FI gives you freedom to fill your days with whatever you desire. But becoming FI takes time and that does not go well with my lack of patience. People around me buy nice stuff. I have ETFs and an empty fridge. Where is my freaking reward after doing everything by the FI rule book for 5 years!?
The scene
I lived abroad and traveled the world. It was awesome. After being well in my 30s I settled down. I finally started doing everything by the book. Not my book but most peoples book. We got jobs, bought a house and are proud parents. We paid off a substantial chunk of the mortgage. We make good money, spend mindfully and invest what is left. Above all; everyone is healthy.
The mind
Geldnerd recently made an awesome tool which confirmed my own back-of-the-envelop calculations. Ten more years and I can walk out of my office and never look back. At the tender age of 52. Not bad at all. We both work four days. Every Friday is already a partime, pre-pension day for me. My job offers a great DC pension with low costs. The math is clear; I should just sit it out for ten more years.
The heart
I don't like my job. Not this one in particular. I have nice colleagues and the projects are interesting. I probably will not like any job where I sit behind a computer in a company where the only goal is more profit. Ruled by computer systems that say no when common sense says yes. I would love to walk out now and start my own business. Maybe in the same field, maybe not. But my mind is stopping me from doing that, see above.
How is this fair? Once people find the FI concept you cannot expect them to hang around in their jobs for a few more decades! We have better things to do. We could make a real difference to the world instead of working!
Everyone is raving about compounding but it has one big disadvantage. It takes forever. Five years into the FI journey and all I have to show for it is a number of ETFs on my computer screen. And the computer says no again when asked whether it is enough to quit.
I want it all and I want it now.
I can relate and suspect we're about the same age and have similar backgrounds and current situations. Thus I'm likely to be on the journey for another ten years too :)
ReplyDeleteI like to frame the challenge as figuring out how to live a rich life, now, today already.
And I believe that our position in Europe provides us plenty of inspirations on living well.
Consider even our friends south of the border. How is that their food culture is so amazing? They earn less than the Dutch. So how do they do it?? Plenty to learn there.
And the Swedes have a word, vardagslyx ("everyday luxury") and it's a thing in their world. Others will say that luxury must be exclusive, which is paradoxical to the idea of everyday luxury, but I know the Swedes have this right. They created IKEA and H&M, not Dolce and Gabbana or Armani.
Four days weeks are a massive everyday (week!) luxury, by the way. I had them myself for two years and think we should make it a global standard!
A lot of wise words Cameron! Four days a week is an insane luxury. People are typically busy one day of the weekend to arrange their cleaning and grocery shopping. Effectively leaving them one day of freedom. So in fact I have a double amount of free time. Being happy now is key to the journey. Luckily most days I am aware that I am really lucky but the day of this post the impatience took over ;-)
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