consuming non-consumables and the broken windows theory

Apr24
by TFS on April 24, 2019 at 11:02 am
Posted In: Personal Finance, Spending Habits

 

We’ve just been having a long overdue clear out at home, to declutter and tidy up a bit, and make more efficient use of the space available in our modestly sized home

We also popped along to the first car boot of the year on Sunday, and it was astounding to see the amount of once treasured, now discarded possessions.

Both of these events got me thinking…

One key mistake I see over and over again people 1 make with their spending is that they spend (a lot of!) money on items that should be long lasting purchases that should provide value to them for a long period of time. You can probably already guess what I am talking about here:

  • Upgrading household furniture and soft furnishings every few years (to be fair we are not especially guilty of this, and if we do most of the time we buy second hand)
  • Same with electronic gadgets; the amount of charges we discovered for all our old devices is ridiculous enough!
  • All the trinkets and decorations people tend to have displayed all around their house, which are in vogue one year and in land fill the next.
  • Wearing clothes a handful of times before charity shopping or just binning them.
  • Kids toys that are barely played with before being sold on or taken up the dump.

In other words we are consuming items that were not originally meant to be consumables, but advertising and the culture of our society have convinced us that they now are to be consumed.

But of course! We are now a consumer society 2, so we can’t really blame people for doing this sort of thing too much, and with a multi billion dollar advertising industry pitted against us, what hope have we really got!?!

The advice for us FIRE types is obvious and written about ad infinitum:

↓ Read the rest of this entry…

Notes:

  1. Including us! ↩
  2. We are still constantly referred to as consumers, not citizens, which is pretty sickening when you think about it, but not many people seem to care or even notice this! ↩
6 Comments

plans for life after FI – thought experiment #5

Apr16
by TFS on April 16, 2019 at 6:20 am
Posted In: Random Thoughts

 

Welcome to instalment #5 of SavingNinja‘s thought experiments. This time around he asks:

 

“Life is good. You finally did it! You pulled the plug on your day job after reaching financial independence. You never have to work for money ever again. But, you’re bored. You need something to do… You need a project! You grab a piece of paper and a pen and start thinking. Now that you’re financially free, what projects do you want to complete? However ambitious, however small, you now have the time to pursue anything that you like, what will you accomplish?“

 

I am going to guess there are quite a lot of lists that involve writing a book, learning to play an instrument, and so on (both of which would be on my list, btw) so rather than just trotting out another list like that, I thought it might be fun to republish and revisit part of a really old post I wrote called “My Perfect Work Day”  which kind of answers this question in terms of the minute by minute details of what I would have liked to be doing once I’m FI.

↓ Read the rest of this entry…

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to lift yourself higher, walk your own FIRE

Mar26
by TFS on March 26, 2019 at 7:55 am
Posted In: Random Thoughts, Start your FIRE

 

I may preach to the choir,

but to what do you aspire?

 

25x expenses you must acquire

and you can retire!

 

but then what, I must inquire

to be happy d’you require?

 

to seek fame, be admired,

and cheap thrills till you expire?

 

Or be a hermit in the shire

and suppress every desire?

 

there’s no one answer it transpires

to avoid the quagmire

 

like the god of hellfire

I say, and hope to inspire

 

To lift yourself higher

You must walk your own FIRE

 

 

This post is in the main a jaunty response to the (admittedly only a handful of) commenters on my last post who seemed to think that they knew best on how I should be living my life (although strangely enough had no constructive answers on what I actually should do instead, huh?! 1).

It is also dedicated to the pseudo-namesake of the blog, Keith Flint, who sadly passed away at the start of this month.

I’m not sure he’d appreciate the dainty lyrics I’ve employed above, but I am sure he would be fully behind the general gist of it.

RIP Keith, you fucking legend.

 

Notes:

  1. I did start to write a bit of a rant on that, but it was hard to keep it general without responding directly to individual comments, which I didn’t want to do as I know people have good intentions when they comment on this blog, and I do genuinely appreciate every comment and especially different points of view. The last thing I want  is people to start avoiding commenting in case they get a whole post dedicated to having a crack back at their comment! Thank you to all who contributed to that discussion ↩
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27 Comments

should I stay or should I go? plus introducing… TFS Merch!

Jan31
by TFS on January 31, 2019 at 8:58 pm
Posted In: Lifestyle Design, Random Thoughts, Side Hustles / Business, TFS Updates

 

Bit of a random update really but just thought I’d put it out there what’s been going around in my head over the last few months

 

is it time to finally say goodbye to the 9-5?

Here are my reasons:

  • We’ve got a pretty big safety net of “liquid” savings of nearly 100K (OK much of this isn’t truly liquid, but at least half of it definitely is).
  • I’m smashing it on the main side hustle of MB/EW betting (yes yes… I do not want to be relying on this long term, and not even really in the short term, but the fact remains the money keeps flowing in).
  • I have started a new hustle with Amazon Merch (see first design below!). Obviously getting a bit ahead of myself here but I reckon with no full time work I could build this up to a decent income stream.
  • I also have a handful of other ideas of software projects which could generate money, again I just need the time to actually work on them though.
  • Looking back at my initial goal when I started the blog, I am really not that far off of hitting it, and I said I would quit my job when I hit that goal, which has made me start to think about it.
  • We just got paid a 6 month bonus at work. They normally do a yearly bonus which is paid in July but it’s just re-synced to the actual calendar year. I was planning on staying till June then taking the bonus and seeing whether I wanted to hand in my notice then, but now the bonus has been paid it has bought the whole thing to mind much earlier than expected. Do I really want to stay a whole year from now (when the next yearly bonus will be paid) before deciding upon it again?

Obviously there are many reasons to stay as well, such as:

 

  • I now have a child to think about as well, which I didn’t when I first started all of this and made those initial plans, so really I shouldn’t take those initial plans into account all that much.
  • Home working situation – I don’t really have a home office space, and to be honest even if I did it is really hard to work knowing the little one is downstairs playing and having fun. And I think I would need more of a separation between “work” and “home” in general if I’m honest. I have an idea of how to get around this though (and crucially it would be cheap/practically free), but it’s something worth bearing in mind at least.
  • I am already working part time, so already have a great work/life balance compared to most people.
  • I’ve just put in for a pay rise, so if I get one and it’s half decent, it will greatly enhance the chances I stay.
  • In addition to the above, I can execute my main cash side hustle while at work so it is almost like getting paid twice. It seems a bit of a fallacy to basically turn money down here!!!

However, especially in relation to that last point, money is not everything and I do wonder if I might be happier just being out there on my own, getting out of my comfort zone, and really doing some entrepreneurial shit.

And let’s face it, how cool would it be to just totally set your own schedule? If I wanted to see Mrs T and TFS Jr in the morning for a couple of hours before “going to work” I would be able to, and also shoot out for a run whenever I feel like it rather than have to cram it into my lunch break. And it would get rid of 3 hours of commuting per day, which would free an immense amount of time and may even mean I am not totally knackered all the time due to having 6-7 hours of sleep most nights when I know I should be getting 8.

 

amazon merch

Speaking of the next side hustle, I have uploaded my first design and it seemed fitting that it should probably just be a theFIREstarter related one to get me up and running. At the risk of sounding extremely big headed and assuming people might actually want to spend their hard-earned on crap like this (which I don’t!) but on the off chance any readers over the years ever did want something along these lines, here it is:

First Ever TFS Merch T-Shirt

It’s available in 5 different colours, I’d obviously recommend the Orange for maximum impact and getting people talking about the T-Shirt so you can then evangelise the concepts of FIRE to them 😀

Alternatively, if you wanted something but don’t like the actual design, please give me you feedback and I can update it!

Here’s the deal: I need to fill 10 slots and sell one of each design to break out into the next “Tier” when I get far more slots and I can then try out far more different things to see what sticks. So for these first 10 slots I am pretty much happy to just create bespoke designs for people so I get a guaranteed sale and so fill their “at least one sale” criteria

I’ve also priced the T-Shirt at the lowest possible price where I am still getting some sort of commision so it’s a bargain basement £12.99 1.

I will price the first 10 at this same price as well.

So if there is anything you want me to tweak on the above design, let me know and I will upload something to a new slot (or just overwrite that one, if no one likes it… haha).

Alternatively if there is something you fancy having on a T-Shirt that is nothing to do with the TFS blog… that’s cool as well!j

Just let me know what you’d like, and if it’s remotely reasonable* I will custom design your idea for you, put it up on Amazon Merch and send you the link. That’s as long as you have a genuine intention of buying it of course! But if I do a design for you and you decided you didn’t like my interpretation, that’s cool.

*i.e. not horrendously offensive which Amazon will penalise me for, or some really complicated design, I am still quite a beginner with the design tools so far. Also you can use copyright/trademarked stuff so don’t ask me to say do a fake Nike T-Shirt or whatever… haha!

 

Hopefully in this way you guys are helping me out get this hustle off the ground, but you are also getting a low cost but nice custom made T-Shirt for yourselves, and everyone comes away happy.

 

So let me know what you’d like!

 

And of course… should I stay or should I go?!?!?!?

 

Notes:

  1. Yes I know this is quite a lot compared to a T-Shirt from the charity shop, but where else you gonna get a rare or bespoke design for that price, right!? 🙂 ↩
61 Comments

2018 review plus 2019 goals: the year of keeping calm and carrying on

Jan23
by TFS on January 23, 2019 at 8:40 am
Posted In: Aspirations, TFS Updates

 

Woah! Another year has flown by – I hope you all had a great 2018!

It’s a perfect time to reflect on what has gone on in the previous twelve months and attempt to chisel out some plans for the next dozen, so like all good PF bloggers I will enthusiastically[/sarcarsm] join in 🙂

↓ Read the rest of this entry…

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