Unbelievable, it's been 3 years since I last posted
.........Anyway...
Here are the updates you all have been eagerly waiting for
Past
A lot has happened of course, but I wanted to report that I've
achieved FIRE on expected timeline!
My stated goal from the
first journal post:
The goal is to be FI in 5 years.
<snip>
Last edited by Agni on Sun Jan 21, 2018 4:12 am, edited 1 time in total.
It feels great to achieve longer term objectives. I'm thankful for all the controllable and uncontrollable things that have gone right into getting here. Mostly the plan has been working on autopilot for the last few years. But the two things to report are:
- I setup recurring investments a few years back. Got rid of the human from avoidable points in my investment loop and reduced this humans urge to time the market. Had much less of my hard earned money unintentionally wasting away in the bank.
- I've generally done my own taxes using freefillableforms. But this time I went through a tax advisor to fix up my tax reporting as I'd unintentionally gotten myself into a complicated tax situation by investing in mutual funds in my home country. The IRS disapproves of this. This results in me having to report the investments as PFIC . Thankfully I didn't have to pay any taxes to IRS, which could have been substantial. But I did end up paying quite a bit (~3K) to tax advisors.
While I was feeling the urge to leave in 2021 itself, with the uncertainty and travel restrictions caused by Covid it felt prudent to wait a little longer.
Present
I left my job this past month with the intention to devote more time to a few personal projects and explore the world a little.
With that in mind, I've been weaving east through UK, Turkey and now Georgia while starting to get into a rhythm working on my personal projects.
For travel my criteria to visit a country are 1. Easy visa requirements, allows longer stay 2. Interesting place 3. Low cost of living. Folks with a valid US, UK or Schengen visa can travel to a lot more countries than their original passport may allow. For example, see
this list
How to be productive post FIRE is my main concern right now
In the earlier times, vacation time would always lead to loss of productivity. I've improved quite a bit since then in my diligence. I have some productive routines that should carry over to post FIRE life. But I'll need to fill the void left by work with my own structures and use measurable metrics like
OKRs to motivate myself to work on concrete, immediately actionable goals. Let's see how it goes.
Future
I hope to find projects that a) I like working on and b) enough people find valuable over the next year. This will allow me to focus on useful projects. Over this time I also intend to explore living in a few different places (just for the experience).
In terms of FIRE, I need to
1. See if my post FIRE expenses stay within the before FIRE ballpark
2. Find a good strategy to liquidate my assets to finances my living expenses. (I have enough in the bank to fund a year)
3. Adapt myself and my environment such that I can be productive post FIRE in pursuing my goals.
Finances
Before FIRE Finances
July 2017 - June 2022
5 Year Expense Breakdown
Code: Select all
| Category | Cost | % |
|---------------+--------+--------|
| Housing | 64700 | 43.28 |
| Food | 26500 | 17.73 |
| Travel | 25000 | 16.72 |
| Transport | 7800 | 5.22 |
| Gifts | 6500 | 4.35 |
| Hardware | 6500 | 4.35 |
| Insurance | 2500 | 1.67 |
| Phone | 2500 | 1.67 |
| Supplies | 1700 | 1.14 |
| Experience | 1800 | 1.20 |
| Subscriptions | 1300 | 0.87 |
| Clothing | 1300 | 0.87 |
| Other | 1400 | 0.94 |
|---------------+--------+--------|
| Total | 149500 | 100.00 |
Financial Summary: Pre FIRE Years
- Yearly Expenses (Avg): 30,000
- Savings Rate: 82%
- Total Years to FIRE: 0 years!
Footnotes:
- Most number are 'rounded' to nearest 50 or 0.01 for percentages
- Years to FIRE is based on my average annual expenses over last 6 years, current assets and SWR of 4%
- All numbers are after tax