Diary of a future annuitant (59)

It's been four months since I last picked up my pen to complete my journal. But I haven't given up on my quest, quite the contrary. In fact, lately I've devoted a fair amount of energy to laying new foundations to finalize the second half of my long journey toward financial independence.

From a financial point of view, I was starting to have a portfolio that was a little too diversified for my taste (nearly a hundred positions). I took advantage of the very expensive levels of stocks to sell the assets that worried me the most. I now find myself with about fifty stocks, which is my long-term objective. We know that this is where the benefits of diversification are the maximum. Beyond that, it is useless. In doing so, I also now find myself sitting on a fairly large mass of cash, 30%. This is obviously more than my long-term objective, even in these times of overvaluation of stocks. But since other assets such as gold and bonds are not in an optimal configuration at the moment either, I have little other choice. I console myself by telling myself that I will have plenty of ammunition to draw when the time comes. On the other hand, it is true that in the meantime, with all this liquidity, my income from dividends is not up to my expectations.

From a personal point of view, I have made substantial progress. One of the biggest difficulties in financial independence is being able to translate the financial comfort you have obtained into an increase in your quality of life. Few people understand this at the beginning of their adventure. Having a significant amount of wealth that provides regular income is good. But if you are always forced to work hard for fifty hours a week, it is useless. Waiting to have a nest egg of a few million to stop working completely is a long, very long process. And then, stopping working overnight can be brutal, destabilizing, and even dangerous. The project manager blues is a well-known phenomenon, so imagine over the course of a lifetime... So I have always adopted the approach of a gradual withdrawal from professional life. Not only do we have time to get used to it, but also, and above all, we can enjoy it much more quickly.

Since a monstrous peak of professional activity at nearly 60 hours per week a few years ago, I have only slowly but surely reduced the time devoted to my work as an employee. I went down to 50 hours, then 45 hours, then 35 hours and now 33 hours. Besides this quantitative aspect, I have also significantly improved my working conditions. I already had more pleasure in going there, just because I was more rested, so imagine with a significantly better environment.

In short, I feel like I have reached a very important level. My quality of life is clearly affected. The next step is to reduce my investment in work a little more, below 30 hours per week. This will perhaps be for next year.