Forfatter: Loui Lam

I have been told that rowing is the only Olympic sport where we cross the finish line backwards. I don’t know if it is true. But I like the idea of doing something different than anybody else.

Our “Normal” Lifecycle

A traditional life would look something like this:

1. Get born
2. Go to school
3. Get an education
4. Get a decent job (For the next 50 years)
5. Meet a spouse
6. Get some kids
7. Buy a house (We can’t afford)
8. Buy a car (We can’t afford)
9. Going on expensive vacations or getting expensive hobbies (Because your kids left the nest)
10. Retire
11. Die

The main thing as the we get a ton of debt in our young years in order to pay for a vehicle and a place to live.

But why do we do that?

Is it just because everyone else is doing it?

An “Optimized” Lifecycle

What if we turned our life around?

And started to go backward? Just like in rowing.

Yes – we might ending up being the only ones doing so. But what if it makes more sense?

An optimized lifecycle:

1. Get borned
2. Go to school
3. Get an education
4. Work (For the next 5 years)
5. Semi Retire (Either work part time, or seasonal)
6. Do whatever we like (Travel, start a business, etc)
7. Meet a spouse and get some kids
8. Have a 5 year maternity
9. Buy a place to live (We now can afford)
10. Buy a vehicle (We again now can afford)
11. Keep working on projects we love
12. Die

Can you see the difference?

Just Get To The First 100.000 $

Aim for the first 100.000 $ as fast as possible. Then compound interest is going to make sure that you are going to be more than all right.

From there we can do several things with the portfolio:

No Withdrawal

Work part time, or seasonal. And enjoy that you don’t have to work all day.

In 13 years your portfolio will grow to about 300.000 $, and you can now withdraw 5 % of it (15.000 $) which should would do for a semi frugal person.

Withdraw 3-4% Annual

If we feel like working just a bit less, then we can start withdraw a little bit of the portfolio.

3 % annual will make sure we have some passive income. And that we are more than likely to increase that amount every year.

In 30 years your withdrawals will go from 3.000 $/annual to 7.000 $/annual. (Adjusted for inflation).

And our portfolio will be about 230.000 $ instead. (Adjusted for inflation)

Withdraw 5-7% Annual

We can also withdraw even more. If we really don’t feel like working. Maybe because we are on the road travelling most of the time.

By doing so we are risking the whole portfolio is going to vanish within a couple of decades.

And our withdrawals are less likely to increase from year to year.

If we withdraw 5.5 % annual, we will keep up with inflation. And should be able to withdraw about 6.000 $ annual every single year.

Which can make you live like a king in asia for 6-10 months.

After 30 years our portfolio would still be around 100.000 $ adjusted for inflation.

Freedom When it Makes Sense

It makes sense that we have all (or most) of the time in the world to do whatever we like when we are young.

When there is no kids around we literally take the bag, and go for journey tomorrow. And stay away for the next 5 years. If we feel like it.

Being Around Your Kids When it Makes Sense

The only thing kids needs when they are small is attention from their parents.

When they start in school, their friends starts to be more exciting than the parents. Slowly and steadily the will become more and more independent. And in 18 years they will more or less handle things themselves.

Being around our kids when they are 0 to 5 years is not only nice. But a necessity. They can’t survive without their parents at this stage. So why not maximize the time we spent with them when they are small kids?

Buying Stuff When We Have the Money

If we wait to buy houses and vehicles to when we have the money (thanks to compound interest) makes so much more sense.

Our portfolio should grow at about 7 % annual, while the real estate market will grow the rate of inflation 2-3 %. That’s why we theoretically should come out ahead in the real estate market if we have a medium size portfolio as young.

Vehicles are also getting cheaper every year. And with the environmental problems we have at the moment, I personal don’t feel like contributing to that, by buying a gasoline fueled vehicle.

Route2FI.com reached out to me the other day and asked if I wanted to do a in depth interview with him.

So I did.

He came up with some really awesome questions.

Take a look at the guest post here.

There is a lot of talk in the danish media at the moment about retirement age.

It seems like nobody wants to work till they are 75 years old. (Not even the politicians who makes the rules, and they retire way younger than the rest of the population)

I don’t blame them. Neither do I.

I want work for the rest my life.

“Oh my god?! What did Loui just say?! I thought he wanted to quit as soon as possible?!”

Furious reader

I took part in a documentary where a clever fella named Svend Brinkmann commented on the whole concept of trying to “retire” as early as possible.

He said:

“I don’t think that any people is trying to live a life completely unbounded from everything”

Svend Brinkmann

And I think he has a good point.

I’m an extrovert person. I love being around people. And I love being in exciting projects. The most important thing is that they cannot drain me.

My work needs to be fulfilling, fun and making a difference. And I would like it to be that all the way till the day I die.

Rethinking Work

Why does work has to drain? The vast majority of people I know think work is exhausting, and they would rather be free.

Why can’t we find work that gives our life purpose but without the stress, and lack of energy when we arrive home.

I think one of the major reason of why work is draining us, because we do it to much. Elite sportsmen doesn’t train 8 hours everyday because it doesn’t make sense. If you had to workout for 8 hours a day, the intensity and focus would be so low, that you would have way better results by training 3-4 hours/day. Then we can throw in some interval work, while we are super sharp on the technique.

And I can’t see why work should be any different from sports.

Imagine if you knew that you only had to work from 8 AM to 11 AM.

Would you work differently than you are today?

I think most of us would.

Rethinking Retirement

If you think about it.

Isn’t super weird that we work all of life, and then suddenly we don’t?

If we tell ourself that our work is so meaningful for our existence. That we need to do it for +40 years, why don’t we do till the day that we die?

As I said earlier. I can’t never imagine not being committed to something in my life.

I can still see myself as an 80 year old, fooling around in a rowing club (or something similar). Making sure that everything is ok.

How We Should Work

Let’s just take up work that makes us excited.

We don’t have to sit at desk for for 40 hours/week in order to make a change. In fact, every single one of us is replaceable. We don’t like to think it that way, but it is the truth.

So just take up work that sounds like fun. Do it for a couple of days each week. Or do it a couple of hours each day. And then leave the rest of the day with doing things you love to.

I look at the people who bring out food on their bike and admire their work. It looks like so much fun.

I really do think that we can have a work that we love. But I also think that doing the same thing year in and year out, for the vast majority of the day, can be killer to anything that we like.

In sports it is very acknowledged that in order to become better we need rest. And it needs to be good. The same goes for our working life. And there is no rest in working from 8-4, picking up kids, try not to argue with your spouse and then crash on the couch in front of the tv in order to “rest”, so that we can be ready for the next day.

Rest should be the majority of the time, not the 1 hour crash in front of the tv. In sports it is even normal to have a “rest season” after the olympics. I have never heard of someone who would take every 4th year off from work, just to have a nice time.

Let’s do that instead.

I love when people is hitting the head on the nail.

And I think that Jacob Lund Fisker really did that the other day in the FIREdanmark facebook group. And is worth sharing with the entire world.

FIREdanmark is a facebook group started by the danish blog Frinans.

That forum is a group of danish people who all have that in common that we would like to live our life to fullest. And claim our freedom from the rat race as fast as possible.

Jacob Lund Fisker is often answering questions in there, but this answer is really worth a blog post for it self.

People is asking a ton of different question, and the other day this question got posted in the group:

My wife doesn’t like the FIRE philosophy. How do I get her onboard with this idea??

And this is here Jacob Lund Fisker came with this awesome answer:

In general FIRE is about changing the mindset about being poor, which the middle class is borned and raised with. Where you income equals what you will be spending. Where social status is equal with how much money you make, and then connects consuming with happiness. Said in a different way, the middle class connects money with limitations. That’s why people is getting panic attacks/emotional whenever you talk about cutting back on spending, because they don’t see what things you are going to get by doing so.

It is a transition that can take many years before you resonate with it, because “You don’t know what you don’t know” when you only have the mindset of limitations. Especially when you are limited in thinking of freedom with what you can afford to buy and what you not can afford.

An example. I once walked by a car dealer and pointed out that I could buy the entire row of cars in cash. Most consumers buy their car on installment, so it was something that made an impression. That I had created an opportunity to buy a car in cash. A car bought with cash is more specific than the account number. Only few can imagine what a million is without having to translate it into something tangible such as 3-4 cars or 15 years without worrying about rent.

The example of the car works because it builds a bridge between poverty mentality and wealth mentality because one still connects a large savings into something that is consumption.

If you have come so far, then the next thing is to “install” a wealth mentality, where it is no longer about which plastic dimes or pleasures one can buy. But much larger “things” such as freedom from stress, freedom to stay where you want, freedom to work or leave, … a really good night’s sleep, time to make healthy food, etc. It is a whole different category than a larger TV or a house with three locks. It is a “mindset” where money is no longer a limitation. Instead, one’s limitation is what one simply has time and personal abilities to. And so it goes far beyond on what one can buy in a store, unless you are absolutely unimaginative. (Which most people are basically … but it can be changed …)

An example. Make one of the spreadsheets with lots of graphs showing how much your consumption is, how much you have saved, and how large your passive income is projected many months into the future from month to month. Highlight the dates when you can stop stressing over bills, downtime, start your own business, go down to zero time, travel constantly or just when you want (without waiting for vacation), stay at a beach hotel in Spain, volunteer in your union, buy houses in cash, change “career” to football judge or motorcycle mechanic, or take care of your children yourself instead of outsourcing. Do what you want with your life now.

Try to create it with different savings rates.

When you have talked enthusiastically about it for a few months … Then do the same for your partner with their numbers and some scenarios: if they save 10%, 50%, …

It is much more convincing to have a specific date in the head (their head) and a dream of traveling around the world or becoming the first Dan in Go … If they take it with poverty mentality, then they hear the limitations of how much / little they must shop, etc. instead of the enormous opportunities that open up in after April 2026.

The only way to “convert” people is simply “show, don’t tell” because otherwise you talk past each other, because of the difference in mentality. And do it quietly.

The biggest challenge is that people who are educated as consumers is not used to dream big enough. That’s what you can try to help them learn.

But remember that they have to dream their own dreams … not just take over.

Thank you Jacob Lund Fisker for such an AWESOME answer.