My life as a beta full-time investor has wrapped up, and I’ve come away with a bunch of learnings.
Some of this may already be said on this thread — it is, after all, a shared human experience. But I wanted to jot it down anyway. So I have something to look back on. And who knows, maybe it’ll help someone else too.
Pros
Life is peaceful. No alarms. No meetings. No escalations.
Tons of time to sit, think, and do nothing. Helps with ideas, clarity, and reflection.
Always around for family and friends. You don’t have to miss anything — unless you actually want to.
Outings on weekdays feel amazing. Everything’s cheaper and less crowded. Somehow, beers at 12:30 PM on a Monday taste sweeter when you know the rest of the world is slaving away.
Health improves without trying too hard — better sleep, less stress, more walks.
You slow down. Your body relaxes. Your nervous system finally feels calm.
You end up reading more, learning more, and actually retaining more.
You start using the stuff from finance books — the 4% rule, bucket system etc. You get to see how it works in real life.
You get time for hobbies and things that bring you joy.
If planned well, your tax outgo is genuinely low.
You realise pretty quick — nobody really cares that you’re unemployed or jobless. After a few weeks, most people forget. Only a handful check in or stay in touch. It really shows you who actually cares. I’ve realised the list isn’t long. Helps separate the wheat from the chaff — something this forum deeply values.
Cons
Sometimes, there’s just too much time. Every day starts feeling like a Sunday.
The “is my PF big enough?” fear never truly leaves.
The market doesn’t care that you don’t have a job. It’ll do what it wants. You can’t bank on yearly returns — you need a large enough PF to absorb the shocks.
You start questioning yourself — “Should I be doing something? Am I wasting time?”
Society doesn’t get it. Especially the Indian society. They wonder why you’re at home at 1 PM or taking a walk in the park at 11:30 AM.
You keep discovering exciting new stocks and sectors, but you can’t keep flipping. Especially if you run a focused, long-term portfolio. It really tests your patience and conviction.
You realise stocks don’t do much over months. You have to keep reminding yourself — you’ve invested in a business, not a ticker. Real returns come from holding, not moving in and out of stories.
Negative news hits harder. Especially if it directly impacts your stocks.
Big spends make you think twice — gadgets, trips, upgrades — all need more deliberation.
And yeah, you really miss that monthly salary SMS dopamine hit. Especially when the markets are falling.
Biggest learning
Have ~10 years of expenses parked in safe stuff — FDs, hybrid funds, EPF etc. So for e.g. if you spend ₹12L/year post-tax, parking ₹1.3–1.5 Cr in instruments yielding ~9–10% lets you cover your needs stress-free, without touching your equity. Let that equity compound undisturbed. Every 5–7 years, you can tap into equity gains to top up for inflation or any extra drawdowns and add to the above bucket. This acts as your defacto salary piece, each month or quarter, you can draw down what you need for expenses. Helps you stay strong psychologically.
Now that I’m back to work, I’m building this buffer out further. The goal: shield the equity, let it grow unabated (as much as possible).
Real freedom is when your money works for without you losing your nerve when the markets are down, volatile or moving sideways.
It was a hell of an experience and I long to do this for real and permanently the next time.
You have given pros and cons…but not explained the basic thing…
Why you joined work life again? And what planning you missed this time?
And if you were not properly ready, then why did you take this path in the first place??
Very well summarised. For me its over one year now without a job, only 4 of my close office colleague are in touch. I have a group of my college friends in NCR. They are least bothered that i don’t have a job😂. In my housing society my close group knows what i do, they have full respect, i don’t care for rest.
Overall I am living this life since Covid hit in March 2020. Worked remotely for international clients from home with higher productivity till last year March when company asked for mandatory office hours. Could not sustain 4 hrs on road from Ghaziabad- Gurgaon to and fro. So all in all as far as life style is concerned, for past 5 years life style is same as travel restrictions were not there. Yes only missing link is monthly SMS for salary:joy:.
For a full time investor, keeping 1 cr in fixed income is a waste when interest rates are on a lower trajectory (6.5%). I have kept two years cash and rest all is invested. This is true for a person with networth more than 10 cr in my opinion. Better option is to put money in hated stock portfolio, will give returns more than FD.
Going back to work is ok if you feel bored and in your fourties, for 50+ these options are also limited as getting a job you prefer will be difficult.
Got laid off twice, hence the decision was a forced one, not a planned one. It was a - life threw me lemons, I made lemonade kind of situation.
My existing pf helped me tide through this phase with relative ease
The reason I’ve rejoined the workforce again:
(1) I would like to augment my pf further, I think it isn’t there yet to live off it for the next 30-40 years. Assuming I live that long!
(2) To incorporate my learnings of the bucket I’ve spoken about. I would like to build that out as a shield for my equity portfolio.
(3) I still have the desire, drive and energy to work full-time. However, being in my early 40s, I know for a fact that my life span in the corpo world is limited (another 4-5 years). Thus, trying to maximise on my remaining time in it.
There is no single debt based instrument that yields 9-10%. As a full time investor, I have decided, I would live of a bucket strategy. I’ll do that as it makes the most sense to me and seems practical.
Bucket 1: 2 years of expenses saved in a flexi FD account. Generating 4.5% p.a.
Bucket 2: What I was referring to in my post. Details on how I plan on constructing it below.
Bucket 3: Entirely equity across market caps (Stocks + MFs)
Bucket 4: Rs. 15-20 L for medical emergencies. Kept locked away in 1 year FDs.
My analysis suggests, the following mix of holdings in bucket 2 should generate the following kind of returns (I have used ChatGPT to come up with this analysis):
Blended Expected Returns:
Avg Year: ~9.0–9.4%
Good Year: ~12–13%
Bad Year: ~3–4%
So, will it give me 9-10% returns every year? Maybe not. However, if I’m able to build out bucket 1 + 2 for a 10-year period, it’ll make sure I give my equity bucket enough time to compound and generate the returns it is possible of. I can then use those returns to replenish buckets 1 and 2 for any value erosion due to inflation and additional drawdowns in years when the returns were only 3-4%, it won’t generate the Rs. 12 L I gave as an example on a bucket size of Rs. 1.3 - 1.5 crores.
That is the game plan. But as with everything in life, I’m sure things won’t move in a straight line and I will have to periodically review how it is working (annual checks should be good enough IMO).
You can look at smart saving interest option through some New sfb as well as idfc etc bank. They consistently give 6-7% return on savings account. I have been using them for last 3 -4 years and there is no problem. They also come with higher flexibility than FD or flexi FD.
Just a caution, Please keep in mind any deposit insured is only around 5 lacs per Account OR similar, this may be raised to 10 lacs based on rumours in last few weeks
Govt will rescue only 3 Banks (SBI, ICICI and HDFC) in case of any systematic failures
Folks had money into multiple Cooperative Banks and had faced major issues in past, not saying it can happen with other banks stated above but point to keep in mind
You think 25X or 4% rule is sufficient, but general consensus in India is 33X to 50X ( 3% to 2%). Medical inflation is one untamed animal. Appreciate you have hefty medical insurance. Also think of getting remote work if its feasible and move to hometown or cheaper cities on rent to free up capital out of real-estate. This helps in reducing expense and increasing equity exposure.
Tbh, I use the 4% rule more as a framework than a hard rule. Withdrawing less (2–3%) definitely makes retirement more bulletproof — no doubt about that.
For me, it’s about having a buffer. So if my annual expenses are ₹14L, I’d want the 4% withdrawal to give me ₹18L. That way, I know I’m pulling out more than I need, and I can always scale back if required.
Geo-arbitrage is a great lever, but not for me. We own the house we live in, and Mumbai is where the heart — and my life — is. I’d rather lead a minimalistic life than leave behind everything I care about and cherish.
Moving to hometown to reduce expenses and selling metro home…this is not financial freedom , this is compromise…Then better to get a proper job and lead a normal lifestyle…There is no point in living in a village devoid of any basic civic facilities and have crores of rupees in dmat account and then die one day leaving all that money to other people. This is like a story of a begger who had money saved under his seat, while he kept on begging…Life is very short and only Once you live. If you have money and earned with your hard work and intelligence, you are supposed to spend it on you and what you like…only thing you need to make sure is…you should not outlive your fund.
You can check out Invits Like Indigrid and Few REITS.
INVITS are generating around 15% DPU from purchase price.(Even for current price it will give around 10% DPU)
If your Home town (not village) has sufficient facilities like education and medicare then it actually make sense to move to home town.
This will free up time in life earlier from corporate rat race.
In my knowledge, only 5-6 metro cities, Pune and few UTs/state capital (Chandigarh, Pondicherry, Cochin, Ahmedabad, Jaipur etc) have good hospitals that can take care of urgent neuro/spine surgery.
Healthcare quality/hospital quality in tier 2/3 is not upto the mark.
I know people living in tier 2/3- Who frequently travel to Mumbai/Hyderabad for healthcare.
Healthcare is ideally No. 1 priority. Last thing to compromise for people who have the MONEY.
You are right in comparing a Megacity to Remote Village kind of relocation is not worth it. But may be Tier-2 /3 can be looked into. Also an option of selling house to move into rental can free up capital for investing in equities. This can also help achieve FIRE.
Lovely write ups here and I resonate with some of the thoughts.
My view on Financial independence number:
25x annual expenses or 4% withdrawl is too aggressive or risky in India.
Exiting here would make life anxious, thinking about every expense, always feel vulnerable to short term market volatility and thus leading to think about joining back.
Genuine approach is to add additional buffer for contingency and comfort for future.
Thus, a 3% withdrawal rate or 33x is the optimal one in my opinion plus 2 crores buffer/cushion.
So, if annual expenses are 20~25 lacs ( aligning to most of us who have their own loan free house and 2 kids), then it comes out around 6.5 crores. Add couple of Crores for medical emergency, future big ticket items(car, foreign travel) and kids foreign education. So, the minimum number that comes out is INR 8.5 Cr. IMO, this is a sweet spot with no regrets and no looking back.
Now lies a bigger question: how to plan this money ?
My view is to break this into 75:25 equity: fixed income ratio, which means roughly 6.5 cr into equity and 2 crore into fixed income(passive income generating assets).
Here is my current assessment of investing 2 crores in order to get ~20 lacs annual passive income that fully takes care of your annual expenses. Divide this between you and spouse to have almost zero taxation. Yes it is possible.
Once you are able to generate annual expenses= passive income, it will definitely remove the anxiety of emptying your purse/corpus or the feeling of “is my corpus big enough that lasts lifetime?” or that feeling of missing the monthly paycheck SMS.
Rest 6.5 crore can be left for compounding wonder.
Thoughts?
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