the numbers behind "overshooting freedom"
working notes on how I kept moving the goalposts and accidentally hid financial independence from myself
A couple of weeks ago, I published this:
It felt a little hollow because there weren’t real quantifiable numbers in there, so I thought I’d write a companion piece for it, just for the numbers.
Step 1 — November 2024:
What I thought I had: 12-18 months, depending on leanness
Cash on hand: $27K
Money market fund: $28K
Spendable total: $55K
—
Extras (mentally off-limits):
Shared accounts: $91K
Index funds: $467K
—
Also, adamant about not touching index funds because number goes up is still addicting (and I can’t say I’ve solved it even now in Sept ’25).
Step 2 — March 2025
By this point, I knew I wasn’t going back to corporate.
I still described it as a “sabbatical,” even though the math no longer agreed and I was doing other stuff that gave me more joy (i.e. full stack stuff, writing, content creation).
What I recalculated:
Cash on hand: 50k
Money market fund: 100k (cashed out on a position to hedge against sequence of returns risk)
Shared accounts: 91k
Index funds: 342k
Spendable total: $613K
Step 3 — June 2025
Adding the “untouchables”:
CPF (Central Provident Fund — similar to 401(k) and Social Security combined): $359K
SRS (Supplementary Retirement Scheme — similar to a traditional IRA): $86K
—
Retirement accounts total: 445k
Spendable total: $613K
Total net worth¹: 1.05M
😅
Functionally, a timeline:
November ’24: I can afford a year-long sabbatical
Mar ’25: Actually, I have more than half a mil in liquidity, but I’m not at FI² yet
Jun ’25: Well…
From $55K → $1.05M, just by reclassifying what I was willing to count = nearly a 20x difference.
—
¹ Total net worth: I’m (still) not counting my portion of equity in the family property, so maybe I haven’t learned the complete lesson 😅
² FI number: Typically 25-30x your annual expenses, so the number I was heading towards was 1 million as a middle ground
I actually crossed it in November 24, right when I was agonizing whether I could take the sabbatical prototype. Let’s call it subconscious serendipity.
Cost of living assumptions:
Location: Staying in Singapore, but with geographic arbitrage option if needed
FI number: Current budget isn’t lean ($50k+), so could pull back if markets crash
Withdrawal rate: Flex, between 3% - 6%; SORR factored in with 3-year cash buffer
Healthcare: I’m assuming Singapore's system continues, with no major medical surprises (already have a few of those like my broken back baked in!)
Future family: I’m single, with no plan for children (but have 2 nephews, and who are (a tiny bit) factored in the family spending)
Aging parental care: Current support could scale up, but I have buffers built in the projections too
An acknowledgement: this entire piece reflects significant privilege - stable employment, citizenship/life in Singapore, and access to financial and investment education.
It’s the kind of privilege that makes this a 'good problem to have'. The mental accounting trap itself scales down, though: the same psychological barriers that kept me from seeing $1M can keep someone from seeing the $10K that might change their life.
And there’s that! I’ve rounded numbers and tried to make things simpler, so I might’ve made assumptive mistakes along the way.