On blogging, writing, anonymity and the future of retireinprogress

Hi dear readers,

I can’t thank you enough for the tremendous support and positive feedback you’ve been giving me throughout these 2 years of blogging on retireinprogress.

I’ve published 87 posts so far, it’s roughly one every 9 days since June 2016. Original plans were to publish more frequently, something like twice per week or so.

I was so naive! I thought blogging would be similar to journaling, something like “vomiting your thoughts on a secret diary”, but it turned out not being true. Quality of a post is surprisingly linear with the effort you put into it. Add to this that to be noticeable and stand out of the crowded crowd of this information overload age an article needs to be very high quality and the equation becomes clear: you need to put a lot of effort if you want to have an impact. Out of my 87 posts (88 including this one) only 4-5 became somewhat popular. It’s not a coincidence that those are the most useful and probably best written posts on this blog. Not that “becoming popular” was or is my first concern though.

As I said in the about me page, when I started this blog the goals were:

  • Learn about FIRE topics. I would say I know more than enough about FIRE now. The marginal returns of devoting time into the topic is minimal.
  • Share and improve my strategy toward FI. Still working on that 🙂
  • Share my philosophy and thoughts. Not done much about this, I’d love to write about philosophy and happiness and meaning of life and self improvement much much more.
  • Strongly commit myself to my goals. That’s been a success so far: tracking expenses, tracking net worth and tracking FIRE progresses.
  • Help others learning from my mistakes. Well, from the feedback received I think I helped some but I could do more.
  • Meet people similar to me. That’s probably been the top achievement in 2 years of blogging! Did you read my FIWE 2018 report? Meeting like minded people and creating connections has been terrific. I could do more, of course, but with age I’m happily transitioning from extrovert to introvert and that’s ok 🙂
  • Improve my writing skills… I think I did a good job so far but to put things in the right perspective, in a scale from 0 to 100 I moved from 5 to 15. My English is poor, my posts lack a clear message (they’re kind of a mess) and the blog lacks a clear theme. Nevertheless I consider myself leveled up to a point where I am totally disgusted by my own early posts!
  • … And explore my passion for writing. When I started more than two years ago I didn’t know I’d like writing so much. Where “so much” refers to both liking and writing 🙂 I’m more convinced than ever that I want to keep writing!

Two years have passed and I’m still very passionate about writing and about reaching Financial independence. And I love my blog, this little creature I’ve created. I’m proud of my story, the investing series, my 101 posts (InteractiveBrokers, ETF, Swiss Pension System, FIRE), my financial updates and to some extent I’m proud of every single post I’ve written, even those who after a couple of years embarrass me!

But…

Wait RIP, what is this ‘but’? You’re not retiring are you? No no no I don’t mean ‘retiring’ retiring (that would be good for you!), I mean retiring from blogging. What do you mean with ‘but…’?

No, I’m not retiring from blogging! What the hell are you saying? And no no no I’m not ‘retiring’ retiring neither (yet)!

But… but I feel there’s something that needs to be changed in my writing sooner or later. Not today, not tomorrow, but one day for sure.

What are “the problems”?

I don’t really know but I have some internal signals and some objective limitations and pain points. Let’s list them.

I really like writing. That’s a fact! I enjoy the creative process, the research, the flow state of giving my thoughts a structure. It’s a form of meditation, of mindfulness. It stimulates my creativity, my curiosity and my “spirituality”.

Great, awesome! We really appreciate, RIP 🙂 Keep it going…

I don’t know if I still like blogging though. Wait, don’t jump to conclusion! Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t say I don’t like blogging anymore. Actually I think I do still like this form of writing, intimate and free. Plus, many of the motivations I listed above about “why I started” are still valid and the associate goals still challenging and super turbo awesome to aim.

But I’ve changed in the meantime, a lot. For example, I don’t care much about finances anymore.

Coooooome ooooooon RIP, you’re bragging every single month and you obsessively check your brokerage account 10 times a day!

Yeah, well, you’re right. Of course I still care A LOT about OUR finances! I care less about financial concepts, investments, discovering new things… I feel like I know everything I should know.

What I don’t know (that I would like to know) I can’t know right now, like “what it feels like to lose 50% of your investments on a recession”. That I need to experience on my skin, there’s no “research” that I can do today that could help much. Well, that’s not totally true: I’m training to keep greed and fear under control and I’m aiming to reduce volatility (and expected profits) for sanity of mind but that’s another story.

I also mean that I care less about actual FI numbers.

Hahaha you joking?? What’s the progress bar on your website? What about metrics and simulations, and safe withdrawal rate and saving rate and…

Yeah, of course I’m a nerd and I’m keeping up with the FIRE Joneses, but truth is that – like every blogger getting close to FI – I’m slowly realizing that there’s not sharp line between before-FI and after-FI. One day hopefully my blog progress bar will reach 100%, but let’s tell the truth: nobody uses the 4% rule. And I’m not talking about 4% vs 3% (or pi%) vs 5%, I’m saying that once you’re 70-80% done you could decide to be already 100% done. I’m in the “it depends” territory, where money and confidence are interchangeable. Nobody just saves 70% of their salary for X years and then stops producing an income and starts withdrawing 4% every year for 60 years. Nobody. Early Retirement is about pursuing your dreams, unleashing your creativity and so on. And if you’re smart enough to have built 70% of what you would need in the worst case financial scenario, assuming zero income forever, you’ll be ok, you can already “retire”. There are zero chances of failure.

So RIP, you’re ‘retiring’ retiring!! I knew it, I knew it! Good guy the old RIP, he likes to take tangents but he’s transparent like water to me 🙂

No no no I’m, not ‘retiring’ retiring (yet) and I’m not ‘blog retiring’… I’m getting confused! About the retiring thing I know I’m ~70% done, but our current ER hypothesis is not solid enough. Are we really going to retire in Italy? Will 3.5k EUR (minus a shitload of taxes) be enough for a family of 3, with a not secretly hidden desire to grow to 4 or 5?

So I’m not retiring (yet). Plus I have the luck of working for an amazing company, on problems affecting billions of users, being compensated with extreme generosity. So, no rush (for now). I just want to reinforce the fact that even though I’m not FI yet, I could be leanFI, baristaFI, semi retired, FlexibleFI (love this last one!) if I wanted.

Ok, got it. Then what? Just keep working and keep blogging! Everything is awesome and the sky is blue!

As I said, there’s something wrong, and I think there’s something wrong between me and this blog. I think I’m going nowhere. At least I’m not building anything intentional with this blog, just flowing with the waves.

These are my perceived limitations:

  • This is just a personal blog. It’s focused on my personal journey and it’s too generic. I’m not focusing on specific topics, nor I am positioning myself as an expert of anything. I’m a scientist and a researcher, so it’s hard for me to stay on a superficial level of a not-so-complicated topic as personal finance. I’d love to be the go-to person, the world level expert of a specific topic instead of yet-another-jack-of-all-trades blogger with a personal capital referral link to sell. Fix Idea: choose a specialization (investing? career advice? personal growth?) and go all in.
  • It’s hard to relate to me. I’m here sharing my story and my journey but who can relate to me? I’m in the top 0.05% of the world by income. I’m not very frugal (but I kick asses). It’s easy to consider my case not interesting: “Yeah, that RIP earns a lot of money, I’d be already retired if I were him!”. Fix Idea: accept to only aim to a small niche of highly salaried professional (not a small niche though, at least in Switzerland). Else, stop sharing my journey and maybe pivot the blog toward a specialization like I said above. Or keep sharing my story and accept to not be relatable but rather a source of inspiration and a living proof that you don’t need to be Einstein to reach such a salary. Or get better at spending and become a saving rate super hero, a role model.
  • I’m not addressing a specific demographic. I’m not talking to Italians, nor to Swiss, nor to Americans. I’m not really useful to anybody. Fix Idea: Pick a demographic and become the go-to FIRE person in that demographic. Wanna be the Italian MrMoneyMustache? Grow a mustache pivot the blog in Italian language and address Italian specific FIRE challenges. Still “hard to relate to” applies here. Wanna be the Swiss go-to person? It’s ok to blog in English (maybe improve my writing skills a bit) and go deep into Swiss practicalities of Early Retirement. Do I want to do that? I don’t know.
  • I’m blogging anonymously. And I’d like to keep my private and public Identity separate in current scenario. But that’s going to be difficult going on. And I’m scared about the idea that my neighbors, maybe in south Italy one day, know that kidnapping my daughter is a winning lottery ticket. Bloggers at one point go public and reveal their identities. It’s close to impossible to stay anonymous for a long time, especially if your “popularity” grows. If I’ll keep blogging and being so transparent with my numbers I should aim to not grow in popularity. It’s a weird feeling and a paradox. One day I might want to monetize my blog and it’s hard without a face on it. But I don’t want my face on it. What the fuck! Fix Idea: There’s not an easy fix. If I want to go public I should obfuscate a lot of information and delete a lot of old posts or launch a new blog (and not connect it with this one). Or keep up with anonymity but keep in mind that I can’t grow much and I can’t keep anonymity for long anyway.
  • I write in English, not my primary language. I improved a lot, compared to my early posts, but I’m still somewhere in the 6th-7th grade equivalent range for the quality of my writing. I can’t be took seriously by native speakers, I can’t be published on worldwide scoped websites like rockstarfinance, I have hard time getting better at it since English language learning curve is mildly sloped at beginner level but get very steep at mastery level. Fix Idea: accept I’m a living joke or switch to Italian and accept I’ll be hated and trolled by the population least willing to learn something new in the world.

So there are problems and potential fixes, but I don’t like many of the fixes.

When I feel stuck at one abstraction level of my life, I usually step up and try to broaden my view and visualize my problems from one abstraction level above.

What do I like to evolve this blog into?

That’s a hard question, I’m not sure how to answer it. I want to have fun, feel useful, feel safe, learn more and meet people. Almost all the original motivations still holds true. Maybe the accountability one is fading a bit, and in open conflict with safety.

I have fun writing, so I want to keep writing. Learning more and meeting people is an almost guaranteed and pleasant side effect. What’s tunable is feeling useful. Being useful is not a binary yes/no checkbox. One can be incredibly useful to a small number of people or somewhat useful to a large population. It’s hard to be extremely useful to too many people.

And there’s another breakdown: useful for what? One can be source of inspiration, source of information, producer of services, driver of a right cause, entertainer and so on. Being useful is too generic.

Modern corporate bullshit language likes to call it impact. Having impact on something you find fun is great. An impact booster is working on something you’re also good at. I’m probably good at software development (someone is willing to pay me 6 digits for that) and I’m trying to check the “little impact on billions of users” box of the above mentioned impact spectrum with my daily job.

But that’s what’s making me feeling detached. I’d like to feel useful on a different scale with my writing and (eventually) with my financial knowledge.

So let’s focus on what I think “I’m good at“, in writing. I’m using your feedback over these 2 years as a guide. Thank you very much, my readers, you gave me a lot of positive feedback! Sadly, not much negative-but-constructive feedback: I don’t have signals about what I don’t do well and could improve. So ok, thank you all for your support, but I’d have loved something like: “yo bro, nice post but you always use too many parenthesis (and you’re posts are too long and boring, and your not good with pronouns and the verb to be). And never start a sentence with and. Or or“.

So, according to my perception and your feedback, I believe I’m good at:

  • Storytelling. I act in theater, I read a lot, I’ve been a D&D Dungeon Master for two decades. I love telling stories, making regular things seem magic and magic things seem regular. I have so many sketched out but unwritten fiction books / movie scripts / novels. A recurring daydream of mine is to drop everything and write about my imaginary fantasy world. Will I give life to the next Westeros or Harry Potter? Role models: well, so many… Martin, Tolkien, Rowling, Gigax to cite some. If we want to restrict to the personal development/finance area: James Altucher. Storytelling feedback are the ones I appreciate the most 🙂
  • Entertaining. Again, I’ve a deep desire to become a stand-up comedian, or comedy movie Screenwriter or just an actor. I think irony is very hard to express in a language that’s not your native one, but why not give it a try? Role models: Bill Hicks, George Carlin, Scott Adams, Douglas Adams, Michael Stevens. In the personal finance community… well, entertaining posts are not very popular, but I loved the livingafi blog (which is not updated since a couple of years) and his nerd humor. Go binge read it! Anyway, entertainment and storytelling get very well along together. Just… not in finance. Or did I just found an unexplored niche that I now have the duty to claim as mine??
  • Futurizing. Ok, I just received a coupe of nice feedback on a post about technologies I think will be dominant in the near future. And on another one about how I imagine ideal future communities to look like. That’s more of a desire of mine than actual proven skills. But still. Role models: Tim Urban, Elon Musk.
  • Popularizing. Bringing complicate topics to the masses. Become a financial evangelist. Give people who think “investments are too complicated” tools to get rid of their biases and go explore the topic themselves. That’s a mission of mine, since I also really love teaching. Potential outputs: a personal finance/investing course, a petition to teach personal finance in school, bla bla bla. Role model: MMM. Pete didn’t invent FI, but he reached the masses more than, say, Robin & Dominguez (who did an amazing job too).
  • Curating. Produce useful manuals out of available but sparse resources. Like I did for IB, ETFs, Swiss Pensions. Those posts I just mentioned are among the most visited on my blog. I think i’m good at. I’m rigorous enough, I know which “dumb question” a reader might have, I try to put myself in other’s shoes. I think that’s a quick way to some sort of blogging success. Just not very funny, could get bored pretty soon. I don’t have a role model here. I appreciate the material from J.D. Roth, Mad Fientist and my buddy MustachianPost but I don’t see a killer app here.
  • Researching and producing original content. Again, I don’t think I proved to be consistently good at this, but the only article that got somehow viral in my blog was in this category, about market timing. It took me a lot of time but it was a fun journey. And I think it’s the category with more potential of having impact. On my defense, I’ve been a researcher more than a decade ago and I still am and always be a lifelong learner. Research is in my veins. Role models: Michael Kitces, Robert Shiller, Karsten (Big Ern).
  • Philosophizing and talking about the Two Chief World Systems. Ok, I’m a total lie here (for now). Never proven any skills. But I’m getting more and more fascinated by philosophy. Not only ‘philosophy’ philosophy, more about philosophy of life, how to live well, happiness, peace of mind, contentedness, mindfulness, awareness and so on. I have the ambition of completing my “Life Lessons” and “Life Philosophy” documents. Role models: Philo Sofer, Ryan Holiday, The Stoics (both Greek and Romans), Wayne Dyer, Mark Manson, Yuval Harari, Alain De Botton and hundreds more.

Of course, being good at X doesn’t mean I’m actually good at X. Wait, what did I just said? Brainfucking! I mean, by “I believe I’m good at X” I intend “I’ve shown signs I could be good enough to have an impact at X. Probably in a scale 0 to 100 I’m somewhere between 5 and 10, but if I focus on X I can reach 20, 30, 50 or even 100 (just to discover that the scale doesn’t end at 100 but at least at 1000. And stop using parenthesis!).” I’ve never been a real writer, so better to approach the thing with a six pack of humility and a beginner attitude.

Now what?

I don’t know.

I’m going to stick for a while with this blog, still same format (which is a mix of too many things), still chasing my 100% (arbitrary) FIRE Date, still documenting my journey.

But I know things are going to change sooner or later. I won’t stop writing, I might just pivot or evolve or I don’t know.

Actually I really don’t know. I’m in the middle of a 74 days paternity leave from work and life is amazing these days. I’m spending time with my family and swimming in rivers, lakes and swimming pools. I should also be focusing on resolving my midlife crisis and finding out how to evolve my passions like this blog but I’m chilling out more than expected 🙂

Stay tuned, and let me know what you think!

Have a nice day 🙂

23 comments

  1. Hey RIP – congrats on making it to two years!

    I love your posts and can relate – there are quite a few of us out here that make decent money and hence have high savings rates.

    And your English is fabulous – you are mocking us by putting the only mistake in the paragraph about your English being poor right?

    And I’m intruiged to see what you have planned for the future.

  2. I love reading your posts. Do you know why? Because you are genuine, authentic, real, straightforward and extremely informative regarding FI without being overly complex. I enjoy your no bullshit guide to things, and yes, you are also funny!

    With that being said, I’m not sure any of these characteristics will get this blog far in terms of being “famous”. People seem to prefer the superficial “buy the dip, make money by investing in the hooli stock now!” blogs/posts rather than a truly genuine “buy boring index fund” posts.

    Anyway, follow what you love to do, because ultimately, that’s what will enable you to enjoy your life. But happiness.. Can it ever be be found in the ephemeralness of this world? What we truly want at the end of the day is to be happy. That’s a clue to look inside, and not money, not work, not FI, etc, can unveil it; only deep inner work can solve that ultimate existential mystery.

    Cheers.

  3. Dear Mr RIP,
    i should have taken more notes while I read this post. I actually opened notepad at some point to copy in some parts that I want to comment about.
    You’re articles are quite f*cking long… did you notice? 🙂
    So…
    “with age I’m happily transitioning from extrovert to introvert”
    – seriously? Mr RIP, do you know what an introvert is? That’s the bloody opposit of you 🙂 I heard you talk man 🙂 Anyway. I like your style of “introvert” hahah

    “I can’t be took seriously by native speakers, I can’t be published on worldwide scoped websites like rockstarfinance”
    – and who the f*ck cares? Do you want to be big in New York? Is that missing from your life? There’s enough good stuff to do and people to reach on the good old continent, if you listen to me…

    “But I know things are going to change sooner or later. I won’t stop writing, I might just pivot or evolve or I don’t know.”
    – there’s nothing wrong with changing the stuff you write about. There’s nothing wrong in evolving. In fact, it’s natural. It should be at least… I know the feeling. I think we’re going through very similar though processes…yet again. I feel like you’re kinda paniking because of that, or worried? But why?

    Generally, I think blogging shouldn’t be about “having” to write because people expect you to write a post twice a week. I write whenever I feel like sharing something. I write about stuff I feel like writging. You can distinguish very very quickly a blogger who writes because he feels like having to write fomr one who genuinely wants to share something valuable with you.

    Impact. Do something your good at to have an impact. This is the guideline I’ve got to as well not so long ago. In my case it’s a process. A quite satisfying process. A process I would call a meaningful, happy life. It doesn’t mean I’m super-happy-all-the-time. I’m super happy that I have the time to try do things that make sense, that could have an impact.

    Through FIREhub I hope we can find eachother, meet eachother and do meaningful stuff together. I strongly believe in the power of a good community. We could do so much more if we work together.
    We’re at the beginning but ideas will come and we’ll have the time to just DO SHIT.

    1. I’m “Italian introvert”, which is like L size of American T-Shirt (XXXXXXL in Japan) 😀
      Thanks for the feedback bro, I really appreciate 🙂
      I’m not panicking though, I’m just asking questions of the kind “where do you want to digitally be in 5 years?”
      Those are nice problems to have, better than “how the fuck do I find food before I starve??” 🙂

  4. Our friend Elmar, fighting with WP Spamshield, sent me this private message intended to be a comment to this post:

    Don’t make the assumption that this blog serves only one unique type of readership. You can and should literally do with it whatever you want. People come here not to learn about your latest financial stats but to be entertained. They either get you or they don’t. I like your writing style. To be honest I don’t expect to learn much on the financial side of things here anyway but that might be different for others. Your situation is just too narrow and special to apply to a bigger audience … an audience that is small in itself due to being the FIRE niche. I do think you need a core thread but that could weave and evolve around your passions. If you structure it clearly (aka categories/ tags) it should be easy for specialised readers to only read the content the you are interested in.

  5. Others have commented in a more eloquent way the message: “Please, don’t stop blogging”. There are quite a few reasons why we want to read more posts. They are informative, fun, inspiring and more.

    I understand your need for change. It is part of the human nature. For that reason, you may find interesting a book about economics that presents a different model compared to the dominant one, that is the efficient market hypothesis.

    I would suggest you read the adaptive Markets by Lo. It is not a random persons ideas. He is a professor in economics. Anyway, the point is that he presents an alternative model. You may disagree with it, but it will definitely spark some thought. In the book you will read him touching many different fields (neuroscience, biology, economics, etc). I would really like to see some posts inspired by that book. The ideas he presents are not popular yet, and you may find it interesting an argument based on scientific approach why EMH is useful as a first order approximation but has many limitations.

  6. Hi Mr Rip,
    I’ m writing my first message here after reading all your 87 posts in this great blog.
    You was an inspiration for me, just open a blog of mine after reading here and others Firers, I hope to reach 1% of your success and fluence in english as italian native like you.
    I learnt a lot about fire here, love check new posts, always an amazing experience read your storytelling of how to be one day free.
    Thanks for all.
    Matt

    1. Hi Matt, thank you for your supportive message 🙂
      I read all your posts and… congratulation for your own adventure!
      Happy to be a source of inspiration, that’s one of my goals 🙂

  7. Dear RIP,

    I have absolutely loved reading your blog and find it extremely relatable. Being an immigrant in CH also, we have been actively pursuing FI for 3 years now and are almost exactly at same figures as you. For us, it has been difficult to find non US blogs with high income earners, so coming across your blog 1,5 years ago has been such a joy 🙂 I especially love the blog pieces where you evaluate your own feelings and goals in terms of life and FI, it is a pleasure to read such reflections and watch you get closer to ”freedom” (not only in terms of financial but also state of mind where u start exploring all kinds of options and don’t limit yourself to one kind of FI anymore). Enjoy your paternity leave!

  8. Hi RIP,

    Im a German FI blogger, working for a German based kind of “Hoolie” corp. and just arrived back in Europe from a five year expat stint in den US with my family.

    I really like your blog and I think I read every article from top to bottom.

    Its very interesting to follow your personal development and I think most of your readers like that and feel that your are authentic.

    Regarding your plans after FIRE I was thinking since many months that you will develop internal conflicts for going back to Italy (or not).

    From what I read on your blog you are a goal getter and pulling through challenging stuff and the prospect to retire to a calm South Italian beach with not much going on and your neighbours complaining about nuances in their italian life can (and maybe will) be challenging.

    I think you have some work there to do, which means your readers will have the chance to go through this process together with you. 😉

    Questions like:
    – What are the pros and cons for each place/country you consider to live after you quit your corporate stint?
    – How will your family and especially your kids be affected from the decision you make?

    From my personal perspective this geographic decision is not easy to make in Europe.
    We europeans can theroretically live everywhere on this continent but life conditions vary dramatically.

    When you have good ecomonic conditions (like Switzerland and part of Germany) you are often suffering high cost of living and also mostly grey weather and a general population that doesnt support a more laid back lifestyle.
    If you choose a place like South Italy (or South Spain that Im laying my eyes on), you nailed your costs and also the weather part but will you be happy with the people around you and especially will your kids be happy and can you provide a challenging environment for them there?

    From my experience this process is more easy to do in the USA. There you can choose your desired climate and location and the conditions across this continent are much more similar than in Europe where taxation, politics and personal outlook of its population vary greatly.

    Im basically FI but will continue working for a few more years (probably in Germany) until I made my homework where I really want to life and where I can provide best for my kids in terms of a good environment.

    I would love to continue reading your personal progress and I wish you a fantastic day!

    Machinist

    1. What an amazing comment, thank you so much, even just for the effort you put on it!
      The amount of people telling me they like to follow my “thoughts evolution” is my biggest surprise. More than posts about investing and 101s.
      Authenticity. As an Italian writer and thinker I like says (Simone Perotti): “Authenticity is not ‘be yourself’. I’m always myself, it’s a moot statement. Authenticity to me means trying to look and behave like the idea you have about yourself, i.e. what you are not yet but you could become if you try hard enough” (liberally translated from Italian by me).

      I agree on the analysis we need to do before moving back or moving elsewhere. It’s a matter of comfort vs freedom. But the problems you arose (being close to negative people and lack of opportunities for children) are real and part of the discussion.

      Thank you again Maschinist, welcome to retire in progress 🙂

  9. Dear Mr. RIP,
    Thanks for reflecting your thoughts on this article, I have been following your blog for 6 months and I find your story is very close to my current situation, I do appreciate the sincere honest sharing of the financial wisdom and FI journey experience. I hope you continue to blog and continue to enrich the FI European Community with your experience.

    Regards,

  10. Hey RIP, I just found your blog. I have been reading personal finance blogs for almost ten years now (so my opinion should matter haha). One thing I notice is that after about two years tons of bloggers fall off the face of the earth. I assume it is because after about two years you have a well oiled machine and you don’t need to work hard to make sure you stay on track. Writing seems to help keep everyone on track.

    Also, it seems like bloggers think they keep repeating themselves and think they constantly need more material.

    I have never written a personal finance blog and I can tell you, I don’t get bored of reading the same stuff over and over. It helps me to stay motivated on my journey. I also love finding new bloggers because a lot of the ones who have been doing it for awhile no longer talk about themselves and the posts aren’t that personal.

    I am not sure what my point is but you obviously needed to know my thoughts.

    1. Hi Brandy, welcome to retire in progress 🙂
      I guess the 2 years mark is kind of due to 1) lack of things to say (not my case), 2) natural millennials human tendency to get annoyed with things after a while (not my case), 3) lack of “returns” after a huge investment (not my case).
      In the FI world there’s also the “boring middle” that makes things worse. Once you’re over the initial excitement of discovering FI, you have to endure years (or decades) to see it happening. Sometimes it’s demotivating and people quit.

      Thanks for stopping by!

  11. I enjoy your blog immensely, who care that your are not a English native speaker I’m not either. If you had written in Italian I probably wouldn’t have find you and if I did it would have probably taken me twice the time to read the article….
    Also I can relate to you, because frugality in Switzerland doesn’t depend only on your income. As a middle class income couple we don’t reach your number but we are working hard to reach your expenses.

    1. Thank you Maxine, your words are pure energy for me 🙂
      I’m curious about your expenses breakdown. People usually ask me “how can you spend so little on groceries/housing/transport”?

  12. Hi RIP,
    I have just found your blog and I CANNOT STOP READING.
    I don’t think I fall in your target audience (as a mid-class Italian girl – who somehow happens to be good in saving money, but that’s it) but I will say this: when you have something meaningful to say, and the ability to say it in such a beautiful, touching way… you win hearts. Mine, for sure.

    I feel the same limitations you cited for my own blog: I don’t have a specific target demographic, I’m too personal, people cannot relate to me, I should focus on only one topic for my content…
    But – in a very strange way, I admit – your blog is so great that made me feel more confident of my own skills.

    If YOU have doubts of the usefulness of THIS blog, maybe – maybe – I can have the same doubts and be useful to some other people too.

    You write great content. My favourite so far is this one: https://retireinprogress.com/how-i-track-my-finances-using-spreadsheets-part-1-why-and-what/. Every single word from “Measuring is good” to “And all started with awareness.” blew my mind. I had to read it out loud to my boyfriend – as all best things, we cannot keep them to ourselves.

    You are very useful. If you are having fun, don’t stop writing. This blog is the best I read in a long time.
    Have a nice day!
    Michela

Leave a Reply to Inkku Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Comment Spam Blocking by WP-SpamShield