Long time no post…

Hey everyone. Hope you are all doing ok :). It’s been quite a while since my last post on here which was made at a very difficult time for me. I didn’t really want to leave that as the last post and it certainly wasn’t the only reason I have been away for so long, I have just been consumed with life and other things (Excuses…). I took the summer off but then unlike Little Miss FI who came back to her blog after a similar break, I seemed to take the whole year off and then some hehe…I did want to post again but struggled with what to write about and didn’t want to write something just for the sake of it, it would probably bore you all if I did hehe.

Posting again

I do however hope to get back to posting the occasional article on my thoughts and ramblings on a few different topics including of course FI. I still feel reluctant to do posts sharing the specifics of what I spend and don’t spend, what I invest, where and exactly how much I have in Investments. A lot of other bloggers don’t seem to have a problem with sharing that and sometimes in amazing detail (Looking at you theFirestarter :D). Does anyone else feel uncomfortable sharing that? Maybe I will change my mind, I am not sure. At least that way there will be some regularity and as QuietlySaving said in a post on her blog, those seem to be some of her most popular posts. I do wonder if people love to compare there own efforts to others and see how they are getting on. it’s quite natural to do that and can be a great encouragement sometimes to envy others to help improve your own efforts but also can foster a bit of jealousy too no doubt.

The last several months

So what have I been doing? Am I still into FI or have I descended into mass consumption, money burning a hole in my pocket new type of philosophy desperate to spend every penny on things that don’t really bring to much enduring joy? Hehe. No I am afraid it’s stuck on auto pilot. I have met my targets every month, continued to invest as normal and haven’t really thought too much about it which is boring but great. I still treat myself without any guilt (Looking at you my shiny lovely new Samsung S10 Plus hehe).. well just to note my phone was 4 years old and buggered and I love technology so I HAD to get one. I have been immersed in Matched betting, keeping fit, learning and reading and going out with friends and family as much as I can. It hasn’t been a bad time really. I think I need to do less matched betting though, I may even retire from it. A post regarding this is certainly in the works, this is another post I question whether I should or shouldn’t write about.

Short and sweet

I will leave it there for nice, short and sweet. I just really felt yesterday like I had to either write something and start to be more regular or maybe close the site down. I chose to carry on for now :D. I will be writing a post soon about my job and potentially big changes that are coming to it. It might not even be there in a weeks time :/. I wanted to write about the things about it that make me really appreciate it so much compared to my previous job and how that made me feel so different about the whole work thing, and how much I might want to escape it. If I do lose it, those older thoughts might come back hehe.

Thanks for reading as always.

Chris@TheFIJourney

Reflections on a Family Loss

I thought twice at first about writing this post as I  figured people might think it was a bit morbid but then I thought to myself, no… this is all about facing reality head on and being honest and open. This is supposed to be a blog where I get to share my thoughts and opinions after all :).

The loss

For the past few months, a very close family member of mine has been battling with advanced cancer. Last night from 1 – 7am I was in a hospital side room with many family members waiting for the inevitable to happen. It did happen with all of us present at around 4am. She passed pain free surrounded by loved ones which was something we all wanted but of course at the same time was a horrific experience and many images of which I still can’t get out of my mind right now. This isn’t the first time I have been with a close family member when they died but is the first time since my pursuit of FI began.

Reflections

During these 6 hours together, we all were talking about many different things and at one point the subject of money and priorities in life came up. The general opinions and thoughts that appeared were that you should live life as if it were your last day and money doesn’t matter, it’s better to spend it now and be happy etc. This is in part what made me think about writing a brief post on this sentiment whilst being enveloped in the grief and trauma of it all. Has it changed any of my beliefs around the pursuit of FI?

I didn’t really disagree with the general sentiment of what they were trying to convey but did disagree with what they said if taken in a literal sense. I completely agreed that when such moments in life crop up that it can make certain goals and pursuits look trivial and can make you question things that you might be doing or worrying about in life. It certainly does make you reflective on such things. Should I live like today will be my last day, should I start spending all my money as who knows when I will die, it could be tomorrow, a week or 10 minutes. How can I think about an FI date 8 years in the future?

Live each day like it will be your last

The idea of living each day like it will be your last day I think is easy to dismiss. There’s no way I could do that as it would mean straight away that I wouldn’t go to work, I would want to be with my family all day. I would need to make arrangements etc.. it’s not feasible to think like this. I would say that the more realistic and perhaps what is really meant is – Live like each day could be your last. Now, I think there is some truth in this because I do try to enjoy the present moment and each day. I try not to live life on fast forward to the next weekend or month or next major event. Despite this though, I still live each day with the presumption that there will likely be a tomorrow and that there will likely be a next week, month and year. I don’t know this for certain but I live my life as if it were the case whilst trying to as best I can balance being present minded and enjoying each day for its own sake. 

Stop saving & spend all your money so you can be maximally happy

You shouldn’t save so much was said to me during this time. Now, I think this boils down to believing you are depriving yourself by not spending money which I have written about before. I think this certainly can be true if you are extreme in your approach but even then, deprivation is a very personal thing. Someone could get immense pleasure from not being materialistic, having minimal items and living a simple life. To someone else however this might be torture. So would I be happier spending over a grand a month instead of investing and running down my current stash? I don’t believe I would no as I don’t feel deprived and I get immense joy from having strong finances and FI as a possibility.

What if I had a terminal diagnosis – would I regret my FI pursuit?

I obviously don’t know how I would feel for sure but based on how I think I would feel. This would be a strong no. I would not feel that my life was deprived whilst pursuing FI so I don’t think I could feel regret. I would also have enough money to know I don’t need to worry about money or work as I wouldn’t need to work in this scenario as I already have a sufficient stash to last a decade or more. I would be able to focus my complete attention on my family and approaching the end. I could go on vacations with family and do things that I perhaps would have done less frequently before. In essence I know that being in the position I am already because of my FI pursuit, I would be able to remove some barriers and worries that I might have had if I had not pursued it. The whole experience would of course still be terrible and I don’t want to suggest otherwise.

Will I go down a gear after this?

If I was still at the early stages of my FI pursuit when I was more strict with myself and the slight feelings of depriving myself were present, I have no doubt this would have made me ease up a little bit faster perhaps than I did originally. Because I already have got to a sweet spot for now at least, I won’t be changing anything about how I approach FI. For me, what will change in the short term at least is how frustrated I get about the little things which of course seem so insignificant when you go through something like this. The pursuit of FI is still on…

As always, Let me know your thoughts on this article, I always value your input and opinions.

Chris – The FI Journey

Gratitude for being on the Path to FI

I gave a fair bit of thought as to what to call this article. Some of the names that I thought of were “The privilege of being on the path to FI” and “The Good fortune of being on the path to FI”. I settled on Gratitude instead as for me this allows for appreciating the luck, good fortune and privilege of being on the FI journey whilst not making it seem like it was all random without any effort and awesome work from yourself included.

My Buddhist background

After graduating Uni I had a gap year, and during this year I got heavily into Buddhism after reading ‘The Art of Happiness’ by the Dalai Lama. Over the next couple years, I studied Buddhism very closely and read countless books on the subject, I even went to see the Dalai Lama in Manchester as well as going to a couple of weekend meditation retreats. I will no doubt do a future article on my experiences and thoughts on Buddhism but it’s worth clarifying that I was only ever interested in Modern Buddhism (no literal rebirth, Karma, nirvana) and that I don’t consider myself a Buddhist anymore. I mention this however as I am no doubt very influenced by much of what I learnt and am still very grateful for some useful ideas/practises I picked up during this time. This has no doubt informed the creation of this article.

So what do I mean when I talk about gratitude about being on the path toward FI. I simply mean acknowledging, appreciating and being grateful for the good fortune, privilege that you have for being on this path towards FI. There is no doubt that some people will feel that they are independent and are completely self made. They have put all the effort in, worked two jobs, learnt about how to achieve FI and have been disciplined throughout the process. Other people who are not pursuing FI could for sure be in the same position as me if only they tried harder, retooled, got that degree, worked day and night to start a new business etc… Now I believe that the above sentiment is indeed true up to a point and that you can be a relatively independent person but that this is in no way the absolute truth. There is so much more at play, so much that we have no control over.

Now all of what I state below is meant to be the generalities, it’s all about probabilities. A person born in a country without many freedoms or options to a poor family with an abusive relationship with parents still could end up on his path. But I would argue it is much less likely.

Time period & Country you are born into

I feel very fortunate to have been born in this time period that we currently live in as a well as a modern free country (relative yet again). We are performing so well on so many different quality of life metrics and things keep improving. This is not to deny problems and areas where there is decline but I feel so fortunate to not live in a world dominated by superstition, unequal rights, real poverty etc. Just having access to the Internet, a warm house with running water and a hot shower is bliss. We have so many luxuries available to us and countless activities you can partake in in the modern world many of which we of course naturally take for granted. Having this setup as a foundation for which to build FI on is the take home here, we live in a time period and country where FI is a possibility for probably more people than it ever has been at any time before.

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