Galuh Van Bemmelen

I'm thinking about my future financial plans. With my work as a freelance consultant, of course I can't expect that every month there will be a steady and certain income. Very unstable depending on whether any clients pay me or not. It could be that in one month I get a large income, but the next month there is very little, or even no money coming in. It's possible, right? Especially with my current principle of not wanting to accept too much work, choosing the type of work or clients I can help. Of course, there is a big chance that I won't get the payment I expected every month.

We should always have a plan in life, right? Plan A, plan B, plan C, whatever will support us when our initial plan does not turn out as expected.

Intermezzo, one of my biggest expenses every year is traveling abroad. Even though I consider it an inner investment/happiness, the process still requires lots of money, right? I can't count for sure, but what is clear is that by 2024 I have visited almost 30 countries (or more, I don't count), and for some reason my ambition to travel (to super far away places) has diminished somewhat. In fact, now I prefer to travel to places that are close by, places that make me feel "lighter" and less stressed (sometimes traveling in places that are in the middle of nowhere and super far away make me a little stressed because of the extensive preparations).

I started thinking about reducing my expenses on traveling to "strange and super far" places. Oh, that doesn't mean I will stop traveling, it's impossible, but I will focus on traveling to places that make my heart calm and happy, mostly close from my country/even in Indonesia itself. Challenge? Hmm, that's still possible, but if the time and opportunity are right. Besides, I have to be consistent, reducing work means I have to reduce desires. I can't just reduce my work to live in peace, but my desires are still numerous. Could go bankrupt.

Back to plan, actually I spend most of my life working, especially the 2017-2023 period (at the end of 2023 it will be a bit less). In that period, even though my expenses were quite large, I also didn't forget to save through investments. I invested in stable bonds and will get returns every day. My plan is (and I have also implemented it btw), I want to increase my savings periodically every time there is a payment, and hope that the return / passive money I get every month can cover my living expenses and the people / cats who depend on me. Well, nothing extravagant, at least just the basic necessities. By having passive money that can cover my basic living needs every month, of course it will slightly reduce the potential for "worrying because there are no payments coming in in certain months". On the other hand, I will feel safe because I feel, okay, even though no payment money is coming in, at least there will still be fresh funds coming into my account every month.

My plan has actually been running, since 2021 to be precise. But I only took it seriously in 2023. So is the passive income on target? As of the position I wrote right now, I have reached 77.82% of the target. This means I still have to work hard for the 22.18%. It's okay, I'm not in a hurry.

So what will I do next when I have reached the target? I will move to plan B, likely by raising the target slowly. Just take it slow, I don't want to get stressed. I also feel that my current position is still safe because there is still some work in progress. So this is a "future plan" that I will be working on seriously. The goal is so that I can really implement "slow living", so that the rest of my life and all my time is not just spent working. Because working too hard, non-stop, full of pressure like I did in 2020 - 2022 really made me burn out and maybe experience depression. Maybe, because I've never been to a psychologist to confirm it.