“The Golden Albatross” Book — End of Chapter Resources: Chapter 3

Chapter Three Refresh

Welcome to the “End of Chapter Resource Page” for Chapter Three of The Golden Albatross book. As a refresher, in the third chapter, I discussed why I decided to stay at my pensionable job, despite suffering a PTS-linked anxiety and depression fueled mid-life crisis (MLC). You will also recall that I stated money is just a tool. I opined that if you’re caught in the maw of the Golden Albatross inflection point, and you choose to stay at a pensionable job, you are not staying just for the money. You are staying because of what you believe that money (i.e. the pension) can do for you and/or your family later in life.

That’s why I decided to stay for a pension despite documented medical problems caused by my job. I realized after I ran the numbers, that a 20-year pension could enable me and my family to achieve Financial Independence (FI) … in conjunction with our savings and investments. I also realized that once I retired from the military with my pension, I could FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early) if I wanted.

FI and FIRE

Of course, my FI and FIRE realization didn’t occur in a vacuum. I didn’t even know what FIRE or FI was before my breakdown. For some weirdly serendipitous reason though, at the same time my psychological issues boiled over, I was engaged in an effort to improve my personal finance knowledge. Luckily, this effort exposed me to the concepts of FI and FIRE which, once I studied them, enabled me to cope with some (but not all) of my mental health issues.

However, despite my FI and FIRE discovery, I quickly realized that precious few FI and FIRE resources (i.e. books, blogs, podcasts, and retirement calculators) addressed issues specific to pensioners. Thus, I had to take a lot of concepts and tools I found, modify them, and then apply them to my specific pension-related circumstances. That wasn’t easy. Fortunately for you though, it created a lot of future content for my blog. As a result, most of the links I share below are to my own articles.

Context Is Key

Now, before you accuse me of another blatant attempt at self-promotion (as if the book wasn’t enough?) you should understand this. Most of the articles linked below address one of two things:

    1. Resources I found most useful during my FI/FIRE education process
    2. My methods for applying my FI knowledge to my pension specific situation

Thus, the first section below lists articles in which I discuss books, podcasts, and blogs that helped me learn about FI and FIRE. The second section below links to my articles on the Gap Number concept. This is an extremely important method to practically apply FI related knowledge when you have a pension. The third section below links to my articles on how to plan for FI when you have a pension. All these topics are mentioned in Chapter 3.

Finally, since I mentioned my money mistakes in Chapter 3 as well, I also listed my articles that address them. You know … just for shits and giggles.

Recommended FI-related Resources

Blogs

Podcasts

Books

The Gap Number Explained
FI Planning When You Have A Pension
Grumpus Maximus’s Money Mistakes