QT003 - You shared your FIRE plan with your friends. They laughed, teased you, or just didn't get it. And now you're wondering if something's wrong with you - or with them. Neither. Here's why.

What this covers:

• Why your friends' reactions say more about their circumstances than your plan
• The income reality check — why FIRE sounds impossible from some vantage points
• How to stay social without blowing your savings rate
• The difference between needing support and needing approval

This one's for you if:

• You've been met with blank stares or gentle roasts when you mention FIRE
• You're starting to feel like you have to choose between your goals and your friendships
• You're tempted to go full evangelist mode (please don't)
• You just want permission to keep going without everyone understanding why

Question to sit with: Do you actually need your friends to get FIRE, or do you just need them to get you?

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#009: There's a gut-wrenching feeling you get when you realise your dream is going to die. Quietly. Financially.

This is the episode I haven't told properly until now. The full story, from a six-figure corporate law career in London, to quitting everything to become a personal trainer and mountain leader, to watching my savings drain to almost nothing, to a failed luxury retreat that cost me ten thousand pounds, to a relationship breakdown that left me financially exposed, to six months as a digital nomad across Mexico, Argentina and Bali, to bootstrapping a law firm in Singapore during COVID, to the evening I plugged my numbers into a spreadsheet and realised financial independence was years closer than I ever imagined.

This isn't the highlight reel. It's the wrong turns, the shame, the financial freefall, and what I actually learned from all of it.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• The corporate law career that looked right but felt hollow
• Climbing Denali and the month that changed everything
• Quitting with £35,000 and thinking it was enough
• Building a fitness business that passion alone couldn't sustain
• The relationship breakdown that taught me what financial resilience really means
• The nomad chapter: Playa del Carmen, Buenos Aires, Canggu, Ubud
• Relocating to Singapore and discovering FIRE during COVID lockdown
• The spreadsheet moment I checked four times
• A six-month sabbatical that didn't fix me but showed me what needed fixing
• Why hitting milestones didn't make me feel free - and what was actually missing
• What still scares me and what excites me about what's ahead

THIS EPISODE IS FOR YOU IF:

• You're in a high-income career wondering if this is it
• You've thought about quitting but don't have a plan underneath the fantasy
• You've made financial mistakes you haven't told anyone about
• You're building toward FIRE but starting to wonder what actually comes after the number
• You've been running away from something and calling it running toward something

The biggest lesson from this whole story: following your passion isn't wrong. Doing it without the financial infrastructure is what makes it unsustainable. And hitting your number doesn't make you free - knowing who you are without the job is what makes you free.

Life After Enough is a weekly podcast about money, meaning, and who you become when work becomes optional.

📩 Get the weekly email - one idea a week about money, identity, and what nobody tells you about life after financial independence. No fluff, no pitches. https://lifeafterenough.kit.com/newsletter

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#008 “Just one more year" is one of the most deceptively reasonable sentences in adulthood. It sounds smart. It sounds responsible. It sounds like exactly what a financially literate, level-headed professional would say.

But underneath all that logic, in most cases, one more year is just fear dressed up as strategy.

In this episode, I'm shining a spotlight on One More Year Syndrome - the pattern where smart, disciplined people keep delaying the life they've already earned. I break down why it happens, how to spot it early, and how to know when you're genuinely being strategic versus when you're just avoiding the blank page on the other side of work.

I also hold my hands up. I'm currently in year two of my own One More Year - and I share honestly why I'm staying, what's strategic about it, and what's purely emotional.

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What this episode covers:

• Why one more year almost never stays one year and how it easily becomes five or ten
• The identity gap: why freedom is more psychologically confronting than work
• The razor-thin line between choosing from clarity and choosing from fear (and why they feel identical in the moment)
• Why One More Year Syndrome isn't just a FIRE problem, it shows up the moment you have any financial breathing room at all
• My personal reasons for staying one more year: identity, parenthood, and an evolving FIRE number
• The two kinds of readiness most people never build and why only one of them is about money
• A single question to ask yourself that cuts through the noise

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This episode is for you if:

• You've hit or are approaching your number but something keeps holding you in place
• You keep finding rational reasons to delay a change you know you want to make
• You're not necessarily chasing FIRE but you have enough financial breathing room to make a shift — and you're not taking it
• Your spreadsheet says you're ready but the rest of you doesn't feel ready
• You're starting to wonder whether your "one more year" is strategic or just comfortable

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The question to sit with after this episode:

If you froze your life exactly as it is today, is the only thing missing more money? Or is what's actually missing something else entirely?

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📩 Get the weekly email - one idea a week about money, identity, and what nobody tells you about life after financial independence. No fluff, no pitches.

https://lifeafterenough.kit.com/newsletter

It took you 13 years to save your first $100,000.

It'll take 5 years to turn $500K into $1M.

Same savings rate. Same investment returns. Completely different experience.

This is the inflection point Charlie Munger wouldn't shut up about - and the most underestimated milestone in personal finance. Before $100K, YOU do all the work. Your discipline. Your sacrifice. Your willingness to keep grinding while progress feels glacial and everyone else seems to be living their best life.

After $100K? Your money finally starts working for you.

At 8% returns, $100K generates $8,000 a year - more than most people are even saving annually. That's when compounding stops being a concept in a spreadsheet and becomes the force that takes over the heavy lifting. The boulder you've been pushing uphill suddenly has momentum.

In this Quick Take, I break down:

• Why the first $100,000 feels impossibly slow (because mathematically, it is)
• The exact timeline: how $100K to $250K compresses to 7-9 years, then $500K to $1M happens in under 5
• How compound interest fundamentally changes the experience of building wealth after six figures
• Why this milestone unlocks CoastFIRE - and how $100K at age 30 becomes $1.5M by 65 without another dollar saved
• Why getting there fast deserves genuine urgency: longer hours, every bonus saved, delayed upgrades, even living with parents
• What Charlie Munger really meant when he called this "a b*tch, but you've got to do it"

If you're early in your FIRE journey, this is your permission - your mandate - to be unreasonable about reaching six figures. Make it your guiding star. Accept that this phase is hard, because it is.

And if you're already past it? This episode explains why those early years felt disproportionately brutal and why everything seemed to accelerate later. You weren't imagining it. The math changed.

The first $100K isn't glamorous.

It's not Instagrammable.

It's not passive income.

But it is the foundation that makes everything else possible.

Get there. Then let compounding take over.

#FIRE

#personalfinance

#Investing

#FinancialIndependence

#CompoundInterest

#WealthBuilding

#MoneyManagement

#FinancialFreedom

#RetireEarly

#SavingMoney

#InvestingForBeginners

#CharlieMunger

#007: What if the problem isn’t that you’re tired, but that you’ve never stopped long enough to actually question the life you’re building?

In this episode of Life After Enough, I unpack what really happens when you step away from work.

After taking a six-month sabbatical in 2025, I discovered something very unexpected and unsettling: time off doesn’t automatically bring clarity, peace, or purpose. In fact, the early stages can feel uncomfortable, disorienting, and even unsettling. However, that “messy middle” - the withdrawal from busyness - is where the real work begins.

In this episode, we explore:

• Why productivity has become tangled up with self-worth
• The emotional and psychological reality of taking a sabbatical
• The difference between burnout, escape, and intentional pause
• Sabbaticals vs career breaks vs “mini retirements”
• How to ask for time off without blowing up your career
• How to plan and fund a sabbatical realistically
• Why re-entry to work can feel harder than leaving
• How to keep what you discover instead of slipping back into old patterns

This isn’t an episode about quitting your job or running away from responsibility. It’s about using time off as a tool - a rehearsal for the life you actually want to live when work stops being the centre of everything.

If you’re mid-career, chasing financial independence, or just wondering “is this really it?”, this episode will challenge how you think about rest, success, and freedom.

Freedom doesn’t start the day you quit. It starts the day you pause.

Who are you when your job is no longer your identity?

In this episode of Life After Enough, we explore one of the most overlooked aspects of financial independence early retirement (FIRE), and career change: identity after work.

Many of us build our entire sense of self around our profession - our title, income, productivity, and status. But what happens when that role changes, disappears, or no longer needs to exist? Whether through burnout, redundancy, early retirement, FIRE, sabbaticals, or becoming a parent, work eventually stops being the centre of life and that transition can be deeply unsettling.

Drawing on my own experience leaving corporate law, chasing extreme adventures, reaching my original FIRE number, and rebuilding a life beyond work, this episode introduces the idea of Identity Enough - the ability to build a resilient, multi-layered identity that isn’t dependent on a single job or role.

In this episode, we cover:

• Why tying your identity to work makes you emotionally and psychologically fragile
• The hidden trap of defining yourself by “escaping” your job and how it leads to the same place
• How identity collapse shows up after early retirement or FIRE
• Why financial freedom doesn’t automatically create purpose
• How to build a portfolio identity that makes you anti-fragile
• Practical ways to experiment with identity without blowing up your life

This episode is essential listening if you’re pursuing financial independence, questioning your career, planning early retirement, or wondering what life actually looks like after you reach “enough.”

Money can remove constraints.

But identity determines what you build next.

Related episodes:

• Episode 3 - Enough Is Not the Finish Line
• Quick Take 1 - The Day After the Sabbatical

#FF001: What actually happens after you walk away from work? Not in theory or in spreadsheets. But in real life.

Freedom Files is a monthly interview series inside Life After Enough where I sit down with people who’ve already stepped off the hamster wheel and ask the only question that really matters:

What happens next?

For our very first Freedom File, I’m joined by my good friend Simon - a former corporate lawyer who didn’t just talk about early retirement… he actually did it.

Simon spent 25 years in law, working long hours, living globally, and doing everything “right” on paper. Then he reached financial independence, made the call, and walked away - for good.

Since retiring, Simon has:

• Spent a year living in Lombok
• Is heading to Canada to train as a ski instructor
• And is preparing to cycle around the world to raise money to protect threatened ecosystems 🌍🚴‍♂️

But this episode isn’t about the adventure highlight reel.It’s about:

• The moment Simon stopped thinking about leaving and actually resigned
• What it really feels like to give up a high-status career
• The identity loss no one warns you about after early retirement
• How fear, comparison, and “one more year” keep people stuck
• And how to rebuild purpose, community, and meaning on the other side of work

This is an honest, grounded conversation about life after enough - including the doubts, the recalibration, and the quiet confidence that comes from trusting yourself.

If you’re:

• Financially independent (or close) but hesitant to pull the trigger
• Burnt out and wondering if there’s another way to live
• Curious what early retirement actually looks like beyond the fantasy

This episode will give you clarity, courage, and perspective.

⸻

🔗 Follow Simon’s journey

Simon is documenting his global cycling expedition and fundraising journey here:

👉 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/simoncyclestheworld

👉 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@simoncyclestheworld

⸻

🧭 About Freedom Files

Freedom Files is a monthly interview series inside Life After Enough featuring real people who’ve redesigned their lives once work became optional.

No hype. No guru playbooks. Just honest conversations about money, identity, purpose, and what comes next.

If you enjoyed this episode, follow Life After Enough so you don’t miss future Freedom Files - and share it with someone who’s wondering if there’s more to life than the grind.

#005 Debt isn’t just a money problem. It’s a time problem. An energy problem. A freedom problem.

In this episode of Life After Enough, we talk honestly about debt - especially consumer debt - and why it steals your future long before the interest shows up on your statement.

I share my own experience of mistaking high income and large credit limits for success, rotating through 0% balance transfers, and living in the gap between “I look fine” and “I’m barely staying afloat.” What finally changed wasn’t a spreadsheet, it was understanding what debt was actually costing me: confidence, optionality, and the ability to build a future instead of constantly paying for my past.

This episode isn’t about shame, judgement, or quick fixes. Rather, it’s about:

• Why debt is emotionally loaded and psychologically sticky
• How modern life is engineered to push capable people into borrowing
• The difference between useful debt and freedom-eroding consumer debt
• Why debt is rarely caused by one big mistake, but by slow, socially normal decisions
• How 0% cards and balance transfers quietly extend the problem
• Why debt feels like a maths problem, when in fact its is really an identity problem

We also walk through a clear, practical framework to help you reclaim control:

• Building a small but sacred emergency buffer so progress doesn’t collapse
• Understanding which “debt story” you’re actually living: habit, keeping-up, or structural
• Choosing the right repayment strategy (snowball vs avalanche) for your psychology
• Creating a realistic three-year window to clear consumer debt and unlock freedom
• Knowing when to seek professional help, without seeing it as failure

Most importantly, we talk about what happens before the final balance hits zero. Real freedom starts earlier than most people think - that magic moment you stop hiding from the numbers, stop adding new debt, and start keeping promises to yourself.

Debt freedom isn’t just a financial transformation. It’s an identity transformation!

If you’re carrying debt and feeling stuck, this episode is your reminder that you’re not broken, you’re human. Getting your life back is possible, often faster than you think.