{"id":284592,"date":"2025-06-09T23:50:32","date_gmt":"2025-06-09T23:50:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/business\/investing\/retirement-investing-today-winning-the-won-game\/"},"modified":"2025-06-09T23:50:32","modified_gmt":"2025-06-09T23:50:32","slug":"retirement-investing-today-winning-the-won-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=284592","title":{"rendered":"Retirement Investing Today: Winning the Won Game"},"content":{"rendered":"


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It has been more than 2 years since my last post.\u00a0 Maybe more importantly in round numbers it has also now been around 18 years since I started on my FIRE journey, 16 years since I started this blog to hold myself accountable to that journey, 9 years since I became FI and 7 years since I first FIRE\u2019d (and then quickly went back to work).\u00a0 Looking at those timings I\u2019ve been set up to\u00a0 enable me to win the game of life for some time but over the past year it really has started to feel like I\u2019ve now actually won the game.\u00a0 Let\u2019s look at a few reasons why that might be the case.<\/p>\n

Location<\/h2>\n

Australia is home.\u00a0 It\u2019s so much home that it\u2019s time to start looking at the path to citizenship.\u00a0 We\u2019ve found a region we love to live plus have built networks and friendships in that region.\u00a0 We\u2019ve also built a lifestyle that works for us.\u00a0 It\u2019s a much more outdoor and less crowded life than we had in England.\u00a0 It works so well that I just can\u2019t believe more than 2 years has passed since I last wrote a blog post.<\/p>\n

Work<\/h2>\n

I\u2019m still working from home a few days per week in a role with no stress.\u00a0 Free from the Sword of Damocles I speak freely which enables no bullsh*t.\u00a0 It\u2019s stimulating, I interact with some very clever people, learn something new regularly and it very much works for me at this time in my life.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t do it for the money but it turns out my approach to work while I was building wealth combined with my attitude to work since becoming FI makes me a fairly valuable marketable commodity.\u00a0 To put a quantitative value on it for a few days work I earn more than twice the average Australian Full Time Salary.<\/p>\n

Will I give it up and ever fully FIRE?\u00a0 It\u2019s a possibility as history tells me work places can become \u2018enshitified\u2019 but for now it\u2019s not on the radar.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Relationships<\/h2>\n

It turns out that spending a lot more time with a partner changes the dynamic of the relationship and it takes some work to get it back on track.\u00a0 In our case it took quite a lot of work but the relationship is now the best it has ever been and importantly I\u2019m the best I\u2019ve ever been.\u00a0 Mrs RIT also tells me she is also in a very good place.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Housing<\/h2>\n

I built that house and it\u2019s now our home.\u00a0 It\u2019s warm in winter, cool in summer, runs on the smell of an oily rag, is surrounded by fabulous neighbours and let\u2019s us focus on living our best life.<\/p>\n

That said housing is an interesting one for us.\u00a0 Australia\u2019s taxation code only seems to reward wealth stored in a primary residence, Australian shares or Superannuation.\u00a0 That combined with us chasing perfection has led to us doing it all again but this time we know it\u2019s way too much house and also firmly on the diminishing returns side of location.<\/p>\n

The first world problem we now have is given I\u2019ve continued to work, our investments haven\u2019t seen a black swan and we love where we live now is do we move into it, keep both or sell it once complete.\u00a0 There\u2019s no rush to make a decision\u2026\u00a0 Reflecting on these words really does reinforce how good my life is right now and how few and insignificant my problems are.<\/p>\n

Finances<\/h2>\n

I still update my financial position every week on a Saturday morning with a decent brew.\u00a0 That Excel spreadsheet now runs to 1,094 rows.\u00a0 On another tab it also tells me all sorts of interesting, but no longer valuable, things like we now annually spend around 1.2% of our wealth.<\/p>\n

I always make time for it and do it no matter where I am.\u00a0 Even when on holidays.\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure if I do it out of habit, because I find it cathartic, to remind myself of the work I\u2019ve done to engineer my life to what it is today or simply to just remind myself how lucky I am.\u00a0 It might be all of the above but I can\u2019t see me ever stopping adding a new row because put simply I enjoy the few minutes every week.<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/h2>\n

6.5 years into FIRE mentally and physically I\u2019m the healthiest and happiest I\u2019ve ever been.\u00a0 I\u2019m also starting to wonder if I\u2019m even on the FIRE path anymore.\u00a0 Instead, it now feels more like it\u2019s simply the path to living my best and intentional life which the FI or financial independence bit of FIRE gave me permission to pursue.\u00a0 What I do know is that it feels like I\u2019ve won the game of life.<\/p>\n

The reflection for the coming year is I\u2019m now starting to wonder whether I actually needed the FI bit to make it happen or whether I just needed more courage way back in 2007.\u00a0 Either way it doesn\u2019t matter because as the saying goes \u2013 life is what happens while you are busy making plans.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It has been more than 2 years since my last post.\u00a0 Maybe more importantly in round numbers it has also now been around 18 years since I started on my FIRE journey, 16 years since I started this blog to hold myself accountable to that journey, 9 years since I became FI and 7 years […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[96],"tags":[1256,10906,11077,1513,19837,4094],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-284592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-investing","tag-game","tag-investing","tag-retirement","tag-today","tag-winning","tag-won"],"yoast_head":"\nRetirement Investing Today: Winning the Won Game - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=284592\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Retirement Investing Today: Winning the Won Game - 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