The Yagna

Where are you and where are you going?
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Agni
Posts: 23
Joined: Fri Mar 31, 2017 9:00 am

Re: The Yagna

Post by Agni »

FY 2018 Finances

Expected Expense Changes

Code: Select all

| Category                               | Amount |
|----------------------------------------+--------|
| Housing($1300/month housing = +400*12) |   4800 |
| FICA Taxes (Post H1B)                  |   7000 |
|----------------------------------------+--------|
| Total                                  |  11800 |
Expected Income Changes

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| Category                   | Amount |
|----------------------------+--------|
| Relocation                 |  -5000 |
| Signing Bonus              | -15000 |
| 401k mid-year join benefit |  -4500 |
| Annual Cash Bonus          |  14000 |
| Salary Hike                |   4200 |
| Stock Options              |   1100 |
|----------------------------+--------|
| Total                      |  -5200 |
Expected Net Savings Hit for FY 2019

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| Category            | Amount |
|---------------------+--------|
| Housing             |   4800 |
| FICA Tax            |   8000 |
| Net Income Decrease |   5200 |
|---------------------+--------|
| Total               |  18000 |
Financial Projection Summary: FY 2019
- Expected Expenses: 30,000 - 36,000
- Should hit 100K target, if other expenses stay similar to FY2018
For that to happen need to control lifestyle inflation, save on food, transport pre-emptively.
- Aim for <30,000 => <$2500 per month

Housing costs have increased due to moving to the city and planning to try living by myself. All the rest of the changes are due to external factors. I'll try and use more public transport now that I'm living in the city and try wean myself from my car dependence. A lot has been going on over the last few months and I haven't been able to post regularly. I'll try harder to improve my posting schedule. More about July, August 2018 finances later.

User avatar
Agni
Posts: 23
Joined: Fri Mar 31, 2017 9:00 am

Re: The Yagna

Post by Agni »

Can't believe it's been a year since I last posted! And here I was thinking i'd be posting diligently every few months :?
I guess better late than never and given it's been almost exactly a year, we're in time for my eagerly awaited FY2019 financial report! :lol:

FY 2019 Finances
July 2018 - June 2019

Expense Breakdown

Code: Select all

|  Category  |  Cost |   %   |
|------------+-------+-------|
| Housing    | 16100 | 46.26 |
| Food       |  5900 | 16.95 |
| Travel     |  4300 | 12.36 |
| Transport  |  2800 |  8.05 |
| Hardware   |  1500 |  4.31 |
| Gifts      |  1000 |  2.87 |
| Other      |   850 |  2.44 |
| Insurance  |   750 |  2.16 |
| Experience |   500 |  1.44 |
| Supplies   |   450 |  1.29 |
| Clothing   |   350 |  1.01 |
| Phone      |   300 |  0.86 |
Image

Financial Summary: FY 2019
- Expenses: 35000
- Savings Rate: 75.0%
- Projected Total Years to FIRE: 5 years

In summary, I achieved my 100K/year in savings objective and while my expenses have risen considerably, having set up my financial engine in the first year, it's has been chugging relatively smoothly along the path to independence IMO.

I'm hoping to automate the process to invest my after tax income into index funds (i.e VTSAX or equivalent) soon. Automating my after-tax investments should minimize my cognitive overhead and urge to time the market.

Footnotes:
- Most number are 'rounded' to nearest 50 or 0.01 for percentages
- Years to FIRE is based on that month's expenses, averaged income (at current paygrade), current assets and SWR of 4%
- All numbers are after tax

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Agni
Posts: 23
Joined: Fri Mar 31, 2017 9:00 am

Re: The Yagna

Post by Agni »

Financials aside, I've been working on setting up useful habits[1][2]. I currently have a morning ritual that I've been following for ~2 months, that includes a 7-minute bodyweight training routine, having (my variation of) a powersmoothie before leaving for work and meditating using headspace on the bus to work. So it's been a fairly successful venture in habits creation as of now. Although I do need constant vigilance in ensuring I'm doing these tasks consistently and properly, as every once in a while I'll slack off a bit on some task.

I've found Alex Vermeer's life hacking post a useful reference for tools and frameworks to analyze and discover areas I could work on.

[1]: https://jamesclear.com/physics-productivity
[2]: https://www.madfientist.com/james-clear-interview/

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Bankai
Posts: 986
Joined: Fri Jul 25, 2014 5:28 am

Re: The Yagna

Post by Bankai »

I'm a big fan of James Clear's work. His approach is what finally worked for me after years of unsuccessful attempts to implement good habits in my life. Have you read his book "Atomic Habits"? I was expecting it to be a regurgitation of ideas from his blog, but there were some new bits as well as many examples to illustrate various approaches.

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Agni
Posts: 23
Joined: Fri Mar 31, 2017 9:00 am

Re: The Yagna

Post by Agni »

Bankai wrote:
Sun Jul 28, 2019 3:43 pm
I'm a big fan of James Clear's work. His approach is what finally worked for me after years of unsuccessful attempts to implement good habits in my life. Have you read his book "Atomic Habits"? I was expecting it to be a regurgitation of ideas from his blog, but there were some new bits as well as many examples to illustrate various approaches.
Yeah, James Clear is pretty awesome! I stumbled across his work from the MadFientist podcast that I linked to in my previous post. But no, I haven't read the Atomic Habits book. I was expecting it to talk about whatever he'd already mentioned, same as you. I've also read quite a bit of productivity hacking stuff so I find a lot of it, while inspiring, is mostly a different packaging of the same (good) stuff. I'll put it in my reading backlog for when I need some productivity inspiration.

User avatar
Agni
Posts: 23
Joined: Fri Mar 31, 2017 9:00 am

Re: The Yagna

Post by Agni »

Unbelievable, it's been 3 years since I last posted :roll: .........Anyway...
Here are the updates you all have been eagerly waiting for :P

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 :x. 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 :roll: 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 |
Image

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

mathiverse
Posts: 788
Joined: Fri Feb 01, 2019 8:40 pm

Re: The Yagna

Post by mathiverse »

Hooray! Congrats! Thanks for coming back to give us an update!

MBBboy
Posts: 212
Joined: Sat Jan 01, 2022 12:11 pm

Re: The Yagna

Post by MBBboy »

Congratulations, and looking forward to updates from "the other side"

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