Transitioning – musings on 2021

2021 has been my third year since I took that initial leap into the FIRE unknown and for me it’s been my biggest year ever for change.  Some good and some not so good.  So with the sun fast setting on 2021 I thought it was time to take stock and write some of this down.  Warning: If you don’t like blog posts that jump around this one may not be for you but if you want to know what FIRE can truly do to a person then I hope you find it helpful.

COVID-19

One of the 2021 elephants in the (influencing my life) room has of course been COVID-19.  What I’ve found interesting is that it’s not the virus itself giving me mortality concerns.  After all I’m a late 40’s healthy person who drinks very little, eats nutritious food, now has little to no stress, exercises regularly and doesn’t smoke or party hard so that part of life will probably turn out ok if it happens.

What I have however started to become concerned about is watching what a mix of a virus + power + politics + money + mainstream media selling fear + no real debate let alone scientific debate can turn the world into.  

For example here in Australia I watched many Victorians being coerced into vaccination not because they thought it was the right thing to do for their and their fellow citizens health but because without it they’d lose their jobs and ability to feed their families.  Coercion is never right in my books. 

Another example is that I am truly shocked at what seems to be going on in Austria where very soon if you are an honest law-abiding citizen who just wants to live in peace you will soon find yourself having committed a crime punishable by large fines or imprisonment.  It really does feel like we’ve regressed as a society significantly.

My COVID-19 coping mechanism is to minimise my contact with those selling fear, notably the ‘news’, which has resulted in a significant improvement in my wellbeing.

Housing

Housing has been a big topic for us this year.  Firstly, let’s cover our current living arrangements.  We are still renting in a beautiful part of the world close to the ocean (including visible sea life and plenty of water sports) and forests (including up close wildlife like kangaroos and plenty of trails) which we are absolutely loving.  We’ve invested in some new bicycles and are really racking the miles up.  So far so good.

Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore and 2020 in review

Usually at this time of year I publish a year in review which covers a little of the qualitative and a lot of the quantitative.  Given the year we’ve just had, along with quantitative needs now being significantly lessened given the stage of my FIRE life I’m currently in, I feel it’s worthy to flip that weighting as it really has been a year to both remember and to forget.  Additionally and hopefully once you see the qualitative you’ll understand why it’s been a long time between blog drinks.

So let’s get the quantitative stuff out of the way.  In my purist FIRE plan I was aiming to spend the lesser of:

• up to 2.5% of initial FIRE wealth plus investment expenses of around 0.2% uprated for inflation annually.  For 2020 that gave me a drawdown target of around £26,084 plus investment expenses.
• up to 85% of my annual dividends.  Dividends were a car crash this year. Once the laggards make their final payments I expect them to be down around 29% year on year.  For 2020 that gave me a drawdown target of around £19,848

Click to enlarge, RIT Annual Dividends

In comparison, during year 2 of FIRE, I withdraw from my wealth a total £19,022.  I met my FIRE goals but boy did it occur unconventionally.  So let’s switch to the story to explain that which is hopefully the interesting bit.