Financial Independence via a Childfree Lifestyle

Something I find unusual is that many people are horrified by the idea of achieving financial independence by not having kids, even though not having a child will save you hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars over your life.

Instead, when most people give financial advice, they focus on little expenses such as skipping Starbucks, Netflix, or avocado toast. Anyone who drinks lattes, plays video games, etc are usually accused of wasting money on these activities. However, if someone doesn't have kids, they are spending significantly more money, yet such activities are not deemed wasteful.

Bad Days at Work that Remind Me Why I Must Retire Early

Work was terrible today. Over the weekend I was meant to work on a report because I had been putting it off for so long. However, I didn't manage to do any work on the weekend, so I dedicated today to finishing this report, and I found myself working on it the whole day. Even at the end of today, I still haven't finished this report. I will have to continue it tomorrow.

During the day, I had to juggle other work as well. I also had angry or passive aggressive people calling me to chase for things that I needed to get from others, so juggling all these things just made me feel weary and tired. Because it was Monday, I was feeling tired from recovering from sleeping in during the weekend, and to top it off, today was an extremely hot and humid day, even at night time. I had two fans on at the same time on my desk. There is an air conditioner outside my room,  but if I open the door then there is too much noise from outside.

It's days like these when I seriously think about early retirement. Every now and then a day like this pops around. Days like these have been popping up ever since the beginning of my career, and it's one of the reasons why I am so obsessed about early retirement. I need to give myself the option to retire early because I don't want to be a wage slave for life. That is not an option.

I also hate my job. I know some people love their job, and it is great for them if they do. However, I hate my job. My job is tolerable, but it's not something I enjoy. 

Anyway, today I realised that perhaps I will need to pare down my ambitions. Perhaps I need to accept retiring with less so that I can retire sooner. Alternatively, I can work for longer and retire more comfortably later. But perhaps I don't have it in me to work too long. I feel drained now. I feel stressed. Work is just too much for me. I hate it, and I am not going to pretend I love my job.

Some people say that I should move to a different job and do something else, such as something more related to my university degree, or doing more quantitative or technical work, or perhaps work in a non-profit. But the problem with these ideas is that I will need to somehow get into these jobs. I don't have any experience in these areas and I would need to go to interview after interview, and even if I am successful and get the new job, who is to say I won't hate it there because I am overwhelmed by work, or perhaps the manager turns out to be a bully? The more I look at it, the more I realise that the solution is not to find good work but to have a plan to end up not working at all. There is something about having money dangled in front of you that destroys your soul. 

Lying Flatism vs FIRE vs Strikes - Which is More Effective?

There has long been conflict among business and workers. Throughout history there have been conflicts among the business class and the working class. 

One way that workers fight for their rights involves "labour strikes" or "strike action." Wikipedia defines "strike action" as follows: "Strike action, also called labor strike, labour strike, or simply strike, is a work stoppage, caused by the mass refusal of employees to work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances. Strikes became common during the Industrial Revolution, when mass labor became important in factories and mines. In most countries, strike actions were quickly made illegal, as factory owners had far more power than workers. Most Western countries partially legalized striking in the late 19th or early 20th centuries."

Strikes have a major problem, which is somewhat addressed in the Wikipedia definition above, which is that many countries simply make striking illegal as businesses have a considerable amount of power. This is a problem in e.g. China.

Where striking is problematic, there are other options, one of which is the FIRE movement which emphasises hard work and frugal living initially with the aim of retiring early. Another is the "lying flat" movement, which doesn't focus on early retirement but focuses on doing the bare minimum. Both these movements seem to result in its adherents working less and consuming less, which deprives businesses of labour.

In China, the lying flat movement has been censored by the CCP who are desperately trying to suppress the movement. The elites do not seem to be as alarmed about the FIRE movement but there are many who think that it has the potential to harm the interests of the elites e.g. there was a recent post on Reddit about how FIRE can result in the end of Western civilization because people won't have enough children to become the workers of tomorrow.

One of the challenges of unionisation or protesting is knowing whether your fellow workers will support you in your endeavours. You may unionise or protest or go on strike, but you may be the only one who goes on strike while your fellow workers rush to suck up to the boss. Unionisation, striking, or protesting relies on self-sacrifice.

On the other hand, lying flat or FIRE focuses not on self-sacrifice but on personal benefits e.g. escaping the rat race. By lying flat, you live a stress free life while your colleagues slave themselves away. By retiring early via FIRE, you can retire in your 30s or 40s and relax by the beach while your colleagues slave away in the office or factory. When others see that lying flat or FIRE works, they may follow you, and once more and more people lie flat or FIRE, there will be labour shortages and businesses will then need to increase wages or offer better terms.

How Being Green can Help you Build Wealth

Being environmentally friendly can help you build wealth. For example, if you live in a smaller property, there is less energy that goes into building the home. Also, the less land you take up with your property, the more land is available for e.g. trees and forests. Living in a smaller property also saves you money on accommodation costs. 

If you drive less or drive a more fuel efficient car (or ride a bike or walk), you save more money and help the environment at the same time. 

If you eat less meat and replace it with e.g. beans then you also help the environment and also save more money. 

If you get solar power, you reduce your electricity bills and also help the environment.

Furthermore, many "green" investments e.g. ESG ETFs seem to be outperforming the broader indexes now. On the Australian Securities Exchange, ETHI and VESG are outperforming IWLD, and FAIR is outperforming A200.

So basically in many areas of life, being green meaing you make more money. Another benefit of being green is the psychological aspect e.g. being green can be a powerful motivator for saving money. Being green shifts your mindset, making frugality something you do not as an act of deprivation but something that you do out of purpose, which means you're more likely to stick with it.

Can a Man be Attractive Living with Parents? (Plus Tech Lead Videos)

I am in my mid-thirties and live with my mother. I feel it is not the best way to seduce women but I save so much money especially since I earn a six-figure salary and spend almost nothing, especially now during the COVID-19 pandemic when many people are working from home.

In a previous post, I spoke about a YouTuber named "The Tech Lead" who provides many seemingly good arguments for living with parents. I have provided more videos from the Tech Lead further below.

Having watched these videos, I feel they back up my need to believe that what I am doing is right, and they definitely make me feel less insecure about living with parents. I contribute a small amount to the family (about $300 per month) and enjoy having my meals cooked, my ironing done, etc. I have unsuccessfully dated some women in the past who have asked me if I expect a future girlfriend or wife to cook and do domestic duties for me, and I tell them I don't want that. I am happy to split responsibilities equally. I just have a very generous mother who almost forces me to not do any domestic duties. I do admit I have grown very attached to this relaxed lifestyle, which makes it harder for me to move out.

In the video below, Tech Lead is in his apartment and announces he is going to move back in with his parents.

Tech Lead below talks about the benefits of living with parents, but this is an older video when he was married, had a family, and moved into a new place. In the video, the gives many reasons why it is better to live with parents (mostly due to the money saved) but then at the end of the video he gives a non-satisfactory reason why he has moved out (some vague explanation about doing things at the right time).

In the video below, Tech Lead talks about his worst money mistakes. There is a theme because a lot of money is wasted by trying to impress women by moving out into an apartment or buying diamonds and jewellery. The key is to not care about what others think of you. This helps to save money.

Living with Parents to Save Money and Accelerate Financial Independence

I was watching the video below from the Techlead where he explains why he is moving back in with his parents. Most people think that poor losers live with their parents, but this guy is a millionaire, and he seems to be providing very logical reason why you should live with your parents. 

This video reminds me of me. I personally live in my mother basement even though I am in my thirties and earn a six figure salary. I continue to live in my mother's basement because I couldn't justify any reason to move out even though I can afford to move out. I currently own an investment property, and if I moved into this property, I will not be able to collect rent from the tenant, which will cost me more than if I rent. Rent costs about $1700 per month. Spending this much on rent seems like such a waste. My mother even wants me to live with her and I help out with paying the bills. 

I also don't believe that moving out increases independence. Rather, moving out decreases independence because it reduces your wealth. A reduction in wealth reduces financial independence. 

Nevertheless, I will admit that living in your mother's basement is terrible if you want people to respect you. People look down on me and no one wants to date me. Recently I was dumped by a woman, and although she didn't give me a reason for dumping me, I have a bunch that me living in my mother's basement strongly  influenced her decision. 

However, if I move out because I want others to like me or I want to get a date, I feel like this is no different to buying a Ferrari for the exact reasons. My logical brain tells me that moving out in order to gain respect and love is pure consumerism.

So I have a dilemma in that I would like to be loved,  but at the same time I don't want to be a conformist, I don't want to be a victim of consumerism, and I want to be authentic and true to myself and my values. It feel like such a disappointment that the price of love is conformity.

Humanity Deserves Extinction and the Connection between Antinatalism and Financial Independence

Look around at everyone around you. They are mindless drones trying to do everything they can to keep their credit score healthy so that they can one day get a mortgage and car loan so that they can drown in debt.

My advice to everyone is to forget about your credit score. It should be called "slavery score" to reflect what it actually is. It is a signal to slave owners of how good of a debt slave you are. Debt is slavery.

What do you do instead of becoming a debt slave like everyone else? Don't succumb to consumerism, never have children, invest in shares and crypto, and live off dividends.

Of course, most people agree that too much debt is horrible and having children is wonderful. But the two are related. A child is a huge liability. Debt is characterised by an obligation to pay. Children are no different.

Living off passive income is great because you get an income and don't need to work. If you have debt, it is the opposite, that is, you have to work and someone else gets income for doing nothing.

Having children and living off passive income are related. How do you get the money in the first place to buy the financial assets to give you financial independence?

The answer is that you don't have children. Children are extremely expensive. The decision to never have children will save you approximately $1.1 million across your lifetime.

Of course, isn't living a childfree life for the sake of money selfish? Yes it is, but it is also highly selfless and altruistic. Breeding is the number one contributor to climate change. More people in the world means more pollution, more carbon emissions. Furthermore, as humanity grows in size, there are more meat eaters (assuming no vegans) contributing not only to climate change but also animal abuse as the need to feed more and more humans means slaughter of animals needs to occur much faster, which leads to industrial scale mass slaughter that currently kills one billion animals per week in a process so evil that it puts the holocaust to shame. This process will need to scale up much more to meet the demands of 10 billion people on the earth by 2050, and scaling up the factory farms will lead to unimaginable animal suffering.

As the apex predator, as the most dominant and intelligent and arguably most moral species, we humans have a moral obligation to impose a moral order on all animals below us, to protect the weak and vulnerable.

Instead we have completely failed. We exploit, oppress and torture the animals and destroy the earth. We have failed the world and we deserve nothing but extinction via antinatalism.