🔥 Early Retirement

A year ago I took a career break after 28 years of web development. My goal was to study a variety of topics, and pursue hobbies like game development and technical writing.

Runway 🛫

To accomplish this, my aim was to live a very frugal lifestyle, to stretch out my savings – some call this Lean FIRE. Despite the chaos abroad and some at home (e.g. furnace repairs), my portfolio did rather well. In fact, I ended up slightly ahead.

Seeing this, I declined the kind offer to return to work in July, 👨🏼‍💻 even though this trend may not continue forever. 🫧

By the way, all I have is one globally diversified index fund with low fees (e.g. VEQT or XEQT 🇨🇦) and a sufficient cash cushion. Nothing complicated, it’s enough for me.

Enjoyment 🎶

Deciding to retire early has allowed me to enjoy life a little more. Learning to 🎹 play piano, ✏️ drawing, 📖 reading, going for long 🚶 walks, and spending my days however I choose. 🤔

In May I drew a pair of work boots for an online course, using a pen tablet and Rebelle.

It took me multiple days to finish, with lots of measuring and guidelines. I have an incredibly long ways to go if I want to make concept art and graphics for games.

In June, I made a cover for Danny Boy by Fred Weatherly.

The piano is Claire – a Fazioli F308 grand piano. It’s accompanied by a solo cello pulled from Spitfire Symphony Orchestra. I used Ableton Live 12 to stitch it all together, tweaking the timing and vibrato until I was happy with it. Hope you like it!

I still have much to learn – music theory, writing music, mixing. And to be honest, my piano playing is pretty rubbish – but playing piano poorly is a lot more than I could do a year ago.

Slowdown 🚥

Living life in the slow lane is the rest I need right now. But how long can this really last?

I have some things going for me. I don’t own a vehicle 🚘 and my other costs are low. But I broke the 4% “rule” – not saving 25x my living expenses. To top it off, reigning in my discretionary spending has been a challenge – so far my love for tsundoku 📚 has gone unabated.

Quitting with “insufficient funds” is oddly part of my strategy. It’s extra motivation to turn what I’m learning into something of value. So in a way, I’m not retiring at all.

Rather, I’m opting to become a solopreneur. Eventually.

I’m not suggesting that anyone follow in my footsteps. I don’t know how this will end. Fortunately the robots 🤖 haven’t come for all the jobs yet. Until then, there’s always Plan B – if it’s not working out, go find a job.

Thanks for following along with my journey.