Why did I start on this journey?

One of the defining characteristics of my life has been mobility.

I started my professional career in a country that I was not born in. Since then, life, work, and family have taken me across borders and exposed me to different cultures, economies, and financial systems. While this has been an incredibly rewarding experience, it has also complicated something many people take for granted: retirement planning.

Today, given my family situation, it is highly unlikely that I will retire in the country where I grew up. In fact, I cannot say with certainty which country I will ultimately call home during retirement. That uncertainty forced me to think carefully about a question that many people avoid for decades:

How much can I rely on government retirement programs?

As I looked into the retirement systems of the countries I have lived and worked in, I quickly realized that the answer was not straightforward. Eligibility rules differ from country to country. Benefits often depend on years of contributions, residency requirements, tax treaties, future policy changes, and countless other factors that may evolve over time.

Even if I could estimate what benefits I might receive, I found myself facing another reality. In every country I lived in, there seemed to be a common narrative surrounding government-funded retirement programs. Whether the concern was aging populations, declining birth rates, rising healthcare costs, increasing government debt, or political gridlock, the underlying message was remarkably similar:

"These benefits may not be there by the time you retire."

Whether that prediction ultimately proves true is almost beside the point.

The reality is that there is enough uncertainty that I was uncomfortable building my retirement plans around assumptions I could not control.

I don't know what country I will retire in.

I don't know what retirement benefits I will qualify for.

I don't know how retirement programs will change over the next several decades.

What I do know is that I can control my savings rate, my investment decisions, and my long-term financial habits.

That realization fundamentally changed how I approached personal finance.

Rather than viewing government retirement benefits as the foundation of my retirement plan, I chose to treat them as a potential bonus. If they exist and I qualify for them, great. If not, I want to be financially prepared regardless.

This mindset led me to focus heavily on building my own investment portfolio. Throughout my career in technology, I directed a significant portion of my income toward long-term investments in the stock market. The goal was not to get rich quickly or outperform professional investors. The goal was much simpler: build enough financial independence that my retirement would not depend on decisions made by future governments.

This approach has influenced nearly every financial decision I have made. It shaped how much I save, how I invest, how I think about risk, and how I evaluate financial opportunities.

Will government retirement programs still exist when I retire? Maybe.

Will I qualify for meaningful benefits? Possibly.

Would I be happy to receive them? Absolutely.

But my plan does not require any of those things to happen.

For me, retirement planning is ultimately about reducing uncertainty. Since I cannot control where I will retire or what government programs will look like decades from now, I have chosen to focus on the variables I can control today.

This blog is, in many ways, a record of that journey. I will share the decisions I have made, the lessons I have learned, the mistakes I have made along the way, and the investing principles that have helped me build confidence in my financial future.

Because regardless of what governments decide, I want my retirement to be funded primarily by assets that I own and a plan that I control.

-- Generated using AI using my own thoughts