Quick update if anyone beside @rolandinho is interested:
TL;DR: Still FI, working part-time, currently evaluating further continued employment by my current employer, considering going full private.
For those reading along but haven’t followed the thread: I am FI, currently working part time at an asset management company, partially for learning how the professionals do this, partially for initially being uncertain about whether my investments will cover our expenses.
What’s changed since my previous update (March '21)? Using the same categories as last time …
- Family: I am able to commit more time as needed to look after things. I am glad I am able to commit the time, as my son is coming of age, which comes with its own challenges that I didn’t expect to be so difficult for me to handle. Not so much my son’s fault, more the way I am capable of dealing with it. Definitely glad I have the time.
I believe at my old job at Hoolie I would have either not picked up on these things at all because of too much committment to Hoolie or - more likely, as I did cut back on mental committment in the trailing year or two - would have picked up on it, but would not have recognized it in time as an issue I need to dedicate personal time to to help address.
On a more positive note we as a family in 2022 spent precious time together on awesome vacations, including a two week trip to Africa. - Perspective: probably even more hard-line on this one. Developed only very little tolerance for negative work-space interactions, expressing myself accordingly, and my environment is even adapting to my expectations.
I am still asking myself regularly whether I still want to experience the remaining marginal corporate drama that occasionally occurs. Will probably answer this question this year. - Risk tolerance: I am a little afraid of my beating the S&P 500 by over 20% in 2022 with my stockpicking portfolio will make me overconfident. Recency bias, pure luck, whatever. Anyhow, I would like to move more funds from more conservative allocations (globally diversified equity and bond ETFs) into my stock picking portfolio. Will have to see how this plays out. It’s a nice challenge to have to deal with.
- Perspective II++: managing your own money is so much easier than having to manage OPM (Other People’s Money). My Portfolio Manager colleagues at my current gig all ended up negative for 2022, some even trailing their benchmark (usually some index). Not being bound by such constraints as an individual investor I feel I can easily navigate current market inefficiencies and generate alpha. Famous last words …
Additional thoughs:
- pursuing a dividend (growth) strategy has definitely given me ease of mind: income though (growing) dividends financing lifestyle trickles in and is growing, and I don’t have to think about selling stock, especially when markets are depressed.
This concludes today’s updates. If you have follow-up questions, please fire away.