Newsletter nr. 1: What do you do after you're financially free?
I've missed writing.
Some of you know me already from the blog I had or from my earlier newsletter on Substack.
If you don't know me, let me give you a quick introduction and my journey to financial freedom:
In January 2018 I realized it was possible to escape the 9-5 rat race by saving almost everything from my 9-5 income and invest it in index funds.
I documented my whole journey on the blog with monthly updates. I started with a 40% savings rate, but for the last 6 months, before I retired, I had a savings rate between 90-95%.
In June 2020 I started earning money online (selling e-books and coaching)
In February 2021 I quit my 6-figure 9-5 job and wanted to focus on my Route2FI online business instead
What has happened since February 2021?
To be honest I've had a pretty hard time since quitting my 9-5.
Don't misunderstand me, it's a fantastic feeling to wake up every day focusing on what you want.
But there's a slogan that goes like this:
"The people who are driven enough to escape the rat race in their 20's or 30's, will get frustrated fast because not having a bigger goal will lead them to boredom"
I can relate to this 100%.
My plan was just to focus on creating content for my blog Route2FI.com, but I quickly realized that my motivation was gone. It didn't make sense to me to write about financial independence anymore, because after all, I was already there.
So I won't say I got depressed, but I have been a little down for some time. I am 34 years old, and I didn't know what to focus on anymore.
You can say I was institutionalized. Most of my identity was build up around my 9-5 job, and now that I was free, who was I?
So it was like starting all over again:
What do I want to do in life?
Who do I want to spend my time with?
How will I spend my time?
It was like I had to figure it all out over again.
So for the last 6 months, this is what I've been doing:
Creating content on Twitter for Route2FI and made a new e-book
Coaching other people on how to reach financial independence, how to make a successful Twitter business, and ghostwriting tweets for other people
Sold an apartment and moved to a townhouse
Traveling
Running a lot (150 km/month)
Started studying cryptocurrencies and blockchains in the university (I'm a student again!)
Met some cool guys in the Norwegian crypto community
Trading stocks and crypto (until Feb 2021 I was an all-in index-fund guy...times change!)
Stocks I've been trading: $AMZN, $AMD, $GOOGL, $FB, $PYPL, $SHOP, $ADBE, $ADSK, $MELI, $BABA, $SPOT, $SQ, $SNAP, $PINS, $NOD, $REC, $ARKK, $VOO, $QQQM
Crypto I've been trading: $BTC, $ETH, $SOL, $ADA
Trading NFT's (so far I've 2-4x the money on some collectibles, but also lost on one Gutter Rat I had). Overall I haven't earned on NFT's and the biggest reason for that is the ridiculous gas fees that are on the Ethereum blockchain. I paid $285 to buy a Moondog that was priced at $400 (embarrassing to write that).
Overall it's going pretty well with the trading, but the main drawback is that takes so much time. Constantly watching the markets, doing analysis, looking at charts, reading what the smartest people on Twitter think, etc.
I've tried scalping, swing trading, and position trading. I tend to enjoy them all, I feel like I'm in greater control when I scalp, but it's more peace of mind with swing-trading and position trading.
What's funny is that I've replaced my 9-5 with trading. I love doing it, but you can argue that this is in fact another form of a 9-5, right? :P
What does the future hold?
Honestly, I don't know 100% for sure, but I've recently started to dig deep into the world of crypto.
What most people hear about is Bitcoin, and it stops there. This is where it stopped for me too.
But crypto is so much more than that. Personally, I'm in love with Ethereum and think that Ethereum will flip Bitcoin someday. When? I don't know, but the potential for Ethereum is 10x bigger than BTC in my eyes.
Let's stop it there, for now. I'm going to deep dive into more crypto in this newsletter in the coming issues.