Achieving financial independence in 2019

[LionOnTheLooseParticipant 1315]

I did a post about FIRE before–‘financial independence, retire early’, which is the idea that if you reduce your outgoings and save capital, you can effectively retire once you have capital totalling 25x your annual outgoings, because you can draw down 4% of that capital every year (assuming the capital is invested, and assuming the western world doesn’t collapse–feel free to put some of your capital into prepping/guns if you want to hedge that risk).

The good news is that, all being well, I should have accumulated capital worth 25x my outgoings in 2019. I’ll keep working after that, because I generally enjoy my work and it’s freelance so not a big deal, but it honestly feels amazing to have got to this point. And I encounter a fair number of dipsticks in my work as it is, so wouldn’t mind being more picky about which clients I take on.

For the first time, in 2018 I monitored my outgoings very carefully: every transaction was logged and categorised in a spreadsheet and I had a running pivot table so I could monitor everything. I’m fortunate that I own my house outright so I have no rent/mortgage payments. All my bills and personal outgoings for the year came in at just under £7,000 (US$9,000), which I think is pretty good, and wasn’t achieved by what I would consider to be absurd frugality, e.g. I enjoyed a good few bottles of wine, roast dinners, days out etc. But on average my expenditure on food per day came in at a fraction under £3 (US$3.83) per day, which I think isn’t bad–achieved by cooking simple but healthy and not buying much in the way of ready meals etc.

On top of those expenses, I had business expenses, and extraordinary personal expenditure which are things I wouldn’t have every year, and which I know I could easily live without if I decided to give up work.

Overall, I had about £31K coming in over the year and about £11K going out. So I saved about 65% of my income over the course of the year.

I’m not sure at the moment whether I would invest the capital in the stock market, or possibly property. I’ve looked into it and before long I’ll have enough to buy a small buy-to-let property in my local area, without a mortgage, which would give a gross rental yield to cover my £7K annual outgoings and possibly a bit more. As I say, I’ll keep working for now, and wouldn’t mind having more of a cash buffer, but still the idea of owning a property which generates enough cash to live off is pretty darn nice.

I’m still mid-30s, so plenty of time still.

The bigger point I think is that in general men are happier living frugally than women, perhaps because women worry more about what others think of them and are therefore more concerned with “keeping up with the Joneses”. I can’t recommend highly enough the life of living frugally, enjoying simple pleasures, and accumulating capital so that you know eventually you can stop working and tell everyone to f~~~ off.

The only other crucial component to this recipe is mastering the lizard brain so you don’t get any women knocked up. Porn makes that quite easy, I find.

No sex + frugal life = financial independence = being able to tell everyone to go f~~~ themselves. That is a sweet outcome my friends!

There aren't holes in your pockets. It's called marriage.

[The Black ScorpionParticipant 2146]

Good job.

And you are right, simple pleasures are the best.

The greatest tragedy in life is to spend your whole life fishing only to discover that it was not fish you were after. - Henry David Thoreau

[ArcturisParticipant 2819]

WOOOO – that’s fantastic! Good work Lion!

Independance has to be the greatest feeling?!

I heard a great quote once that put me on this path and made me focus on my finances:

“Everytime you need something, that you can’t give to yourself, you’re at the mercy of somebody else…and when they don’t come through you get pain…And what you become are the consequences of what you didn’t get”

That hit me hard. If I ever NEED something, I need to be able to help myself. FIRE puts you on the perfect path.

Protect Your Sovereignty. Women WILL TRY To Manipulate You. #NOCONTACT #ICETHEMOUT

[Secret Agent MGTOWParticipant 22539]

LionOnTheLoose wrote:

I did a post about FIRE before–‘financial independence, retire early’, which is the idea that if you reduce your outgoings and save capital, you can effectively retire once you have capital totalling 25x your annual outgoings, because you can draw down 4% of that capital every year (assuming the capital is invested, and assuming the western world doesn’t collapse–feel free to put some of your capital into prepping/guns if you want to hedge that risk).
The good news is that, all being well, I should have accumulated capital worth 25x my outgoings in 2019. I’ll keep working after that, because I generally enjoy my work and it’s freelance so not a big deal, but it honestly feels amazing to have got to this point. And I encounter a fair number of dipsticks in my work as it is, so wouldn’t mind being more picky about which clients I take on.
For the first time, in 2018 I monitored my outgoings very carefully: every transaction was logged and categorised in a spreadsheet and I had a running pivot table so I could monitor everything. I’m fortunate that I own my house outright so I have no rent/mortgage payments. All my bills and personal outgoings for the year came in at just under £7,000 (US$9,000), which I think is pretty good, and wasn’t achieved by what I would consider to be absurd frugality, e.g. I enjoyed a good few bottles of wine, roast dinners, days out etc. But on average my expenditure on food per day came in at a fraction under £3 (US$3.83) per day, which I think isn’t bad–achieved by cooking simple but healthy and not buying much in the way of ready meals etc.
On top of those expenses, I had business expenses, and extraordinary personal expenditure which are things I wouldn’t have every year, and which I know I could easily live without if I decided to give up work.
Overall, I had about £31K coming in over the year and about £11K going out. So I saved about 65% of my income over the course of the year.
I’m not sure at the moment whether I would invest the capital in the stock market, or possibly property. I’ve looked into it and before long I’ll have enough to buy a small buy-to-let property in my local area, without a mortgage, which would give a gross rental yield to cover my £7K annual outgoings and possibly a bit more. As I say, I’ll keep working for now, and wouldn’t mind having more of a cash buffer, but still the idea of owning a property which generates enough cash to live off is pretty darn nice.
I’m still mid-30s, so plenty of time still.
The bigger point I think is that in general men are happier living frugally than women, perhaps because women worry more about what others think of them and are therefore more concerned with “keeping up with the Joneses”. I can’t recommend highly enough the life of living frugally, enjoying simple pleasures, and accumulating capital so that you know eventually you can stop working and tell everyone to f~~~ off.
The only other crucial component to this recipe is mastering the lizard brain so you don’t get any women knocked up. Porn makes that quite easy, I find.
No sex + frugal life = financial independence = being able to tell everyone to go f~~~ themselves. That is a sweet outcome my friends! <i class=”fas fa-beer”></i>

Women are the wasteful consumers. It endlessly frustrates any man tied to one of them, the absolute massive waste of money on worthless s~~~. That often gets tossed after it fails to excite them anymore.

Women want everything, but want responsibility and accountability for nothing.

[LionOnTheLooseParticipant 1315]

Cheers guys.

Arcturis wrote:

WOOOO – that’s fantastic! Good work Lion!
Independance has to be the greatest feeling?!
I heard a great quote once that put me on this path and made me focus on my finances:
“Everytime you need something, that you can’t give to yourself, you’re at the mercy of somebody else…and when they don’t come through you get pain…And what you become are the consequences of what you didn’t get”
That hit me hard. If I ever NEED something, I need to be able to help myself. FIRE puts you on the perfect path.

Absolutely! I increasingly feel frustrated by anything which threatens my sovereignty. I really hated being told what to do by another adult when I was an employee; I now feel that same feeling when doing work for clients. I would much rather live a frugal life where I was in charge rather than having loads of money and loads of obligations.

There aren't holes in your pockets. It's called marriage.

[StealthParticipant 5349]

Awesome!
Although it’s the standard amount, 4% turns out to be pretty aggressive for a true early retiree. Do some research on this but I aim at 2%.

"Once you’ve taken care of the basics, there’s very little in this world for which your life is worth deferring." -David Hansson. "It’s not when women are mean or nasty that anything is out of the ordinary. It’s when they are NICE to you that you have to be on high alert..." -Jackinov.

[BeerParticipant 11832]

LionOnTheLoose wrote:

All my bills and personal outgoings for the year came in at just under £7,000 (US$9,000)

That is nuts…I know people who pay pretty close to that a year just on property taxes on their paid off houses lol. Well…there is a reason why my early retirement plan involves living abroad…

[JB BooksParticipant 3182]

That’s excellent, Lion!! The rental property sounds like a fine idea. Keep saving/investing. As you accumulate more, consider increasing your personal expenditures just a bit. Not to go crazy, but ya don’t wanna be the richest bloke in the cemetery either. If you’re occasionally shagging pussy, I’d strongly suggest investing in a reversible vascectomy.

We just don't realize life's most significant events while they're happening. Back then, I thought, "Well, there'll be other days". I didn't realize that that was the only day. - "Moonlight" Graham

[Legendary lifeParticipant 44]

Awesome post; and well done.

[LionOnTheLooseParticipant 1315]

Thanks chaps.

Stealth wrote:

Awesome!Although it’s the standard amount, 4% turns out to be pretty aggressive for a true early retiree. Do some research on this but I aim at 2%.

Yup I’m with you here actually, and that’s one reason I won’t stop working. At my age it would be pretty daft to actually try to retire fully anyway! It’s still a nice benchmark to achieve even if it’s only somewhat theoretical 🙂

Beer wrote:

That is nuts…I know people who pay pretty close to that a year just on property taxes on their paid off houses lol. Well…there is a reason why my early retirement plan involves living abroad…

Wow yeah that’s harsh. In the UK we don’t have a wealth tax (yet…Comrade Jeremy would want to change that if he gets elected) and actually I find the UK a pretty good deal, not least because of free healthcare. I once looked into moving to Germany but the health insurance for the self-employed there is crippling…

JB Books wrote:

That’s excellent, Lion!! The rental property sounds like a fine idea. Keep saving/investing. As you accumulate more, consider increasing your personal expenditures just a bit. Not to go crazy, but ya don’t wanna be the richest bloke in the cemetery either.

Thanks! You make a very good point and I like this phrase “the richest bloke in the cemetery”. I do plan to do this; given in 2015 I got divorced, changed career and moved house 3 times my finances were a bit up in the air, and it was really good to live frugally (but sustainably) in 2018, in the property I plan to stay in permanently at least in the medium-term, just to see what my basic cost of living was. That’s a really useful benchmark to have.

There aren't holes in your pockets. It's called marriage.

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