Irish Financial Independence & Personal Finance Podcast

Saturday 5th April 2025

The €9 Cup Cakes that changed how we think about money

My wife came home from town one Friday afternoon carrying a 3 pack of cupcakes. I didn’t think much of it, they were small but fancy, I assumed she had found herself a bargain somewhere, after all, how much would 3 small cupcakes be? My younger two loved them, so excited when they saw them, chocolate eggs on top, and fancy. My oldest boy ate it in one clean bite, not appreciating how fancy the cupcake was. He finished it, and asked straight away “is there any more?”

It wasn’t until I was going through our bank transactions the next day, that I noticed this transaction from a bakery for €9. Surely that wasn’t the cup cakes, I thought. My wife, like myself, has become a good spender over the years. Always ensuring she pays the right price, and we have built a great trust between ourselves.

At the same time, these sort of purchases were out of character for both of us - €9 on 3 cup cakes - €3 each for a tiny cup cake, unheard of! The Aldi down the road sells a 12 pack for about €2, no one in their right mind would pay that!

So I asked my wife about it! What she said surprised me. “I did” she said, “you are always telling me we have enough to retire, I didn’t have enough time to get down to the supermarket, I thought I might surprise the kids.”

Naturally, I was defensive - “the reason we can retire if we want is because we are good with our spending. If we start making these sorts of purchases a habit, then we won’t be FI for long.” I was freaking out - this one little purchase had me in knots. Worst of all, my budgeting system was all out of whack, we had over spent our budget during March, and this €9 was the cherry on top (pun intended!).

I was now wondering what I was going to need to cut from our budget to ensure we stick to our €40,000 a year spending plan. Damn those €9 cup cakes...

It took me a couple of days to realise how unreasonable I had become. Our budget was a fantastic tool when we were chasing FI and watching every euro. It was also a fantastic tool to teach us how to become good spenders - with limited resources, we had to learn how to spend wisely.

But the reality is, hitting an FI status has meant that the off €9 cup cake purchase isn’t really going to move the needle. In fact, part of being FI has meant that we can now give ourselves a bit of a break when it comes to watching every penny.

This is highlighted further by my decision to continue working in our post FI status. We have enough money from our investment portfolio to cover our basic living costs - so why not splash out a little here and there, without too much worry, knowing that we will be OK either way! It was time to give ourselves a break.

I reflected further on my entire budgeting and money tracking system. It really had become a complex beast after so many refinements over the years. Did we really need such a complex system?

I have recently been watching Alan and Katie Donogan’s Youtube channel - it is excellent, and best of all, free! I would highly recommend you check it out. What I found most interesting, is the fact that they mention that they no longer budget. They track their spending, but only after they purchase something - there is no initial budget that goes with it.

Their argument is that they trust themselves as spenders to ensure that they weigh up every purchase before they make it, and thus keeping a budget is no longer a requirement. They are going to ensure they buy on value, and this is the most important aspect of a purchasing decision.

They still track their expenses, but only as a way of ensuring that their system is working and that they are still on track. But they aren’t limited to the constraints of a budget, like my complex budgeting spreadsheet confines us to.

The €9 cup cake purchase started as a small argument between my wife and I, that has led to a potential massive change. I sat down with my wife, and proposed an experiment. Let’s live for three months without the constraints of a budget. Let’s allow ourselves the freedom to make purchasing decisions on a “as needs” basis, trusting ourselves to make the right decision based on value, and years of educating ourselves to be better spenders.

We will still track our expenses, and group expenses into certain categories, but let’s give ourselves the freedom to spend - give ourselves the feeling of abundance rather than constraint.

The plan is for us to do this over the next three months. I don’t know yet if I will share the specific spending as part of my updates, or if I do, how I will do this, but either way, it is a chance to experiment and try something new, and free ourselves from the constraints of years of budgeting - I will no doubt keep you updated on how this plays out!

FIRE - Financial Independence, Recreational Employment

With the clocks going forward, and the summer just around the corner, April is my favourite month of the year. The long hockey season starts to wind down, and I get a lot more free time on the weekend’s. I get to start to play golf in the evening’s again with the longer days, and life in Ireland just feels better.

Life overall is really great and we value our post FI world. I cherish every day, and try to squeeze every bit of enjoyment out of it. One thing I have found interesting is just how much I am enjoying work. The old stress of deadlines and impressing colleagues is gone - replaced with a great contentment of just enjoying being part of a team, and enjoying the day to day challenges of programming. Ironically, I am more on top of my work than I have ever been. I even found myself calling up another team member last week, seeing if I could help them with some of their work, as I had completed all my work well ahead of schedule. Somehow, taking work at a more manageable pace has made me even more efficient.

I no longer worry about being at my desk for 8 hours per day, but more work in shifts, working in deep focused sprints typically 2 or 3 times per day. These sprints can last anywhere from 60 to 90 minutes, but I find I can be extremely efficient with work, and deliver high quality work over a much shorter period of time. The beauty of this approach is not only am I knocking work out of the park, I am giving myself a lot more time freedom. This is why I say that while I am technically working full time, the hours at work are a lot less because of this deep focused work approach. The rest of the day, I find myself having calls with colleagues, and maybe reflecting on work here and there, but it isn’t time that I need to spend at my desk necessarily. Infact, in many cases a one hour walk during the day, or 9 holes of golf during my lunch break, can recharge me even further for more deep focused work in the afternoon.

Equally, the long lunch breaks with my wife are still a priority for me. We can talk for hours at a time, or cuddle up and watch a movie. We maximise time together when the kids are at school, ensuring that we can focus on us when the kids are away from home, and give them 100% attention when they are back home.

We have managed to find a work / life balance in our post FI world. It has meant that any desire to retire in the traditional sense is largely off the table - I am enjoying the freedom that working on my own terms has given us and I have embraced fully the concept of recreational employment working in a job I love.

The day the ceiling fell off the roof

I got a What’s App message from one of our tenants during March that they discovered a small leak in the ceiling in the bathroom. The leak looked small enough, so I said I would call out the next day, not thinking much of it!

The next day was Saturday morning, and I woke early and for some reason decided to check my Whatsapp messages. There were two photos from the tenant sent a few minutes earlier. Half the ceiling in the bathroom had fallen down in the middle of the night, leaving a massive hole in the ceiling - water had collected, putting so much pressure on the ceiling it had fallen through. I messaged her back and said I would be straight out - there was no sleep in for me that day.

Honestly, I was just grateful no one was hurt, but this sort of stuff happens when you are a landlord, and it isn’t always easy to deal with! I cleaned up the ceiling and stopped the water going into the hot water cylinder, suspecting that was where the link was coming from!

A visit from my plumber on Tuesday confirmed it, and by Thursday I had a new hot water cylinder fitted. I will need to get the ceiling replaced in April - this will definitely impact our rental cashflow over next month.

There was an option for me to put in an insurance claim, but I suspect by the time the dust settles, the cost will be around €1,000 - hardly worth putting a claim in, when you consider I have five properties that I will need to let know that I have put a claim in, which will likely result in a higher premium!

This experience highlighted three important things for me:

1. A leak as a landlord is an SOS situation that needs to be checked immediately, no matter how small the leak first appears!

2. Insurance is a great thing to have! I have never really appreciated it, but knowing that if something bigger than this ever happened, knowing there is always the option to put in a claim is great peace of mind.

3. This whole situation would have been a lot scarier financially if I was fully retired and no longer working. I have talked about this several times in the past that relying on rental income as a sole means of income isn’t always that reliable.

Infact, my entire purpose of my update in March, and a lot of my recent thinking on the FIRE movement, is that there are two ways to look at FIRE once one reaches it:

1. Retire, and keep living a life based on constraint and budgeting.
2. Work on your own terms, and live a life based on abundance.

While I know I could retire today, never work again, and live a modest life on €40,000 per year, part of me is starting to ask the bigger questions. We were so disciplined for seven years, saving at some points 75% of our income - it is OK for us to be a little bit more wasteful with money - and in fact, this is one of the joys that being FI can bring.

Our trip to New Zealand later this year highlights this. This is an expensive trip, something we wouldn’t have likely made while pursuing FIRE. But assuming the trip is a success, and we all have a great time, wouldn’t it be nice not to have to wait another eight years between trips? Infact, wouldn’t it even be better to think that FIRE would allow us to make that trip again far sooner if we wanted to - and that would be OK!

By hitting FI, our future is somewhat secure no matter what happens from here on out. By continuing to work, and staying in a semi-retired state, we get the added bonus of being able to live more abundantly, free from both the constraint of a budget, but also without fear of a ceiling falling off the roof!

While I know that this update might have come as a surprise to some of you, especially after seven years of disciplined spending, I feel it highlights some of the options that FIRE gives us - and if that means being able to enjoy a more abundant lifestyle, then I think it shows that FIRE isn’t really about early retirement, but is more about freedom - both in time, and in how we spend money!

March 2025 Portfolio Update

I think we have all been following world events over the last few weeks to know that the stock market is taking a hammering. It was way down in March and this will likely continue for a little while yet! I am even starting to wonder if I should be moving some of my rental cashflow into stocks if the market continues to fall - it feels like a good buying opportunity.

Stocks are no longer a massive part of our portfolio so any short term declines don’t matter too much - but it is a case of at what price point do I feel it is worth it to move cash into stocks again. This is something I hadn’t considered as part of my withdrawal strategy initially, but it will be interesting to see what opportunities come up over the next few months.

March is always an expensive month for our rental properties, with property tax due and insurance due on one of our properties. Replacing the hot water tank was another expense we hadn’t planned for. We will need to get the ceiling fixed in April, but hopefully it will be back to business as usual with our rental properties.

On a positive note, our cashflow continues to grow, crossing over €10,000 in March. While stocks fall and ceilings fall down, this is ultimately what matters to us most of all in the short term.

Finally, a 4% (€200) tax free dividend was paid out for my investment in An Dúlra in March. This is paid out once a year, usually in March.

Here are the overall portfolio numbers:

Monthly Portfolio Growth Report

Portfolio Breakdown

The table below shows the breakdown of my portfolio into the various asset classes:

2025 Year to Date Returns

Here is a summary of my year to date returns for 2025.

2025 Year to Date Growth Report
Opening Balance	€705,026.37
New Contributions	€0.00
Equities Capital Gains + Dividends	€-13,879.97
Real Estate Capital Gains + Rental Income	€9,824.60
Interest on Cash Savings	€216.17
Closing Balance	€701,187.17
Portfolio Return	€-3,839.20
% Return	-0.54%

Lifetime Portfolio Returns

Here are my returns since I started in 2018.

* In 2020, some of the new contributions came in the form of an equity release, as we turned our primary residence into a buy to let and purchased a new home to live.

** In 2018 & 2019 I made several bad investments in peer to peer lending, forex trading and unregulated investments, which resulted in losses overall.

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