the goose

We are in the middle of Tim Ferris’ 4 hour work week right now. Tim puts a lot of emphasis on trying out some mini-retirements before you commit to the real thing. He has a good point. Why work for 40 odd years straight so that you can ‘do nothing’ when doing nothing might drive you crazy. Rather try retirement out for size before you get there. He talks about renting flash cars and buying the stuff you want on HP. Not what your average financial guru would proclaim – especially if that financial guru is hawking a pension product.

The book has us thinking though. Right now – we could up sticks and move to a lower cost economy and get by just fine thanks very much. In particular we looked at moving to a little known town in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. Priscilla’s folks are there and we could manage to live from the fruits of our online en devour there. From this perspective – it made me realise in a way we are already financially free. We can afford to retire. Its just a question of whether or not we want to give up the life-style we enjoy right now. In a way -our job now is to increase the number of places in the world we could retire in. Right now we’re limited to some fairly remote – but not at all unattractive options. The Finfacts cost of living index gives you a feel for what options are on the cards. If your monthly financial target is 5k / month – you can use the index to figure out what that translates to in other parts of the world. For example, 3k a month in Dublin translates to 2.5k in Algeria.