I only met N a few months ago but from early on she became a good friend. She is bubbly, interesting, focused and her career in immunology is so wildly different to mine that I am always learning loads from her.
With a PhD in immunology her work her shifted dramatically in the last few weeks from lab work at a well-known university in Central London to administering trial drugs to COVID-19 patients in a hospital linked to the university she works at.
She is a brilliant example of how to marry your paid work with your passion, in her case helping people in need.
She is also my go-to-source for all the questions a non-medic like me has 😊
When I asked her to be interviewed for the Women who FIRE series on my blog, to my excitement she didn’t hesitate. So here it is – enjoy!
When did you become interested in FI?
I have always loved saving money which is very weird as I am a serious minimalist by nature and have very little interest in collecting anything else or in actually earning money. I became officially interested in FI when I read the Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris. The book and the concept of rejecting the normal model of a delayed gratification retirement was introduced to me by a truly inspirational friend. I will always be grateful to him. That must have been in 2015.
A year or so later my brother, also a truly inspirational person who lives in the US, introduced me to Mr Money Mustache. That was when I realised that I wasn’t the only weirdo and that this was a whole community of people striving for independence and the freedom to run their own lives. Then followed my watershed moment…
Was there a watershed moment?
Absolutely, I had never been interested in money until a conversation with my Godfather made me realise that I was taking our current stability and access to free services for granted and to may not always be this way. It was becoming more and more obvious to me that I was missing something regarding the importance of financial wealth.
I though that because I don’t want children and I have a very low-cost lifestyle that money didn’t need to be important to me.
My Godfather is a very wise and wealthy man, so I decided to ask for his opinion and advice. He simply asked me how I would look after the people I loved if I needed to. I said health care here is free, to which he replied ‘for now’. He has spent years in the US and he made me realise that the status quo will not necessarily always be so.
If I could not care for the people I loved I would be dependent on someone else for that and I cannot stand being dependent on other people.
So that evening I decided to change my life.
How was your relationship with money when you were younger?
I have always been very frugal and not enjoyed spending money. I love to save money but I’m never really sure what to do with it when I have it. That has always been a source of confusion for me. I love The Millionaire Next Door but the book doesn’t really explain what the point is in all of this wealth accumulation. If it isn’t spent, what happens to it?!
At the same time I am not stingy, I spend lots of money, I travel very extensively and do everything I really want, but I always evaluate spending in terms of how much that would turn into if I put it in an ETF for 20 years or how many classrooms I could build/school books I could buy in sub-Saharan Africa for that money and the answer is usually obvious and convincing.
What do you do?
I work in academia for a very well-known university. I am a Project Manager in medical research, currently focusing on medical imaging in cancer research. I am very senior and I can’t see any way to progress higher than my current position, which I’m finding rather annoying.
Since the Coronavirus pandemic hit the UK, my regular work was put on hold and I was asked to help administer trial drugs to COVID-19 patients in the ICU of a large London hospital.
My job and my career fit with my values because I am helping develop the best care that patients can receive. I do not work in the pharmaceutical industry, although I believe I would receive approximately 4-5x my current salary, because I would not receive the same career satisfaction. I do my job because I want to help people who need it, not because I need to receive a huge salary to pay for things I don’t need.
During normal times when travelling is accessible, I work and volunteer on a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation project in Africa, which is extremely hard work in often awful conditions, but we are saving women and babies and to me, that is important and absolutely worth it. When I am there I live in an extremely inexpensive guest house in The Gambia and spend the week working often in 39C heat with no air conditioning and no access to clean water or soap during my workday. I use my annual leave from my job to do this, which means I don’t really get to take much in the way of ‘holidays’, but it is worth it to make this difference.
When I’m not doing that, I do some independent work as a consultant in medical research and review applications for funding for medical research.
How did you pick your career path?
I fell into science because it was the only thing that I was good at school, and therefore the only thing that I enjoyed, other than wood and metal work. I am dyslexic and autistic and find anything to do with words very complicated whereas numbers always made sense to me.
I chose mostly sciences at A-level (Physics, Maths, Psychology, Businesses Studies, Law, Art and the ever-useful General Studies) and then a science undergraduate degree.
A great friend of mine inspired me to take on a PhD which I completed principally so that I didn’t have to define myself based on my marital status i.e. ‘are you Miss or Mrs?’, ‘none of your business, it’s Dr!’.
Did you / do you have any debt?
During Freshers’ Week at uni I realised I needed to start developing a credit history and I also realised that:
- Banks were desperate to lend me money for free, with the added incentive of a free disposable camera, a memory stick and £100!
- They would also pay me 7% (at the time) to put the money I had borrowed from them directly back into a cash ISA. To me, the only logical course of action was to take as much free credit as I could and invest the money into ISAs and savings accounts (which paid interest back then).
In the years that followed, this became known as ‘stoozing’. So yes, I have always had credit card debt but it has always been completely balanced with my savings, so that I can pay it off at any time. This form of borrowing money to earn more money than you are paying in interest is called ‘leverage’ but it can be very dangerous and I would only ever do it if it does not put me at risk of being able to pay back the loan.
Now I have one stoozing credit card and a small mortgage which I took to leverage the debt in the stock market. If I needed to I could liquidate my stock market assets and repay my mortgage, but I’d never do this as there is an early repayment charge.
Do you own any properties?
In 2008 I realised that mortgage rates were ridiculously low and that this was unlikely to be sustainable, so if I wanted a very low mortgage rate I had better do something about it immediately.
So I scraped together everything I could, worked three jobs whilst studying and bought myself a tiny property that I was convinced would never go down in value. I have worked since I was 13 and always saved and leveraged credit. I was also fortunate in that my parents paid for my undergraduate degree (much cheaper at that time than now). And I chose a PhD that paid well and paid a stipend not a salary, i.e. it was tax-free, meaning I could take advantage of my tax-free income allowance.
Therefore, I had savings by the time I was doing my PhD and the recession hit. I was able to borrow some money from my parents to get me into a low loan to value mortgage rate. As the interest was so low and the recession was beginning to hit, I took a fixed rate, repayment mortgage.
I owned my first property for only about three years, which may well seem mad, but financially made sense at the time. It was located in the town where I was studying.
The second property I owned for four years and was located in a then scruffy, now gentrified part of london. The price of properties in that area shot up immediately after I bought thanks to new transport links being built, which I found out doing my research before buying.
My third and current place I have had for five years now. It is the smallest property in one of the nicest areas to be sure that it would always be sellable, and I bought in a very desirable London-commuter town where starter homes would always be in demand.
The research I did before purchasing was huge. I considered and optimised all of my variables including geographical area, location within the area, ease and time of commute, proximity to good schools (for resale) and transport links, size, layout and ease of renovation of the property, turnaround time for the purchase, age and state of the property, sale history of the property, whether each property I identified was a value-investment.
I am fortunate enough to have grown up in a very old house which was always falling apart and usually had no heating, and I have parents who are very determined and very skilled in fixing things – thanks parents! That meant I was able to identify a lot of problems with the properties that I viewed and do a lot of work on my properties that needed to be done.
My properties are, without doubt, what made me financially independent at this age.
Do you / did you have any side jobs? And how did you choose them?
I always make a point of meeting new people and asking a lot of questions.
Through my degrees I worked relentlessly, always on the lookout for new opportunities to earn money or other resources. I always chose side gigs with additional, not obvious benefits, e.g. free food (restaurant work), free gym membership (hotel bar work/gym), additional benefits (I became an aerobics instructor to overcome my fear of public speaking – it worked) or free skills training (taking blood in medical research – it paid well too).
I even worked at a local castle where I charged people entry (I let military personnel, police, NHS in for free – but don’t tell anyone), ran the teeny giftshop and did a very basic history tour for anyone who wanted one. I took the job because I could see that it was never very busy so I would have time to write up my PhD whilst I was there.
If I didn’t have the Gates Foundation work, I would use my holidays to do more consultancy work and volunteer abroad (which pays in joy rather than money).
When did you become FI?
I went about the FIRE calculation backwards. I have always been frugal and resourceful, but I hadn’t actually calculated my FI number, the amount of money I would need to have in order to be able to stop working, because there are so many variables for which I did not have solid answers.
Where would I live? Would I work? What would I do? What would be my outgoings? How can I keep myself busy? Do I need a car? Do I need a jet ski?
So I hadn’t ever calculated my FI number. Instead, I calculated what the 4% rule would give me on my total financial assets if I were to put everything into the stock market.
I realised that the 4% number would actually be quite difficult for me to spend every year. Therefore, I am Financially Independent and no longer ‘have’ to work.
What do you invest in?
I like to make sure that I don’t feel deprived, so I do ‘invest in myself’. I have noticed that if I feel deprived, I save for a week or two and then I blow all of my good work by wasting money on something that I don’t need. To make sure that I don’t fall into this deprive-waste cycle, I have a self-imposed mindset of scarcity but with the understanding that I can have whatever I want if I really want it, but I have to really want it. This mostly involves self-development and experiences.
After deciding to take Spanish lessons, I looked where they were offered and found a very reasonable adult education charity resource, the Mary Ward Centre, so the lessons cost hardly any money and I know I’m contributing to the education of adults who may not otherwise be able to afford such lessons.
This is a hotly debated topic, especially with our Canadian and North American friends, but I believe that my house is an investment. I chose to live in England so I have to live somewhere. Plus, it was a value investment, in that I paid less for it than it was worth.
My current property needed work and did most of this work myself with my very talented engineer and house-developing father – thank you! I chose a property in the worst part of a very nice area, knowing that gentrification would elevate the value without me having to do anything; this has now happened – thank you, local property developers!
Finally, I rent out my spare room to someone who would otherwise still be living in a disgusting and dangerous basement room covered in mould. I feel strongly that it is important to be able to provide a safe, warm, reliable and affordable place for younger or less fortunate people to live, so I do that and it brings me joy (ensure you pay all relevant taxes on this income).
I put money and time into the schools and initiatives in The Gambia, Africa, that I support. Obviously, I don’t receive a financial return on this, but it is a huge investment of my time and energy, when I could otherwise be working for money, and to me it is an investment in the future.
If I’m feeling down and I need a ridiculous treat, I go to Hotel Chocolate and buy myself Champagne truffles! Pink ones. In my mind, they are the optimisation of ridiculous luxury and controlled spending, and I love them. They always cheer me up but I make sure I keep the ribbon to remind me of how much I’ve spent on them (but you get two bags for £10).
All of my left-over money is invested into my ISA via Vanguard’s ETFs. If I have anything left over after that I would put it into my Self-Invested Personal Pension (SIPP) which Vanguard now also offers.
I do not believe that jewellery, cars, boats etc., on the whole, are investments. For me, an investment pays me a regular return (not necessarily a financial one though) and/or sells for more than I paid for it, including all relevant fees.
What made the needle move most in your journey to FI?
Property investing and a scarcity mindset.
Both of my parents are very careful and imaginative with money and resources so I have to thank them for my general thrifty attitude. My Godfather and my brother have also given me excellent advice and guidance in terms of realising how I actually want to live my life and bringing this in line with my values.
Realising that I could give up ‘having to’ go to work and just going to work because I wanted to was the penny-drop moment for me. Freedom is the ultimate luxury.
What newspapers do you read? How do you choose the books you read?
I never read the news and I only pay attention to things in my sphere of influence or very major news events.
Twitter and Instagram are not my thing – I am too busy living my life to document it for strangers. The only friends I have on Facebook are people I would happily spend the weekend with.
I follow Tony Robbins. I read the British Medical Journal and books recommended to me by friends whom I admire and who have aligned values and goals.
EVERYONE would benefit from reading The Invisible Woman by Caroline Criado Perez. I totally agree with Tim Ferris in the 4 Hour Work Week that I would rather canvas the opinion of 5 people I trust than read all the information for myself – streamline.
I see the beauty in efficiency so that I can fit everything into my life that I want to.
How have your life partners influenced you?
I am very fortunate to have found someone who has a very similar philosophy to me in terms of spending and investing and I think that is extremely important.
A previous partner, who was into spending ridiculous amounts of money, showed me how insane and short-sighted people can be and, again, how different I am from the average person. I tried that lifestyle, I bought Prada phones and wallets and ridiculous jewellery, but it didn’t bring me as much joy as finding something really interesting or unusual in a charity shop.
What is your advice for someone who is still on the path to FI?
Focus on what you do want and not what you are stopping yourself from having e.g. don’t think ‘I really want a coffee but I can’t have one’; instead say ‘I’m choosing to invest in my freedom’. The whole point in FIRE is freedom and making your own decisions, so it isn’t that you can’t have it. If you chose not to have it, acknowledge that choice and own the outcome.
Every time you want to spend money, imagine how much more money that could make you in 20 years if you invested it, with compound interest. Keep a record of every single penny you spend for at least a month and then review whether the enjoyment you received from it was worth the additional x number of hours you have to spend at work.
There are lots of fantastic apps and tools to track and analyse your spending now. I don’t use them but I know a lot of people who find them very useful.
The alternative advice is to find a job that you love, for which you jump out of bed in the mornings thinking ‘woohoo’. But still, we need to future-proof, will that job be there forever or might you have to return to a job you hate if it falls through?
Do you have any other female friends who are FI?
I don’t have any friends who are FI, other than those who are past retirement age. It is important to note the financial restrictions placed on women and to work towards recognising and addressing those. For example, the gender pay gap, combined with London’s notoriously high property prices, have formed an impenetrable barrier for many women who want to take the first step on to the capital’s property ladder on their own’. There is a very interesting article here.
The average house price is a far higher multiple of the average woman’s salary than that of a man, so women have to save for many years more than a man just to buy the same house, by which time the price of the house will have risen even more. I respectfully raise that this is often an issue experienced to a greater extent by BAME (black and minority ethnic), trans and immigrant women, which is why it is so important for us to work together.
On average, financial independence is far harder for women to achieve and the reasons are multifactorial, but if we support each other, share resources and keep the conversation flowing, I believe we can make it too.
What do you think of N’s story? Please leave a comment below and share this post with your friends who may find it interesting.
Are you a FIRE woman? Would you like to be interviewed in their series? Or do you know someone who would fit in well here? Then drop me a line 😊
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