Yes, it’s been a year! How did that happen to fast? I feel like we just started and the excitement certainly hasn’t dulled. Our first post was on September 4th, 2017!
For this post, let’s switch things up a little and imagine we are being interviewed by BBC!
Q: What do you do when you are not being interviewed by BBC?
A: You stage your own interview session! 🙂
Q: What was the inspiration behind SippingCoconuts?
We were toying with the idea of a blog for the longest time but didn’t quite get down to doing it. Having been on the journey for about 2 years at that point in time, we wanted to share our stories and put into words the thoughts that were swirling in our minds to better articulate our thoughts.
Of course we then couldn’t arrive at a domain name that best represented us. When epiphany struck with SippingCoconuts, it was just perfect. It resonated with our beliefs, way of life and what we wished to project.
Funnily enough, the name SippingCoconuts arrived out of frugality. Mr.C was often clearing out the Fairprice shelves of their Thai ‘botak’ coconuts which was cheaper than the coconut that was already shaved off the top and just needed a straw to be poked in. Mr.C would also play music during the day and have amazing images of scenery flash across the TV, like a wallpaper. One fine day, he was seated on the sofa, drinking coconut water and watching the wallpapers show images of beaches and exclaimed “Ah, this is what you do when you can’t bring yourself to spend money on a holiday, I feel like I am in Koh Samui! This is the life, just chilling and sipping coconuts”. Bam! That instant, SippingCoconuts was born!
Q: What did you hope to achieve with SippingCoconuts?
Fame and fortune.
For real. Along with that, we had hoped to document our thoughts and growth as a young family headed into the FIRE horizon. We see this as our creative outlet. Perhaps join like-minded individuals and build a community that shares and encourages the path less taken. To show our kids proof that we were always rad!
Q: Who is the investing muscle between the two of you and what is the investing philosophy?
Obviously, Mr.C! Investing philosophy is: All in! Go big or go home! In all seriousness though, it is as simple as Identifying under-valued shares. Fundamental analysis, almost no technical analysis.
Q: What has changed with SippingCoconuts, 1 year on?
Certainly our look and feel has changed, more than once. We have been trying to move our blog towards a more lifestyle magazine feel more because it is something we ourselves would like to frequent and read. We do hope that eventually we would grow SippingCoconuts into an online lifestyle magazine with sections on Finance, Travel, Cooking etc with active collaboration and community participation.
Financially, we have also made further progress towards our target despite the multiple holidays so that’s positive growth (huge sigh of relief!). Along the way we have thrown caution to the wind and committed to going on a mini retirement in May 2019, which is the fire raging in our bellies to get a taste of what FIRE life would be before we are restricted to school terms.
Of course, the SippingCoconut household now has a Baby Coconut on all fours, adding more squeals of laughter to the giggle pot that is Coco#1.
Q: We notice that you have monetized your blog, have you joined the more prominent FIRE bloggers and have started earning a considerable sum from the blog to live off?
*Speechless*. We’re speechless because we are so disappointed in our earnings. Click on those links people!
Yes, we did attempt to monetize as if there’s money to be made then why not. It would go towards the cost of running this blog. Truth to be told, and you might want to be seated for this huge reveal, we stand at a princely sum of $32 in advertising revenue. I repeat, click on those links people. Here’s an ad to make it easy for you 😉 👇
Q: How does the mini retirement / sabbatical plan fit in with the overall retirement plan?
This is a toughie. The sabbatical next year, if it goes through, will definitely push out the retirement date unless Mr.C’s mad investing wizardry surprises us.
Mr.C and I are prepared to get back into work, even at a lower pay, to enable the sabbatical to take place. It would be our last opportunity to do so before we are restricted by the school term. That’s truly where we take pride in our plans that it is flexible enough to pursue what is important to us.
Q: How has your understanding and ideals of FIRE evolved since you first started on the journey?
We have talked about this a fair bit among ourselves and also explored some themes around it on the blog. This continues to evolve as it is more introspective and we grow as individuals.
FIRE to us is more skewed towards the FI part. It doesn’t necessarily douse any corporate ambition, that still remains but the power and freedom to RE whenever we want and as many times as we want is very appealing. Having bid adieu to my corporate life close to 6 months ago, I still have hopes of using my skill sets in the future, either in a corporate set up or more likely an enterprise we set up or a social enterprise.
FIRE then is the freedom for us to choose what we want to do, when we want to do. This period for us is for the young children and travel, perhaps later on we would like to do some form of work (as mentioned above), or perhaps we will be pursuing hobbies and interests that we have yet to uncover!
Q: We notice that you do not share any actual numbers to further illustrate your income, savings, investments, return on investments or even the very popular expense report. Why?
We believe personal finance should be personal. We do not want to encourage any negative emotions that come about from comparing numbers with us. We believe everyone taking this path can understand the fundamentals of the FIRE journey then “adult up” and do the necessary in terms of deciding a savings rate, chopping down their expenses to live a life they would love and invest the rest.
Q: What kind of example are you setting for your kids in terms of life and contribution to the society and being high-achievers?
This probably deserves a post on it’s own however in a nutshell, the biggest lesson is that there are many roads to success / contribution and success / contribution is what you define it as.
A corporate career is simply one of the roads available and a well-trodden road. There still is no substitute for hard and smart work, having a plan and working towards it will free you up to pursue your passion and that can be rocket science or philanthropy or fish farming. When you are at peace with yourself, you are at peace with the world.
Q: Our last question, when are you guys actually retiring?
Yesterday, we wish it was yesterday! Totally missed that.
Truth be told, while we are still aiming for end 2019 / early 2020, we are cognizant of our sabbatical plan taking a hit our timeline. Assuming Mr.C does get back into work (the extended holiday doesn’t spoil him!) then we would be looking at end 2020.
xx
Well that was fun! At least it was a real chuckle for Mr.C and I in doing it up! We welcome questions from our readers and we might have yet another Q&A session! Chime in with your burning questions!
Nice write up! And I am sure it won’t be that long before a media outlet picks you up to do a FIRE interview.
Would be awesome 🙂
Hahaha that would indeed be great, but in the meantime – mock interviews LOL