FI in 10 years

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steveo73
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Re: FI in 10 years

Post by steveo73 »

Hankaroundtheworld wrote:Great that you get away with it :-)
So far. I'm sure that this will change again soon.

steveo73
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Re: FI in 10 years

Post by steveo73 »

cmonkey wrote:
Hankaroundtheworld wrote:Every week/Months, producing status reports with a lot of details (explaining deviations from previous reports), and in the end, hardly anybody reads these reports and will be forgotten quickly, and true, it does not add any value towards customers. All that wasted time that could have been used to interact better with Customers. What is it with these (big) companies that they become so inefficient and toxic?
The same thing is going on at our org, although I am not the one making up the status reports. I can attest to the claim that the updates are completely ignored. ;)

The inefficiency is coming about due to trying to squeeze every last drop out of the lemon and the more they squeeze, the less and less juice they will get. There is only so much "work" to do in a "hurry-up-and-wait" type of organization.

The one guy on our team doing all the planning and such is constantly going on about how "there's so much work coming", but it just never comes. Or it does and it's not that bad. I don't know. All I know is that he's been claiming that for 3.5 years now and I am doing less work now than I was when I started. He is the type of guy that deals mostly with people/meetings and he is 'oh so biiiiiizzzzy' dealing with people.
This also happens. We have a pipeline for so much work it's not funny but it won't actually come in. We have a real tracking tool where you input resource requirements and get assigned resources. That says we are running out of work. The spreadsheets and projections that various other morons use to state what we need state we have way too much work.

I reckon one developer can do a lot of work. The problem for me is getting that developer enough specs and data so that he can do his job. Once that is done development is easy. It's the drama around the process that makes it hard.

I've probably mentioned the guy who works with us who is close to retirement in his 50's who is an executive. His point is do you tell an electrician to put the red wire in this hole and the green wire here or do you pay him to do his job. We have all these processes and procedures that add no value. It's pretty crazy.

Hankaroundtheworld
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Re: FI in 10 years

Post by Hankaroundtheworld »

All true, we can write a book about it! To add to it: Managers are risk-averse (afraid for their bonus), so they only want to take predictable steps and avoid any new way of doing business (read: innovation). Hence they put a lot of effort in reporting, as this is giving them a false feeling of control. Another one: every 1-2 years they reverse the mechanism between centralization and de-centralization (for instance, give full control of Sales & Delivery to local account teams versus central control of Sales & Delivery, etc..). They create a new "Organization" by drawing boxes, and put the same people in those boxes that they had before. Effect: negative, because energy is focused inwards instead of focusing on adding value to Customers.

I can go on with this: 100's of examples (and this is from experience of around the world, not a particular country...)

steveo73
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Re: FI in 10 years

Post by steveo73 »

Hank - I reckon we could write a book about it as well. The restructure between centralization and decentralization is a classic one. It happens regularly.

steveo73
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Re: FI in 10 years

Post by steveo73 »

I felt I haven't updated this in a long time. It's interesting how many journals that there are on this board because I went through this thread and my last update wasn't long ago but my thread was a long way into this part of the forum. I suppose that there are a lot of us on here moving towards FI.

Today I had an interesting meeting. I'm a project manger but for some reason my big boss's boss decided to meet and talk shit. Anyway it was pretty good because I found him really likable. He wasn't arrogant and seemed like a good guy. I work in a big bank and it goes the CEO, the boss of IT and then this guy. He said a couple of interesting things. His family is on the other side of the country and I can tell that he thinks that sucks. He is also a smart guy. He did a Phd in machine learning but he did it years and years ago. Now that field is cool and he said it was funny because when he did it that field wasn't cool at all.

I decided to tell him about a bunch of the stupid stuff we do but I tried to do it in a constructive way. So I made it generic and asked him how to handle it. The funny thing is that he said we really should be small company like because of all the BS that happens in big companies. We actually seemed to be on the same page. I didn't get to talk to him about finances but I'm thinking that I should have.

When it comes to my situation this is now officially the best year of my working career. It's been great not because of my bonus or anything like that. It's been great because I've gotten to take it easy, my project is in a good state and I've done things as much as possible my way. Now interestingly I was having a review on my project with a new portfolio manager and she asked me why I was doing something. I was only doing that to appease one of the dickheads who was busting my balls earlier in the project. So I really need to even do more of the stuff that I think I should do rather than following the standard moronic approach.

The finances just keep trucking along. It's slow but because work is good it's not painful. I just sort of see it go up bit by bit and then I invest it.

My family are all good.

The only issue is that I'm 43 and I love jiu-jitsu. The problem is that I can feel my body starting to regress. My right shoulder is tight and it just can't handle tough wrestles that well. My right knee feels like it isn't that stable. I will continue doing this but I feel like I want a new body to be able to handle the constant beat-downs that my body gets. I'm a small guy and I wrestle anyone and everyone.

Overall life is good but the question especially with work is how long will it last.

FBeyer
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Re: FI in 10 years

Post by FBeyer »

The one thing I've heard over and over is that Turkish Get Ups with kettlebells is a major exercise for martial artists. It's supposedly one of the best strengthening and stabilizing exercises there are. 'heard about it before?

steveo73
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Re: FI in 10 years

Post by steveo73 »

Fbeyer - thanks for the feedback. I have heard about it and used it as well. I didn't get much out of it to be honest.

For my shoulder the best thing I've done is just hang from a bar. For my upper back the best thing I do is an all over stretch and roll a tennis ball over my back. One thing I struggle with is doing the remediation exercises regularly. They just aren't as fun and if I feel good then I don't feel the need to do them.

Truthfully though I think that as I'm getting older this is going to happen. You just don't move as well as when you are in your 20's.

steveo73
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Re: FI in 10 years

Post by steveo73 »

I thought I'd ramble on for a little bit on here.

So a couple of points about how being frugal is difficult in today's society. My parents are wealthy. Dad doesn't want to spend money or better put his expenses are low or what I consider fair. My mum though seems to feel it's her duty to spend as much money as she can. So it's Christmas time and we don't want to buy a large number of presents for everyone in the family nor do we want presents. It becomes a drama though. Mum wants a Kris Kringle and honestly the amount to spend is $100 per family. That is just for the adults. I reckon that is crazy. At this point I'm just staying out of it.

On top of that my two older kids see my mum as a mark. So they are requesting new beds from her. Not just a single bed either but a double bed. I reckon that will cost $2k for both of them at least. Then we have to buy new sheets and possible donnas as they have single beds now.

The next issue is my youngest brother. He is a decent guy. He is 10 years younger than me and we have some of the same interests - we both do jiu-jitsu, he also does MMA and we play chess. Anyway he is getting married. His fiance is also really nice. Sounds great and it is. The problem is the fiance is someone who wants everything to be right. My daughter is a flowergirl and she has to get a custom made dress. I have no idea how much that will cost but I assume $1k or thereabouts. My other brother and myself are to be groomsmen and unless we are wearing navy suits we will have to buy new suits (again I think that this could easily cost another $1k). To add to that we will have to pay for ourselves and our 3 kids to go to the wedding. We probably won't pay for the 6 yo but we will pay for the other 2. That will be $400 minimum. There will also be bucks nights out and possibly my wife will even go to the hens night.

So to me ridiculous spending appears to be coming up. I can handle christmas. My wife has already bought all our christmas presents. We don't spend much. The wedding though is out of control. I can see the wedding costing at best $1000 and at worst say $2000. That is crazy money.

How crazy is this world ?

Onto another rant. My other younger brother (not the one getting married) does have a good high paying job. He is a lawyer. He loves it as well. He wants though to upgrade the house and get a pool. We live in Sydney Australia so house prices are crazy. I think his house now would be worth about $2 million. It's honestly an ordinary house. I think our house is much nicer and it's worth about $1.5 million but it's not in an area that is relatively overpriced. All houses are overpriced. Anyway I figure he will spending something like $3-4 million on his house.

We just don't fit into the spend everything that you have and more culture.

I should add that my parents are wealthy and can afford to spend what they have. They were relatively frugal. My younger brother (the lawyer) does earn a lot of money and to be fair isn't a massive relative spender. He does save money. The youngest brother doesn't earn great money but his fiancee works full time as well. I think they are in the normal spend way too much category though. Her parents I think were never good with money.

To repeat my previous statement - how freaken crazy is this world ?

Erenymous
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Re: FI in 10 years

Post by Erenymous »

Made to measure navy suit can be bought for 100-300+. Less for the dress.

Choose cheap/free gifts you want to give.

Free beds - nice! Sell the old beds and sheets. Buy new cheap sheets. Invest the extra money! :D

Everyone everywhere says that houses are overpriced in growing cities. Can the markets be wrong everywhere?

Good luck!

steveo73
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Re: FI in 10 years

Post by steveo73 »

Erenymous wrote:Made to measure navy suit can be bought for 100-300+. Less for the dress.

Choose cheap/free gifts you want to give.

Free beds - nice! Sell the old beds and sheets. Buy new cheap sheets. Invest the extra money! :D

Everyone everywhere says that houses are overpriced in growing cities. Can the markets be wrong everywhere?

Good luck!
I don't reckon I will be able to get a made to measure navy suit for that price for a wedding. I do already own one though so if it's a navy suit the cost will be negligible. I also am not involved in the dress that is being purchased. They choose. I assume they pay for it as well.

We will just chuck the bed out and maybe the bed sheets. The other bed will be used for the youngest. We will save money there.

As for house prices who knows what will happen. It's crazy.

Thanks for the feedback though.

steveo73
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Re: FI in 10 years

Post by steveo73 »

I just started a 6 week holiday yesterday. It's also christmas and I've had a couple of social events that to me are actually nice but at the same time not in sync with who I am.

So I drank a lot of alcohol at a pub with a couple of friends. My friends probably do this a couple of times per week and one friend basically every day. I come home and I stink plus I wake up feeling like crap. To add to that I spent $60.

Last night I met two friends that used to work for me. It's really good that people that came from another country as cheaper labour and worked for me view me as a friend. Dinner and a couple of beers cost $70 for the 3 of us. Indians (from India) don't drink as much as my white Australian friends. They ended up paying for everything. I will have to return the favour at some point though.

I've also started a vege patch. I would like to be able to grow a good portion of my own food but I figure it will be an experimentation time.

I should update on the suit. I spoke to my brother and told him let's all use navy suits. His fiance wasn't happy for this and decided we all needed black suits. So we have to buy a black suit that will probably never be worn again. I hate black suits. They are appropriate for funerals and even that is a stretch.

steveo73
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Re: FI in 10 years

Post by steveo73 »

When it comes to the 6 week period off I have started playing guitar again which is good. I'm taking care of my 6 yo right now as my wife is at work for another week. He is going through a phase where he loves his dad best and it's nice.

steveo73
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Re: FI in 10 years

Post by steveo73 »

I'm back at work again. The work itself is okay in that I still have a tonne of freedom. The problem is that it still sucks.

My vege patch is going well. We continue to save. The markets have been good.

FI is still a long way off - i.e. 3-5 years.

wolf
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Re: FI in 10 years

Post by wolf »

steveo73 wrote:
Mon Jan 30, 2017 3:35 pm
I'm back at work again. The work itself is okay in that I still have a tonne of freedom. The problem is that it still sucks.

My vege patch is going well. We continue to save. The markets have been good.

FI is still a long way off - i.e. 3-5 years.
any updates steveo73?

steveo73
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Re: FI in 10 years

Post by steveo73 »

wolf wrote:
Fri Nov 30, 2018 1:28 am
any updates steveo73?
It's been ages but here are some updates.

We've saved up to 13x yearly expenses with a goal to retire at 20x expenses. I think that this will take 3-5 years longer. 3 years with good returns and 5 years with average returns. Worst case at that point I'd go part-time. I may even go part-time when we reach 20x expenses but I'm not ready to make that decision just yet. Part-time work which would mean pretty close to not spending any of the portfolio is a smart option because it would help with sequence of returns risk but I may just quit. It'll depend on how I feel about work at that point.

Work is okay. It sucks really but I don't do that much. It's more boredom. I've become cynical and I have no ambition at work. I leave early and do minimal hours. So I don't fit into that corporate culture but I don't want too. It's more about doing time until I save up enough. It's not that work is bad. It's just that i could do it part-time and spend less hours in the office.

Our expenses have increased a fair bit as well. We have two teenagers and an 8 year old. It's hard to keep spending low in this situation. We don't send them to private schools or will we pay for their college/university education. We may support them a little bit namely free board & food etc and maybe some additional money but we will expect them to work. We pay for other stuff that they spend on though and it adds up. We have one car. I bike everywhere. We do though seem to have increasing expenses. If our expenses hadn't increased so much we would be potentially retiring in a year or so. We can't do that now though.

Our investing approach is I think really good. Our portfolio looks like this:-

5% Individual shares. These are work gifted shares that I intend to use within my portfolio. I'd sell them but we can't because they are staff benefits and there are tax implications. They are good quality shares that have paid a good dividend for years and the company is fairly safe. These will be sold off first along with the Bonds fund.
15% Bonds Index fund -- the intention is to sell this first and move slowly to a 100% stock portfolio,
30% Australian Stock Index fund
50% International Stock Index fund

Wherever possible we use Vanguard ETF's. Whenever we save up enough we invest. It's like clockwork and I think this portfolio is pretty darn good as far as being future proofed. I'd like to think the International Share portfolio component will increase over time whereas the bonds and Individual shares will slowly be sold off.

My vege garden has done okay. The best we've gotten of it is a large amount of beans and parsley.

My brother passed away recently. It was a massive shock - he was hit by a car while jogging. Apart from this hurting more than anything in the world it's made me realize that every day is precious and I don't want to spend my time working.

wolf
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Re: FI in 10 years

Post by wolf »

Hi Steveo73!

It seems you are on track with your plan. I got a similiar time horizon of 3-5 years. Either it will be part-time or a longer sabbatical.

Regarding your asset allocation. It's the same with me. My portfolio also consists of about 20% bonds (corporate and government). I'd like to use a glidepath (inspired by ERN), in order to get to 100% equities in about 10 years.
steveo73 wrote:
Mon Jul 08, 2019 4:00 am
...
15% Bonds Index fund -- the intention is to sell this first and move slowly to a 100% stock portfolio,
...
Do you hold additional asset classes, e.g. from different regions, size of equities (small)?
Quite recently I added some real estate stocks. (20% of total portfolio now).

Dissatisfaction at work is tough. Work shouldn't be boring. Well, there are good and bad times, I guess. But have you considered to quit work and apply somewhere else? What I learned from Tyler9000's Journal, that if you still have several years ahead of you (before FI), then improving the situation at work might be possible and good for your overall outlook on life. In addition to that, I changed my point of view. In the beginning I focused on the end goal and neglected the bad things at work. Nowadays I have the process in mind and therefore I improved several aspects* of work by "job crafting".
*e.g. flexible hours, working from home, role at work, challenging and interesting topics and tasks.

rube
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Re: FI in 10 years

Post by rube »

Sorry to read about your brother @steveo73 .Wish you the best with that loss.
And yes, we're vulnerable. Perhaps we live another 40 years orso for which we need to plan, but perhaps it is just a few more years. Balancing between statistics and feelings.

steveo73
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Re: FI in 10 years

Post by steveo73 »

wolf wrote:
Mon Jul 08, 2019 10:05 am
Dissatisfaction at work is tough. Work shouldn't be boring. Well, there are good and bad times, I guess. But have you considered to quit work and apply somewhere else? What I learned from Tyler9000's Journal, that if you still have several years ahead of you (before FI), then improving the situation at work might be possible and good for your overall outlook on life. In addition to that, I changed my point of view. In the beginning I focused on the end goal and neglected the bad things at work. Nowadays I have the process in mind and therefore I improved several aspects* of work by "job crafting".
*e.g. flexible hours, working from home, role at work, challenging and interesting topics and tasks.
This is a good point. I think I have a job that will be hard to beat at this point though. I work from home 1 day a week and sometimes more. I also work less hours - typically something like 9 to 3 to 4. The work isn't bad. I'm on a project that has been good for close to 2 years but it's starting to be poorly managed. We have less dollars to spend this year and people are being let go and the scope isn't clear.

I'm lucky in that hopefully I'll get onto a new project or this one will get cleared up and it will get better. My boss is fine as well.

Basically It's hard for me to leave at this point because a retrenchment would be good plus the work isn't really that bad. I should though push like you state for more challenging work.

I also intend to use a glidepath ala ERN. My index funds are just the standard index funds - so all world and Australian top 300 plus Australian bonds. I own my house which is crazy expensive so I don't want to invest into any more property.
Last edited by steveo73 on Mon Jul 08, 2019 7:14 pm, edited 2 times in total.

steveo73
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Re: FI in 10 years

Post by steveo73 »

rube wrote:
Mon Jul 08, 2019 11:37 am
Sorry to read about your brother @steveo73 .Wish you the best with that loss.
And yes, we're vulnerable. Perhaps we live another 40 years orso for which we need to plan, but perhaps it is just a few more years. Balancing between statistics and feelings.
Thank You.It really sucks. My family is a mess. You have to go on though. You are right in that we tend to plan for the worse case scenarios when it comes to our finances - i.e. live for another 40 years and the markets perform poorly. That is really unlikely to happen but I suppose you don't want to run out of money prior to end of life.

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jennypenny
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Re: FI in 10 years

Post by jennypenny »

I'm really sorry about your brother steveo. That stuff cuts deep. I think most people end up a better person after stuff like that happens but it's a painful way to grow.

Peace.

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