Hint of the day - One myth about eating healthy and organic - it is not so expensive as you think.

Myth: It’s too expensive to eat healthily

Why it’s rubbish: Ready meals and frozen food will cost more than if you bought the ingredients and made it yourself. Likewise, a banana or an apple is a cheaper snack than a chocolate bar or packet of crisps. Also, homemade meals can easily be spread over more than one meal, saving you even more money in the process!
Than why to go for the obvious unhealthy choice, especially if some long term research showed that over time we pay more in health bills than we would pay for healthy organic food ?

An international team of experts led by Newcastle University has shown that organic crops are up to 60% higher in a number of key antioxidants than conventionally-grown ones.
Analyzing 343 studies into the compositional differences between organic and conventional crops, the team found that a switch to eating organic fruit, vegetable and cereals – and food made from them – would provide additional antioxidants equivalent to eating between 1-2 extra portions of fruit and vegetables a day. The study, published today in the prestigious British Journal of Nutrition, also shows significantly lower levels of toxic heavy metals in organic crops.  Cadmium, which is one of only three metal contaminants along with lead and mercury for which the European Commission has set maximum permitted contamination levels in food, was found to be almost 50% lower in organic crops than conventionally-grown ones. Newcastle University’s Professor Carlo Leifert, who led the study, says: “This study demonstrates that choosing food produced according to organic standards can lead to increased intake of nutritionally desirable antioxidants and reduced exposure to toxic heavy metals. You can find more about this here.

Another approach can be found here, and the results were that eating organic cutting meat in the same time will cost similar to eating normal or GM food.

Dreaming about FIRE

Everyone got motivated in some way to start the journey to financial independence. Some want to spend more time with the children, some want to avoid 9-5 working hours. Some want more time to follow their hobbies. Me, i am dreaming about a time when i will not need to use the alarm to wake me up. When i was still a child i discovered something that changed me completelly. It is called lucid dreaming. It is an amalgam of techniques that allow you to do whatever you want in your dreams, once you become aware that you are sleeping. I was fascinated by the complexity and the results that i achieved. In your dream you can fly, you can have Marvel-like superpowers, you can treat your phobias in a controlled environment. You can do anything. But my newly gained abilities decreased over time, until they completely dissapeared, thanks to 17 years of working on shifts, mostly during the night time. The delicate balance that allowed me to do all that incredible things was destroyed, and i never recovered. So this is my reason. This is my motivation. 

I want to dream more, not only when i am awake, but when i am sleeping too. A world without alarm clock. This is making me to go forward. 

I am just curious, what is the reason behind your financiar independence dream?

Just complaining a bit... (US vs UK)

I never complain too much usually, but reading most of the US financial independence blogs, seems that in the States this FIRE stuff is a much bigger thing than in UK. I was looking around without any real success to find some equivalents for PersonalCapital.com, Digit.co or Acorns.com, just to say about 3 of them. What i am looking for is a solid, reliable and safe UK program or website to track all my profits/interests/dividends/expenses and investments over time, being it automatic or with a manual input. I found some of them, most in beta test, but they are covering only partially what i want to check. Until then i will use my old school Excel tabs, but i just got this brilliant idea that i probably know what i need, and i can ever help and support a project/app if someone want to start a collaboration. Anyone? (This could be a game changer in the UK FIRE planning, i feel it.)

Added 19.8.2015: At some friend suggestion, I will use MoneyDashboard.com, even if he do not want to recognize one of my cards. What the heck, i wanted to stop using that dodgy card, anyway. I will update you after some time.

How to became financially independent in ten steps - midnight story

When you just start on your way to financial independence, is usually a very personal choice. You want that! You get enough of a life behind the desk! You can do it! And you start the tenuous process of learning, the journey from the absolute beginner to glorious expert that can finally retire from "that" uneventful job because he/she just mastered the secret technique of the middle finger.
There are some steps, and you can follow them or jump over a few, depending on how fast you learn. Hint: there are so many others that already did the research, made all the mistakes and reach the final goal, so any clever person will study the Chosen Ones that are already retired very very early, by all means. And i know that you are clever enough, because you want to become a FI fighter.
Step 1: You heard about some strange people who were so lucky that managed to retire at age of 40, or even 30. Maybe they won the lottery.
Step 2: You are curious to find more, and you discover that not one of them was a lottery winner, but they just saved the money they needed for this. Must be some amazing people with hundreds of thousands as salary.
Step 3: You realize that they are normal people, on average salary, and they managed to save 50-80% of their monthly wages. How seems to be that 5% of your savings now?
Step 4: Still not believing, you start to ask yourself, if they did it, maybe i can do it too. This is the moment when you start reading about everyone and you will find that this is a modern trend followed by many, and a lot of people around you already achieved financial independence.
Step 5: You act and start saving like a mad, but the numbers will show that you will need some 10-20 years of savings until you get there. Start checking even more,
Step 6: You will find that some of them are better than others, and you realize that the difference is made by a solid plan. You understand that you need simultaneously to reduce your expenses and to find alternative ways to gain more money in order to invest regularly.
Step 7: You made your plan. You are now at 5-7 years away from FIRE (financial independence/retirement early).
Step 8: Your work became a pleasure, because you know your final goal. Your quality of life increase even when you try to teach yourself discipline and motivation. Your savings are increasing steadily every year.
Step 9: You reach your goal. You can stop working for the money.
Step 10: Your life as a free human being begin now. A new adventure. Are you ready to enjoy it? Of course you are, you trained for this in the past years.


P.S. I can share my story and i can help you with relevant links if you are ready to start. (He he! The links are already here in this post, by the way, did you see it?)

Early retirement - 1 August statistics

Just few of my relevant financial statistics:

Money from interests and dividends this year (up to 1.08.2015) - 272 pounds
Month average (first 8th months of my early retirement project) - 34.08 pounds
Yearly ROI percentage prediction - 14.24% (It is very good, but mostly a combination of luck and hours of study.)
Retirement fund percentage achieved : 5.20% (still a small number but at least it is greater than zero, right?)
Security fund investment: 51.74%
Risk fund investment: 48.26% (is my idea about safe and risk approach, i will increase a bit the risky ones, i think)
Total investment: 5712.15 pounds
Total debt: 780 pounds
Net worth: 4932.15 pounds

I am open to answer to any common sense question about mine or yours retirement project.

The perfect formula for very early retirement - the four pillars of the financial independence

I remember a story about the four pillars that are holding the temple roof. Thinking about that, I can easily create analogies to my financial independence/early retirement project.

And the four pillars of financial independence are:
1. The most important is Health. We need to take care of us physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. If we are not in perfect health, in a peak state, everything else doesn't matter so much, right?
2. Investing regularly is second as importance, every week, every month, without a break until we reach our goal.
3. Dividend and interest reinvestment will make us to achieve results faster, based of the compounding rule.
4. Dividend growth is equally important, giving us an uncanny advantage on the road to financial freedom.

And as a bonus,inspired by Maximum Mustache March challenge, i was just thinking at one extreme technique of saving and reducing expenses. I recently meet some spiritual tradition exponents that are usually having a period of lent, not eating anything for a whole day, also known as fasting. After i talked with them i started reading about the benefits of fasting (not eating anything for 12 or 24 hours). See about this here and here and here.
Doing this for one day a week will result in 52 days over one year, almost two months of no expenses for food. Add the health benefits, longevity, faster metabolism speed, fat gain dramatically decreased and so much more. I am almost convinced to do this.

Have a good night!

Mr G.

The compounding process and my newborn nephew

OK. Let's define what compounding is. You heard this work before. Almost on every early retirement or financial independence website or blog. You think you know what is it. And probably you are right. So, what is this mysterious compounding?
If you want a fancy definition then i will tell you. Compounding is defined by a nonlinear growth in dividend income. Too much even for me. Just in case, i will have an example here. Not necessarily for you, but you can see it too.
Today i become an uncle. I just got a one day old nephew. I have no merit with this, it's all my brother's work.  By the way, welcome to the family Gabriel! The accountant in me took the reins and instantly did a plan for his financial independence.  I will presume that my brother, in his infinite wisdom, will take care of his baby until the age of 20.
My expenses at the moment are 715. I will go for something like this. Maybe a bit more as a 20 years old will what to relax a bit more. Let's say 10K per year. Seems good enough. It is something like 833 per month. Enough to cover your house expenses, transport and food, but not enough to live without work. At least you can choose a work not thinking about how much they pay, but how much you like it.
My initial plan was to start with 8750 (offering an amount of 350 as dividends in the first year). Will reach 1000 as dividends in 11 years, 2000 after another 5 years and another 1000 will be added every 2 years. 11+5+2+2=20 years. Sadly that is only 4K per years. Not enough. I did another simulation and i found that if i invest 17500 for dividend growth income, and reinvest everything for the next 20 years (yes, the miracle of compounding), i will reach my goal of 10K payed in dividends per year.
Is too easy, but really! You can give you child the most important gift ever. To start in life being financially independent. Of course, now i am thinking at some side projects. Imagine that, to offer this to an 20 years old. What can happen? So i decided that some financial education is a must, as it is reaching some numbers in savings and failing at least 5 times in different business projects. What if you don't fail, you will say. Than is even better, that mean that you are ready to be free.

I will definitely do this for my children too.
What do you think?