PHASE ONE: Desire to work less (or not at all)
When I was about eleven or twelve, we had our first careers lesson at school. I don't remember any of the content, but I remember this one insistent thought: Work sounds AWFUL. But that set my brain a-thinking...
Why do we work? --> to earn money --> why do we earn money? --> to spend it --> so if you spend less money, you don't need to work as much.
I decided then that I would make sure I spent only half the money of the average person, so then I could work half the amount as the average person. At the time I had no concept of interest or the stock market, so while I was a good little saver I assumed that I would only get out the amount of money that I put in. I figured that if I lived to 100, I'd have to spend 40 years working (age 20-60) then 40 years living (age 60-100). I didn't think that sounded very nice, so I decided that instead of doing all my working at the beginning, I'd spread it out, so I'd work alternate days or weeks. I didn't really think about what I would do when I was too old to work.
Phase One plan: Minimise spending to work only part time.
PHASE TWO: Realisation of the power of compounding and the stock market
When I was about fifteen, I got a book called 'The Teenager's Guide to the Real World' by Marshall Brain. I don't remember anything specific about investing, but something in there spurred me to find out more about how to make my money work for me. I had some fixed rate bonds at the bank and I knew that the interest rates on them weren't as high as they were before. I ended up reading the Motley Fool a lot, which convinced me that if I could put enough capital into investments, I could live off the proceeds. I started calculating how much my future earnings and living expenses might be (helped a lot by the Marshall Brain book) and making pie-in-the-sky calculations about how long it would take me to save up enough money. At the time, I was torn between various different kinds of saving/investing (individual stocks in the stock market, particularly divided investing, fixed rate bonds, even gold!) I'm sure my numbers at the time were crazy and way off base, but I was determined to work as hard as I could in my twenties and then stop working as soon as possible. I also developed an intense desire to buy a house (cash, no mortgage) because I figured that if I owned the place I lived in then investment volatility wouldn't be as risky, and as long as I picked right first time I wouldn't need to worry about losing money buying and selling houses.
Phase Two plan: be a corporate bitch for a decade or two while accumulating and then get the hell out. My imaginings were pretty ERE at the time (although living in a flat/small house, not an RV)
PHASE THREE: Something in between
Then I went to university and did some work experience in various places. And I HATED it as much as my twelve-year-old-self had thought I would. And by this time I had developed a passion for art and was wondering if I could make a career out of it. I did consider giving up the idea of working as little as possible, but I am quite a risk-averse person so not having anything to fall back on worried me. I started Googling "early retirement" a lot. I also met my now-husband and knew he would not be happy with my (admittedly pretty ERE-extreme) plans from phase two. Eventually I stumbled upon Early Retirement Extreme and, although I devoured it, knew it wasn't quite what I wanted. My anti-corporate values were entrenching themselves and I couldn't "sell my soul" selling people shit they didn't need just to get rich off it. So I decided that I wanted to retire early but not REALLY early, and to make sure I wasn't miserable on the way.
Phase Three plan: work as much as I feel like/can cope with as a professional artist (generally a month of full time and a month of part time, though it depends how the contracts come along) which making sure I put away enough money to feel secure that we (my husband and I) will have enough to retire comfortably at our current standard of living around 65 (without accounting for the state pension).
I have given up trying to make serious calculations (although I still love to play around with "what if?" numbers) but if we follow my vague projection I made a few years ago, we could probably retire at 45. This does not, however account for children (either extra expenses or loss of my earnings), so we'll see how that goes. I still get intense urges from time-to-time to revert to Phase Two Plan, but in all honesty I don't think I could cope with it for very long. I may not earn as much as I could, but I generally balance out my life so that I am contented, and I feel that my work is honest and in line with the values that I try to live in my personal life (small footprint, no selling, making the world a better place, etc etc).
Other things that happened along the way:
- I read Tim Ferriss's 'Four Hour Workweek' and tried out the ideas but rejected them.
- My grandmother introduced me to individual stock investing for dividends with some money she gave me. Everything tanked within six months of me buying it, and I did some panic-Googling and discovered index funds. I still have three small investments I made during that time (about four years ago) and am still waiting for them to recover their original value until I sell them.
- I spent way too much money a few times at university. On eating out and clothes and things. But I'd rather have had that shock then, when my rent and meals were prepaid and "way too much" was going £200 over budget for a month. I got "buying things" out of my system, I think. (And I still have some of those things now...)
- I somewhat let go of my obsession with buying a house. My husband will get a house of some kind with his work when he starts next year, so we won't own the roof over our heads for as long as he works. But buying is still very much in my long-term plan.
- I got obsessed with DIY living/self-sufficiency/insourcing (for fun and profit). I no longer really dream of producing everything we eat, use and wear, but I have a long list of things I would love to try out for fun. If I love some of them and they stick, so much the better! But if they don't, I can think of it as a hobby.
- I discovered how much I love the freedom and control of being self-employed. For example, we are having a heatwave right now and I am sitting at home eating ice cream because I can, and tomorrow I have arranged to do a job from 6am to 9am instead of 11am to 2pm in order to avoid the worst of the heat. I could not do this in an office!
- Some of my friends went the "corporate bitch" route. Some of them are doing well but some of them are miserable. While I am somewhat jealous of the money they are making, you only get one life and I don't want to live any of it like that.
Sorry, that turned into a bit of a mega-post! But while I only heard of FIRE/MMM/ERE a few years ago (I'm 25 now), the vague plan was there from the moment I found out about the real world of work at 12. I find it interesting to see how it progressed.
