I decided to write down my thoughts on the journey.
When did it started?
I first invested on my own (not borrowing other's accounts) in 2008. This was after I changed job from an insurance agent (sucked really bad at sales) to a bank call centre, then to a local sme company that published investment articles. I still remembered the scene that occurred. I had saved up 40k plus then and was thinking how to start. My elder system Y told me about POEMS and showed me how to do it. Then i saw a POEMs booth at the bus interchange. I grabbed and opened an account right away.
Before this, any investments were brought through my father, he had a few brokers in SG and MY.
What I did
I immediately went to look for stocks to buy. It was a scary period because the financial crisis was being played out and I wasn't very confident which companies would survive it. Nevertheless I bought some. My goal then was to invest 10k cash into stocks every year and my pay then was 2.4k. Take home pay was 1.9k and half of it were to go to investment.
If I didn't remember correctly, because I met YS and I started help him pay his car and his office rent, I didn't really meet my goal. His business was not good. His car was 400+, his office rent 1,200. I didn't have any savings and therefore used my savings to invest. His rent later was lowered to 800.
I remembered that my days were mostly spent on him picking me up after work, or I making my way to his office. We spent our time mainly eating dinner then he would fetch me home. Weekends were also like that.
His office was at Serangoon, then few years later shifted to golden mile tower.
Changed job
Seeing that I was not making much to invest, I decided to change job to my current job (13 years into this job). One of the reasons was that I wanted to buy a house for both of us to live in eventually. With this job, the increment and bonus per year was better than my previous job.
With whatever little I could save, I continued to invest.
2013 was another year where we moved together in a rented flat in Teban. YS closed his business then and I used the rent (from the office) to then pay the flat (1500).
Life was less hectic once we lived together. Days spent watching TV, going out for meals and occasion shopping. Even though the rent was high, but was very grateful as I had wonderful memories of our time there. Hard to say but the feeling was life was very easy, happy-go-lucky, place was convenient. I am not sure why was it because work was easy then and not so stressful?
FIRE
After I came across FIRE, I wish to aim for this. This became a goal but I realised it was not very hard for me to achieve it because I was the sole breadwinner. YS had retired.
All the monies for the house, car, expenses all came from me. After calculating, I needed 1mil to FIRE. It was not achievable. There were times I felt very down because I just couldn't get to this figure even if I worked my entire life.
Then came the barista FIRE, it gave me some hope that I could reach this as I am also not someone who can stay at home and do nothing. Then I recomputed the figures and realized I could reach Barista FIRE.
I worked towards this goal by aiming to plow 30-50k per year into investments. I reached my Barista FIRE figure in Aug-23. My dividends would be able to pay for 70% of my monthly expenses (not including YS med bill).
It took me 2023-2008=15 years to reach my financial goals. Sadly he is no longer around to enjoy the fruits of my labour. My greatest regret is that he can't see all this that I had silently worked for. I had wanted to give him a surprise by announcing that I can quit and spend my time with him cos I was too stressed up by work last year. Work had affected our relationship.
人算不如天算
If I could turn back time, I would choose to quit my job and enjoy my time with him.
