Author: MrRIP

Retire in progress...

(Bi)Weekly Learning Journal 8 (9/11/2020)

Inspirations, WLJ

Hi RIP readers,

welcome to the RIP (Bi)Weekly Learning Journal.

Yeah, it happened: two consecutive WLJ episodes… switching to a biweekly format didn’t help 🙂

Does that mean I’m slacking off? Not interested in writing amazing content anymore?

Absolutely not! I’ve been exceptionally busy with work and family, and all my extra time went into studying my “One Platform to rule them all”, i.e. Roam Research.

So I’ve not been relaxing, do not worry.

And yes, I know I’m behind with comments and emails. I will reply to each one of you, promised.

Next episode on Monday November 23th 🙂

Enjoy!

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(Bi)Weekly Learning Journal 7 (26/10/2020)

Inspirations, WLJ

Hi RIP readers,

welcome to the RIP (Bi)Weekly Learning Journal.

As you can see the series is diverging from Money and FIRE, and it reflects the direction in which I’m steering my input feeds. I hope you like it.

Next episode on Monday November 9th 🙂

Enjoy!

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The Problem with small, EU Domiciled ETFs

Investing

Hi RIP readers,

I’m trying to simplify my investments.

I want to get rid of some of the irrelevant ETFs I purchased in the past years, especially in the bonds area, and I want to focus on few core ETFs (global bonds, global stocks). Plus maybe some small bets to add a personal touch to the strategy. Some small cap, value, dividend… I like the idea of factor investing. Anyway, my strategy is still a bit fuzzy, I’m not focusing on that at the moment and it’s not the topic of this post.

Under the umbrella of “simplifying my portfolio”, a month ago I entered a couple of GTC (Good-Til-Canceled) Limit Sell Orders on Interactive Brokers for the ETFs I wanted to get rid of, with limit prices I was happy with.

I know that “I will sell when the price reaches X” is not a good strategy, don’t yell at me.

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(Bi)Weekly Learning Journal 6 (12/10/2020)

Inspirations, WLJ

Hi RIP readers,

welcome to the RIP (Bi)Weekly Learning Journal.

As you can see, this episode is mostly focused on creativity (writing, podcasting), productivity, entrepreneurship, learning, growing, mastery and few other topics that I think are well suited for someone struggling with their creative career.

Actually, the above mentioned are recurring topics in my WLJs. See previous entries about Paul Graham, Nat Eliason, Naval Ravikant. That’s where my curiosity wanders these days.

Asking myself to write and publish my Learning Journal is a kind of intervention. For myself, by myself.

And It’s working! I can feel a gentle push to get out and go wild, trust my skills and attitude, quit the career game entirely.

Time will tell.

Next episode on Monday October 26th, and I suspect will be centered around Naval Ravikant 🙂

Enjoy!

P.S. I’m thinking about moving this series into a mailing list, probably on substack 🙂

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2020 Q3 Financial Update

Finances

Hi RIP readers,

Welcome to our latest Quarterly Financial (and Personal) Update!

It seems centuries have passed since my previous quarterly financial update. I had to re-read it to get a sense of “where I was” three months ago.

I’ll first analyze our finances – as always – then few aspects of my personal life.

I’m sure you’re now better equipped to follow the financial aspects of our quarterly updates, right? What? Didn’t you seethe 5 posts (so far) series I published on my spreadsheets? Very bad…

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(Bi)Weekly Learning Journal 5 (28/09/2020)

Inspirations, WLJ

Hi RIP readers,

welcome to the RIP (Bi)Weekly Learning Journal.

Ouch, this last two weeks have been so intense! How did I manage to consume so much amazing material?

In this episode I tried to rank the material top to bottom. Those who didn’t make into the main list are not necessary worse, just less relevant.

Next episode on Monday October 12th 🙂

Enjoy!

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Interactive Brokers: thanks Brexit, screw you!

Investing

Hi RIP readers,

This is a quick post about how Brexit is impacting Interactive Brokers account in Europe.

IBUK accounts are going to be moved in EU and lose SIPC protection of 500k USD.

Crap!

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Lifestyle inflation and Early Retirement: Nat is Wrong

Early Retirement

Hi RIP readers,

I mentioned several times how much I like almost anything Nat Eliason writes or does.

– I purchased his Effortless Output with Roam course when price was 100 USD (and got 100 USD Roam credits for this).
– I linked four of his articles in my first WLJ post, two of which I’ve read and re-read many times.
– I’ve bookmarked in the “Awesome” category more than 10 of his posts about skill building, about writing, about thinking, some of his book reviews (The Elephant in the Brain is the best one), about the reproducibility crisis in psychological experiments, about social disobedience, about passive income, and many more.

I also liked his old post about Financial Independence. Nothing new, but seeing that Nat in on board with our “movement” made me feel in good company 🙂

Ok, today I want to write a review of his latest post on the 75% Rule for Lifestyle inflation & Early Retirement.

Dear Nat, even if the message you want to broadcast is very good (telling people to not splurge all their salary raises), I think your math is wrong on so many levels!

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How I track my finances using spreadsheets Part 5: FIRE Metrics

Spreadsheets

Hi dear RIP readers,

This is Part 5 of my Spreadsheets series. I recommend you to take a look at the previous episodes before reading this one. So far we’ve seen:
– Why I think tracking your finances is important, what to track, my tracking history, and why you don’t need any app but spreadsheets for that (Part 1)
– How I structure my spreadsheets for tracking (Part 2)
– How I track my Net Worth (Part 3)
– How I track my Cash Flow / income Statement (Part 4)

Today we’re going to deep dive into how I track my FIRE Metrics.

Well, today I don’t care much about those metrics, my perception of FIRE has changed a lot. I now see Financial Independence and Early Retirement as a continuous, a Spectrum.

I do think that if you’re at the beginning, or even midway along the way, that modeling your financial “end goal” as a finish line has a lot of motivational value. Keep going!

Enjoy!

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How I track my finances using spreadsheets Part 4: Cash Flow

Spreadsheets

Hi dear RIP readers,

This is Part 4 of my Spreadsheets series.
Today we’re going to deep dive into my “Cash Flow” tracking, i.e. how I track income and overall expenses. Which is not the definition of “Cash Flow”, I know, I’m an amateur accountant 🙂
It will be a short one, promised. We won’t see expense tracking in full detail today.
I recommend you to take a look at the previous episodes before reading this one.

Enjoy!

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