If you've actually followed or read what I've written, you'll see that I'm in full agreement with what you said about family. I'll reproduce it here for your reference:



My parents passed away early. Otherwise, I would have doted on them - for all that they've done and given me. So, family is important to me, as are true friendships

As for children, I've never planned for them - and I subscribe to this philosophy: If you have them, never regret them. If you don't have them, never miss them. I don't miss what I never had.

That's me.

But having said that, i am pretty much on track and schedule to retire when all has been fulfilled.

Your “when all has been fulfilled” is considered normal or early retirement?? 😅

This post has been edited by aspartame: Dec 3 2019, 05:08 PM

I may jump in too sudden into your post. Striving to the apex and then, whats next? Understandably you have many options to do whatever you want. But I want to ask, where are you heading with the options you have? whats your end goal?

Thanks for asking. I don’t have many plans but here are some of my die-die also “must do” items:

1. My wife and I have been together for nearly 30 years but we’ve both been so busy with our careers that we need to take time to spend with each other before we’re too old to enjoy time together. We’ve practiced delayed gratification for a lot of material things while I was studying for my specialty, and later while we were building up our respective careers and accumulating wealth. I believe it’s time to consider “cashing out” and enjoying the fruits of our labour. Our house in Sydney is by the water. I can imagine taking nice morning walks from the house to the bay and just enjoying each other’s company

2. I want to resume writing. Before I started my career in medicine, I was already writing and getting my works printed - initially in school magazines and such, but after I began my career as a junior doctor, I started writing about my patients especially those that have left an indelible impression on me with their courage and serenity and grace in the face of their illnesses and even death. Those stories have been picked up by national magazines and been published ad hoc. But I still have many more stories to write and right now, I just don’t have time to do so. Retirement will give me the time to pay proper tribute to my patients in the way I do best.

3. Explore Australia. Really explore Australia. This will take us off the beaten track and this is a huge country - I reckon that’ll take us a good few years to do.

4. Continue travelling and seeing the world.

That’s about it for now. I’m sure more ideas will pop up in due time as we get closer to the permanent move.

It would be normal retirement.
With financial independence.

Early retirement would be too unfulfilling, especially with children.

Early retire from unfulfilling day job and working on project that excites and still able to feed the children and continuous multi stream of incomes.

#2 would be the way to go for purpose driven life, by the time the working on the book, publishing and promoting the book might keep you going

My job is exciting with lots of new projects to work on.

Thus the definition of retirement is different, since you term your life is purpose driven yet earning sufficient, that would keep you going for 60-70++ yo and some 90yo still active in contributing. The big question is "why".

some work to live others live to work

You just mentioned it. Purpose.

But if you read my above post, I am aiming at retirement.
Which means my purpose may have changed.

Most forumers discuss about FI/RE but what about living life after it. In general most lump it in travelling and social work . In reality there is more to it as everyday life consists of 24hours daily, so what is the routine consist of ? Its also why some dread of retirement as they are really unsure of things that could captivate their daily life interestingly. In our lifelong career spanning many decades, things that occupy most of our waking moment will consist of work, family and some period of recreation. But upon retirement, career which for some people filled nearly 50% of their daily life is suddenly missing. A friend of mine , a former University professor upon retirement, felled into depression. As most people suggested he travelled to quite a number of countries and even climb to the peak of a mountain. Its sort of trying to complete his bucket list. In reality, retirement is how we occupy the periods in our daily life that is the most important .

Fill up time by taking up hobbies.. cooking, language classes, Pilates...reading itself can take up a lot of time .. mix in some exercise routines both indoor/outdoor.... working to pass time is actually quite sad come to think of it ... it means you can’t find things to do other than work

That was and still is my secret fear. More than running out of money or falling prey to the natural ravages of time, I dread having to figure out how to keep my mind occupied post retirement.

In addition to writing, I’ve just added a new to-do item: learning a new language or two or three.

I speak and read basic Spanish simply because of an initial interest in medical Latin and the crazy notion that, since I speak and read English and Mandarin, if I added Spanish on board, I would cover almost every country I wanted to visit... once I’m retired, I intend to turn my basic understanding of Espanol into a proper command - at least at the level of my spoken Mandarin although I’m well aware that it’ll be hard for an old dog to learn new tricks.

It’s something to occupy the mind though!

There are organizations one could join before retiring and be more active after retired. Joining organization and take part in activities incur money, only suitable for those have more than just saving.

This post has been edited by icemanfx: Dec 4 2019, 02:27 PM

Still reading through the pages but I think the general consensus is: always live within your means.
I'm still working towards financial independence, hope to pick up some tips here!

Thanks all for contributing.

More than that, try to living below your means.

That means while you always to improve your source of income, be it active or passive, it is meaningless if you also increase your expenses.

Actively trying to reduce your expenses means you will be able to stretch every dollar you earn thus contributes significantly towards FI/RE.

Living below means is also subjective. How much below means? Some cut down expenses so much that I do not know whether to call it frugal or miserly. I mean, you can’t only plan for the future. You have to live in the present too. You must also enjoy the journey to FIRE. At least it should not be like a torture to reach there.

Yes, I agree - the journey and the experience are equally as important as the destination. That’s why I feel there are no 2 identical stories of the “secret” to success. How much to save before it becomes miserly? Everyone will have a different definition.