4 Year Anniversary Since Retiring at 35

I can’t believe it. I sold my business back in August of 2015 and went FIRE (Financial Independence Retired Early). It feels like it’s been much longer than 4 years! Time slowed compared to the days when working. Few things have continued to change since retiring early. Here is an update!

Income Growth

One worry was my projections for income growth after FIRE. I now have 4 years of data to see if things have been playing out as planned. Here is how the income growth looks since I went FIRE.

2015: Went FIRE!

2016: -69.5% (Drop in annual income)

2017: +37.6%

2018: +22.8%

2019: TBD

My projections were to have about 5-8% increase in income at minimum every year but the last two years have looked extremely promising. I can’t be more happy with the progress thus far. Most of the increase came from rental income which allowed me to invest more money towards other income generating investments such as Fundrise and dividend stocks.

The rental market where one of my properties resides has been on fire as of late due to large corporations such as Amazon coming into the area boosting housing demands. Rent has increased in the area by almost 30% in the last few years. With no banks to share profits with, all extra free cash flow goes right into more investments.

My plans are to diversify my income more evenly across other forms of passive sources over time. Today, about 80-85% of my income still comes from rental income. I will share more data on that as I get more years under the belt. 😊

Cost of Living Inflation

This is probably something many people worry about when thinking about FIRE. It was for me. So, I compiled some data for the last 2 years and here’s what I got. Data is only for personal cost of living (COL) excluding investment properties.

Surprisingly, the results were much better than what I’ve been expecting! My models and projections were for 4% increase each year! This doesn’t mean I will change my expectations going forward. We will see how this turns out over a longer stretch of time.

Since the time I wrote the post about 5 things I noticed after financial independence back in December 2018, I have noticed few more interesting changes in my life.

7 Changes I’m Experiencing After 4 Years Into FIRE

1. Importance of purpose. I have learned that it is far easier to adapt to this lifestyle by staying creative and challenged. There is absolutely no way one can retire early and keep sane doing nothing but laying around on the beach. In fact, there may be big mental health implications for some who does nothing but sit around all day. Mental decline is an issue among many older folks when they retire. There are research that show age is one factor but the lack of stimulation in the mind can cause premature mental decline among the younger also. When you FIRE and wish to keep healthy for the many more decades, keeping your mind engaged and challenged may become more important than you expected!

2. Changing desires for waking up. Today, I wake up because I want to rather than because I have to. This for me is a dream come true. What keeps me waking up early today is my curiosity of the business world. It’s just too fascinating to me. I can’t help it. It’s a form of entertainment for me in an odd way. Kind of like watching a never ending sports match!

3. Arthritis Pain. In my teenage years, I broke few bones in my right hand which resulted to a dull constant throbbing pain ever since. My dislocated bone right above my pinky finger was never treated. If you break a bone, get it treated! I never told my parents how bad it was because I knew it would cost an arm and a leg to get it treated. The pain would normally increase throughout the work days and result to a swollen hand by the end of each day. I lived with this pain for over 20 years. This pain has been slowly disappearing ever since I stopped working year after year. After 4 years, the pain is almost 95% gone. This alone makes me feel extremely grateful.

4. Work life to Learning life. My average daily reading has increased upwards to about 6-8 hours on average after FIRE. Learning has become a large part of my life today than ever before. What am I mostly learning about? Well, at the moment it’s mostly about my favorite subjects such as business, economics, health, and about human psychology.

5. Improved family relationship. I grew up as an only child under very traditional Asian parents. Not one single time in my life did I hear from my parents that they loved me. Not one single time did we ever hug each other. Lately, I have been spending more time thinking about how they have raised me in my life and how I has influenced in result. Today, I feel I understand them much better. They are who they are and molded by their life experiences. They really tried hard to survive and make it in life. I respect that and thank them for showing me what responsibility is all about. They also show love in the way they only know how. The thousands of times they ask me if I had anything to eat. The random calls to ask if I am eating well. The days when I was disciplined. Trusting my decisions and having faith in me. These were their ways of telling me they loved me. Words were not needed. Understanding this has changed everything. Today we laugh more and talk to each other more like friends. Trust me, that’s a huge change in our family. 😊

6. Discovering FIRE/DFC community. I first learned about the community 2-3 years ago. It was so inspiring to see so many people with similar mindsets sharing encouragement, knowledge, and inspire each other. I often wondered how I may have been affected if I had been exposed to such community at a younger age. So, I decided for the first time in my life to start using social media after restraining myself from such platforms, to contribute and share my journey. This one is big for me because I was generally very private all my life. I rarely shared my stories with people. I always believed investing in few great relationships were better than maintaining hundreds. Just a personal philosophy I live by.

7. Learning to be creative. All my life, I believed my weakness were in the arts. Today, I’m starting to believe everyone may have some form of creative spirit within them. It just takes time to find the right surface for your match to strike fire. Last year, I decided to learn to write by starting a blog. Which led me to learn how to create little Instagram graphics. Surprisingly, this has become an enjoyable hobby of mines today! If someone like me can learn to be more creative in the arts, anyone can. 😊

Conclusion

Lately, I find myself pre-occupied with observing Ms. LBF embark into becoming an entrepreneur. It’s definitely not the easy life but an exciting life. The risks are high but the rewards as well. This may result to having us move locations again. The beauty of having financial freedom is the ability to live anywhere you wish without the restraints of any obligations.

The benefits of having the ability to FIRE in Southern California where COL is high, really opens up the possibilities on where I can choose to live on this planet. Just the thought of knowing I have options makes me feel good inside.

We will see how that turns out. Where will I be living next year? Seattle? Nevada? Utah? Texas? New York? Hopefully not New York. I’m a bit tired of the dense city life after working in Los Angeles Downtown for many years.

In the past, I was obsessively focused on trying to sail my boat in the direction I wished to traverse. Today, I think I am somewhat more open to allowing the winds to blow me around to where ever it may take me. We will have to see where it takes me. Thank you for reading.