Earn More by "Asking for More"

So where have I been I hear many of you asking?  Let me start from the beginning...

Regulars will know that my strategy is to retire as soon as possible.  To be more specific I'm actually still on the fence as to whether I will actually Retire Early, leaving paid employment altogether, or only go as far as Financial Independence, leaving the high stress day job and side hustling some pocket money doing something I love.  At current run rate I’ll be presented with the FIRE (Financial Independence and Early Retirement) option before my 45th birthday which will see retirement in about 10 years from when I woke up, started to do my own research and settled on Early Retirement way back in 2007.

To achieve this I'm of course living the motto of this site - Save Hard, Invest Wisely to Retire Early.  With data from 2008 my first chart shows that while both Saving Hard and Investing Wisely are both having a big impact on my annual wealth growth it’s actually Saving Hard that seems to have its nose in front even after accounting for the Miracle of Compound Interest.  Saving Hard can be achieved by Earning More and/or Spending Less and given its contribution to my financial plans is something I am unrelenting in trying to improve.

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When I wrote about some of the techniques I'm using to give me the best chance of Earning More I didn't appreciate how much of a difference this could actually make in such a short time since that post.  As it transpires while I've continued to develop the skill to:

• deliver efficiently;
• been prepared to commute and travel extensively for work;
• stay flexible; and
• watch for partially open doors, 

companies around the world have not been very attentive and are now in the situation where their internal people with similar skills to myself are now starting to retire/leave this career but have nobody trained as a backfill.  A number of roles are now starting to be advertised and while not looking in desperation I was approached with a potential carrot that just couldn't be ignored.  Queue some A-Team music, a long interview process and not much competition and the job was mine along with an eye watering offer.  I wasn't actively looking but with an alternate equally interesting offer on the table it was time to resign.  In resigning I verbally laid out a short hand version of the too good to be true situation along with an apology.  A very short time lapse and my salary package had been increased by an equally eye watering offer.*  Given the dire situation of Real Earnings (second chart) in this great country today I gladly took what was on offer and am getting on with it.

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Of course nothing comes for free which brings me to the reason I haven’t been blogging.  While I’m Earning a lot more my company has also asked for more flesh (the new offer also required some more blood, sweat and tears) meaning between commute and work I’m up to about 70 hours per week.  With the time remaining I had to make a choice – blogging or family – not both.  I’m sure you can understand why I chose family.

Things have started to settle down a little now after all the excitement but going forwards the posts are going to be a little less frequent than they once were.  At home the change has of course had no effect on how we live as a family (other than the extra hours).

* Note: I have no illusions of grandeur and fully expect in the coming years that my job type will be outsourced to somewhere cheaper.  It’s not imminent and I believe I can become financially independent before redundant.