Back to powerful FI

6 months after taking the FIRE (financially independent retired early) leap I can confirm that (for now) I’ve reverted back to FI (financially independent) mode.  That’s right, we’ve left Cyprus, are back in the UK and I’m working and/or have a job.  More on that in a minute.

It’s been a long time between posts and a lot has happened so to try and get the story out in a succinct manner I’ll post some questions to myself.  I’ll then likely follow up with more detail in subsequent posts if people are interested.  So here goes...

Did Cyprus not agree with you and Mrs RIT?

We didn’t leave Cyprus because of Cyprus.  In fact quite the opposite.  Cyprus was absolutely brilliant and we saw it at its worst as we were there during one of the wettest / coldest winters on record.

There was so much relatively unspoilt nature with the picture above hopefully being a nice example of linking human occupation with nature.  Just around the corner from there is where turtles actually nest.  It was a walkers / hikers / cyclists paradise.  So much so that I managed to lose 10kg in relatively quick time.

The people and the way of doing things were also incredible.  On various forums I’d heard the term for Cyprus being siga siga which means slowly slowly.  I didn’t find that at all.  What I found was that things were done differently but in a good way.  For example to buy car insurance I went to the insurance company and sat across from the person who was going to sell it to me.  Over a good coffee and with no pressure the forms were duly completed and a quote was generated.  Hands were shaken, the forms were signed and I was done.  All over in about 30 minutes.  Give me that over automated menus that can’t understand me and a call centre if I press the right buttons correctly any day.

We also found the people on the whole very friendly and helpful.  The one challenge we did find was finding like minded people to build friendships with during all those hours that I used to spend in my job.  That is not the fault of Cyprus though, is something I had considered going into FIRE and is something that will always need to be dealt with in any country.

A note of caution for anybody thinking of doing something similar though.  Life was easy, possibly too easy and it would be so easy to slip into an expat / tourist mindset which involves ‘hobbies’ that include alcoholic beverages at 11am on a Tuesday...

If Cyprus was so great why did you leave?

There were two main reasons for me and one for Mrs RIT.  The one that affected both of us was access to valuable time with meaningful family and friends.  When we announced that we were heading to the Med for 6 to 12 months to decompress and decide what we want to be when we grew up there were some real changes to a number of our relationships.  It’s important to note we never said early retirement or threw anything in anyone’s face.  On the one extreme some friends / family were far from supportive with one ‘friend’ saying in a quite hostile tone ‘well enjoy your retirement while I’m working for the next 30 years to pay off my house’ after which the conversation was over and we haven’t heard from them since.  On the other extreme a couple of close friends who’ve we’ve lived a long way from for too many years were incredibly supportive and then opened up about their own journey to embrace minimalism, tread lightly on the planet and maximise the positive sides of the gig economy.  Off the back of that over a few months a very high level long term plan has been hatched which could just make the years ahead most interesting.   Of note some very supportive family also live close to them in a part of the world that is most agreeable but a looong way from the UK.  I just wish that culturally we were able to speak more like we do on the FIRE blogs vs the guarded approach to speaking about money in real life as that plan was only able to be hatched by sharing our respective earnings, spending needs and wealth.

Moving to Cyprus also moved us further from some friends and family but at the same time moved us closer to others.  Despite this and with us having a villa which included plenty of bedrooms, a pool, BBQ and sea views most were too busy to visit but encouraged us to visit them as we had ‘plenty of spare time’.  This left us a little in no man’s land and a regression against what we had in the UK.  Our meaningful (a subset of what we had prior to FIRE) family and friends are still globally disparate so the answer isn’t easy but where we’ve landed is that at some point in the future we will have to pick those that are most meaningful and focus on strengthening those relationships knowing others will weaken.  Life is of course never perfect but is about maximising happiness in my opinion.

The reason that affected me alone was around finding my purpose which would likely include some meaningful work.  I knew this was going to be a challenge going into FIRE as I had a large time hole to fill and so after a few months of decompression I started to use the Ikigai tool (see image) to try and figure it out.  I was trying to find things I was good at, loved and was needed.  I didn’t bring what I could be paid for into the equation.  As part of this the question I couldn’t answer was is the career I left behind, which had been badly clouded by a job getting in the way, actually my purpose.  So after much discussion with Mrs RIT we agreed I’d try and answer that question.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t figure out a way to do this under my terms as a consultant or similar so I’ve therefore joined a much smaller organisation, that is far less corporate, that has some work flexibility which will hopefully enable me to do more work and less job all with a much improved work life balance.

Click to enlarge, Ikigai Source

What’s next?

Unfortunately, possibly meaningful work and a smaller group of meaningful people are a long distance apart.  My responsibility is to therefore answer the critical question ‘does my work bring purpose’ as that will make a big difference to our next steps and the timeline of those.  Like with Cyprus we want to give it a chance so will make no decisions for at least 6 to 12 months.  All I’ll say is that so far having felt the freedom of a free range chicken I currently feel very much like a battery hen.

Would you do it all again?

Absolutely!  It’s been a fantastic if not at times difficult experience.  Decompression, which looking back I don’t think I fully came out of, was particularly brutal.  It has however reinforced something I’ve read on a few forums over the recent months.  When it comes to FIRE it’s the FI bit that is the important bit with the RE being a side show.  The hint is of course in one of the words – FREE.  Free to do what we want, when we want and on our terms.  For now that’s work / a job but tomorrow it could be more global adventure on a timeline that works for us.  This FI lark truly is liberating.