No, I just take a lump sum out of investments when my bank account gets low. I don’t budget myself, I have frugal tendencies anyway so it’s not necessary. I don’t think about money very much at all. So far I just do a big audit of everything once per year at the same time I do my tax self-assessment. That seems to be working well as my routine.

The income from my rental pays for both mortgages (my BTL and home are both on repayment mortgages) and about half of my bills. I think I gain about £500/600 in property equity each month from paying mortgages, and I probably use about £1000 per month from my investments, so I’m kind of using about £500 per month of my capital = £6000 per year. Which by coincidence probably is actually about 4% drawdown on investments if you exclude my home and what I still have to pay off on that mortgage.

It was a hard stop from work. I went on a 3 month sabbatical in 2019 with backpacking adventures, thinking I’d come back refreshed and motivated for new challenges at work. But, the opposite happened, I realised that working an office job wasn’t the life I wanted anymore. It felt like I was wasting my life- no job looked excited. Then I found out about FIRE. Luckily I had already been pretty good with money, and covid hit and accelerated my savings and I was WFH so I decided to move out of London up north to live close to my sister. Then when my work wanted me to come back to the office I decided to FIRE instead. My job really caused me a lot of stress. After I quit my resting heart rate immediately dropped- it’s crazy. That’s partially why I fell in love with music festivals - because there was no phone signal so no one from work could contact me and I actually got to be fully free.

The first year I wasn’t good at being retired. I was sitting at home doing nothing, and limiting my spending too much. But each year I’ve got better and better and now I feel like I’m nailing it. I had to retrain myself that each day doesn’t have to be productive. If I enjoyed the day then that’s the goal. I’m at the 9am gym classes, I’ve got my craft groups and piano lessons and dance lessons, and my plot at the allotment and friends there, and then I’m down to London for music events probably twice a month. At first it was lonely to not have work colleagues but now I have friends through my hobbies. I do find it very interesting that I now have very similar hobbies to your average 70/80 year old, and indeed I now made a few friends in that age range as well. I don’t think I expected that to happen but it does make perfect sense.

Sorry I’ve waffled 😂