Winning the Won Game

It has been more than 2 years since my last post.  Maybe more importantly in round numbers it has also now been around 18 years since I started on my FIRE journey, 16 years since I started this blog to hold myself accountable to that journey, 9 years since I became FI and 7 years since I first FIRE’d (and then quickly went back to work).  Looking at those timings I’ve been set up to  enable me to win the game of life for some time but over the past year it really has started to feel like I’ve now actually won the game.  Let’s look at a few reasons why that might be the case.

Location

Australia is home.  It’s so much home that it’s time to start looking at the path to citizenship.  We’ve found a region we love to live plus have built networks and friendships in that region.  We’ve also built a lifestyle that works for us.  It’s a much more outdoor and less crowded life than we had in England.  It works so well that I just can’t believe more than 2 years has passed since I last wrote a blog post.

Work

I’m still working from home a few days per week in a role with no stress.  Free from the Sword of Damocles I speak freely which enables no bullsh*t.  It’s stimulating, I interact with some very clever people, learn something new regularly and it very much works for me at this time in my life.

I don’t do it for the money but it turns out my approach to work while I was building wealth combined with my attitude to work since becoming FI makes me a fairly valuable marketable commodity.  To put a quantitative value on it for a few days work I earn more than twice the average Australian Full Time Salary.

Will I give it up and ever fully FIRE?  It’s a possibility as history tells me work places can become ‘enshitified’ but for now it’s not on the radar.

Relationships

It turns out that spending a lot more time with a partner changes the dynamic of the relationship and it takes some work to get it back on track.  In our case it took quite a lot of work but the relationship is now the best it has ever been and importantly I’m the best I’ve ever been.  Mrs RIT also tells me she is also in a very good place. 

Housing

I built that house and it’s now our home.  It’s warm in winter, cool in summer, runs on the smell of an oily rag, is surrounded by fabulous neighbours and let’s us focus on living our best life.

That said housing is an interesting one for us.  Australia’s taxation code only seems to reward wealth stored in a primary residence, Australian shares or Superannuation.  That combined with us chasing perfection has led to us doing it all again but this time we know it’s way too much house and also firmly on the diminishing returns side of location.

The first world problem we now have is given I’ve continued to work, our investments haven’t seen a black swan and we love where we live now is do we move into it, keep both or sell it once complete.  There’s no rush to make a decision…  Reflecting on these words really does reinforce how good my life is right now and how few and insignificant my problems are.

Finances

I still update my financial position every week on a Saturday morning with a decent brew.  That Excel spreadsheet now runs to 1,094 rows.  On another tab it also tells me all sorts of interesting, but no longer valuable, things like we now annually spend around 1.2% of our wealth.

I always make time for it and do it no matter where I am.  Even when on holidays.  I’m not sure if I do it out of habit, because I find it cathartic, to remind myself of the work I’ve done to engineer my life to what it is today or simply to just remind myself how lucky I am.  It might be all of the above but I can’t see me ever stopping adding a new row because put simply I enjoy the few minutes every week.

Conclusion

6.5 years into FIRE mentally and physically I’m the healthiest and happiest I’ve ever been.  I’m also starting to wonder if I’m even on the FIRE path anymore.  Instead, it now feels more like it’s simply the path to living my best and intentional life which the FI or financial independence bit of FIRE gave me permission to pursue.  What I do know is that it feels like I’ve won the game of life.

The reflection for the coming year is I’m now starting to wonder whether I actually needed the FI bit to make it happen or whether I just needed more courage way back in 2007.  Either way it doesn’t matter because as the saying goes – life is what happens while you are busy making plans.