Lasts

FIRE to a Spanish Island?

Just where has 2017 gone?  It seems like only yesterday I was eating One More Year (OMY) humble pie and I now find myself nearly half way through the most difficult part of my FIRE journey to date.  The closeness to FIRE is now really starting to hit home making me wonder whether we previously weren’t quite ready and used events like Brexit as an excuse.

In recent weeks it’s become particularly real as I’ve started to tick off things that I’m doing for the last time.  On the work front it’s been about setting 2018 plans and objectives.  It’s been quite a surreal feeling knowing that I’m signing up for something that somebody else will ultimately be responsible for delivering.  What I’ve found interesting is that I’ve actually found myself fighting harder for reasonableness than ever before.  I think this is for two reasons.  Firstly, I have nothing to lose given my current FU Money position.  Secondly, I don’t to be remembered as “the b*stard that sold us out before riding off into the sunset”.

Post Brexit phase 1 - a move to the Med is go!

Paphos Forest, Cyprus

In the immediate aftermath of the Brexit referendum result my immediate thoughts were has the door to our dream been slammed shut.  An initial review suggested that it was still ok, albeit with some potential speed humps, but even though the data said we were still golden some trepidation was still there.  In particular I had three main concerns.

The first concern was being able to register and live legally in our new chosen country.  Both the EU and the UK government were always verbally saying current residents would be ok but they never spoke about new entrants since the referendum or since the trigger of Article 50.  Even as recently as September 2017 the UK would only commit to the negotiations being applicable from a date between the date of Article 50 trigger and date of exit.  The joint report published on Friday finally clears that up with the paragraph:

“The overall objective of the Withdrawal Agreement with respect to citizens' rights is to provide reciprocal protection for Union and UK citizens, to enable the effective exercise of rights derived from Union law and based on past life choices, where those citizens have exercised free movement rights by the specified date.”

A subsequent paragraph then defines the specified date as:

“The specified date should be the time of the UK's withdrawal.”

So provided we’re residing in an EU27 Member State by 29 March 2019 we’re within scope of the agreement.  Tick.