In 2021, I decided to stop doing annual updates.

At that time, I thought I had FI figured out and was just living a “normal” life (so no need to talk about it anymore).

Well, a lot has changed since then!

Turns out, I didn’t have everything figured out :/

I explain more in today’s short podcast episode:

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Highlights

How the pandemic changed my outlook on the future
Why my post-FI life is drastically different from what I imagined it would be
Learning how to use money for the first time
The reason I’m focusing more on other investments (and what those investments are)
Why stock picking isn’t great, even when your stock picks outperform

Show Links

Full Transcript

Mad Fientist: Hey, what’s up, everybody. Welcome to the FInancial Independence Podcast.

So three years ago in 2021, I decided to stop doing my annual updates. And if you’ve followed the podcast for a while, you know every year since I left my job in 2016, I’ve done an annual update talking about what I learned over that last year.

And when it got to 2021, I felt like I was really just living normal life, and I was getting bored making the annual updates because I didn’t really think much had changed. And I didn’t know if I was actually giving any sort of meaningful advice to anybody by just talking about what I had been doing for the past year.

So I decided to stop doing them and it’s amazing how much has changed since then.

So one, I don’t have it all figured out and I’ve learned a lot over the last three years, so I figured I could share what I’ve learned over those last three years and maybe start doing these annual updates again if I continue to learn things, but I’ve also realized that things are going to get really weird with AI over the next decade, and content is going to be able to be created instantaneously by computers.

And really the only thing I have is my human story. And that’s the most important thing. And my unique experiences that I can share and the lessons I learn through actually living this sort of lifestyle.

So both of those things combined made me realize that, Hey, I should maybe do another one of these at least. And then maybe continuing to do these in future years if I have some interesting things to share.

So anyway, so this is my eighth year of freedom post, and I can’t believe it’s been eight years. That’s absolutely insane, and it was actually August 1st that I left my job, but I’m not really on a good schedule these days, and so this is over a month late.

But hey, better late than never.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy it, and this is valuable lessons from my eighth year of freedom.

So the biggest thing since 2021 is really that I feel like I’m actually using money for the first time. My entire life has been saving money, investing money, hoarding money pretty much.

And I don’t think I’ve ever even tried to use it because using it was always the last resort. And if I was using it, that was a mistake because now that money can’t grow anymore. And it’s been a huge mental shift to now try to use it when I’ve just spent my whole life accumulating it. It’s been a lot of fun and I have a article coming out soon, if I can get around to writing it, talking about learning how to spend and actually enjoying it while I’m learning how to do it. And I think that’s been the biggest change. And particularly we bought a house last year. Our last house, I think we sold in 2014 and we’ve just been renting ever since and renting has been great.

But now that we have a son and we want to settle down and we don’t want to have to move every year if we don’t want to. I know my wife never wanted to move every year, but I was always keen to try something new. But now that we have a son in the picture just having a stable place that we can put all our stuff, and as parents out there know you have a ton of stuff when you get a kid, because grandparents just keep buying them stuff.

So we decided to buy a house and that’s been a great purchase. And this is actually the third house we’ve owned. We owned a house in Scotland back in 2005, and then we bought a house in Vermont in 2011. But this is actually the first house that I’ve enjoyed owning.

For anybody on the path to FI out there who is like me and was just like very motivated to get there as quickly as possible, I don’t think I should have owned houses back then, because any unexpected expenses that came up, I would stress about them and yeah, owning a house is nothing but unexpected expenses. So I think yeah, if I was doing it again, I’d probably rent most of the time that I was on the path to FI and then buy after because now I can actually enjoy it and I am enjoying it. It is a luxury. It is a splurge and it’s a great splurge because I’m talking to you from my perfect home studio that I’ve spent months and months designing and building. And I love it so much. And yeah, if I was as tight with money as I was back in my FI days, I wouldn’t have this studio. And I would have been stressing about all the unexpected expenses that have already popped up over the last year and a half.

So homeownership has been amazing. And again, if you would have told me this eight years ago that I’d want to be a homeowner again after the horrors of my previous two homeownership stints, I would have said you’re crazy, but that just shows how much changes as you get older and as your priorities change.

And the other big thing that I would be surprised about back then that I am loving now is stuff. So even though I just was talking about being overwhelmed by too much kid stuff, buying stuff for the house has been a lot of fun. And it adds to my daily joy. So yeah, I didn’t think stuff actually increased my happiness, but it really does.

And I think it’s mainly because I’ve gone so long without any good stuff. So as we were renting, we would always have furnished rentals. And since we moved so often, I hated packing up boxes and moving. So I just limited the amount of stuff I had. So that was, that just meant that we used, all the rental house’s kitchen stuff, and whatever TV was on the wall and sound system was there, we just used that.

But, now that we have our own home, and we know we’re staying here for a while, I bought nice things that I really do enjoy. So anything from, the coffee grinder that I’ve talked about many times on this show and other shows, to just like really nice mugs, to a great sound system for the TV and speakers in every room that make music sound so good and I can just turn it on instantly and just have music following me around the house.

And then obviously the studio is just kitted out with everything that I’ve ever wanted. Speaking of the studio, I’ve set it up so that I can do a video from here now. So if you want these podcasts to be in video form in the future, go to madfientist.com/youtube and follow me there. And if I get enough YouTube followers, I’ll start to make the efforts to do video, which would require me to actually shower before recording these, which today, that did not happen so I’m glad this one’s audio, but. If I get enough followers on YouTube, then I’ll start doing these in video and I’ll give you a little tour of my home studio, which is incredible. So go to madfientist.com/youtube to follow me on there.

So those are two big changes, my love of home ownership and love of stuff.

But going back to the initial point where I’m actually using my money for the first time, I realized that’s a big mistake I made on my journey to FI was just disregarding the fact that actually one day you are going to spend your money...

Valuable Lessons from My Eighth Year of Freedom