Early Retirement Extreme Forums

Introduction
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This will be a documentation of my journay, for myself, and hopefully other like-minded people.

First, as an introduction, I'm a 21 yo FI wannabe from an Eastern Europe EU country, working as a software engineer (full time), and studying CS. I'm currently fairly unhappy with my life, for reasons presented further below.

Ever since I was a little kid, I was interested in how things work (I would constantly disassamble all sorts of devices), and I loved mathematics, physics computer science and participated at various national olympiads in these fields, winning some awards. That being said, I've had a lot less practice in interacting with other wet-ware, and that is I think a major source of discontent in my life right now.

A few years ago, I stumbled into a community called LessWrong, which would exert a big change in my thinking. One of my bigger regrets is not becoming more involved in that community (more on that later). One of my defining features is the aspiration to become a better rationalist.

I've been (more or less) following the basic principles of simple living for my whole life. Buying stuff would never bring me any satisfaction, with small exceptions (I've spent a bit more than I would later have wanted on a particular mountain bike). Despite this I haven't gotten very close to FI, because I haven't put my mind to generating an income much earlier in life (I don't think that's a bad thing though). I've had people in my family to look up to for their renaissance-man skills.

In my family, I've always been regarded as cheap (especially now). My mind is screaming at me when I see my sister spending a lot of money binge-buying stuff, or spending lots of money to get on a plane, and then mostly sit in a hotel in a far-away place, for the benefit of visiting a foreign city for a few days (more on this later).

The reason for that is that I have a well defined utility function, while other simply act according to their evolutionary adaptations, which are not in fact suitable to their current situation.

Actually, I'm half joking here. I'm not really such a rational person yet. I believe a big part of shaping my behaviour is a case of generalized anxiety that I've have for as long as I remember. This anxiety also manifests itself in financial anxiety (among many other things), and it is extremely irrational, and it is causing me to behave in irrational ways with respect to my goals. For example, even though at my current rate of spending I have funds to last me more than a decade, I am frequently worried about it. This is only a facet of it, it used to be frequently associated with bouts of depression (I won't go into details here). All these issues are self-diagnosed, as the mental health system where I live has a really bad reputation. But these issues are no longer significant, as meditation, mindfulness and similar practices have solved most of the issues (it's been more than 2 years since I had a serious problem of this kind). Despite this, I consider those bouts of depression to have set me back a lot in this life, by cutting off my motivation to advance with respect to my long-term goals.

As a teenager I would constantly be concerned about world problems like massive over-consumption, global warming, deforestation etc. I've been giving these issues little thought in the last couple of years, I could say that I'm not touched by them at all any more.

Things I want to do in this life, and can't do them right now
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This section is not entitled "Things I want to do at retirement", because the term is semantically-loaded with some meanings that don't convey what I want to express. I don't intend to one day simply stop working, I just want a lot more freedom with respect to how I do my work, and I want my work to be maximizing my utility function, i.e. I want to only work on things that I consider most meaningful to my values. I also want to be learning and studying a lot more than my current schedule allows, as I have a big curiosity in many fields of life.

The university where I study is downright shite, despite being regarded as top-3 in my country for CS. Most CS professors are downright incompetent, with no passion for their subject, yet they are being payed an absurd amount of money. The mathematics professors on the other hand, they are different, most of them do love their field, and are much better at it, and most of them have serious mathematical contributions.

This basically means that I go to school for a 2-4 of hours per week(just to submit my assignments and labs), yet still get almost perfect grades (recently I've fallend from the top 1%, last semester I had some problems at work, and I couldn't really finish all my work for school). But the thing is, I really hate most courses at the university. I don't think I've learned a thing since I've been there (and I'm in my final year). I do the assignments and labs the night before I need to hand them in. I learn for exams a couple of days before it.
And this is from someone who plays with/hacks on compilers, operating systems, loves algorithms and data structures, does MIT OCW courses on advanced data structures, machine learning, has written ray-tracers, loves developing software systems and is a software engineer at a big company.
I did like the few maths courses we've had in the first year though.

You might wonder why I came to this uni. I do too. Many of my friends went to study in England, US etc. I wasn't exactly sure of the procedure, in England at least it involved a lot of money for an Eastern European house-hold. The main reason for choosing this particular university (there are a few better one in my country) is the area (it was close to home, and most importantly, it was surrounded by a beautiful mountainous area, perfect for cycling enthusiats).
Another factor was, that during the period of HS graduation I was going through a particularly bad bout of depression, and this was the easiest option.

Ok, so for the actual list of things that I can't really do right now:
1. I've been in love with the idea of cyclo-tourism since I was about 14. I used to read a lot of journals from crazyguyonabike, dreaming that one day, I could get all my stuff in my panniers, hop on, and ride around the world. I would mostly stealth-camp, use tents, etc. Not the credit-car touring thing. This is definitely the first thing I will be doing once I have the financial and time-related possibility.

As I said, I currently live in a beautiful mountainous-hilly region, and used to cycle a lot (1-2 day 100-200 km micro-adventures), lately (since I started working) I haven't really had the time to do that, even in weekends.

2. I am really curious about a lot of things in this world. I have started doing math 55 courses from harvard, never continued though. I'm deeply interested/excited in prospects of generalized artificial intelligence.

I would follow the https://intelligence.org/research-guide/ (this is related to the LW community).

I have read a few books on evolutionary psychology, and it has completely altered my perception of the patterns of human interactions. I would love to further study this field.

I have left my physics knowledge to a very elementary level from the middle of high-school national olympiads, somewhere around maxwell equations. I've been planning for a long time to really get into it, to study advanced quantum mechanics, more advanced electro-dynamics.

I've also started studying advanced statistics and machine learning (not the elementary level they teach in school) from books like those from E.T. Jaynes etc.

3. I've been toying with the ideea of building a CNC mill for creating my own stuff, so that I will be completely independent from manufacturers (with the exception of getting the raw materials). I would like to build various bike parts from aluminum, parts for robots that i build etc.

I have also seen a mature MIT project of building houses for the poor using similar CNC machines for wood. I would like to build my own house like that.

4. My parents had some periods when they held a garden at home. I want to get around doing that myself. I'd also keep a few hens probably.

5. I'm a professional software engineer, and yet I haven't really had time to get into/make contributions projects I'm passionate about, like gnu hurd, linux, ghc etc.

While I've built things like toy os'es, compilers, raytracers, I want to spend more time and effort on this things, as I still have a lot to learn. I'm not really that good of a programmer yet.

Basically I want to work on my own personal projects more.

I'd also write some books/web publications about these things.

6. In the world of software, if you're good enough, it is relatively easy to make a good living by building your projects, web apps, or publishing software as an ISV. There are tens or hundreds of thousands of people doing this.
It is certainly possible, and I'm quite sure this is among the first things I will be doing when I'll have the time, because it's an opportunity to get a lot of money in return for something you love doing.

Financials
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My job situation:
I've been working for 1.5 years at a big sw company, but I really don't like the corporate environment, even though most people there are nice (I could say I have a few friends there, though I they are more like buddies), very smart, I do things that are relatively close to what I would do in my spare time.

I think the environment itself, <i.e. a lot of signaling, a lot of office politics>, doesn't go at all well with my anxiety, and this causes me a lot of stress. At least I believe this is the issue. I'm also not quite as productive as I would like, and I still have a lot to learn with regard to software engineering, and the environment itself is not exactly the best suited for that I think.

I have so far twice told my manager that I was quitting, but both times we agreed on continuing. This last time came with a significant (>50%) raise, which does make me a little bit uncomfortable, as internally I don't know if my productivity is worth so much money. Maybe it will prove to be another source of stress in the long run.

Anyway, the stats themselves:
I have about 11k Euros saved.
- most of them are in governmental bonds, managed by some bank (near-zero risk, 3-5 % historic growth, nowadays closer to 3).
- very little portion of that in an index fund at local stock market

Income:
- a bit more than 14K usd / year, which is better than 95 % of salaries in my country (probably a conservative estimate).
- a bit under 1K usd /year from school scholarships

Expenses:
- roughly 60-70 USD / month on average I believe, mostly food. I don't pay rent, as I live with a relative, I cook my own food most of the time. And I don't like buying stuff. Of course, this means that sometimes(not always) other people(my parents) buy common things like toothpaste, electricty, water etc. Even with those expenses, I would definitely not rise above 100USD.

Targets:
- once I reach about 30-40K i could safely retire, if I moved back with my parents. I could buy an apartment for something like 30-60K, but then I would rather rent it for 150-300E and move to a surrounding village ?
- anyway, it makes little sense rationally to keep working in the country I currently live, once I get above 100K.
(
But I've been thinking of moving abroad (I have some German ancestry, and while not yet perfect, a command of the German language). That changes things quite a bit, but again, I would obviosly have to work there as well, to make up the funds.

The problem is that I don't know if I'll be able to take this decision to simply quit working the job I have at a certain time, despite knowing that it's the most rational decision by a wide margin.)

I believe these figures are a bit extreme, even around here. Obviously I do sometimes have an odd month, when I spend an extra 100$ when my phone broke, and had to buy another one (I use the gps functionality a lot while cycling), chinese phonemakers like Xiaomi make some great cheap stuff. Also things like a pair of shoes when the old ones are no longer suitable. But that's on average once or twice per year. Most of my wardrobe is again not made up of things that I've bought personally. My mother mostly is at fault there. This things will have to change to be truly independent.

In any case, I can certainly fit into 100-120$ per month, if I don't have to pay rent. This is why I said that I probably have enough funds to last me a decade at current rate of spending.

For this reason, it was very rational from me to quit my job, and work on my own projects. Because I was getting enough money from school scholarship to live on, I had another year to work on whatever I wanted, there are a lot of jobs in the field. I have a few friends working at Google in Zurich, Dublin, I could have had the opportunity to work there as well if I had quit.

And yet I didn't, and even before the big raise, mostly because of that anxiety. I was fearful, for a few reasons, the post has gotten a bit too big, so I won't go into details. Anyway, I will now try to focus completely on my job, to overdeliver.

But anyway, I don't think people in software should spend too much time thinking about investing or other such strategies. Better work on your own project, like so many others do. Indeed, there's a significant chance of failure, of not being able to sell your product, but that's why you need to create some sort of a safety net, like the one I had with the time left as a student.

Wow! You are going to have an interesting life!

A small update

Not much has changed, since last time, I'm almost 22 yo, i'm done with all the exams, almost graduated, still have to do my diploma project, but I'm currently going through a burnout period (I suppose that's almost inevitable for somebody with my psychological profile, working full time, and attending university at the same time), so I'm quite a bit stressed atm, but things should turn out all right. Going through a period of sleep deprivation (that took me some time to notice), had a really bad effect on my overall well-being and performance.

Up until recently I was planning to continue with a master's degree here, but right now I really feel like I need a break, a 1 year break, in which to work on my own projects, maybe try to set up a few "passive income" streams, and ride my bike a lot. I've been thinking of buying a portable solar panel, so that I can do some programming while on a bike tour, but since I haven't yet done long tours, I've postponed that purchase.

Anyway, attending this university has been a mistake in hindsight, at least I've learned more from my job, but I think studying own my own would have been better. In any case, I think I may enroll in a better master's program after this supposed 1 year break, something like TUM in Germany. The credentials would help I believe, but given that in the long run, I intend to make a living from my own projects, it may not be the best investment. But universities like TU Dresden offer some generous performance-based scolarships, so it could be quite cheap, and I think I would enjoy a change in the environment. Who knows, at the moment I'm probably beyond the deadline for abroad universities, so I could only enroll here (i think), but I probably won't. As I already said, I don't see much use to it other than the credentials.

Financials
Total liquidities: 18k Euros, growing at ~2.7% per annum,
that's because I hold them in a deposits/ government bonds, because I had been planning to buy a rental property and needed easy access to money. I'm still quite a bit away from that, I would need around 30-32k E (roughly 10 more months to get there) to buy a one-bedroom apartment here, which would rent for 200E. At that point I think it would be quite safe to quit. Even though right now the real estate market is going through a boom period, given that I have a place to live, the rental income should cover the other basic expenses.

I don't track my spendings, or other sources of income, mainly because I generally only buy food, and food that I cook, most months I don't buy anything else. I'm fairly sure I'm constantly above 90-95% saving rate.

Mental Health
About 3-4 months ago I decided that the rational decision in my situation was to see a psychiatrist about my anxiety issues. Well, after 3-4 months I can cross that off my list, and I need to find another way to solve this problem. Basically, after 3-4 meetings, I've been prescribed a SSRI that didn't help at all, but induced a state of insomnia. The psychiatrist wanted to give me some pill against insomnia, but told me that it would be quite addictive, and that I should be careful with that. In parallel, I've also been seeing a psychologist, but one that I would rate very very poorly, very little interest in the patient, basically didn't help at all. So I've stopped going to these doctors.

I do know that when I sleep well, eat well, exercise well and let things flow, I feel great. Also I'm quite sure that my anxiety is simply a symptom of some of the issues with my lifestyle. So once I take control of my life (which should happen quite soon, surely less than 2 years), anxiety shouldn't be a problem anymore.

If I can ride my bike, craft beautiful software, read whichever math/physics/CS/rationality book I want, and relax when I want, I would surely be happy.

Regarding work
I'd say that 60% of the time I enjoy the work I do, writing low-level kernel-mode drivers, implementing various advanced data-structures in C, quite a bit of problem solving. What I dislike is the social aspects of it. The politics make me feel quite uncomfortable, one of my colleagues, who is very smart, and a quite capable software engineer, is perhaps one of the most politically skilled "nerd" I've ever seen. He's way too overconfident, even considering his above-averge skills, and he quite capably befriended the project leader. He gets assigned the most interesting tasks, and gets stellar reviews. I can't complain, that's normal, what bothers me is his arrogance, he sometimes makes statements in which he deems some piece of code shite and says that whoever wrote it should be cruelly beaten or things like that. The thing is, he is very skilled at befriending everyone, and only make such statements about people who left the company. Furthermore, whenever someone tries to point out that something he's built could use some improvement in some places, and points out a very clearly argumented case for that, let's just say that this guy doesn't take that lightly. But anyway, I really dislike that kind of behaviour, as it signals over-confidence in his ability, unjustified over-confidence. Anyway, I'm way below average in this area, mainly because of my anxiety, I haven't spent a lot of time improving my machiavellian skills. I won't be needing them anyway, once I quit and work on my own things.

And, ironically, I quite admire Torvalds, I'd be perfectly content with getting aggresive criticism from him. But if you read most of Torvalds emails for which he is heavily criticized, they are not politically charged (they don't need to be, it's his project, he doesn't need to signal anything).

Anyway, I'm quite sure that more than 60-70% of all big companies are dysfunctional, a much smaller team of passionate, rational people, who trust each other, and don't waste time/effort with politics and other stupid sh*te, could get the job done much better. But anyway, a big percentage of the problem is selling your software, and it helps to have a multi-million dollar marketing department for that.