big jump backward at the beginning, so would like to have more capital. I have to note this is NZD so $208k NZD as my current NW is a lot less in US dollars

[thrifty++]

Wooohooo I just reached another NW milestone! Hit $300k!

I love hitting these big round numbers.

It has taken me a while this time as I had some unexpected medical bills of about $13k that set me back a bit. But, I still got there. Feeling good about this.

However, feeling a bit stressed as need to decide whether to move with my job to another city. So lots on my mind.

[Mister Imperceptible]

https://mobile.twitter.com/danwootton/s ... 0166683649

[thrifty++]

@MI - that video is hilarious!

[Mister Imperceptible]

My question is, is it accurate?