I can’t believe it’s been one year since I quit Google and started my mini-retirement! Time flew by! And the mini-retirement is going so well that I decided to extend it until September 2025 (instead of April 2025).
Here is some news of what has happened since our last update in August 2024.
Traveling
In September, my partner and I hiked 2 weeks in France, making progress on our Santiago de Compostela hike. We hiked from Le Puy en Velay to Figeac, close to 300 km.
We departed from Zurich the 1st week of September!
At first, we had planned to hike all the way until Spain (about 6 weeks needed), but after 2 weeks, we were tired (you sleep in a new place every night), and were missing home.
Missing home and family
We then spent mid-September to the beginning of November at home, relaxing into the winter months and connecting with friends over early fondues.
I then spent all of November in France with my family — 2 weeks at my sister’s place while she was on medical leave after a surgery and then 2 weeks with my parents. This is the first time in 7 years that I stayed so long in France and close to my family. The last time was in June 2017 when I was recovering from a burnout — which was definitely not as fun! I could not have done that without this mini-retirement — having the time to stay with family without stressing out about work, or checking emails, or even taking meetings, etc. It was also a great time to spend with my niece (3 years now), and building new memories with her…
We also took advantage of my presence there to indulge in one of my passions: decluttering!! We didn’t leave any drawer untouched and decluttered both my sister’s and my parents’ house. From a financial standpoint, this also allowed for my mom, my sister and I to do some clothes exchanges (second hand clothes trading for the win!) and even sell some of the things that didn’t serve them anymore — making them a bit of extra money before Christmas!
I want to point out that at that point, the market was still performing well, and my net worth kept on growing, reaching CHF 1'576'791 by the end of November 2024.
Back home, we then enjoyed December to February back home in Thalwil, with my parents and then my sister and her family visiting us.
One month in Australia and… a stock market crash!
As of February 20th, 2025, my net worth reached an all-time high of CHF 1'614'196, which had me very excited and confident as I prepared for my one-month trip to Australia.
This is with this positive thought in mind that I left for Australia on Feb 29 until April 2, and while I watched the market dip and dip and then dip even further, I still enjoyed the vacation, not trying to be frugal. It may be the only time I go there, I didn’t want to NOT enjoy it to the fullest — I have worked too hard these past 10 years to not fully enjoy it.
We landed in Melbourne and traveled the southern coast for a few days, then made our way up to Sydney and the famous Jervis Bay, saw Tasmanian devils in Tasmania!, got stung by jelly fishes in Gold Coast close to Brisbane (nothing too bad, just a slight burn for an hour), met Koalas, Kangaroos and Wallabies, and even saw one giant spider (luckily, the last day of our trip!!)
Financial recap for 2024
2024 has been better than I expected from a financial point of view, ending the year at CHF 1'562'060 versus CHF 1'497'602 after my final Google paycheck at the end of April. And that is after paying still large taxes in 2024 and all my annual expenses — which were a bit higher than predicted as we traveled more than usual of course and didn’t refrain from fun activities:
- CHF 45'635 without taxes
- CHF 81'512 with taxes
Expected expenses for 2025
I predicted 2025 expenses to be the same or maybe up to 50k CHF before taxes as we are doing two big trips (Australia in March and Brazil planned for July), but I expect the taxes to be much lower.
The highest expense remains housing (22k CHF for my share of the rent), but one thing we didn’t want to do was having to leave our lovely flat, so that is an expense that will stay for a bit longer for sure, unless we decide to move to a cheaper place in the future.
Portfolio allocation adjustments
Some changes I have made to my portfolio in January 2024:
- Sold all my bonds (IGLO) and invested in IMEA (iShares Core MSCI Europe UCITS ETF EUR) instead to add a slight European bias. Though at this date, my portfolio is still mostly US-based (70% including retirement funds)
- Sold most of my Google stocks (I went from 30% of my portfolio to less than 5% now), and invested in VGT (Vanguard Information Technology ETF) instead. So still very tech heavy, but adding some diversity (also considering Alphabet is not part of VGT, but still part of my other ETFs)
Financial strategy when you’re FIRE
My spending/financing strategy this year has been to:
- Try to reduce many of my costs (phone bill, medical insurance, overall fees, etc.)
- Still keep 1 year worth of expenses in cash — in my current account
I had initially kept up to 2.5 years of expenses in cash, but reinvested 70k CHF into my portfolio in December 2024. The strategy decided in January of this year was to keep enough cash on my cash accounts for this year’s expenses (similar to the 2024 strategy).
While this may not have been the optimal solution for 2024 in retrospect (as the market grew), I am feeling very reassured with this strategy for 2025 as the market is diving. I didn’t want to have to touch my portfolio during this career break, so I will keep taking out what I need from my cash accounts, and if I need some extra money by the end of year, then I will take out my dividends for these extra months (~15kCHF in dividends in 2024).
I had re-invested all my dividends last year, but I plan on not doing that this year so I can have that extra cash at the end of the year. Same — the best strategy may be to re-invest them as soon as possible, but let’s say that’s what I am most comfortable with for this year :) On the positive side, this means I don’t need to take out money from my portfolio at a loss, on the negative side, I don’t have any available cash to inject in the market while it’s so low! “Gain some, lose some” I guess…
At this point in time though (April 2025), all my 2024 gains have vanished 😱 and my net worth is back down to CHF 1'360'253, lower than when I left Google in April 2024. I am not panicking though, as my cash strategy (to pay off my annual expenses) is working great, and I still intend to get back to work in September. I also don’t intend to reverse my decision to extend my mini-retirement until September as we have many news plans for the summer: we plan to hike again for 2 weeks on our hike to Santiago de Compostela in May, and then travel to Brazil in July to visit family and friends.
Maybe I hope for the market to stay down until I get a new income to invest in the market? Though, I’d be happy if it came back up quickly, I don’t think we can say what the short term future will look like there!
Unrelated note: I have also changed banks from BCGE to Migros Bank to reduce fees, and I have been very happy with that so far!
My learnings after one year off work
Not being busy is a gift
I really enjoy NOT being busy. I wake up without an alarm when my body feels fully rested (usually 8 hours of sleep), enjoy my morning coffee with my partner in front of the lake, and then read books (already 6 books since the beginning of the year), watch TV (though I am trying to be “productive” there and watch many shows in German to improve my language skills) or listen to podcasts, catch up with friends, take care of my plants, etc.
Having full control of my day/week/month is very appreciated!
I want flexibility in my next job
I really DO NOT want to get back to a full time role with low flexibility (not remote or hybrid, etc.)
I do maybe ~3 hours of what I would call “corporate world related activities”, which translate into career coaching for friends and former colleagues (continuing the coaching I was doing at Google, and coaching new people), as well as helping a friend’s startup optimise operations.
And I have found these to be net positive in my “standard” week. This is also giving me inspiration for future career steps: who I want to work with, what I want to work on, where and how much I want to work!
Let’s see what September brings in that regard.
I may try geoarbitrage
While I love Switzerland, I am open to geotargeting and relocating to a cheaper country in the coming years.
Not only would that reduce our expenses, but I really miss the thrill of changing countries, discovering a new culture, starting again from scratch.
I always thought I would be changing countries every 5 years or so, but I arrived in Switzerland too early and it’s true that Switzerland would remain the top quality of life one can find in Europe.
And yet, after one month in Australia, the idea of moving again (in Europe) is increasingly enticing.
Even more so now with the market decline…
No regret!
Even with the market decline and my net worth dropping by 15% in barely over one month, I don’t regret taking this time. I have never felt so relaxed, centered, and content in my life!
Another article?
If Florence is still up for it, I would like to follow her journey in one or two years, to see how she moves forward. Will she really need to work for money? Or will the market recover enough to extend for some more months (once more)?
