Wow, thanks to everyone for the warm welcome and your interest.
I greatly enjoyed the “life story” aspects of other folk's journals here on the forum and on other blogs. I believe the path behind every one of us tells how we developed the present-day character, mindset and skills. Even though it is often the last thing one wants to hear when in a bad situation, it is frequently very character-building to experience hardship (at least in retrospect). I hope to develop this into a mindful sort of stoicism, where I can recognize the beneficial parts of it
during the bad experience – but I'm still working on that
So here's my attempt at writing down my life's story so far!
*ALERT: embarassing introspection ahead*
Because my childhood was very dark and complicated, I will not discuss it in detail; because 1. I am still not able to talk about some of the things that happened and 2. it would make me easily identifiable. Speaking from experience, it is nothing people want to know about anyway, since whenever I am answer questions about my childhood, people literally recoil, squirm in unpleasantness and change the topic. It's not something people are taught how to handle, so they don't. To avoid all that unpleasantness, I'll skip right to my late teens: if my life were a stock, this would have been the ideal “buy window”, because it was a financial, emotional and personal low point for me.
My story part I: The darkest hour
For as long as I can remember, I was very attracted to logical thinking, later science, philosophy and how we can know thing about the world. Perhaps, this was a bit of escapism, trying to tune out my horrible childhood and youth, and strive to something better, purer, a more objective view of the world. In High School, I learned about molecular cell biology, the beginning of life and quantum physics, and was immediately hooked (these topics might not seem like they go together, but they do!). In 2010, I was super excited to go to Uni, and do nothing but think all day and have deep discussions with like-minded people with an equal thirst for knowledge. You can imagine my disillusionment when arriving there and discovering that the large majority was there to earn a degree and asking “will this be on the exam?”. I also had some financial struggles: despite a well-developed welfare state, I sort of fell through the cracks because of my unusual family situation. After some unfortunate foster care situations, the bureaucratic mill pushed my case around for years, while I was struggling to pay my bills and eat and study at the same time. I was on my own by 16, to pay bills, do household chores (I was in a shared flat at the time), go to High School and negotiate with the officials for my pension. High school and later my major was not one of those where you can easily fit a side job, and worked different jobs during breaks. Despite my big aversion of going into dept, I got a interest-free loan to tide me over. I finally got some help from the state via a generous monthly pension, things were ok for 2 years. However, there was a huge fuck-up by the bureau, they decided that I had no right to this pension after all and finally I was suddenly forced to repay the full amount I had received. I got a bill of 42k and got threatened with lawyers for my “fraud” (which was their fuck-up in allocating me the pension from a fund I apparently did not qualify for after all, I merely took it). The fund which I did qualify for was not accessible in retrospect (eg I had to apply new and could not get anything for the 2 years I was paid from the “wrong” pot). At the same time I struggled with the death of several close family members and an abusive boyfriend (now ex). This nearly broke me. Dealing with all this shit, my exam performance dropped and I came very close to dropping out of Uni. I had always done very well academically, seeing myself do so poorly in topics I loved dragged me down even further. I went from a good monthly pension to no money at all and huge dept in a matter of days. I could not pay my health insurance rates, and needed surgery at the same time, I was scared of getting slapped with the full hospital cost if I could not keep up the insurance payments. I missed courses and exams due to hospitalization, or wrote them drugged up and in pain, resulting in horrible grades. Money was a constant worry, I seriously considered doing escort work (you can get amazing rates as a non-foreign girl) or getting in with some shady “friends” on DMT synthesis. Both would have made decent cash and could have ruined my future career forever. This was the main reason I did not enter either of those “opportunities”: they would be a stain on me, possibly for life. Also, I don't know how I would have reacted to it, if I could have beard the additional emotional stress of prostitution/criminal activities. In retrospect, I'm of course glad that I did not risk it. So how did I survive? I got some well-paying gigs tutoring rich kids in science and math, pay went straight into my insurance payments and “debt”, moved to a tiny cockroach-infested studio in the “bad” part of town, walked everywhere and dumpster dived. Yes, that is eating the stuff other people throw away, which is actually better than it sounds (eg bread, fruit and veg that shops throw out almost daily). Sometimes you find clothes too, or household items. Lunch I brought from home or I looked for leftover plates at Uni cafeteria that people don't finish. Shampoo was left often at the Uni gym showers, with no-one coming back to claim it. Only thing I bought was oil, spices, lentils, beans, rice etc and tomato paste to go with my free veggies. Searching for good recipes online I discovered the vegan diet and got interested in the ideology behind it, but that's another story. Not having spare money for going out, I spent my time at home being a loner, prepping food, reading stuff online and tinkering on various free projects (remember this for later!). This, plus being sad over my situation and my family dying, led my then-boyfriend to proclaim that I was no fun at all, and leaving me. I also owed him some money, which was like a toxic shackle. I think he was also a bit pissed about my financial situation and me “not willing to do anything about it” eg escort work/livecam stuff. Then, this was just another blow, but looking back,
WOW did he do me a big favor by dumping me! Some people are just such a drain on your system, but at the time I did not recognize that we were incompatible and he was actually really bad for me. Turns out I am not very good at picking men, so he was only the most recent guy in a long line of asshats. Lessons learned, hopefully.
My story part II: Turnaround
Next to frugal living and the end of this wreck of a relationship, one more thing contributed to my turnaround: I started seeing a psychiatrist. I was very skeptical at the beginning, but he has really helped me get some perspective, start dealing with the issues left from my childhood and the deaths of my family, untangling from my ex, accepting emotions. I was able to arrange a repayment plan for that debt, finished my degree and started making more money to sustain myself. I got into a new, better relationship. I said goodbye to trying for perfect exam scores and focused on more fulfilling side projects. Suddenly, money started coming in: after processing of the wills, legal stuff and house clearing, the family house was sold. On one hand, this broke my heart, selling the only place I would call home during my turbulent childhood, on the other hand, my share of the sale allowed me to pay down my debt in one payment! (Both my interest-free loan and the pension money I owed due to the mess-up). So I was finally free.
In 2013 and 2015, I was also able to sell two of my projects to companies. They were both ideas I had during my teens, developed for years on the side, and protected under provisional patent, which is fairly easy to get. I will not name specific details or numbers about the ideas themselves or the sale. One was a mechanical engineering problem in trains, which was mostly solved with an electronic switch, my solution was purely mechanical and both cheaper and more reliable under extreme weather conditions, and could be read out easily. I sold my design, prototypes, test data and the rights to my idea to a large railroad company, and it has probably saved them many times over what they payed me. My other idea I had later, and it is more a biochemistry/synthetic biology quirk I observed. Long time I had no idea what to do with it, and took it into various directions in thought experiments and computer simulations, and a few very basic “homestyle” experiments (kids, don't try this at home!). Finally I found an application while reading a recent medicinal chemistry publication and realizing my observation would make a perfect solution. I performed some rudimentary experiments and calculations and feasibility studies. I realized that I could not pursue this idea on my own and encouraged by my earlier sale to the railroad company, I decided to sell this to a pharma company. Being in my field of study, it was much closer to my heart, but drug development in Pharma is hugely expensive, risky and takes years – so it was the sensible thing to hand my idea baby over to the professionals. I assembled all my documentation, made a nice presentation and pitched to several large and medium companies. One made me an offer on the spot, which my lawyer/patent consultant said was fair for such an underdeveloped product (it wasn't even really a product at all). So I sold and resigned all my rights to my idea. They did offer me a job though, but I wanted to get a PhD first. Maybe I also had a fear of not measuring up to expectations in the company. Looking back, it was for the best: I was an idiot back then, very much blindly wandering between drug development and patent rights, having no clue what I was doing. I was insanely lucky to observe what I did and that the company gave me a fair deal. Even in the hands of the medical chemistry company, my idea did not make it to the trial phase yet. It has some pharmacological problems that mean it can either never become a efficacious medicine, or major advances in other fields are needed to continue developing it. The company seized research on this project for the time being, but still has the rights to pick it up in the future. Knowing more about the field now, I realize how lucky it was that I sold when I did. Back after the sale I worried about my idea making millions, and me selling out too early.
All these events resulted in me going from broke and in debt to high net-worth individual in a matter of 1,5 years. Plus I now had a regular salary from my Masters/PhD (which I had no problem getting, I am apparently very convincing in the lab), so suddenly I had more money than I could reasonably spend. Remember, I was still in a very “poor person” mindset, so I fluctuated between eating my regular lentils + veg out of broken tupperware and dropping a few hundred (or thousand) on some dumb purchase or traveling. The money from my sales was too overwhelming for me, so I parked it on a separate, managed bank account, swearing not to touch it until I had an investment plan. I oftentimes felt that I did not deserve this huge windfall and that this part of my wealth was somehow “not mine”. I often likened it to winning the lottery. Even if you factor in the work I did put into developing these ideas, and the sale, it does not add up to anything resembling “real work”. I did not know what to do with this money, and what it meant for my life. Also I had no idea that something like ER existed, I just took it as a given I would work until 65 like everyone else, no matter what. My other salary I would often save for a few months only to drop it on some dumb dumb splurge (file that under regrettable purchases). I thought I deserved a slice of the normal consumerist lifestyle, after my years of whiled dumpster salad, pressure-cooked beans and secondhand socks. For a while I demonstratively refused to have a budget. Since then I have mellowed out a little: staring to save part of my salary to feed my investment account (currently about 35% after tax, far from Extreme), and on the other hand getting more comfortable shuffling around previously unimaginable sums on my investment account. However, I'm happy to report my overall lifestyle did not inflate too drastically. Even the small middle-class amenities (eating out, having coffee in a cafe, buying a sweater in a department store, going to the sauna, an evening out with friends) were like luxury to me, only to be savored on special occasions. I am so grateful (in a non-spiritual way) for all the things and opportunities I have now. I hope I never get used to this, and always remember the hardship compared to what I have now.
It is still something of a mindsplit for me to deal with the numbers: in everyday life, I still count the cents on which rice pack will be the cheapest, or might deny myself coffee to save a few bucks, and get super excited when I get something I need half-off. Many of my friends think of me as a tightwad supreme. But in my online broker account, I can trade lots of zeroes and ones with a few mouseclicks and sometimes make or loose many times my monthly expenses in just a day. I have to deal with this in a very abstract way of thinking – otherwise I fear getting greedy or emotional. There are just so many orders of magnitude in thinking between my everyday money/salary and my private wealth/investment portfolio.
Is this split mind something every FI person deals with, or does it get easier over time?