You cannot shrink your way to FI
‘Utils’ is how an economist defines satisfaction. Quantity can be anything that you have or want (money, time, number of vacations you take etc.).
In the pursuit of financial independence (FI), you will have to deal with frugality. Frugality, like many things in life, is relative. I always find it curious to read how someone can live under $10,000 a year or under $15,000 a year with family (in a developed country. This qualifier is important because these figures are a comfortable middle class income in many developing countries). I read such articles more to understand the full extent of human ability to shrink their expense footprint beyond what many consider as feasible.
Raman Venkatesh is the founder of Ten Factorial Rocks. Raman is a ‘Gen X’ corporate executive in his mid 40’s. In addition to having a Ph.D. in engineering, he has worked in almost all continents of the world. Ten Factorial Rocks (TFR) was created to chronicle his journey towards retirement while sharing his views on the absurdities and pitfalls along the way. The name was taken from the mathematical function 10! (ten factorial) which is equal to 10 x 9 x 8 x 7 x 6 x 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1 = 3,628,800.
