A Very Eventful Early Retirement Case Study

Mr 15 HWW alerted me that this financial independence blogger has a new update on his early retirement life.

He seldom writes much nowadays (which is just about right because what kind of retirement blogger are you if you just keep earning money from your blog?) since he retired in 2015. Not working today would have made hi roughly retired for 6 years.

We followed him because most of his posts are so open and goes into a lot of the details so that you understand the nuances very well.

He is married, no children and his wife have as much as him.

If we wish to delve into the math of financial independence, he classifies his FIRE as LEAN-FIRE, which is financially independent but retiring on a very tight income requirement.

According to him its $30,000 a year on $950,000 (people who aims to lean-FI usually tries to keep the income to below $40,000 but I think that is just a rough gauge).

That is a 3.15% initial withdrawal rate.

By Kyith’s measure, that is a conservative wealth machine to get income that can last 60 years. So it should be alright for him.

His update on life has everything:

1. The enjoyment of retirement.
2. Coming to terms with the difference in your lifestyle versus your friends.
3. Break-up
4. Dating
5. Health problems.
6. Going back to work.
7. The impact on financial independence retires early math.
8. Living through COVID-19.

You can read the article here. If you are interested in the kind of conversation before the break-up, this extract from his journal may interest you.

There are many lurkers or readers who wonders if it makes sense to retire so early and I hope that this post balance off a lot of the feel-good post that Kyith always rights.

If there is one take-away it is this:

Your life will change in more ways than you think. And this makes planning tough. But the author’s financial independence still puts him in a very good position.

I invested in a diversified portfolio of exchange-traded funds (ETF) and stocks listed in the US, Hong Kong and London.

My preferred broker to trade and custodize my investments is Interactive Brokers. Interactive Brokers allow you to trade in the US, UK, Europe, Singapore, Hong Kong and many other markets. Options as well. There are no minimum monthly charges, very low forex fees for currency exchange, very low commissions for various markets.

To find out more visit Interactive Brokers today.

Join the Investment Moats Telegram channel here. I will share the materials, research, investment data, deals that I come across that enable me to run Investment Moats.

Do Like Me on Facebook. I share some tidbits that are not on the blog post there often. You can also choose to subscribe to my content via the email below.

I break down my resources according to these topics:

1. Building Your Wealth Foundation – If you know and apply these simple financial concepts, your long term wealth should be pretty well managed. Find out what they are
2. Active Investing – For active stock investors. My deeper thoughts from my stock investing experience
3. Learning about REITs – My Free “Course” on REIT Investing for Beginners and Seasoned Investors
4. Dividend Stock Tracker – Track all the common 4-10% yielding dividend stocks in SG
5. Free Stock Portfolio Tracking Google Sheets that many love
6. Retirement Planning, Financial Independence and Spending down money – My deep dive into how much you need to achieve these, and the different ways you can be financially free
7. Providend – Where I used to work doing research. Fee-Only Advisory. No Commissions. Financial Independence Advisers and Retirement Specialists. No charge for the first meeting to understand how it works
8. Havend – Where I currently work. We wish to deliver commission-based insurance advice in a better way.