Lifestyle redesign
I always admired the people in the ERE movement that use extreme lifestyle design choices to live an unconventional life at a discount. People living in vans, storage facilities, secretly in their offices or in the Alaskan wilderness. I feel they hacked the system.
I am none of these things, I just lucked out to get a high-paying job that paid for housing.
My frugality muscles are pretty much atrophied. My solution to problems is buying stuff. I feel it necessary to buy class 1 tickets on trains. I bought more things than I needed, consumed more passive experiences than creating and overall have stagnated a bit, not only on the renaissance man front.
After the Covid era I feel unable to return to normal employment, the thought of sitting in an office 5 days a week is inconceivable. If I am honest it is also because daily interaction with people in this weird office environment is exhausting to just think about. Also seven calls on Microsoft Teams a day is too much.
Time for some lifestyle redesign, closer to the ERE ideal.
My basic situation is already quite good:
- Fully remote job with small salary of €2,630/month but equity in a promising new company
- €550k invested (down from €600k) + €41k in cash
- Free housing in the middle of nowhere in Germany (empty family property)
- No kids or major obligations
- “Free” health insurance in Germany
- €1,560/month for 12 months in unemployment benefit should I be fired or resign after a year of working
ERE Lifestyle goals
- Do not rent a permanent apartment, use free house in Germany, plus temporary rentals in areas I like
- Live wherever I want, starting from Southern Europe this winter
- Do not get a car, but carsharing and subscriptions for some parts of the year are ok
- Avoid buying stuff that I do not need, reduce possessions
- Get back to socially and professionally interacting with people outside of close friends and family on a more regular basis
- Retirement level: 4%/12 of current portfolio per month: currently EUR 1,891
- Salary men level: salary without touching savings: EUR 2,630 / month
- Supplementary level: salary + withdraw EUR 1,000 from savings: EUR 3,630
- 2021 average level: EUR 3,036
The new company has promised to raise my salary to €4k/net after the next funding round, but unhatched chickens will not be counted.
As much as I like charts, this is the only one that matters:
September spending:
In September I spent EUR 1,861 which was a success - living at my retirement budget (WR 3.94%). 21% was spent on car-related expenses - a late bill for my rental car at megacorp and petrol, 9% on work related stuff, such as “mandatory” restaurant visits with colleagues etc. Traveling was the biggest factor, taking up 25% of spending for various tickets and accommodations.
Portfolio update
In September the portfolio tanked, dropping from €599,234 to €567,383 - not a great start to my retirement lifestyle test run. On the bright side I reinvested dividends and some savings, so I managed to invest EUR 1,187 in September.
Hypothetical monthly income @ 4% WR in Euro
€1,891 down from €2,000 ouch
Outlook
In September I was very busy with my new job, but October seems very relaxed, hopefully the new lifestyle is working. I will report the progress on a quarterly basis from now on, next post in January. Hope it will all work out!