I think that’s the most important part. Financial independence means that you can quit but not that you have to. Some people quit to flee the rat race, that doesn’t seem to be your case. You don’t have a need to quit, hence, quitting would mean that you have a want.
If you enjoy your current life, there is nothing to change. Enough is enough, it is possible that you have enough as is, and that you are enough to enjoy life without feeling that you are missing something most of the time.
If you think you could enjoy doing things differently, or doing other things, then the question would be “what do you want to do” or “how do you want to do things”. If/when you have that figured out, then you have the financial means to move there (provided they’re within your FIRE budget, otherwise, you would then have to find out how to increase that budget to include them).
One thing that sometimes helps me to figure out what I want to actually do with my life is taking time out. 4 days, 1 month in a mountain/beach/spa resort without any hassle, letting time flow and my mind move toward other things than my usual life. Walking/hiking is also a powerful way for mind cleaning.
Edit: as a side thought: life enjoyment is often about finding our “enough”, more than expecting to add things in our life in the hope to reach it. “Enough” is relative, chasing it can push it always further.
To me this sounds like a wonderful project to have when not working anymore.
Now it’s really up to you to decide whether you enjoy it more to continue working.
Well, I guess it’s not that bad, then. Only you can decide if it’s worth it to change something with your current routine. Don’t you want to at least spend a few months in another country ? What about family, don’t have anyone to pay a visit for a month and figure things out after ?
What were your first motivations for FIRE ?
The part about getting accustomed to not work, I get it. But I think it’s not a reasonable fear. You built your current portfolio with a lot of effort. At your age, I find it difficult to think you could get so pampered as to never be able to work again. Old habits die hard.
Why would you need a well paying option if with a normal part-time job you can cover your expenses with the portfolio ?
Current plan is to go back to France but we start to get use to Switzerland so we may need extra cushion. I have lost a it the focus of the finish line with our little one but feel more at ease with FI.
Possibly. But not with the current partner. And going alone does not seem inviting. I’d also need to stop working. And I’ve just filed in a request for the Swiss citizenship, which takes 2 years. I don’t want to do anything out of the ordinary in that time. Which means at least until the end 2027 I need to stay put and do my job and carry on. Hopefully that gives my portfolio some more time to grow (and not shrink lol).
I realize we’re getting offtopic here. But after moving to Switzerland my savings started growing at a rapid pace. Soon I had over 100k saved and all just sitting in the bank account. This wasn’t any FIRE stuff, just how my parents raised me. I never lived paycheck to paycheck. So somewhere in 2017 I read the JL Collins blog, then learned about Mr Money Mustache and then I found this forum. And I always felt like work… is something you need to do, not something you want to do. I see it as voluntary slavery. So the whole allure of FU money and being able to be free and independent really spoke to me.
I think as a FIREd guy coming back to work I would be unbearable. I imagine I would have a super low tolerance for bullshit. Normally people just do as they’re told as they rely on the money to survive. I would question everything. Why do you need me in the office? Who the fck cares about annual performance review? Sorry I skipped that meeting, it was pointless. Idk, I’d need a job that I would really see myself making a difference. Hard to imagine right now…
It sounds like my current job. I agree it’s pointless and meaningless and depressing. I even manage to be officially useless, final stage of a long term achievement, and get paid for this uselessness.
That was my long time roadmap, I advise against it. Passive income in a job is not enjoyable.
A friend of mine managed to be fired after he achieved FI, after he sorted more or less everything for the future he was just as you describe, by his own account he was “totally unhinged, not tolerating anyone or anything”, so they booted him with a note next to his name “never interact with again”.
Funnily, he says he managed to get in such an argument with his bank, to the point where they handed £20,000 to him in cash, and a cheque for the rest of the money and told him to fuck off and never show up again in any branch or he’d be arrested on the spot. True story (no, really - I said “quit” in my linked story but the reality is he got fired, even showed me the emails).
Edit: it’s a sad story in its core, underscored by severe trauma and mental health issues, FU money is critical (even my old boss told me “I have FTS money” - you can deduce what it means) but keeping up propriety is not only a formality in my opinion, but good functioning too.
I was seriously thinking in doing that. Would have brought me a lot of cash. But I couldn’t, I liked the people at my work too much. But there were some assholes that did exactly that.
I finished waiting for my bonus (which was nice btw.) and then gave notice, even did throw a big goodbye party which did cost me a lot of money, thirsty bastards…
But what the hell, you only live once. It is not all about money.
Sometimes I‘m feeling down when thinking about how long it will take to actually reach my „FIRE number“. It‘s still roughly 200 months away. Feels like a lifetime of saving from month to month.
I guess ideally you’d enjoy your work and life in the meantime, but the math is obviously favorable to save as much as possible early on and take less risks in your career to optimize for a stable good income.
This is the reason why I decided to ditch the index ETF strategy and go for a moonshot. We only have one life, so it’s quite risky to blow your only shot and not play it safe. But that same reason makes it agonizing to be in this limbo/waiting mode for years and years, hoping for that 7% annual return from your ETF.
There is this viral tweet titled The Prison Of Financial Mediocrity, which covers the topic of why gen Z is so much into NTFs, crypto, and other moonshots.
And there is also a very nice rebuttal to it:
PS why are X links displayed in such a broken way? Arrrgh.
But isn’t that exactly what this forum is about? Getting that juicy 7% p.a. and being patient. This approach almost certainly guarantees wealth, whereas with moonshots, you’re either going to get poor or extremely rich. I think this forum should advocate the former.
Not exactly on topic, but I feel a bit responsible because since one year I pray for mechanical strategies instead of ETF. But I am lucky because there were no ETF when I started investing…
Now before ETF most people investing in stocks lost money. Even with ETF some lose money, for exactly the same reason: buying high and selling low. That is our caveman brain, we cannot do absolutely nothing against it.
Sometimes I think to really make money in the stock market with proprietary trading you have to be a psychopath.
7% is not exactly juicy if money loses more than that.
The success of ETF is a real problem. 40% of the money invested in a market cap position sized index goes to very little companies. And those companies are way overvalued, have priced in the gains of centuries. But, as monthly ETF buyers buy them anyhow, that does not matter. Or does it?
So, don’t look at the performance, look at the risk. Or, better, your personal risk tolerance. Then define a strategy to reach close to that risk tolerance. Mine is extremely high, I had nothing for the first 18 years of my life and was not unhappy. OK, I missed the beer the last week of every month because my salary was already spent… but that is all. I was not unhappy without money, so I can risk it.
Who is “this forum”? Does he have his own mind and agency? No, it’s a collection of individuals interested in financial independence. “Buy Index ETF and forget” is the golden standard, sure, but why do you want to silence people who express their real feelings about the whole process? The reader can read different viewpoints and draw their own conclusions.
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I guess ideally you’d enjoy your work and life in the meantime, but the math is obviously favorable to save as much as possible early on and take less risks in your career to optimize for a stable good income.