The last couple of weeks have been quite challenging for me. Not necessarily in a negative way, but in a disruptive, assumption-changing way. My financial independence thesis had to be adjusted, briefly, forcing me into questioning certain things. This was an abrupt reminder that change is inevitable. We often forget about it in our carefully bubble-wrapped lives, as we intentionally protect ourselves from too much change and disruption. But the ability to adapt is an essential skill that, perhaps, needs to be actively developed.
Alright, so what happened?
A couple of things:
1. Eight years of financial planning was disrupted within a month of everything finally coming together. The passive income plan, supplemented with occasional freelance gigs, was working great. September and October were both quite good, and even though I haven't been working too much, my financials were solid.
During October, I got an opportunity to take a risk, and improve my long-term financial planning by buying a property in Montenegro. This would diversify my stream of passive income by adding some rental income to it, and also shift some of my earnings from AUD into EUR. Adding an investment property would also reduce the volatility of my portfolio.
Fundamentally and logically, it's a sound investment decision. As a tourist destination, Montenegro is still mostly undiscovered but should benefit from its proximity to Croatia. The country is on track to enter the EU. And there's limited beachfront real estate available.
But buying a property now meant significant changes in my mindset and financial security. First, raising capital is stressful. In my case, it means selling assets in AUD and USD, converting that into EUR and finding ways to transfer money to Montenegro to pay for the property. Second, I had zero experience with buying real estate, specifically the legal and practical implications. And third is the gap in passive income until the property is finished and can be rented out.
None of these things are problematic on their own - just the opposite. But in combination, they represent a significant change in the status quo.
2. For many years now, I have been trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my time. Just like with diets or financial planning, there's no one-size-fits-all guide for this. I still don't have the answers, but maybe the journey is more important.
I have always questioned the role of a job in our lives. But as I was dealing with the financial shenanigans of buying a property, I started asking different questions. For example, should a job be our safe place and provide an escape from other issues in life? Are we supposed to always have a passion for what we do, regardless of other circumstances? Which led me to the question of blue-collar vs white-collar work, and how both are perceived in society. We view blue-collar, physical labour as less valuable, something of a lower class activity. This perception automatically pushes most university graduates into white-collar jobs, otherwise known as the knowledge economy. There's nothing fundamentally wrong with that. But it means that most graduates end up looking for fulfilling careers in the knowledge economy.
The problem with a lot of knowledge economy jobs is that they provide limited visibility into the impact of our actions. It's not very clear what our time and effort actually represent in the real world.
So could some of us actually be more predisposed to physical work or some combination of the two? Maybe building something real, no matter how small, could be more gratifying?
Unfortunately, the last few weeks created more questions than answers. But, for the first time in my life, I might actually have the time to keep digging. As the next step on my path of experimentation, I will try to do some "real-life-not-online" work. Maybe I can find a craft brewery or a coffee roaster in Austria, my next destination.
I promise the next post will be about financial literacy and some useful lessons from my personal money experiments.
P.S. Really off-topic, but Montenegro, like many other developing countries, has a big problem with street cats. Some organisations are trying to address this but need more help and resources. If anyone is interested in getting involved, please let me know.