Finance My Fire: An Update

Let me start with this: I am the guy who wrote he'd keep writing posts on this blog no matter what, but didn't for 1½ years. The guy who started the #microfiction series (see the top menu), which was so small only one tiny story was ever published! The truth is I 'disappeared' for a …

Why Holland Sucks, part I

Read this first (especially if you are Dutch): Everything I say in this post is my personal opinion. It's wholeheartedly subjective and biased and probably says much more about me than about the country in the title. Just imagine that 'these are the reactionary rantings of an embittered old man' and don't get offended in …

Life after FIRE: Practice Makes Perfect

It's Easter. And because I had a some personal time off (PTO) days to burn, I decided to unplug and recharge for two full weeks. And that's not all. In May - after only three weeks back at the office - I will have another two weeks to relax. This is before my three week …

The Power Of Stories

I do it all the time. Here on my blog. Go over all the numbers and charts related to my journey to FIRE I mean. Every month, one portfolio update after another. I often think it must be dreadfully boring to read them. Who cares whether my net worth is 1% up or down or …

What Doesn’t Kill You…

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Or in German: "Was mich nicht umbringt, macht mich stärker" (Nietzsche wrote this in 1888). Don't worry, this is not going to be a long and boring philosophical dissertation. On the contrary, I want to tell you a true story. A story about one of the most embarrassing …

La Dolce Far Niente

La dolce far niente; Italian for "the sweetness of doing nothing". In our modern,  supersaturated and connected world many people are freaked out by the mere thought of doing nothing, of having no particular business or activity they can engage in.  They rather throw themselves off a bridge or get drunk or subject themselves to electric …

FIRE Aside: Building A Vintage Vacuum Tube Radio Receiver

Some time ago I built a mining rig for mining crypto-currencies ('Ether' to be more precise). I am not going to explain all the technical details, but it's a very powerful computer that does only one thing: Running a so-called hashing algorithm. Hashing is the transformation of an input into a usually shorter fixed-length output …

About Tulip Mania And Other Bubbles

Amsterdam was even more glorious than in the postcards and wandering along its elaborate canal system with the narrow seventeenth and eighteenth century gabled merchant houses was like getting lost in a painting by a master of the Golden Age. It was astonishingly beautiful and romantic. Green, healthy trees lined the canals, shielding people from …

Drunk Reflections In The Eye Of The (Financial) Storm

It's miserable outside. A full-blown storm rages. Howling winds and the sound of rain lashing against the windows. I turn back to my computer screen. It's not only chaos in a meteorological sense. The markets are also in turmoil. Trump, Brexit, trade wars, interest rates and the economic slowdown are taking its toll and have …

Lifestyle Inflation

Lifestyle inflation is the increase in spending when your income goes up. For example each time you get a raise. It is extremely tempting to start spending more if you have more. You can go out more often, travel more, upgrade your hotel room, get that even flatter flat-screen and exchange your old, but functional, …

20 Minutes To Financial Independence

Today I sail to work. I live on the waterfront and my office is also on the waterfront, just a few miles from my home. I can walk, bike, drive, sail, canoe or even swim to work. Today I decided to sail with the yellow water taxi, a service run by the municipality. It takes …

A Guide To Getting Lost

Some of my fondest childhood memories are when my brother and I went on adventures and got lost. Not 'I can't find my way home' lost, but lost in the moment, lost in our imaginations. During summer time. It was when we imagined we were soldiers or pirates or space travelers. When we went exploring …

Financial Independence: Flirting With The Wrong Girl?

I've been thinking. I do that sometimes. A little personal thought experiment. Loosely inspired by TheSavingNinja's thought experiments. What if I'd kill my financially independence and early retirement aspirations? Stop investing actively, stop trying to squeeze an ever higher savings rate out of my income? Throw the Excel files with all the numbers, projections and …

A Travel Story: Lessons From The Arctic

The journey to financial independence and early retirement has a lot in common with a few road trips that I have been on with my brother. It's when we jumped in our car and drove 2000 kilometers (1250 miles) in less than 2 days. You may wonder, what has driving such an insane distance in …

Live For Today

When you are seeking financial independence like me, you focus a lot on the goal. And the closer you get to reaching it (not that I am that close), the more elated you become. Soon you can quit your job, soon you will be free. Imagine all the things you can do. There's nothing wrong …