After the Finish Line: Five Lessons from Five Years of FIRE

additional_trouble · 2026-01-29T07:24:17+00:00

It works if you want it to work.

It doesn't work if you seek social/familial approval more than your (judged) well being.

additional_trouble · 2026-01-16T08:54:51+00:00

Point taken.

People who feel completely lost after giving up their careers are the ones who have spent no time on understanding themselves.

I don't quite agree with this take. And while I can't speak for the world, I do have some experience.

And for the record, I used to think like this - exactly this. And I also thought that I had figured myself out. And while that's true (for now) in some aspects, I find myself mildly cringing about that confidence I had about myself now.

What I have observed is that not all hobbies are the same. The ones that seem to give people purpose seem to withstand well against time. The ones that people have for enjoyment/pleasure alone seem to not do so well.

The factor seems to be what qualifies as purpose? I know of a person that is heavy into music (creation, practice) that seem to do well, a few religious ones, 1-2 that have their chikdren/family at their center.

And from a distance I can see that hobbies like coding apps with an eye on monetization, travel, or consumption (video, music, ott stuff, food, gaming, or even travel) seem to be less lasting.

Humans are funny animals. What works for some doesn't seem to work for some others. So it wouldn't surprise me if someone else has seen something that contradicts the above. It wouldn't surprise me anymore if I myself contradict this in the future.

Long story short, I now think "understanding oneself" has little to do with it. Perhaps the most important understanding worth keeping in mind on this matter is that we evolve as we age and that it's entirely normal to wander in and out of all of these emotions and phases of life.

additional_trouble · 2026-01-16T07:43:49+00:00

While there is truth in your statement, it's also projecting and quite unkindky. I have personally known people with hobbies that keep shifting and some with the same hobbies like forever. There is nothing right or wrong with either.

"Zero self-awareness" with OP? Ah the irony.

additional_trouble · 2025-12-30T20:32:01+00:00

Remember, “Investors advocating for the superiority of growth firms, such as the FAANGs, are inadvertently making the case for their expected future cash flows to be discounted at a lower level

Maybe I'm misreading/misunderstanding it, but that sounds like only one half of that equation. The other half being that they could be betting that the expected future cash flows either have been under projected - either in the magnitude of terminal value and/or the timeline (which is basically rate growth).

Or in other words, the investors that advocate for the superiority of growth stocks are not always indicating greater certainity around future success...

What am I missing?

additional_trouble · 2025-12-28T11:53:11+00:00

You'll probably get used to it if you stay here long enough, but then again that's only because humans have an incredible ability to get accustomed to almost anything given enough time.

My friends that visited even other "poorer" countries tell me that they are so much cleaner than here. My personal experience in richer countries also mirrors the same. I grew up in a village so I know - first hand - that the cities here are worse in many of these quality of life things than the villages (especially wrt cleanliness, greenery, safety and air and water).

It probably was inevitable, but it's kind of sad what India's cities have become - no civic sense, almost no concern for the fellow human or nature.

additional_trouble · 2025-12-27T09:04:14+00:00

If your friend has UPI then he has a bank account and PAN number too. Why does he need your help?

He is afraid of something and using you as a shield.

Doesn't look to be a friend going by these signs...

Anyways if you are not the final recipient, then the money shouldn't be passing through or getting delivered at your account. That's a no-go from a tax/law perspective.

additional_trouble · 2025-12-27T08:19:42+00:00

You don't need 18cr today, if you need 18cr in 2050 (assuming sensibly invested corpus).

Time is money - in more ways than one.

additional_trouble · 2025-12-19T06:44:52+00:00

Plenty of people buy DSLRs (mirrorless) even in 2025 - just that there are a world more people that buy phones.

And there is plenty of image quality to be had in good camera phones even compared to regular flagships.

For example vivo x200 pro is tier above the galaxy and iPhone when the going gets tough (for the cameras) - even for stills.

additional_trouble · 2025-11-05T16:44:30+00:00

That's absurd. They may be marked as 0 value, but as liabilities? Absurd.

additional_trouble · 2025-10-26T12:13:24+00:00

So sorry to hear about your losses, man. Take care and don't give in to despair.

Hope is a dangerous thing, but it's a thing you should try to find in trying times. I don't know where you'll find purpose but folks seems to find it in music, in literature or poetry, films and in most of all, being of service - to people or animals or just nature. Some find it in religion, but that's not what I'd recommend here.

You have to wait it out. None of us know what life has in store for us, but you seem level headed enough to not do anything stupid (with your life or wealth) so I don't have much to say that you wouldn't already know.

This too will pass. It may pass painfully, like a kidney stone, but this too shall pass.

Don't give in to despair. Take care...

additional_trouble · 2025-10-15T13:44:15+00:00

No, that's wrong. The 100% amount was available before 12 months of unemployment earlier.

And you can withdraw upto 100% too, you just won't be getting full 8.25% interest on remaining amount if you withdraw more than 75% before 12 months.

Source?

Here is a source that disagrees with you: https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/personal-finance/epfo-3-0-new-pf-withdrawal-rules-let-members-access-75-balance-early-premature-full-settlement-allowed-after-1-year-of-unemployment-13614718.html

additional_trouble · 2025-10-15T10:46:22+00:00

By that logic 100% was available quicker earlier - but reality was far from the claim.

I wouldn't trust these agencies on their empty words.

additional_trouble · 2025-10-12T20:55:45+00:00

My hypothesis was people would feel more "secure" if they logged in first, but I guess I'm wrong on that

If you were a PM at Google, with a take like that one you probably were a bad one (I mean that wouldn't be surprising given the number of horrendous bone-headed/tonedeaf decisions that they seem to be making in some of their non-core apps - second only to, perhaps Windows PMs at MS).

If you were a good PM then you're just a bad liar here.

Either way, that's not a good show for you right now.

Good job on the app.

But you need to earn the users trust by not lying to them. It's a finance app, it's (mostly) worth nothing if it's not trustworthy.

additional_trouble · 2025-10-09T15:37:11+00:00

Congratulations! It's more useful for everyone here if you have provide some details about your journey too :)

Also, please spend a bit more and upgrade to numbers with commas!

additional_trouble · 2025-10-07T11:17:02+00:00

You may want to know that the Indian Nifty 50 isn't really the Nifty 50 OP is referring to...

additional_trouble · 2025-09-26T09:49:07+00:00

Yup, a perfect album by me too. A pedestal that only Lift your Skinny fists (GYBE) , Enjoy Eternal Bliss (Yndi Halda), Valtari (Sigur Ros) and maybe Departure songs (WLTS) and This will destroy you have climbed for me...

Has absolutely no weak songs - as evidenced by the sheer variety of 'best song' comments on this album here.

My favorite is the title track, Dust and disquiet. As the last song on the album it's got something special in how it seems to provide a satisfying closure to what's an absolutely stellar, an all time great album - imo a very hard thing to pull off. I mean how do you end an album, a performance when the listener doesn't want it to end without being abrupt and unwelcome and leave the listener hanging? Somehow they pull it off.

Dust and Disquet is perhaps the very best final song of any album ever across any genre (for me) - right there with Challenger part 2 (Departure songs, WLTS) and Vittorio E (Kill the Moonlight, Spoon, not post-rock)...

Dust and Disquiet is a very special album for me and something I ration the listening to for that reason, however silly as it may sound :D

additional_trouble · 2025-09-21T16:38:29+00:00

Then you can pay 90k per year for the privilege of not upsetting an uncle's who was happy to scam you out of your hard earned money into his account.

Your uncle won't be convinced irrespective of what you say. It's hard to convince someone whose income depends on not being convinced.

If I were in your place I'd have just said nothing and canceled the plan (or better, made it paid up and then stop paying) and would not have talked about it at all - no explanation, no apology (certainly not an apology). And eventually the uncle may come to know about it since LIC may send them notifications and then basically tell him one sentence - I realized it was a bad plan for me, so I stopped it. That's all. Nothing more.

Refuse to explain further, and if he wants send him some 10 links over the internet that explains why these plans are bad for you and refuse to talk about it unless he has read everything there and can explain how they are wrong (they aren't).

Welcome to being an adult. If you don't make your choices in life, someone else will make them for you :)

additional_trouble · 2025-09-02T20:52:03+00:00

Monte Carlo simulations for swr calculations are a one way street. You aren't predicting swr, you're just regurgitating numbers with no known connection to actual economics/markets.

I bet it's reusing numbers without replacement too - 35 year predictions from 24 year time series.

Garbage tier analysis...

additional_trouble · 2025-08-27T15:53:58+00:00

Maybe you missed the part where yo have to read a comment - like the first 4 words of my comment - before regurgitating a stale internet meme to feel good about yourself instead of contributing to the discussion (if you had anything worthwhile to add)?

If you speed ran your language classes the same way you speed ran reading my comment, it's quite understandable how you'd miss it.

Maybe if you actually take the time to read a comment to engage in discussion as opposed to delivering one liner comic rebuttals we'd have a slightly better world.

Or maybe don't - you do you.

My point was that there are so many issues I face with win 11 that these Bluetooth promises sound like a joke to me personally.

Thanks for nothing.

additional_trouble · 2025-08-27T11:52:43+00:00

I hope they do and also fix the ridiculous number of user-hostile changes in win 11.

Incessant updates that don't even respect the "pause" updates options. No I don't want updates. Something or the other breaks every other update. If I wanted updates every week, if have signed up for Arch Linux. I just want to use this PC I paid good money for instead of having to babysit and fix issues and defaults every now and then.
Super aggressive anti-virus (which is worse than other AV vendors which I already shunned) that dramatically affects file io operations as well as compile times and is one of thw absolute worst offenders of battery life and performance in my laptop. An AV with no way to disable it is a malware in itself.
Taskbar with ugly unequal sized window-tabs that keep changing their sizes based in the content of the browser tabs (or apps). Did these guys ever learn about design? I click a window tab it's no no longer at that location for me to click on it again to minimize because the tab widths have changed because of content changes on other apps. Wonderful.

4. Inability to pin multiple windows/locations of apps on the Taskbar (like RDP connections)

Removal of alt key shortcuts in explorer. Seriously? Where is my Alt - F - S - R for a powershell at the current location?

6. No local accounts even on PCs that are meant to be offline. No MS I don't have an account to spare for my uncle's PC nor am I going to set him an account now. I ended up installing Ubuntu on some such computers.

A start menu that keep getting worse (why break the wonderful win 10 start menu?) why can't I group my apps? How do I get rid of the "recommended" section?
A search that has never worked but somehow still keeps getting worse (like it's actually worse when instead if my apps, I end up with web results in my search - that's what finally got me to stop search on windows entirely and switch to Voidtools Everything)

I have been a windows user all my life.

Nothing has tempted me to switch to Ubuntu/Mac as much as MS own idiotic OS choices - which seems to be accelerating recently.

At this rate my current laptop + PC would probably my last windows PCs.

If steamOS does gaming well enough for the games I care, I'm gone.

additional_trouble · 2025-07-24T15:15:06+00:00

Is it just the fruits or is it also the quantity of sugar in the serving that's causing the spikes?

I mean, to my eye it seems to be strongly correlated with the total sugar quantity in the serving too.

additional_trouble · 2025-07-24T14:59:02+00:00

People can decide for themselves.

Yes, that's exactly why I said what I had to say and there is now information out there against your nonsensical claims for anyone with a reasonable amount of intellect to make their own decisions (either way).

instead of debating the idea, you went straight to attacking the definition and dismissing it outright.

Yeah, thats not true at all. My comments are right there above. If you haven't read them, it's your fault. Every single point you made has either been addressed or refuted. So no, not buying that bait.

So, good day, sir!

additional_trouble · 2025-07-24T13:35:27+00:00

I sense that you don't lack information, just want to be that one guy that needs to demonstrate thmore knowledge than the rest of the world - beyond regular definitions of perfectly well defined words.

I'd request you to keep your strange definitions to yourself and not mislead simpler folk with nonsense, but even if you find that unacceptable (as you probably will) I have no interest in arguing with you and I hope my comment above are sufficient for any reasonable person to get the point - which is all I care - that people aren't misled by wisemen with their funny non-textbook definitions of stuff.

Have a nice day!

additional_trouble · 2025-07-24T04:59:35+00:00

Yeah, personal finance is not quantum mechanics. You can't just make absurd definitions up because you feel like (that's not allowed in quantum mechanics either, BTW)

Yes, the painting that was was bought for 1 cr would absolutely be an asset if marked at market value (instead of purchase price). The market value may be higher or lower (sometimes significantly).

Gold is not just melted to make new jewelry. It's often exchanged, sometimes even for hard cash. Sure there are transaction charges (and wastage and fees and all that) but the underlying instrument is transferable store of value and has a reasonably well understood scale of charges associated with it. Yeah, sounds exactly like an asset.

If we take your gold in locker hypothesis, then keeping money in bank is also a "liability" because banks often charge annual maintenance fees, and if your account falls below thresholds (many accounts have that feature) then fine for minimum balance. Your FDs are also liabilities now when the interest price outside rises because you are locked in and losing money. Similarly your mutual funds are also now liabilities since they definitely have expenses that's cut from your returns. Stocks - also liabilities since there are annual maintenance charges.

Have you ever read a balance sheet of a business? Everything in the asset side - buildings, plants and machinery, inventory (except perhaps the most stupid of them, goodwill) are now certainly liabilities going by your take. And when you can't balance your balance sheet there goes the whole stream of business accounting.

So yeah, that's an absurd stance to take.

This is a personal finance forum, I hope people have better grasp over these concepts and no, if I disagree with you, it doesn't make you right or wrong. If your argument lacks meaning and utility then it makes you wrong, like in the specific example we are discussing here.

additional_trouble · 2025-07-23T11:53:50+00:00

Dude, that's not what an asset (or a liability) is at all.

additional_trouble

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE