11 months of early retirement!

 i didn't realized i had posted this year, it seemed like it'd been forever cuz i don't think about this blog as much. 

i talk to chatgpt multiple times a day so a lot of my feelings and thoughts go there..

anyway, did want to document a bit of where i am on this FIRE journey.

today is mar 2, 2026, so exactly 11 months from when i retired on april 2, 2025.

WOW.

it has been a journey.

in some ways it's the best decision ever! i mean it is. i wouldn't change it.

but i guess i don't want to say it's been all good... overall yes, but here are some things below the surface...

- anxiety has been all over the place; the need to achieve didn't die quietly...it still lingers pulling me back; charles says it's like i need to keep earning my peace.. i don't

i randomly applied to a job a month ago because i wanted more money - so that happens... yeah i do have urges to just spend a bunch of money! mostly on travel... i just want to not have to track stuff so much to save money...

i wanted to get a balcony apartment when my lease was up for renewal it was about $200/mon more, but i said yes at first, but said no...cuz for the first few years i want to have more predictable expenses..

i think if i were still working, i would have gone for it... but also because i wouldn't be spending 15k on a 6 week cruise... so there's that...

those are some of the trade offs... right now i'm prioritizing keeping my basic expenses low so i can spend more on travel... 

i have found quite a panache for luxury travel... it's the best! 

so that's how i spend a lot of my free times... reading and absorbing travel content.. usually on early retirement. org website, or cruise critic forums, or the occasional youtube.. or random travel blogs i stumble upon... 

i still consume a lot of personal finance content... but i like the hero's journey mostly... and the advice stuff i'm kind of not that interested in... 

i like travel hacks and still like credit card sign up bonus

i was able to get my return flight from singapore on business class... but it involved some strategy... that's the stuff i wish i had more money for

so because i have vast swatches of free time.. i've been overplanning trips too much and it sucks the fun out of it.. so i'm trying to find a balance... there's a part of me that loves a deal...and a part of me that hates the hunt..

i was able to reduce my lexapro dose from 20mg to 10 mg about 3 months ago... cuz i was sleeping way too much...

so january was a lot of emotional weather... lots of blue days (but not the blue days of despair where that was actually a better day than red)... just angst and overwhelm... but for what i don't know...

i felt myself feeling in january... i don't know how money works...

so yeah the need to optimize has gone haywire when there's nothing to really optimize anymore... so i basically work myself into a tizzy over non-essential stuff...

financially - i am doing GREAT!!! i love not having to work..

emotionally/mentally/psychologically - def a work in progress! but because i'm financially free i get to work on this aspect of myself deliberately.. and also because i finally have the space for it spill out... it's spilling out like a waterfall... so there's that...

so wanted to paint as full of a picture as possible... 

managing my anxiety involves making a lot of plans and talking a lot to charles.. it's soothing to make plans... helps the future not feel as unstructured... i am trying different things...

one thing that has worked... is just making a pot of food i can eat from for the week. like having an anchor everyday is a small step in feeling sane.

so we do a lot of work with anchors.. 

i literally don't want to delve back into where we left off in 2025 cuz it's not helpful to me...

but yeah that's the snapshot..

in february i wanted to go to the DR or on another cruise... i just wanted to escape when things felt overwhelming... but i stayed for a few reasons... "i don't have any money!"... which basically means without income coming in... all my money was already budgeted for..and there really wasn't a trip i wanted to cancel to go on a spontaneous trip.. so there's that; reason 2 - i didn't really have the energy to plan anything... cruises kept popping up... but it's a bit of a schlep to book a last minute cruise...and flying out of my town is always a minimum of $600 - which was usually the same price of the cruise; reason 3- i liked my life as it was... i had everything i wanted here.. 

so the need for escape felt habitual and not always necessary...

so i learned not every feeling needed to be acted on... 

but i did take it as a lesson for 2027 that i might need a mini trip in between big trips that are 5 months apart... 

also... what else...

i panicked about having one big travel bucket of money... i wanted like little buckets of travel money for each trip so that if i saved something i could visually know how much i left for something spontaneous... that's still in the works cuz only ally seems to offer that... and sofi.. but i didn't want to add new systems to my money workflow.. 

i also thought one year of transition would be enough... nope... i'm extending this burnout recovery to like 5 years... i was reminded of other times when i had to tap out of regular life... for less ... so 5 years seems more reasonable... and that felt good

cuz it feels like i'm just now starting to understand who i am and what i want out of my early retirement life. 

so because i need some structure...

we're dedicating 2026 to mental health

2027 to physical health... etc.. 

that's all for now.. sorry for any typos or nonsensical sentences... i am not going back to proofread