Alex’s early, early retirement plans — meeting Ellie

This week we’re looking back at my initial early retirement plans, and if you haven’t seen the previous post on what my plans were before meeting my wife, I highly recommend you start there first.

Essentially, last time we covered my early work experience — starting with highs, and quickly descending into lows.

I quickly realised that I wanted to retire early, and I set about beginning to work towards an early retirement that would be most akin to a BaristaFIRE retirement mixed with LeanFIRE. I’d own my own home (so I’d have low housing costs), have a small investment base with an investment property, and then work on a casual basis to get a little bit of extra money to make up the shortfall.

Today I’m talking about what changed — what made me go from a $25,000 per annum budget to a $150,000 budget.

The biggest change came about from meeting Ellie.

Well, this was unexpected.

Life turned upside down

Ellie and I met in 2012, and needless to say my life has been permanently changed ever since. We’re entering personal territory here for a minute, but I never expected any of this — the changes to financial goals or blissful married life.