Hi! Glad to be here.

[Gewie]

I'm from the Midwest in the US, and I've been working on achieving FI for the last 8 years. Similar to some other folks on here, I studied science in college (biochemistry) and ended up deciding the career wasn't for me. I dropped out of grad school roughly 8 years ago now. At the time, the idea of spending the best parts of my life being told what to do with my time by someone else seemed horrifying to me. After a few months of considering my options, I decided to pursue financial freedom and essentially work so that I would eventually no longer be forced to work. I decided to maintain my low cost lifestyle from college while also working the highest paying job I could find, which turned out to be an officer position in the US military. By not allowing lifestyle inflation to occur, I was able to save between 70 and 99% (on deployment) of my income over the next 5 years. I read ERE while I was on deployment in my 4th year in the military, and it resonated with me strongly. Combined with a lucky period in the stock market, I was able to grow my portfolio to about 25x-28x my yearly expenses during this time. After I left the military, the stock market took a pretty steep dip, and I decided that it would be worth it to me to own my own house instead of living with roommates. These two factors led to me working in construction and flipping a house over the last few years. I've now technically achieved FI, but I am uncertain about certain parts of my calculations like estimated healthcare cost, and what the final selling price of my house will be once I finish flipping it.

I am interested in diversifying my income streams (increasing income robustness score). So far, I have only invested in index funds and the house I fixed up, but I am trying to learn as much as I can about alternative sources of passive and semi-passive income. I'm willing to do some additional work in exchange for additional security, but I would prefer to do the work up front and only do maintenance later on.

For the last few months, I've been doing a deep dive on trying to live my life more efficiently. My strategy this year will be to move to a more walkable city, use a spreadsheet to optimize my meals for both nutrition and cost, move to a small and better insulated house, and replace low ROI activities like video gaming and Youtube with higher ROI ones like reading books and working on hobby projects.

[AxelHeyst]

Welcome Gewie! Sounds like you’ve made solid progress and are in the process of putting a bow on it. Looking forward to following along.

[2Birds1Stone]

Welcome. Enjoyed your back story and looking forward to your continued contributions here.

[Gewie]

Thanks for the welcomes! Seems like this is a great community. It reminds me a lot of discussion forums I used to visit all the time when I was a kid - not sure where they all went nowadays.