RIPFLIX

(Disclosure: links marked with an asterisk * are affiliate links)

Hi Ripsters,

This is a quick post about what’s going on in the RIP Empire Building.

It’s been a very intense March 2021 for me, and it’s not over yet!

Before we start, save the date: March 31st 2021: Live spreadsheet update on YouTube! 

Enjoy!

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RIP Tube

In March I’ve been blogging slightly less because I’m investing quite a lot of energy into my new adventure on YouTube: since the beginning of the month, on Fridays, I’m doing informal (low effort, low production quality) live streams in Italian Language on my channel. Four episodes so far.

I’m having a lot of fun 🙂

Subscribe to my channel here: www.youtube.com/c/MrRipYT

I’ve been talking about FIRE, Critiques to FIRE, Critical Thinking and more. I plan to keep producing a lot of content, mainly (but not only) in Italian language.

I know that both streaming quality and content quality can be improved by a factor 10x at least, and I’m working on it.

Anyway, in two days, I’m going to kick off a new monthly video series on my channel: End of Month Live Spreadsheet Updates (in Engrish language)! 

Possibly on the last day of each month at 10PM, I’ll update my spreadsheet live: importing expenses (I’ll also share my expenses doc, not shared so far on my blog), freezing currencies and securities prices, adding a new column for the following month (or initiating the new spreadsheet for the following year), all of this with my commentary, my analysis, maybe my plans.

These videos won’t deprecate the Financial Update Posts, but I will probably keep them much shorter and embed the videos in the updates.

Also, check out my post series on my spreadsheets to get some familiarity with the topic. At least the first episode about the “why” and “what” to track..

Here’s the first Scheduled Live Event on YouTube for Wednesday March 31st 2021, 10pm (CEST):

Mind that I’m still fighting with SLOBS, OBSS, bitrate, hardware encoders, and YouTube streaming keys… so maybe I’ll need to create a new live stream at the last minute and the above link won’t work. If you don’t want to miss it, I recommend you to subscribe to my channel, or check the channel home page for the actual live stream URL.

I will try to fix the issues in the meantime, but I must admit that YouTube sucks a lot for streamers. I’m kind of embarrassed by the product I worked on for 1.5 years as a Software Engineer…

“RIP?”

What?

“You said “on the last day of each month at 10PM”, right?”

Yeah! I’ll do m best to try to…

“…Even on December 31st at 10PM?”

Well… I said “possibly” exactly because some “last day of the month” I might be unavailable. 🙂

Anyway, the live stream events will be announced on the channel and on RIP News!

“RIP What?”

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RIP News

I’ve struggled to find the right medium for small updates and announcements about the blog and my activities for those who are interested.

I don’t like to write blog posts for that. I like to consider every blog post a potential “evergreen post”.

Communications shouldn’t be spammed on my RSS feed to anyone, including those who don’t care.

This very post, for example, is an example of a “communication” post. I’m ok with publishing it as a post because: (1) I’m announcing here the new tool I’m using for future communications, and (2) I’m bundling together several communications into a single post.

I’ve tried to use Twitter for comms, but it doesn’t seem to be the best tool for the job.

I’m currently using the “RIP News” section of my Learning Journal posts as a place where to bundle updates (and I kind of like it) but it’s not the best place where to announce timely stuff like “tomorrow I’m going live on YT to show you how I’m going to bet 500 ETH on a NFT that represents a screenshot of my Interactive Brokers account page!”

I’ve been suggested to start using Instagram for updates. You want me dead, seriously… (but I’m not completely getting this thought out of my brain, seriously)

I’ve also been recommended to launch a mailing list, but at the moment I’m not interested.

“So, RIP, how to get “interesting updates” about your life?”

I decided to launch a public Telegram Channel (broadcast group) called RIP News, handle newsrip (sadly ripnews was taken).

Join the channel if you want to receive updates about the activities connected with my blog, my YouTube channel, and more (communications, announcements, events, meetings, whatnot)

Join RIP News here: https://t.me/newsrip

I’m using both Italian and in English languages, according to the target audience.

Of course now people are asking me a way to comment and create topic-specific rooms, i.e. use Discord. You really want me dead…

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RIP Cast(s)

Meanwhile, I’m also experimenting with podcasting.

Actually not podcasting, just yet more videos. But with the intent of publishing them as podcasts as well. And more importantly with someone else who takes care of the productions stuff.

I’m a co-host of FIRE Mafia, a weekly podcast attempt in English Language with my friend Angelo Colombo, Italian, ~15 years younger than me, YouTuber and Personal Finance Blogger living abroad as well.

We allowed us to try 3 pilot episodes, then we’ll decide what to do with it.

We’ve published the first two so far, and we’ll record the third one later today.

We’re aware that using the term “Mafia” in a jokey way might not be politically correct and we don’t give a f we’re considering a name change.

I’m also becoming a “de facto” regular guest on my friend Giovanni’s “Una Birretta Con” (a beer with) interview series. We’ll try to go live more or less once per fortnight, on Tuesday evenings, in Italian language.

Giovanni is also a blogger/youtuber as well, my same age, with a lot of passions in common: personal finance, investing, lifestyle design, and lifelong learning.

Join us if you’re interested 😉

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RIP TV

“RIP, what do you mean by that??”

Haha no, do not worry, I’m not launching RIPFLIX (yet)!

I just wanted to share with you that I’ve been contacted by two Swiss Television Shows, both on RSI La1 (main TV channel in Canton Ticino, the Italian-speaking Swiss Canton).

One of them is Patti Chiari, and it’s one of the best TV show about personal finance in Italian language in the world! I’ve been contacted by Valerio, one of the authors of the show (who has an amazing YT channel about filmmaking btw) and we recorded a call that should go on air on Friday April 9th 2021, 9.10PM (in ~10 days). Valerio is doing a deep dive into the FIRE world, and I’m happy to be one of his guides – hopefully even after the show aired. Patti Chiari, Amicizia Lunga! (italian proverb) 🙂

The other one is Borotalk , a Talk Show. More entertainment than education, but I guess it will be a fun event! I’m going to record “in person, in studio” in mid April and probably going on air before the end of the month. I’m going to debate “Early Retirement vs Traditional Retirement”, I guess.

Both shows are in Italian Language.

I will publish updates on RIP News of course 🙂

…Now you can feel proud of paying the Serafe Swiss TV tax Subscription!

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RIP Book Club

The Book Club is not dead yet!

On Bookclubz there are 112 members, and some of them are slowly showing up.

I don’t have the bandwidth to handle it as I would like, and I’d be happy to have someone else take it over – or help me more.

But its existence helps me to keep myself accountable of reading at least a major book per month quarter.

I’ve announced somewhere (and now here, officially) that I want to read The Elephant in The Brain* as next book for Q2 2021 (check the Book Page for more resources).

I’d love to create time to extract notes from the previous book, Designing Your Life*, which I found awesome and life changing. But I don’ have the bandwidth for it. Here you can see my detailed notes on first two chapters.

I would also love to democratize the “next book” selection, and maybe move the book club somewhere else (on Goodreads?)

As you see, the book club needs a better leadership 🙂

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RIP Walking Group

The RIP Walking group is growing!

We’re 16 members in Zurich and we’ve met three times, at most 5 people together.

We can do better 🙂

This week we’re going to try to break the record with a Lunch Break in Werdinsel.

Well, there won’t be much walking, but if the weather keeps being so kind maybe… swimming?

Weird how just two weeks ago we walked on the snow, almost hunting deer in the hills while talking about ETFs and NFTs 😀

Contact me if you want to join us, this is a private Telegram Group 😉

Btw, a subgroup of the RIP Walking Group (which includes me) is taking running seriously, and the RIP Runners have born!

We run 2-3 times per week in late afternoon, in Zurich West. Come joining us 😉

At the moment we can run a 10k in slightly more than an hour. Not bad, given my current weight and age. My goal is to run a Half Marathon in September, hopefully below 2h this time.

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RIP Blog

Of course I’m still blogging, but I’m slightly slowing down these days.

Posts that I have on schedule in April/May:

• MLJ 14 (Monday, April 5th – checked!)
• 2021 Q1 Update
• Covered Call 2 (“howto” on IB)
• Covered Call 3 (my experience so far)
• Services Launch
• April Stretch Goal – Personal Finance Coaching Case Study
• MLJ 15 (Monday, May 3rd)
• Short Puts (what, how to, and my experience)
• Crypto Part 2.5 – The crazy (NFT)
• Crypto Part 3 – The good
• May Stretch Goal – Thought Experiment if I were DFV (I’m having a lot of fun writing it!)
• MLJ 16 (Monday, June 7th)

And of course I will never respect this schedule because: (1) I will want to talk about other things, (2) life will happen, and (3) I’m putting too much on my plate.

Stay tuned.

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RIP Job

“Oh RIP, this is disgusting!”

No, wait! Maybe you misunderstood…

“Ah, ok. Btw RIP you’re still working in the meantime, right?”

I’m in a kind of unofficial paid sabbatical until end of May 2021.

I feel very lucky and grateful, I keep meeting amazing managers after amazing managers. I’m considering not quitting and asking to switch to 50% instead, to be able to pursue both a research career, and a “content creator / writer / whateverer” encore career.

With 50% of my salary we will cover our expenses and coast FatFIRE. If I think about it I can’t help but feel immensely grateful: “we as a family could send 0.5 people to work (on a well paid dream job) and sustain our spending level (not extravagant but I wouldn’t call it cheap either) in one of the most expensive cities in the world forever, without having to touch our our nest egg, which is currently worth 18 years of today’s living expenses in Switzerland“.

Let’s celebrate! Here, have a beer:

A 50% research position could be the perfect place for our family in the FIRE Spectrum at the moment. But I must admit my content creator encore career is much more rewarding. And it’s where 95% of my creative thoughts are being directed.

I’ll think about it.

I know, these are amazing problems to have, I’m not complaining 🙂

Now that I think about it, in two days it will be a full year since I left Hooli/Google and apparently I’ve not:

• run out of money (NW increased by ~200k EUR since than)
• got bored (LOL)
• felt useless (never felt more useful than I feel today)
• felt disconnected (I can’t handle all the incoming requests today)
• missed the corporate environment (DoubleLOL)

Build your luck, guys.

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RIP What Else?

Sadly there’s only 24 hours in a day, and I’m working all of them.

Actually yesterday it’s been a 23 hours day.

Thank you daylight saving time for forcing me to prioritize away ~4% of my workload…

So I don’t have much time for anything that’s not in the above list (and family, and self).

But I’m having fun, so I’ll list here:

• ongoing things: low effort stuff.
• on hold things: to be resumed sooner or later.
• one day / maybe things: projects I’ve considered to kick off but don’t have bandwidth atm.

Ongoing Things

RIP Italian Translations

An amazing volunteer (Paolo Savino) is translating many of my posts into Italian language.

I’ve already published the Italian version of My Story Page (here the Italian Version).

Paolo is translating more articles than I can review, but we’ll hopefully be able to publish the most viewed post series (like the one on Investing, my story, and few selected others). Plus some static pages.

Things on Hold

RIP Services

I’ve launched the Mock software Interview service in February and I’ve already helped someone getting an offer from big G 🙂

I will launch the Financial Education service soon, and maybe the Career Coaching service.

I’m already doing this kind of work unofficially anyway.

RIP Inc.

I’m procrastinating on giving a legal structure to my activity, trusting the Swiss non-obsessive attitude toward business. But I can’t procrastinate any more. The blog is generating a low four digits amount of CHF per month, and I want to understand how to give this activity a legal structure.

I’ll do it in April, I guess.

RIP Digital Garden

I would love to publish a full Public Roam Database as my Digital Garden, with my notes on resources I read, watch, listen to. It’s a lot of work, and I’d happily do that. Problem is that I’m not taking a lot of notes these days. I’m also not “learning” much since early March… next MLJ will be much shorter than usual.

I’m doing more things (practical learning) though, and that leaves less time for book learning.

It’s a good thing, but I want to allocate some time to Curiosity-Driven Learning in the near future.

Things that “Maybe One Day”

RIP Headquarter

I regret not having rented one of the three offices available in my neighborhood a few months ago.

I should have gone for it 🙁

I thought they’d be available forever, desperate landlords lowering their rent prices… nope. I tried to time the bottom of the Work From Home market, and of course I failed. Now I’m on the lookout for it.

I dream about a shared “Noworking Space” with other FIRE seekers… time will tell, stay tuned.

If you’re interested in one day sharing an office space let me know and I’ll add you to my shortlist 😉

RIP Gaming

Another dream of mine is to kick off a recurring boardgame night, better if at the future Noworking Space.

Maybe, one day, we’ll Terraform Mars on a regular basis <3

RIP Stack

More than one people suggested me to move some of my content, like the MLJ, to substack…

I’m not going that way, but I keep thinking about it. I’ll leave it in the “maybe one day” category for now.

RIP Book(s)

I have 5-6 ideas for a book, including the “not dead in my heart” European FIRE Guide.

I don’t think I’m going to start writing a book until next summer at least, but this is definitely a thing I want to do in the future. More than once.

RIP School

I also want to launch some online courses, not sure I’m going to do it this year though.

But “one day” for sure!

Things Not in the Foreseeable Future

(everything could change tomorrow though)

RIP Forum?

I’ve been asked to create one, but no tanks.

In Switzerland, use the Mustachians Forum, it’s very high quality

in Italy use the FinanzaOnLine Forum.

RIP Quality Stamp?

I’ve also been asked to resume the Ufficio Antisqualo (Italian anti Fake Guru page), or at least maintain a list of entities that are “good”, like emitting a RIP Approved quality stamp.

Nope. Too much work.

I trust Fufflix by Germno Milite, and the new Scam Busterz effort (I can’t find a link guys, here’s the first live though) by Germano Milite (Fufflix), Claudio Michelizza (Bufale, Blastometro) and Alessandro Norcia (il Gatto e la Volpe).

RIP Certification?

Will I study for a CFA or CFP?

Not today.

RIP Town?

Haha no, I’m not building a village!

Or… am I?

😉

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That’s all for today!