Living a FI

Congrats and greetings to Munich. I know and helped a few people in similar situations. Here your rough priorities:

1. Invest most of the cash in a conservative way, so it lasts. That means stocks and some bonds to ride out downturns. You will want to work with a fee-only adviser for this to consider everything from taxes to future spouses to inheritance.

2. Consider your interests and learn about the psychological implications of your situation. Specifically about the (fat) FIRE (financial independence, retire early) movement. They deal with the same problem. Relevant HN discussion here[1] and first hand experience here[2,3]. There is research that early retirees have shorter live expectancy[4] and having >5h of free time a day is detrimental to happiness[5]. People need purpose.

3. With 1) out of the way and the lessons from 2) you can explore what makes you happy. Generally it's a mix[6] of control (your life, your time), competence (mastering a skill, like CS), connection (friends, family, peers) and purpose/mission. Since you already did a few startups, maybe that's something to explore further.

Hope this gives you a roadmap and best of luck.

1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26543527

2: https://livingafi.com/2015/03/09/building-a-vision-of-life-without-work/

3: https://livingafi.com/2021/03/17/the-2021-early-retirement-update/

4: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16243848/

5: https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/psp-pspp0000391.pdf

6:…

I find the FIRE folks very interesting. If you read the followup post at https://livingafi.com/2021/03/17/the-2021-early-retirement-update/ you will find out that this lifestyle isn't for everyone, or for everyone's partners.

One thing I think the FIRE folks can miss is the sense of worth, improvement in personal power and confidence that comes from struggling. Struggling could be making things, building a business, learning job skills, writing a novel, whatever. However, 5 years of just 'I checked my investments, I'm in within 1% of nominal, I guess I should feel no stress right now!' shouldn't be the end; many people interested in this lifestyle seem to feel like they have arrived when they can do that. As a launch point, it has its benefits. But to my mind, it shouldn't ever be thought of as a goal in itself.

I read the follow up post as a sort of tacit admission that the FIRE lifestyle can lead to this huge gap in personal development, and often during really key years for relationship and brain development, 30s and 40s are super prime years for learning and applying learning. It seems like a terrible waste to spend it sitting on one's metaphorical porch, sipping tea.

The author of the blog post followed up with a post-mortem of his FIRE experience several years later: https://livingafi.com/2021/03/17/the-2021-early-retirement-update/

The TL;DR is that it was great for the first few years. He started diving deep into his writing passion and notes that he was very happy. Later, his writing hobby slowed and his partner became increasingly dissatisfied with their retirement lifestyle. Sadly, he talks about slowly losing friendships, losing interest in his writing, and eventually losing his marriage over FIRE-related lifestyle choices. I'm sorry it didn't work out for him, but it's an interesting contrast to this prior post about how he imagined his FIRE lifestyle.

This follow up is way more compelling because it deals with the reality. I'm jealous of the authors communication skills and their partner's: there are some very hard statements in there about feeling worthless and falling behind because of no job. I wonder of those words were spoken calmly, or shouted through tears.

Here are their discussions: https://livingafi.com/post-fire-relationship-disconnect/

TL;DR: He has to go back to work due to medical issues, and his relationship didn't work out. But he's still got his chin up and it's great.

I don't know if this is who you were talking about, but this guy was a big FIRE proponent/blogger who posted last year about his divorce after not updating his blog for several years: https://livingafi.com. It took a few years of early retirement and his coming down with a medical condition, though: "During this time of physical rehabilitation, while I was struggling with the physical issues, my partner finally figured out what would make her happier. It was a relationship with another man."

If you are middle class (~$30k-$70k per annum) you can be wealthy* by focusing your spending on freedom, aka capital investments. I did not understand this was an option before reading the blog of Mr. Money Mustache[0]. Reading that and the Living a FI blog[1] may hopefully be as life-changing to you reading this comment as it was for me.

* Wealthy in time to spend with those you love

[0] https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/

[1] https://livingafi.com/