My Fellow FIRE starters,

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Commenting about the queries about lifestyle change

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Regarding my so called 'lavish' lifestyle...When you are caught in a mouse trap, you might as well eat the cheese...I am a bachelor, no dependents no liabilities so quite a bit disposable income but trapped in a profession I never much cared for...So I spent a bit...not exactly because I wanted to...but I thought if I get pleasure out of that, all this toiling will be justified to some extent...but no luck there

And now whether I will miss it post FIRE...For this, I will have to move away from hard numbers, which this Forum is about, and venture into philosophy a bit....so bear with me

FIRE is not my final goal....it is a way to reach my final goal which is peace of mind...In a way, FIRE and Peace of Mind have seemingly opposite philosophies....FIRE is about accumulating enough stuff....Peace of mind is about letting go of a lot of stuff

There is this zen story...There was monk who has no material possessions and the only thing he owned was one earthen bowl...he would go door to door and collect food in it, later eat in the same bowl, and after washing it, drink water from it...one day the bowl fell to the earth and broken into pieces...The monk looks at it for a while, smiles and says..."I am finally free"

Obvious hyperbole aside, I am not saying I will be living like a monk...currently I spend about INR 70000 per month...but out of that 25000 is rent and 15 - 20000 is for my yearly international trip (2 to 2.5 lakh per trip approx)...Now when I move to Nagpur, the rental expenses will be gone and as for travel, I have more or less visited all the international places I wanted to visit...so won't have that expense too...so I will not be making any drastic lifestyle changes when I will be living in Nagpur on INR 25000...

I wake up at 7 because I need to be at office at 8.30...For breakfast I eat what I could rustle up in 15 min...I meet people in the office not because I want to but I have to... For lunch, my choices are limited to what is available nearby office location... I spent 1 hour in traffic in the evening cause there is no solution to that...I can exercise after reaching my place only if I am not too tired and I can not read or watch movie/TV series past 12 as I need to wake up by 7...What's the point of earning a butt-load of lot of money if you don't have any freedom?

And if the price of that freedom is that I have to move back to my hometown and live on INR 25000?...I am all for it...Hell, I am looking forward to cut down on even more expenses and get more leaner

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Regards,

Voroshin