Quote from: tabas on January 05, 2025, 11:22:41 PM

Quote from: JayJuanGee on January 05, 2025, 10:54:35 PM

Quote from: tabas on January 05, 2025, 08:49:38 PM

As much as I want to achieve this goal but I think I understand more people living with their careers until they can no longer go to work. It has become part of their routines to still keep on working but with minimal efforts and have a continuous cash flow. If I get into that point, I'd say that I am retired but will do some minimal task or efforts that will still generate me cash flow. But as with what people see that, it's not complete retirement but at least, that's stress free whether I work or not, I have some savings with my retirement fund.

Of course, you don't necessarily need to reach full FIRE status in order to enjoy the benefits of having had built up enough of a nest egg so that you have some options and yeah, you might be able to reduce the quantity of your hours, or you might be able to reduce the kinds of physically demanding kinds of jobs that you do, since your body might not be as capable of doing such physically taxing jobs including also being able to adequately recover from physically taxing kinds of work. Some people are able to continue doing physically taxing work, yet most people suffer decline in strength, stamina and even their recovery times or their proneness to injury or getting sick or not recovering from their ailments as quickly and easily.

Having options continues to be a plus, even if you are not quite able to go into full FIRE status at the age that you would like to do so.

My standard of living has been pretty good in the past 7 years or so, and it seems to me that I was hunkering down investing into bitcoin for my first 4-ish years between late 2013 and late/2016 to early 2017, but then even though I was not really cashing out of my BTC, I was still able to improve my standard of living in 2017 and thereafter based on anticipations of what I had already established. .and surely gaining confidence that what I had done was enough.. even though I even started to have such confidences in early 2016.. when BTC started its recovery after spending so much time in decline in 2014 and time being stagnant in its price in 2015..

I've realized that we're all going to that point that our body will tax us with the too work that we've got during our younger days and that's why we also have to plan whether full FIRE or semi, as long as we live comfortably and able to sustain our lifestyle and frugal living. That is impressive. You have not cashing a lot of your BTC and you're able to live comfortably and confidently. I bet that you have some other sources aside from your paper profits in Bitcoin investing and the big thing here is you're living within or even below your means and means comfort to you. I wish that more people are going to do the same as you, despite that have probable huge holdings and seeing $$$ from time to time, not too hungry in taking them all and have a longer game plan.

Of course, each of us has to attempt to best prepare ourselves under our own circumstances, and it can take a long time to build up investments whether we are including bitcoin into our investment portfolio or otherwise, and surely, the less we prepare ourselves, then when we get into our 40s, 50s and 60s we might not have created options for ourselves as we might have had been able to do if we had started preparing somewhat in our youth.

Truly more well-off people will have more resources from which to draw, yet even well off people might not sufficiently and/or adequately prepare themselves, and they may also take their finances for granted, and find out that they have fewer options because they had not started preparing early.

It is likely that many of us will make various screw ups in our finances along the way, and surely some kinds of screw ups are less long term damaging and recoverable than others.. and it is not even always going to be clear until years and years had passed if we might have screwed up some of our decisions earlier on since even in bitcoin, we might have had been able to invest into it somewhat aggressively in earlier years, and then we might find payouts in current times, yet even if we are a later entrant into bitcoin, we still ONLY have the ability to assess where we are at from the present and make our preparations for the future based on our current circumstances how they are rather than how we wished they would be based on some things that we might have done differently in earlier times.

There might be times in which we might need to keep more of our value in dollar based assets and using some of that for short term income and then maybe some of our bitcoin might be spread into longer term kind of storage and/or income kinds of resources that might not be regularly drawn, so we can try to keep more than one source, in place, but we also might want to make sure that we have enough or more than enough before we start drawing on some sources, rather than if we might still be in the stages of building some of it up.

Some folks might say that they want to continue to work, yet it may not be the case that they want to continue to work but instead that they have to continue to work, and surely it can be difficult to change your circumstances, especially if if you are already in your 60s, then maybe the best you can do is to try to preserve your situation so that you can stop working in your 70s, but you might still be able to slow down in your 60s if you believe that might be a workable kind of arrangement that you had already reached.

I think some of the problems that I had in this thread that I mentioned in my first post in this thread is that guys were talking about FIRE in terms of various traditional investments that they have, yet it seems to me that historically bitcoin has outperformed so many of the traditional investments in such ways that it could be possible that bitcoin is able to give options to guys that would not have had otherwise been possible with traditional investment categories, so bitcoin may well allow for various kinds of abilities for us to supercharge our retirements, yet we still likely need to both manage our getting to enough (or more than enough) bitcoin, and we likely also have to manage our bitcoin so that we are not spending too much of it too soon.

Surely we have seen how folks have gotten screwed in their traditional investments, especially based on dollar debasement happening at way higher levels than they had anticipated to be within the cards and even within the current somewhat hidden status in which so many folks nominaly valuate their abilities, yet find themselves ongoingly losing ground with the value of their income in real terms.

Quote from: tabas on January 05, 2025, 11:22:41 PM

Quote from: JayJuanGee on January 05, 2025, 10:54:35 PM

so if any of us stack bitcoin early, we might start to gain a lot of confidence in how our BTC is helping us to live better even if we still might not be completely living off of it, but perhaps merely allowing the bitcoin to ride or perhaps just allowing the bitcoin to supplement our income in minor ways as it continues to grow to a place in which it might be able to do more of the heavy lifting in regards to providing income to us... Perhaps? perhaps? Each of us handle our bitcoin investment and allow for its growth in differing ways that hopefully does not contribute towards our cashing out too much of it too soon.

I am a testament to this and will continue to do so in keeping a stack of Bitcoin. I've proved it to myself that there's the biggest part in my life that BTC did it all and I reckon this advise and hopefully others will be wise on doing their investments, I'm not saying that I am wise but sure JJG is. Wink

Of course, bitcoin is not guaranteed to continue to outperform traditional assets, so we have to figure how much of a balance we want to keep in each, even when we are spending from them, so perhaps if we start to get to the cashing out stage, we might end up drawing from each in some kind of proportioned level that helps us to feel comfortable in regards to how much value we are keeping in each or perhaps if we might choose to let the bitcoin portion grow more, even though the formula is not 100% true.

Recently I had been trying to talk a friend into delaying purchasing a house, since there was a trade off between putting the value into the house and keeping value in bitcoin, and such person did not listen to me, and surely it is not my choice to make.

Many of us likely recall that a median house in 2015 may well have had cost us close to 1,000 bitcoin ($250k), and surely today, even if the median price of house might have more than doubled in the past 10 years, right now a median house of $500k to $1million, the contrast is strong, since such $500k to $1million house will cost us in the ballpark of 6 to 11 BTC, which truly is a big difference, and we don't even have to go that far back to make comparisons, since even in 2019, we might say that a $500k house may well have had cost us around 50 BTC, and so such trend is not necessarily guaranteed, yet we can figure out where we might want to put our value, and sure if we are intent on getting a house we can choose whether to get it now, or if we might want to wait a few years (if we might be able to, and at the same time, we are the one who has to live with the decision, whether we can reasonably recognize what might be for our own financial and/or psychological good or not).. We might not realize the ramifications of our choices until 3-5 years down the road when it may well no longer be an option for us to attempt to revisit our earlier decision..

Quote from: franky1 on Today at 05:59:04 AM

Quote from: JayJuanGee on January 05, 2025, 10:54:35 PM

I personally believe that we can live quite improved lives with BTC as our wealth, and it may well be quite likely that the BTC value will grow way beyond our spending pace, so if the BTC is allowed to compound in value a few more times, we may well end up with way more wealth than we expected, which may well allow us to go from spending wealthy and wise and into higher levels of extravagance.

It is like going from entry-level fuck you status (FIRE status), end then getting to a point that is multiples higher than the entry-level status, and then perhaps being 10s or even 100x higher than the entry-level fuck you status at a kind of filthy rich status, which some of those higher levels can come without necessarily having to work hard at it, but just living within one's means and allowing the value to continue to compound, which so far in bitcoin's history, it has compounded many, many times...

bitcoin will compound at far better rate than any bank account interest rate or portfolio manage stock options.. its just picking the target amount where the compounding is growing more then the withdrawal, to decide whats the best number to find sustainable living amount to then retire and enjoy it

can i just offer some advice.. the whole 'fuck you status' of just extravagance/burning money 'cos i can' gets boring quick..

From my perspective, there are varying levels of fuck you status, including the bare minimum of being able to choose not to work. There is no need to read fuck you status beyond that, even though surely I would concede that even being able to refuse to work full time and only to work part time, could be considered a moderated fuck you status that might ONLY be possible if enough savings/investment is built up to allow for an ability to not be forced to work full time based on having to have enough income to support yourself and your chosen standard of living.

Quote from: franky1 on Today at 05:59:04 AM

dont plan on a wasteful spending as it wont make you happy long term

Wasteful is subjective. Surely if you are still in early stages of fuck you status, you might not have as much room for extravagances, and I think that I already mentioned that if you happen to have multitudes or even magnitudes beyond your entry-level fuck you status then you are going to have more room for extravagances that may or may not make you happy long term and/or short term. I doubt that you can proclaim what might make another person happy and what the limits might be for another person.

Quote from: franky1 on Today at 05:59:04 AM

it only lasts as long as driving a car out the showroom and on the way home seeing someone with a car thats better than yours (less than a couple hours)

Yeah, maybe a guy might not like hookers, lambos and blow, but another guy might. Whether he does it daily or just once in a while, he may or may not feel fulfilled.

Quote from: franky1 on Today at 05:59:04 AM

where your then already thinking 'maybe i should have bought that one instead'
dont get into that consumerism cycle or you'll just ends up spending it all just to act like the top man

You may well be correct that some kinds of consumer items might end up causing a lot of work... for example getting the yacht might have to involve a whole crew, and then supervising employees, which might not be as pleasurable as imagined.

Quote from: franky1 on Today at 05:59:04 AM

i actually enjoy knowing i can buy any car, any house.. but just not needing to.

That is true too.. especially there could be quite a bit of work in buying a new house or even a mansion and then getting management systems in place might be problematic too.. including that if you might get some managers who are not honest.. that would likely cause additional work, too.

Quote from: franky1 on Today at 05:59:04 AM

the peace of mind of not having to worry about money is the essence of F.I.R.E, its not about buying crazy things 'because i can'
its not about forced frugality either

people think they can only retire in 2 extreme circumstances:
a. super bill gate/musk rich with the need to buy 10 mansions and 7 lambo's
b. enough to live on bread&beans, to stay home watching tv repeats

You are devolving into strawman arguments now, even though surely some people do think without realistic expectations.. including that many of us can be rich and/or even have rich sensations by merely having options and making sure that we are living within our means... whether we have a $1 million per year income or merely a $40k per year income... if we our expenses are less than our income, then we likely are rich, especially if we have chosen to live that way and if we have the choice whether or not to work rather than having to work.

Quote from: franky1 on Today at 05:59:04 AM

but f.ir.e is about enjoying financial freedom of not worried about money

in short, once you reach F.I.R.E status. your mindset will change about whats important to you. rich/extravagance gets boring.. you start to want to have and explore experiences, not shiny objects. you live comfortably worry free

That may be true that the main point is having options and not having to work, yet people may want some shiny objects, too, even if some of the shiny objects might cause some work to get, to maintain and to enjoy... so for example, if I get a nice boat, then I have to figure out where I am going to store it, and whether I might need to transport it. Can I drive it myself or do I need or want help, and various decisions that may well need to be made and perhaps even questions if there are other people who might help to arrange some of these matters or do I have to do them and arrange them myself.. including keeping track of the finances or the various people involved or even my own schedule in regards to when to do the stuff and with whom.. and is that how I want to spend my time.

Quote from: Kelward on Today at 08:19:48 AM

I believe that most people wants this F.I.R.E strategy so that they can retire early and enjoy the rest of their lives without working. If a person is working and can take care of their basic needs and have extras, that means that the above strategy will work for the person. Then he can apply all the rules to achieving the goals of early retirement and it all centers on living below your means, meaning that you should always budget your expenses below your income.

The problem that many people that are hit by inflation in their countries is that their incomes can barely take care of their basic needs, this the reality of many people. Many people are struggling to survive, even with a second job which is adding a lot of stress to them so it's not very easy for everybody to retire early even if it's their wish.

Many of us are into bitcoin because it can be quite difficult to get ahead through traditional investments, yet we still have to be able to earn more than we spend, as you mentioned in your first paragraph, and so ultimately it still can take a bit of time to build up a bitcoin nest egg and then to live off of bitcoin or to supplement our lifestyle from our bitcoin rather than merely ONLY relying on traditional investments that might never be able to outpace the rate of the debasement of fiat.