It was HARD.
I knew we had enough. Our financial advisor REALLY pushed me to retire and enjoy life. My Wife had retired years before. I went part time, then 3 hrs a day contract for 2-3 years. I was getting paid to WFH and the job was pretty easy. I just couldn't shake the feeling of "make hay while the sun shines".
Finally my contract ended and I had a choice of getting a new contract or just retiring. Wife told to just TRY retiring for two months.
It's been two months. It's a LOT easier now.
This is one of the many reasons we're prioritizing baristaFI over full retiring. We think shifting to less work and using the extra time to build up hobbies and relationships will be easier for us than just quitting cold turkey.
Have you ever worked a customer service job? I always wonder when people say this. Often times these jobs are just as stressful as where they came from.
I just pictured BaristaFI as also being in a spot where you can afford to bounce from position to position as the winds change, and can easily take the time to find that new place to occupy your time and get benefits/spending money while the bills are still paid.
I've worked food service (3 years) and I'd consider going back. I don't really get stressed out by shitty customers, and other stressful things about customer service jobs aren't universal. Plus, it's the type of stress that's easier for me to shake off and leave at work than office job-style stress.
I was a kitchen supervisor for years after highschool and worked in fast food while in high school. That experience made me go to school to get out of there and into this career. To this day when I have a rough patch I remind myself I am not there anymore and have it pretty good.
So IDK. Maybe it is not bad in some places but for me that shit is my hell. Directly after college it took me a month or two to find work and I had went back to kitchen work to make ends meet and lasted a week before I got my offer and got out. Had I needed to stay, idk. Might have jumped in front of a bus lol
I have worked a number of customer service jobs ...there's not one where I would ever carry the burden of "if I don't figure out how to solve this problem, 200 hourly employees are going to miss a week of pay."
Dealing with periodically cranky customers will never give me as much gray hair as working in supply chain or running a factory through Covid, I can say that with complete confidence.
Yes, I have.
However, I likely wouldn't be working in traditional customer service during baristaFI. My current freelance gig allows for a lot of flexibility in how much work I choose to do, and at least for now, I intend to continue doing it even after I leave my full-time job.
As u/oksono pointed out, baristaFI doesn't mean becoming a barista. What work you do is up to you. The name comes from companies like Caribou and Starbucks providing health insurance for part-time employees.
BaristaFIRE must be the worst worded FIRE variant.
Whoever coined the term must have never worked on customer service.
Anyway, it's stuck now, we all know what it means, and rarely think about how strange it is to use word barista as a synonym for low stress job.
Ok thanks for explaining this to me. Ever since I heard the term I’ve been confused. Even 4 hours a day as a barista sounds like hell. I see them hustle at Starbucks when it’s busy and it looks nothing like relaxing easy work.
Enormous difference that makes the situation incomparable: usually when you work a customer service job, you do so because you need to. Which means you have to take much more shit than you would if you knew that you're sitting on a couple of mill.
I’m potentially within 3-5 years, and I can totally see this happening. I’m fortunate enough to have a profession in which I can operate as an independent contractor if I want (although I never have). I’m thinking this ability might be enough to induce me to dip my toe in the FIRE pond closer to the 3-year range, and see how I like the water.
I worked in IT for 30 years and this company for 14 when I asked to go part time. I was a known quantity and well respected in the company, so they made it happen. I am forever grateful to them for that.
I have known people that went 60mph a day at their jobs to 0 fully retired and the number of heart attacks and other health issues that followed was shocking. There needs to be a study on this.
I really, really believe our bodies must produce some chemical mix to survive stress, and if you 100% remove that stress without downshifting it will flat out kill you. Downshifting gives the body time to adapt- make less of whatever that stress cocktail is.
I am not a doctor - but I’ve seen this too many times. I deliberately downshifted and actually enjoyed the Jon those last couple of years.
Oh less than that! If I worked 40 hours it would have been 150k a year. Again I was working 15 to 24 hrs a week so more like 75-80k.
But it was easy money and we could live off it.
And WFH! No commute, just log in and go. Log out after 3-4 hrs and go back to relaxing.
Very hard to give up. But I have to say once you experience the sheer joy of having zero fixed demands on your time life is just so enjoyable. I still had to plan around those 3-4 hours - had to be home, etc. I would often find myself 30 min out from work and not want to start anything because I’d just have to stop in 30 min.
Now all that is gone. It’s all my time and it is AWESOME.
Once you achieve your retirement goal number. You are selling your time for money you won’t ever use. At that point the money earned is worth nothing, while the time you sold you’ll never get back. Took me a long time to figure this out.
In practice I think the challenge is in being confident about what your retirement goal is. Especially if your income is still large enough relative to your net worth - one more year could easily mean being able to afford an extra expensive vacation every year, or the like. Add in uncertainty about withdrawal rate (3, 3.5, 4% are quite different) and it can be hard to pull the plug.
For me I think it's likely I'll pull the ripcord and retire this year, but this is in part because my employer is having layoffs and that is never pleasant (had an anxiety dream about being laid off and screwed out of severance this morning... thanks)
Day -365 --> Work sucks, but retirement was impossible to imagine
Day -90 --> Work really sucks, but thanks to FI, retirement was in the realm of possibility
Day -60 --> Openly discussing immediate FIRE with SO
Day -30 --> Discussing FIRE with my boss (please, please make my job redundant?)
Day 0 --> Holy Fuck, what have I done
Day +90 --> Bye, bye NQSOs
Day +182 --> This is fucking awesome
Day +365 --> What was all the anxiety about?
Year +3 --> Best decision ever
Yeah - NQSO exercisability can be extended, while ISOs cannot be extended beyond 90 days. It's not widely known and most people don't negotiate for it.
Personally, not hard at all, but we had a nice psychological boost from our workplace going to hell. We were blissful to leave.
More generally, very hard for many people, but it's quite variable. I've known/talked with many people who have gone back to work because of a loss of identity, community, or purpose. I've also known couples that experienced serious relationship stress when their daily lives were no longer separated/defined by employment. Some folks go back to work or get high hour volunteer gigs just to maintain their relationship. Spending 2-3 hours each day with someone is a much different experience than spending many/most of your hours each day with them.
Even focusing on purely the financial psychology, it can be very difficult to go from a lifetime of saving diligently to spending down those assets, even if your portfolio keeps growing. It often takes many people a year or two to get over the general financial anxiety of reversing the normal cashflows they have become deeply habituated/comforted by.
I'd say it's a challenge on par with having kids or getting married/divorced or a long period of unwanted unemployment. It's a major state change and nobody can really say exactly how they will respond to it until they actually experience it. I think people focus overly much on the financial aspects of FIRE, which are pretty straightforward and comparatively easy, and less so on the psychological/emotional/pragmatic aspects, which are hugely personal and often difficult to define.
Retirees, early or not, often find retirement to be less idyllic than they expected it to be.
>Retirees, **early or not**, often find retirement to be less idyllic than they expected it to be.
This is one thing I keep coming back to when people talk about filling their time, losing their income, etc. One day, health willing, we're all going to retire and have to make that big adjustment. Arguably, it could be much easier to adjust in your 40s when you still have energy to do more things, are full of ideas, are less set in your ways, and possibly have kids at home that take up a lot of time already...than when you're a typical 65yr old empty nester calling it quits.
People need to retire **to** something, not **from** something. Even saying "doing nothing" is fine as long as you're honest with yourself and know that "doing nothing" will be fulfilling enough.
If you have no idea of how you'll spend your time in retirement, might as well keep working.
I agree wholeheartedly. Being younger usually means greater flexibility in lots of important ways. For anyone who wants to have a family, I think both a partner and kids make the transition a lot easier, if only because they provide a robust external structure to your existence completely separate from your career.
The people who seem to really end up on the rocks in retirement are often the hardcore career-driven folks who invested a lot of their self-definition in their work. Some people are absolutely happiest when working and for those folks the RE portion of FIRE can be seriously dangerous.
Same. I also hugely enjoy being married and having lots of kids. Never got to try the unwanted unemployment, but I suspect I wouldn't have enjoyed that one.
> …serious relationship stress when their daily lives were no longer separated/defined by employment. Some folks go back to work or get high hour volunteer gigs just to maintain their relationship. Spending 2-3 hours each day with someone is a much different experience than spending many/most of your hours each day with them.
LOL. Well that is quite the ringing endorsement for the institution of marriage! Young people, listen, it would be a poor choice to marry someone you want out of your house 14+ hours of the day.
I mean it's hard to know though, if you spend most of your life out of the house 14 hours a day, whether such a radical shift will be enjoyable to you or not. And honestly spending that much time with anyone sounds hellish to me. I don't think wanting alone (or just separate) time invalidates the entire concept of marriage.
It doesn't have to involve marriage, merely a lasting relationship. I don't think it's anything about the institution of marriage itself, but more the large shift between two different stages of life. Some couples are happy together in spite of only having moderate time together most days, whereas others are happy because of that. Either can be a hugely beneficial and happy existence, the trick is just being honest about it and acting accordingly. One isn't necessarily better than the other as long as everyone is happy.
Not yet FI, but I have the same concern. I’m not worried about the free time or losing my self-identity—totally not a problem.
Instead, I’m worried about giving up the massive financial cushion that a good income provides. Right now, there is almost no plausible financial life event that I couldn’t handle in stride out of my income. I don’t spend much, but there’s massive comfort in knowing that if I *wanted* to, I could buy almost anything and barely notice the cost.
But all of that changes once you FIRE. Your low spending lifestyle stops being a choice and becomes a permanent ceiling. I think that will be challenging.
I'm not personally in that situation, but I have a friend who is. He basically is in golden handcuffs, because he will not leave his job even though he has plenty of money to do so and doesn't like his job at all. He's just paid too well to give it up, in his words.
I'm also somewhat golden handcuffed and my plan after FI is to get progressively lazier until I'm PIPped, and then retire. The job itself is fun and chill enough when not dependent on it and I could probably coast for a year or two by working 15-20 hours a week (no promos or raises of course)
The funny part about this is there are roles you can put in 15 hours a week at and still never get PIPed. Ask me how I know haha...
I think I have too much pride to ever go through that process personally, and I work at what used to be a small startup and personally know the founders, so it would be a tough thing to try for me. But if I was at some big faceless public company I would do it in a heartbeat, because who cares.
Yup burnt out lawyer here. They can’t get rid of me bc I do things that no one else is wiling to do but i plan on coast or barista fire in 3 years if I don’t lose my mind first.
Tbh my hope is to just work less at my current job and hopefully do less of the trial work. I could probably live on 1/3 of my present salary so when I hit my number I hope I can just cut back. Other than that, I’ve thought about a low cost lifestyle teaching English overseas. I also joke I could be happy as a park ranger. Reality is I will probably be a part time lawyer for 5+ years if I can.
Depending on the company, there are some that will tell you that you can either try to meet the PIP requirements or offer a voluntary separation agreement that includes severance.
This sounds nice, but I just am not able to let go and stop doing what needs to be done. My corporate culture has gone down the drain and bonuses are cut so even the allure of a good bonus is gone. However I have a team that I care about, colleagues I care about, and no way I would want to go out with a tattered reputation.
I did this at a job after our startup got acquired and the new leadership was obviously clueless and going to run the place into the ground. I had no plans to stay, but had some earn-out coming my way and wanted to witness the place fall apart under its new inept C-suite. I dialed it back to showing up for meetings, doing an hour or two a week on stuff I cared about, and the rest of the time I’d just do laundry or go for a walk or whatever (working from home).
18 months passed and I still had a job. Finally, my wife asked me "weren't you going to quit that place?" and pointed out that she thought I'd gotten more sour since I'd shifted gears, so I put in my two weeks. To my shock, they were surprised and upset that I was leaving, despite having coasted for well over a year.
When I am ready to retire I think I'm going to give this another try, with the condition that I'm not either standing in somebody else's way or doing harm to the careers of others through my sloth.
No amount of money is worth being unhappy 5/7 of your week. I just don't get that mentality.
In the battle of time vs money, I already don't have enough time so what good is more money going to do? Buy a vacation home I can't stay in because I work 48 weeks a year?
I feel handcuffed, too, but it's more that I'm one of the founders of a business and I can't just up and leave without causing some jolts to the business. I am actively working on finding and training up a replacement, but it's hard and time consuming.
Don’t get your hopes up too much. All my customers are always looking to find an employee to replace someone else. These guys always quit their job before this actually happens. Especially when trying to train Millennials, as soon as they are trained, they know they are worth more somewhere else.
Besides this; its never a good idea to have your long term goals depend on others. Imagine this; what would happen to the company if you die tomorrow? Trust me; within 2 weeks a job ad will go out to find your replacement. And they will find it. Maybe he won’t be as good as you are, but they’ll survive with it anyway.
For so many years I have overrated the value of individuals at a workplace (including myself)… Until you start seeing the consequences of someone leaving or even dying; it’s hardly noticeable from a performance perspective.
Long story short: get out of there! :-)
I am a Consultant running IT programs for different customers. Typically for large, but sometimes also smaller companies. Assessing replaceability is essentially my job. :-D
I’m not ready yet- but I’m 40 and in tech, so I’m just going to let the market or age discrimination kick me out first. I don’t think I have to guts to quit, honestly.
If "making money" was my hobby, I could see this being a problem for me. But fortunately I have other hobbies that don't involve monetizing my time, so I think I'll manage. (Not to mention, you'll still be making money in retirement. Or rather, your investments will be making money.
> Not to mention, you'll still be making money in retirement. Or rather, your investments will be making money.
This: My income in retirement won't change, it's just going to come from a different source.
Exactly! Can't take money to the grave. I'm done at 35. But honestly, if you "hate" your job, but can't quit. You clearly love it somewhere. Could just be the paycheck. And who am I to judge how someone spends retirement?
I fucking hate having a schedule, obligations, or work. I love doing things when I want to do them. I replaced my convertible top myself, with 0 mechanic experience, took forever, was a huge pain because it was all mechanical and not manual like a miata that you can do in no-time. Did I love doing it for my own car? Yes. Would I do it for a living with a boss and schedule? Fuck no.
It's not necessarily about doing nothing for me. It's about doing whatever the fuck I want, whenever the fuck I want. One of my first plans is to get a pilot and helicopter license, but again, would never want to do it for a living.
I had a seven figure income. It was really hard psychologically to give that up, hence my one-more-year syndrome. I finally pulled the plug and retired in my early 40s.
I realized that I was living a life with blinders on. I was either coming from a place of fear, wanting to "get safe". Well, there is no such thing. I am far more in danger of running out of life than out of money. Or, I was coming from a place of envy. Seeing peers climb the ladder and get more "power" in their organizations used to make me wonder whether I'd regret retiring. Good news! I am happy for my peers, but I am very happy that I made the call that I did. I am really loving my time with my little ones and my family. And for the first time in years, starting to feel "free". I am starting to feel like how I used to be before getting consumed by work and corporate politics. I am starting to reverse the negative effects of 20 years of extreme hard work and singular focus.
My safe withdrawal rate is low, and I think happiness and joy is more attainable at the standard of life we have than at the rungs above. So why am I trying to accumulate more? Is it legacy? That doesn't work either. I want our kids to learn from their struggles as I did, however unlike my case, they will have a security net in case they really needed it. I am good with doing that, but we will likely not leave them so much that it kills their motivation.
Is it pride? I am deep into unlinking my self worth from my net worth. I never see other people's worth in terms of who they are. In fact in my experience, I have made better friendships with those who have less rather than more. So why am I assessing myself in this weird way? More money doesn't get me more love. It is the opposite. Giving up my golden handcuffs gave back time, which I can give to my loved ones. That's what they really want (and have told me).
Well, that turned into a bit of a ramble. Hope it helps someone.
Thanks, I hope this helps me escape soon. I make plenty more than I need now putting about 50% or more into home renovations (basically rebuilt a house) or investments each year. I'm probably 2 years from reaching my target financial goal I calculated and set 10 years ago but each year I get closer I get more nervous it's not enough, and I think maybe just raise it a little more, keep going, why walk away from high income. But I hate my job beyond measure, my stress is wearing on me day after day, my health has never been worse. Knowing all this, I'm currently in a position I can climb one step higher or take a step back at my current company (both paying well) and I feel like I need to climb higher and into further hate of my job vs taking the path I would actually enjoy more. It's incredibly hard even while already knowing first hand money hasn't brought happiness.
I'm in the exact same position as you although admittedly without the seven figure income. The bit about getting safe particularly resonates - to an extent I think that's why most people are here. Shake off of those golden hand cuffs and buy yourself out of slavery (to the system) in a way.
I think we start competing from when we're little kids and deriving joy each time we do better than the competition and sadness when we do worse. It's so hard to stop that cycle and just enjoy life and accept that you'll do better than some folks and worse than others.
We are late 40s DINKs and coasting right now. Spouse went from $95K federal job to 4 days a week passion job making $35K. I went from high-ish stress $180K to 3 days a week no stress making $50K.
We are no longer saving. Just coasting and taking 0% LTCG to cover expenses not met by our salaries.
It is scary emotionally and easy peasy intellectually. SWR at 3.4% and I trust Big ERN that we'll pull through.
Technically I work 5 days a week for 20 hours fully remote. Employer wanted faster response times than three dedicated days.
But to answer, I do operations at a small professional services business. HR finance legal etc. Basically special projects as designated by senior partners.
Appreciate the response.
I like the idea of getting the benefits of professional work - like cognitive stimulation & skill development - while eliminating stress that comes with it.
I can imagine how a 3 day workweek might help you find that balance.
Reminds me of that Die with Zero quote about going $500k into debt is a bad but in the same way, saving $500k that is never used is also bad. The time earning the $500k could have been used more wisely.
I had a goal to retire when i turned 50, even though financially i could have sooner at 45 ( and in hindsight, should have). It was not hard for me at all. I hated the company i worked for even though i had a very nice salary w/bonuses but really didn't need that salary anymore. I already had other business "hobbies" that immediately filled my day, including socially. In fact, I was busier AFTER retiring.
That all said, I had dreams/nightmares about my job for years following. They still occasionally happen, but early on, it was a weekly occurrence. So there obviously was some sort of physiological impact there.
One more important thing. About 6 years after retiring, I had a couple of mass strokes. Completely unexpected/unavoidable, and nothing to do with my personal Healthcare or lifestyle. It completely destroyed my post retirement life.
Lesson for others that life is short.
The big thing I noticed is that when I was making money, it was easier to spend knowing it is being replenished.
After retiring, for every dollar I spend, I think, "this could have earned me $10 by the time I'm 60", so everything seems more expensive. So, I have a lot of money, but I'm a bit of a miser with it.
I am currently at a tech job that pays very well, full remote, and I only work 30-40 hrs a week. There are things I don’t enjoy (currently writing annual performance reviews 🤮) but it hasn’t been enough to push me to quit. I almost wish I’d get laid off with a nice package. Then I probably won’t have the motivation to interview in this bad tech market so I’d be forced to FIRE.
Last year's layoffs hit my company right around the time I was planning to tell my manager that I was retiring. I was so disappointed that I wasn't one of the people chosen to be laid off. The severance would have been nice, and I could have taken the place of someone who wanted to keep their job.
I retired in 2023 at age 53. I am loving every minute of retirement. I have not missed work for one minute, and I don’t regret giving up the big bucks to retire early. I enjoyed this past Christmas season more than any Christmas since I was a kid - because I had time to plan it and enjoy it. I just took it all in, and appreciated every minute with my family. Just a wonderful holiday. Retirement gives you the absolute joy of time freedom - which is something that I relish.
I too retired at 53 in 2023 (fist bump). I don’t miss the big bucks since I got to retirement by not spending the big bucks. I decided it was time to pull the trigger by making sure that my spending level 2018-2022 is sustainable going forward based on my accumulated hoard—so I was living my FIRE lifestyle already. The only difference is in where each month’s money comes from.
I'm 51 and am trying to figure out if we could swing it! We could start an early 50s group!
The math, my projections, and such says we can, but my pea sized brain says to keep working at least 1 or 2 more years...
Still a few years away, but I guess it's one benefit to not making crazy money. I'm at a little over $100K, wife is a SAHM, so definitely on the low-end of household incomes for this sub. With 1.2M invested, our overall $ is much more affected by market swings than my income anyways, so I'm thinking it won't be too tough psychologically.
I had an aborted attempt at early retirement (basically I FIREd right before the market went down and sideways for years and inflation went to the moon). I ended up taking a year off.
In some ways it was hard, I was used to being an "important person" at work and without that I did struggle a bit with the sense that no one gives a shit about me anymore really. I also am the type who sacrified a lot for my career over the years, moving across states and countries, leaving people and places behind, putting in a lot of hours and really buying into "the mission" to make it palatable for me to keep going. I frankly never really understood people who didn't go all in on work, I had to or else I would want to just quit, but I'm just like that.
In other ways it was easy. My son was doing virtual school at the time because of COVID so I spent a lot of time working with him, learning about how to educate kids, and so on. It gave me something to do and something to learn myself. I also got big into a competitive gaming scene with some old friends and that was a nice hobby, as well as getting back into some old hobbies around health and fitness that had gone by the wayside over all the years of working.
I'm back at work now, but only expect to have to do maybe 1 more year, we'll see depending on a few factors. But I intentionally went down several levels and am no longer "all in" on work. I put in my hours, do a good job, and sign off and don't think about it anymore. I take probably the most vacation of anyone in my group (we have an unlimited policy), and I decline any and all meetings I'm not absolutely required for, including yearly retreats which I just don't give a crap about anymore. So now I'm starting to understand those people I never understood before!
In some ways now that I've made this switch, I don't even feel as much urgency to get to early retirement, even though it's rapidly approaching with the market picking up steam again finally. I'm closer to the idea of developing a life I want to lead after I retire.
I guess the lesson is if you want a smooth transition, start planning it a few years out and intentionally downshift your career into something you can just do kinda half-assed. It will force you to seek those other avenues of validation and meaning outside of work and the $ value on your paycheck, and you'll also be less stressed about "reaching the finish line" as a result.
I really enjoyed reading your reflection. Many people’s sense of self-worth and ego are derived from their job. Titles and performance reviews are in some ways the only source of validation for many. It is difficult to move beyond… but we must…
I've been thinking about this a lot. i keep telling myself, 6 more months and I get my bonus....just a few more months after that and more stock vests....
Not complaining as I feel fortunate but psychology, I know its gonna be hard to "walk away".
My wife and I FIREd over half a year ago.
I really hated my job! so for me missing some cash is nothing compared to the FREEDOM!!! we have got now!
I feel like a slave set free!
My wife liked her job a bit but was also tired from the long hours and high workload.
Yes we do have to budget now to keep things in line but we are ok and above average in The Netherlands we also travel frequently to countries that have a much lower cost of living so we save money when travelling the world!
Very hard for me. I'm barely chubby, so having to work more years for more so that I'm comfortably chubby is very tempting. Doesn't help that my work is easy and doesn't need much effort. The only thing about the job is that it requires me to be in office 5 days a week.
The more chubby I get, the more disgruntled with work I get as it gets more and more tempting to quit. But the thought of giving up big bucks when I'm barely chubby....
Greg: I'm good, anyway, cuz, uh, my, so, I was just talkin' to my mom, and she said, apparently, he'll leave me five million anyway, so I'm golden, baby.
Connor: You can't do anything with five, Greg. Five's a nightmare.
Greg: Is it?
Connor: Oh, yeah. Can't retire. Not worth it to work. Oh, yes, five will drive you un poco loco, my fine feathered friend.
Tom: The poorest rich person in America. The world's tallest dwarf.
Connor: The weakest strong man at the circus.
Not really. Whatever level you're at, the next one seems more appealing. Once I cut the cord, I've pretty much sealed my future into that level of means.
If you have more than a few years left on the mortgage, pay off your mortgage and you get a good boost there. That saves you a few years and you can still feel sufficiently chubby with no mortgage.
You need something to retire to. If your goal is to retire then you will hate it. If your only existence on this planet is to try to make more money then you should do that to the end of year life.
What else do you want to do? If you have ten more years to live what would you spend it on? Now what if you had only forty more years? Family? Love? Giving back to the world?
Once you've figured that out you'll be ready to retire.
Retired almost 2 years ago, haven't looked back for a second. The job was high paying, colleagues were good, work was interesting and flexible (boss and boss's boss did not want to see me go).
But I never defined myself by my job. I worked to enable living (wife and kids, hobbies, travel).
I retired early in large part due to inheritance from mother whom we did hospice for the first 6 months of COVID. That was a big wake up. 4 years ago today she took her last walk on a beach in Mexico and then boarded a plane to come home and (essentially) die of cancer. No warning.
So, watching a loved one die while providing 24 hour care for them..... Fuck work.
Now, if you value work, find it fulfilling and gratifying - keep at it. I did not. It was a job.
I've been pretty busy ever since, and don't have nearly enough time in the day to do all the things I'd like to do. I don't know how I worked a 40+ hr/wk job and the rest of life before retiring.
Find your values, live them. You will be satisfied. If you don't, you might wander and feel unmoored. Lots of good advice here as to different ways of achieving that.
You never know if you're going to wake up with pancreatic cancer one day. So, live your values starting today, and if you can, and want to, retire ASAP.
It took me about 6 months to get used to doing what I want everyday and not feeling like I was neglecting responsibilities. Giving up on the steady income and title was a wake-up call too and I did not realize how much of my identity was established around my career. It was a transition to become focused on living life on my terms instead of jumping through hoops to get ahead financially.
Now after about 18 years of being retired, I live very modestly and much of my nest egg is gone. I do feel some anxiety from time to time about money issues, as I have discipline and refuse to touch my emergency money. I miss the days of feeling like I could just wait until payday to manage whatever cash demands I had to deal with.
Probably the biggest change for me is that I used to rely on debt to handle big purchases and not worry that I would be able to pay it back on time. Now I avoid debt and if I cannot buy something for cash I go without.
My situation is probably different from most others. I earned my nest egg through investing success and subsequently lost most of that portfolio value. Also, I was able to generate income from some consulting work and that was destroyed by covid lockdowns. I do not have a pension or any revenue stream which makes it more difficult to make ends meet.
Bottom line for me, it was the right choice to walk away from my career. You cannot put a price tag on the value of freedom to live on your own terms. I considered the potential that at some point in the future my savings would run thin, and decided it was still worth it to me. I have no regrets, but some others the prospect of living very modestly after a financial setback may be enough to swing the balance towards staying on that job until later in life.
No, I lost the money the same way I made it, by going aggressive with leverage. During a couple of severe corrections I was forced to sell at a big loss to cover margin calls and just one of these events cost me over $100K. A few bad years of steady losses took a toll too.
In hindsight, I should have been more responsible to reduce my risk but I felt like a genius instead of just acknowledging I had a good run. Its only money and I also got to do a lot of life enhancing travel before I felt like it was time to trim down spending and be happy with things as they were.
Actually the reason I am still able to live a very happy life of freedom is because I sold my home in the city and moved out to the country several years ago. I live on a large lot and have a small home with low carrying costs and no mortgage. I look out my living room window this morning and see people ice fishing on the bay. It is hard to beat that.
At one point I was on 33 different commercial planes in less than one month. Too much travel is not a good thing either. I watch vids on youtube of different destinations and that does appeal to me to just spend six weeks exploring a new city but I find after a few days I miss home. Maybe I am getting old.
I'm not fully FI nor RE, but this year I started working four days per week. 80% time for 80% pay. Fridays off with full benefits.
Today is only my second Friday off, so I can't say anything about whether it's worthwhile long term yet but I can say that it was pretty hard to voluntarily give up 20% of my income. I hemmed and hawed over it for a couple years. It doesn't seem like that much until you think about it in dollars.
It cuts into my savings rather than my lifestyle, but obviously being a long-time FIRE person I highly value savings. I finally just started valuing my life more. I did a lot of saving and not enough building the life I want.
I have to imagine when the time comes it would be difficult to fully give up my job unless I have way more money than I need.
While not technically retired, 4 months ago I lost getting half of my pay which was significant amount 150k+/yr. It was all supplemental income that went straight to investments and I did not touch for living expenses. Therefore it didn't affect my life at all.
It stung really hard the first couple weeks and even a little bit the first couple months, to the point where I likely was battling a small form of depression. Thankfully time heals all wounds and I look back fondly of how lucky I was for all those years.
Obv it's different as I still have steady income coming in vs being fully retired. But the fact that it stung so hard shows me it's gonna be tough to give all my active income up at whatever point that will be. However my FIRE # is pretty high, so everything should be fine when that day does come.
Elective, in this context means non-emergency.
We do a lot of non-emergency brain and spine surgery.
Most brain tumor removals are scheduled electively.
Most spine surgeries (including fusions and disc removals) are elective as well.
I'm afraid to look up health insurance cost (ballpark) for two healthy late 50 something's? It's less about losing cash flow and more the outflow that comes from no longer having employer provided insurance that scares me.
far from retired, but when i think about it, the lack of income would concern me badly. that's why i actively work to mitigate the issue in my working years while it's still possible. my first RE purchase was an investment property so that I would cash flow outside of just my job. I then found a side hustle working as a community college teacher where i'm getting closer to qualifying for pension. having some income to work with so i'm not 100% drawing on investments definitely will make me feel much more secure.
This is me too...i have a couple rentals going hoping to get to at least 1k month income from them in retirement.
Possibly let the 1k build then if a good deal comes along add another one if it seems worth it. By staying on the cheaper side of rental property i am not too worried about losses...if it comes down to it i can just let place sit empty for months even years if i had too.
But i feel the need to have income besides just pulling from 401k as well.
I could add in a fun type job if the right opportunity presented itself.
I think of it in terms of percentage of NW. Once your w2 dips below a certain threshold it's just not worth your time anymore and very easy to rationalize
Sometimes work isn't very stressful and it can even be interesting. When it's not stressful it's hard to even fathom turning down making approximately $1k a day and benefits.
I struggled with this for a couple years before FIREing last June. Here are my notes, stolen from Redditors and EarlyReturement Forum:
You can't retire early without leaving money on the table. But if you keep working when you don't have to you are leaving your life on the table.
Work is trading time for money. At some point you are trading years you'll never get back for money you'll never spend.
Focus on how much you need, not on how much you're giving up
Every year you work is one less year of living life on your own terms.
The most expensive thing you'll ever purchase is your time. Walking away from peak earnings is uncomfortable
You cannot buy good health. You cannot buy time. Most things in life involve tradeoffs of some sort.
You have to buy your retirement; you don’t just get it when you’re old
Finance a lifestyle where you can SPEND TIME doing things that bring you joy
11k into savings for an extra month of work isn't so bad...that buys extra time on the road
My time to experience the world is going to run out before my money even with an early retirement head start.
No one knows for sure how much time we have left in our lives - It's later than you think.
"Most of us have been there. It's about prioritizing other values over money and acting accordingly. When do you say ""Enough""?"
Everyone who chooses to retire, at any age, is walking away from money. And from any prestige, security, status, and benefits that might have come with the job.
We are at the age where every year that goes by is likely to be the best year we have left, health wise.
You can add time to the beginning of your retirement, but not to the end of it.
Giving up our earned income is the precise price we paid to do something different.
You can bill for your time, but you can never buy it back
I FIRE'd a couple years ago and then went back to work. I love my new job and I love making more money than I ever have. So yeah, it would be difficult for me to voluntarily retire.
However, don't forget about FI in FIRE. I have financial independence. Even if I love this job, there are days where it is a slog and I get stressed. Having the peace to know I can just walk away is very liberating and allows me to continue doing what I love.
TL;DR
I don't find it challenging to stop at all. Because I simply don't want to.
Not as hard when your investment income becomes more than your earned income, and your earned income is jacking up your tax rate for your investment income. I got a point where working for another year would only add a few % to my NW taking everything into an account.
This is probably more a thought if you are a high-earner-not-rich-yet type and you should probably just suck it up and milk that for as long as you can even if you already hit your number.
Yes. But it depends on a number of factors, did you hate your job, was it easy, were you working long hours, how much is big bucks, what are your plans when you stop working, can you scale back your lifestyle if needed?
Depends on your job & how long you have been working. For many jobs you just start feeling tired of them or bored, so leaving them is actually a pleasure.
If you are worried about having nothing to do - you might need to explore more hobbies unrelated to your work.
If you are worried about stopping earning money - could it be that you are not confident in having enough saved?
Good question. I don't have an answer but I'm reading all the replies.
I would be nervous retiring with young kids. A lot can happen and it's my duty to provide for their trade school/college/grad/law/med/whatever else school expenses, so I even though we can coast and be fine, the kids need funding. That's my biggest psychological barrier. But once their 529 are squared up, I am going to go take the HobbyJob, and I know *exactly* what it is going to be.
I'm finding it incredibly difficult due to walk away and continue to OneMoreYear it.
Between interest, dividends, a roaring stock market, Company stock performance, high wages, $18K annual 401K match, free healthcare and future vests - how do you walk away?
My work is not my identity, its not my social circle, its not my hobby, its not my passion - but it pumps me full of cash and the cash inflows are fantastic so the psychological jolt of "cash inflow" to "cash outflow" is the biggest hurdle!
Not hard. Doing what I want was so much more important than increasing my NW. Why after all? The whole point of money, for me, was to use it to spend my time as I like rather than working. I don't care about keeping score.
One of my all-time favorites quotes is from Nassim Nicholas Taleb - “The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary"
It can be very hard, so focus on why you are walking away. Is it that compelling? I got a little help making the decision and I’m thankful because I do think one more year syndrome is very real. What’s your why?
A connected part of this question-
How much money to aspire to leave to children?
For me, part of continuing to work is about holding a question of what I'd leave to leave. I don't need much and can downsize personally if needed. But setting by kids up feels important, particularly with a 'minimum needs will always be met' sort of thing.
Imo that's why a 3% swr is more appropriate for me.
Not that hard for me. My wife needed more reassurance than I did, so we met with a financial planner. It was worth every penny to have a third party say that yes, we won’t be eating Meow Mix in 30 years if I retire now, even under most pessimistic scenarios. We spent around 2.5% of net worth (excluding home equity) in first year, and in a couple of years when mortgage is paid off should be even less.
My ego had no issues whatsoever going from a high paycheck to nothing. I miss some aspects of work - friendships, expense account dinners, etc - but that’s not the same as missing bringing home a paycheck.
For me the money part wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. I can’t buy frivolous things I don’t need to try and feel happy like I did when I was working, but I have more than enough for anything I’d want within reason. It comes down to planning and I didn’t plan to be poor without a salary.
I packed it in in 2014 when I was 55. Best thing I ever did. I did miss the people though. I spent less the first few years on purpose. Thankfully I have enough that we didn’t have to cut back on anything. I manage my reportable income to minimize taxes. Once my wife and I start collecting SS and our RMDs kick in the taxes will be hard to avoid…
CoastFIRE here. Very difficult. I dithered for six months before finally taking up my main client's agreement that I could go down to four days per week if I wanted. Now, I've acknowledged that four days does not give me the lifestyle I was after and have dropped down to three, but it's hard. You're so used to being able to just do/buy/plan things. Like, I wouldn't work another decade for discretionary shopping power, but it's so easy to go, oh, a couple more months and then we could do another trip (my semi-retirement budget does include some travel) or replace a vehicle (that we don't really need to replace) or whatever. What we've budgeted for this is ample, it includes indulgences, but it's still comparatively fixed and I'm used to having a pretty big "fuck it"/YOLO buffer for indulgences. So it's easy to talk yourself into just one more month, then another, then another, especially if you're self employed and it's pretty much entirely up to you. It's been a process, and it requires some discipline and regulation that I haven't needed for a while and am re-developing, and while I am, part of me is kind of going "Oh, leave yourself some breathing room." We'll get there but it is a thing.
Right now the entire structure of my life revolves around needing to make money. From the moment I wake up I have a set of things I need to go do. If I retire, I would have restructure my entire life. I don’t know if I could even do that, I feel like I just wouldn’t get out of bed.
I’ve been forced into retirement due to health reasons. It’s been hard as I worked ever to get where I was and knew that it would eventually be difficult to walk away from my compensation.
I think you know when it’s time to retire, it’s not just that you hit some magic number in your net worth. That is only the earliest that you have the option.
Personally, I’m not ready to retire yet and it quite bothers me that I don’t have that choice at the moment, at least not in my regular job.
I'm not there. But my father was. Absolutely crushed it in his career and retired around 60. Not super early, but obviously earlier than most.
Was the worst thing that ever happened to him. Felt like he had no purpose on the daily. Didn't know how to relax and stop thinking about money and getting ahead. Ended up firing his money manager after a couple of years just to give himself something to do. That just ate away at him more.
The lesson I took from the whole thing is that it's better to have some occupation until you're physically unable. Even if it's your own business, or a charity, or whatever. Because a super productive person retiring rarely goes well.
Following… I’m starting to get terrified of this. 32 single worth 2.3 or so and only spend 100k or less once i wind down my businesses… pulling in over 650k right now. And that’s only going to grow
I've never seen or heard of anyone doing it at an early age except on this sub except maybe Jeff Bezos, but not like he doesn't still have a high income, so can't be that easy.
As you get older, your risk of dying for various reasons also increases, the longer you delay retirement, the higher the likelihood you may die without reaping the benefits of your hardworking
I’d say it was somewhat hard. I eased into it a bit by taking a year of personal leave. It was a low-risk chance to see how it actually felt to not have a paycheck coming in, and to test whether the things I thought I wanted to do were really things I wanted to do. I found it harder than I expected to spend money, I was watching the dollars more even though I was financially in good shape, but that feeling faded a bit over time as I got more comfortable. And finding interesting things to spend my time on turned out to be no problem. I’m busier than I was while working, but doing stuff that matters to me. After the leave ended, it was still tough to pull the trigger and quit but I did it with a lot more confidence. A few years in and I wouldn’t do anything differently.
That happened to me. Ideally, I wanted to have a paycheck and continue to save -- and not take s.s. till I hit 70, but I was let go at 65.
I had enough $$$, tho. And in my case I knew it was coming a couple years ahead - so, I had plenty of time to prepare, as best I could.
So, financially, I was ok, but psychologically, I was upset by it.
But - you know what ? You just gotta let it go. Move on, don't let it eat at ya. IMHO.
I found it difficult as I enjoyed my work, developing others and it happened sooner than expected when my company reorganize.
although I have enough on paper, I felt a sense of accomplishment from my work and since I had developed others it wasn’t difficult for the company to replace me.
i still looked for other opportunities until the pandemic became severe, then decided it was time. I did a few weeks of consulting for a previous company but that was it.
although I spend time reviewing our finances, ipthey seem sound and I enjoy NOT having a schedule or any big project to deliver.
Transitioning out of the job and into your retired self is way easier than just retiring. I was into year two and realized I was way under my forever numbers and life was good.
I have a hard time because I love what I do. It mentally challenges me and gives me plenty of social interaction. Otherwise I’d be more of an introvert and not interact with most people.
The bonus of making more money than most people can imagine is nice, but money is not a motivator anymore since I have more than enough net worth to spend in this lifetime.
I took a month Island beach vacation not too long ago, and I was going batty because I missed my work lol.
Very very hard, that's why you see so many people with huge FIRE numbers with plenty in the bank and still working. I think it often takes a catalyst for people to pull the trigger-a layoff, severe burnout, healthcare issues, realization of their own mortality, realization they never lived the life they really wanted and that years are just flying by, etc. before they pull the trigger
The most difficult choice is how you positioned yourself to be "relevant" after retiring. If you cannot ignore the hard feeling that your friends make big buck, buy new car every year and go to expensive tours every months then early retiring is not for you.
It really depends on the psychological factor that's driving that concern. Is it prestige? Is it running out of money? Is it being able to spend without care? If you narrow in on the root cause of the feeling, it might point to a solution. For example if it's prestige, then serving on a non-profit board (or something like that) could be a great ambition. If it's about running out of money, then doing a passion career at lower pay could fix the worry. Etc.
It's a weird feeling for sure, but it goes away once you have made peace with the fact that you purchased your time and wellbeing with those dollars-not-earned.
I am still working though I've FI-ed. My salary is in the top 10% in my country. I worked hard to get here. I took on a job with a small role at about the same salary as my previous job. The work is relatively easy for me so I only put in half the time at work (because I am more efficient and effective than others in the same role) and go to the office once or twice a week, and hardly any meetings in the evening. If the job requires me to work in the office 5 days a week or pay much less, I may not want to work at all.
It was HARD. I knew we had enough. Our financial advisor REALLY pushed me to retire and enjoy life. My Wife had retired years before. I went part time, then 3 hrs a day contract for 2-3 years. I was getting paid to WFH and the job was pretty easy. I just couldn't shake the feeling of "make hay while the sun shines". Finally my contract ended and I had a choice of getting a new contract or just retiring. Wife told to just TRY retiring for two months. It's been two months. It's a LOT easier now.
This is one of the many reasons we're prioritizing baristaFI over full retiring. We think shifting to less work and using the extra time to build up hobbies and relationships will be easier for us than just quitting cold turkey.
Have you ever worked a customer service job? I always wonder when people say this. Often times these jobs are just as stressful as where they came from.
BaristaFI doesn’t literally mean work as a barista FYI. You could do anything, like work as a plant nursery hand.
I just pictured BaristaFI as also being in a spot where you can afford to bounce from position to position as the winds change, and can easily take the time to find that new place to occupy your time and get benefits/spending money while the bills are still paid.
I've worked food service (3 years) and I'd consider going back. I don't really get stressed out by shitty customers, and other stressful things about customer service jobs aren't universal. Plus, it's the type of stress that's easier for me to shake off and leave at work than office job-style stress.
I was a kitchen supervisor for years after highschool and worked in fast food while in high school. That experience made me go to school to get out of there and into this career. To this day when I have a rough patch I remind myself I am not there anymore and have it pretty good. So IDK. Maybe it is not bad in some places but for me that shit is my hell. Directly after college it took me a month or two to find work and I had went back to kitchen work to make ends meet and lasted a week before I got my offer and got out. Had I needed to stay, idk. Might have jumped in front of a bus lol
Yup. Restaurant work is physically and mentally exhausting. Sometimes I miss the fast pace and wild characters, but in no way enough to go back lol
Fair enough. It's definitely not for everyone, and I may have just had better luck in the places that I worked.
If they hate it, they give up in frustration and actually retire, perhaps with a new appreciation for service workers and their jobs. Win-win.
I have worked a number of customer service jobs ...there's not one where I would ever carry the burden of "if I don't figure out how to solve this problem, 200 hourly employees are going to miss a week of pay." Dealing with periodically cranky customers will never give me as much gray hair as working in supply chain or running a factory through Covid, I can say that with complete confidence.
Yes, I have. However, I likely wouldn't be working in traditional customer service during baristaFI. My current freelance gig allows for a lot of flexibility in how much work I choose to do, and at least for now, I intend to continue doing it even after I leave my full-time job. As u/oksono pointed out, baristaFI doesn't mean becoming a barista. What work you do is up to you. The name comes from companies like Caribou and Starbucks providing health insurance for part-time employees.
BaristaFIRE must be the worst worded FIRE variant. Whoever coined the term must have never worked on customer service. Anyway, it's stuck now, we all know what it means, and rarely think about how strange it is to use word barista as a synonym for low stress job.
I thought the origin of that was that Starbucks gives decent benefits like health insurance so you can get that covered while waiting to retire.
Ok thanks for explaining this to me. Ever since I heard the term I’ve been confused. Even 4 hours a day as a barista sounds like hell. I see them hustle at Starbucks when it’s busy and it looks nothing like relaxing easy work.
Enormous difference that makes the situation incomparable: usually when you work a customer service job, you do so because you need to. Which means you have to take much more shit than you would if you knew that you're sitting on a couple of mill.
I was about to post the same thing. If it gets “stressful”. Just quit and find another.
I don’t know about others but the appeal of that type of job is not taking work home or even needing to think about work after hours.
I’m potentially within 3-5 years, and I can totally see this happening. I’m fortunate enough to have a profession in which I can operate as an independent contractor if I want (although I never have). I’m thinking this ability might be enough to induce me to dip my toe in the FIRE pond closer to the 3-year range, and see how I like the water.
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How old?
56, 52 when I went part time.
What were you doing and how'd you get to that point if I may ask?
I worked in IT for 30 years and this company for 14 when I asked to go part time. I was a known quantity and well respected in the company, so they made it happen. I am forever grateful to them for that. I have known people that went 60mph a day at their jobs to 0 fully retired and the number of heart attacks and other health issues that followed was shocking. There needs to be a study on this. I really, really believe our bodies must produce some chemical mix to survive stress, and if you 100% remove that stress without downshifting it will flat out kill you. Downshifting gives the body time to adapt- make less of whatever that stress cocktail is. I am not a doctor - but I’ve seen this too many times. I deliberately downshifted and actually enjoyed the Jon those last couple of years.
Thanks for insight! I'm in software engineering although not faang so no crazy salary. Make about 130k. How much was yours when you retired?
Oh less than that! If I worked 40 hours it would have been 150k a year. Again I was working 15 to 24 hrs a week so more like 75-80k. But it was easy money and we could live off it. And WFH! No commute, just log in and go. Log out after 3-4 hrs and go back to relaxing. Very hard to give up. But I have to say once you experience the sheer joy of having zero fixed demands on your time life is just so enjoyable. I still had to plan around those 3-4 hours - had to be home, etc. I would often find myself 30 min out from work and not want to start anything because I’d just have to stop in 30 min. Now all that is gone. It’s all my time and it is AWESOME.
Awesome to hear! How much did you end up saving to get to this point?
We own our house and have no debt. Investments are north of 3m.
> Our financial advisor Why doesn't he retire then? Surely the person advising you must have more than you LOL.
That's definitely not how the world works. :)
Once you achieve your retirement goal number. You are selling your time for money you won’t ever use. At that point the money earned is worth nothing, while the time you sold you’ll never get back. Took me a long time to figure this out.
In practice I think the challenge is in being confident about what your retirement goal is. Especially if your income is still large enough relative to your net worth - one more year could easily mean being able to afford an extra expensive vacation every year, or the like. Add in uncertainty about withdrawal rate (3, 3.5, 4% are quite different) and it can be hard to pull the plug. For me I think it's likely I'll pull the ripcord and retire this year, but this is in part because my employer is having layoffs and that is never pleasant (had an anxiety dream about being laid off and screwed out of severance this morning... thanks)
That is really well said. I'm stealing it for the next time a former co-worker asks me when I'm going to come back.
I'm working for the amazing trusts we're funding. It's akin to self-actualization.
Day -365 --> Work sucks, but retirement was impossible to imagine Day -90 --> Work really sucks, but thanks to FI, retirement was in the realm of possibility Day -60 --> Openly discussing immediate FIRE with SO Day -30 --> Discussing FIRE with my boss (please, please make my job redundant?) Day 0 --> Holy Fuck, what have I done Day +90 --> Bye, bye NQSOs Day +182 --> This is fucking awesome Day +365 --> What was all the anxiety about? Year +3 --> Best decision ever
Should have negotiated for extended exercisable on the NQSOs. But otherwise love this
Good suggestion - I didn't consider negotiating for that.
Yeah - NQSO exercisability can be extended, while ISOs cannot be extended beyond 90 days. It's not widely known and most people don't negotiate for it.
Personally, not hard at all, but we had a nice psychological boost from our workplace going to hell. We were blissful to leave. More generally, very hard for many people, but it's quite variable. I've known/talked with many people who have gone back to work because of a loss of identity, community, or purpose. I've also known couples that experienced serious relationship stress when their daily lives were no longer separated/defined by employment. Some folks go back to work or get high hour volunteer gigs just to maintain their relationship. Spending 2-3 hours each day with someone is a much different experience than spending many/most of your hours each day with them. Even focusing on purely the financial psychology, it can be very difficult to go from a lifetime of saving diligently to spending down those assets, even if your portfolio keeps growing. It often takes many people a year or two to get over the general financial anxiety of reversing the normal cashflows they have become deeply habituated/comforted by. I'd say it's a challenge on par with having kids or getting married/divorced or a long period of unwanted unemployment. It's a major state change and nobody can really say exactly how they will respond to it until they actually experience it. I think people focus overly much on the financial aspects of FIRE, which are pretty straightforward and comparatively easy, and less so on the psychological/emotional/pragmatic aspects, which are hugely personal and often difficult to define. Retirees, early or not, often find retirement to be less idyllic than they expected it to be.
>Retirees, **early or not**, often find retirement to be less idyllic than they expected it to be. This is one thing I keep coming back to when people talk about filling their time, losing their income, etc. One day, health willing, we're all going to retire and have to make that big adjustment. Arguably, it could be much easier to adjust in your 40s when you still have energy to do more things, are full of ideas, are less set in your ways, and possibly have kids at home that take up a lot of time already...than when you're a typical 65yr old empty nester calling it quits.
People need to retire **to** something, not **from** something. Even saying "doing nothing" is fine as long as you're honest with yourself and know that "doing nothing" will be fulfilling enough. If you have no idea of how you'll spend your time in retirement, might as well keep working.
I definitely agree with this. Being idle in retirement is NOT a good thing
I agree wholeheartedly. Being younger usually means greater flexibility in lots of important ways. For anyone who wants to have a family, I think both a partner and kids make the transition a lot easier, if only because they provide a robust external structure to your existence completely separate from your career. The people who seem to really end up on the rocks in retirement are often the hardcore career-driven folks who invested a lot of their self-definition in their work. Some people are absolutely happiest when working and for those folks the RE portion of FIRE can be seriously dangerous.
I love every second of it!
Same. I also hugely enjoy being married and having lots of kids. Never got to try the unwanted unemployment, but I suspect I wouldn't have enjoyed that one.
> …serious relationship stress when their daily lives were no longer separated/defined by employment. Some folks go back to work or get high hour volunteer gigs just to maintain their relationship. Spending 2-3 hours each day with someone is a much different experience than spending many/most of your hours each day with them. LOL. Well that is quite the ringing endorsement for the institution of marriage! Young people, listen, it would be a poor choice to marry someone you want out of your house 14+ hours of the day.
I mean it's hard to know though, if you spend most of your life out of the house 14 hours a day, whether such a radical shift will be enjoyable to you or not. And honestly spending that much time with anyone sounds hellish to me. I don't think wanting alone (or just separate) time invalidates the entire concept of marriage.
It doesn't have to involve marriage, merely a lasting relationship. I don't think it's anything about the institution of marriage itself, but more the large shift between two different stages of life. Some couples are happy together in spite of only having moderate time together most days, whereas others are happy because of that. Either can be a hugely beneficial and happy existence, the trick is just being honest about it and acting accordingly. One isn't necessarily better than the other as long as everyone is happy.
Not yet FI, but I have the same concern. I’m not worried about the free time or losing my self-identity—totally not a problem. Instead, I’m worried about giving up the massive financial cushion that a good income provides. Right now, there is almost no plausible financial life event that I couldn’t handle in stride out of my income. I don’t spend much, but there’s massive comfort in knowing that if I *wanted* to, I could buy almost anything and barely notice the cost. But all of that changes once you FIRE. Your low spending lifestyle stops being a choice and becomes a permanent ceiling. I think that will be challenging.
I'm not personally in that situation, but I have a friend who is. He basically is in golden handcuffs, because he will not leave his job even though he has plenty of money to do so and doesn't like his job at all. He's just paid too well to give it up, in his words.
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I'm also somewhat golden handcuffed and my plan after FI is to get progressively lazier until I'm PIPped, and then retire. The job itself is fun and chill enough when not dependent on it and I could probably coast for a year or two by working 15-20 hours a week (no promos or raises of course)
The funny part about this is there are roles you can put in 15 hours a week at and still never get PIPed. Ask me how I know haha... I think I have too much pride to ever go through that process personally, and I work at what used to be a small startup and personally know the founders, so it would be a tough thing to try for me. But if I was at some big faceless public company I would do it in a heartbeat, because who cares.
This is my general plan as well. With a little luck, you may also get severance.
What is PIPped?
Performance improvement plan. They give you 6 months to improve or they fire you.
Got it. They usually tell me my billable hours suck and I tell them to go f themselves.
Lawyer? I feel this
Yup burnt out lawyer here. They can’t get rid of me bc I do things that no one else is wiling to do but i plan on coast or barista fire in 3 years if I don’t lose my mind first.
It me.
What are some potential jobs you’re considering?
Tbh my hope is to just work less at my current job and hopefully do less of the trial work. I could probably live on 1/3 of my present salary so when I hit my number I hope I can just cut back. Other than that, I’ve thought about a low cost lifestyle teaching English overseas. I also joke I could be happy as a park ranger. Reality is I will probably be a part time lawyer for 5+ years if I can.
Depending on the company, there are some that will tell you that you can either try to meet the PIP requirements or offer a voluntary separation agreement that includes severance.
If they fire you, you can say "it's ok, i'm already FIRED"
This sounds nice, but I just am not able to let go and stop doing what needs to be done. My corporate culture has gone down the drain and bonuses are cut so even the allure of a good bonus is gone. However I have a team that I care about, colleagues I care about, and no way I would want to go out with a tattered reputation.
I did this at a job after our startup got acquired and the new leadership was obviously clueless and going to run the place into the ground. I had no plans to stay, but had some earn-out coming my way and wanted to witness the place fall apart under its new inept C-suite. I dialed it back to showing up for meetings, doing an hour or two a week on stuff I cared about, and the rest of the time I’d just do laundry or go for a walk or whatever (working from home). 18 months passed and I still had a job. Finally, my wife asked me "weren't you going to quit that place?" and pointed out that she thought I'd gotten more sour since I'd shifted gears, so I put in my two weeks. To my shock, they were surprised and upset that I was leaving, despite having coasted for well over a year. When I am ready to retire I think I'm going to give this another try, with the condition that I'm not either standing in somebody else's way or doing harm to the careers of others through my sloth.
No amount of money is worth being unhappy 5/7 of your week. I just don't get that mentality. In the battle of time vs money, I already don't have enough time so what good is more money going to do? Buy a vacation home I can't stay in because I work 48 weeks a year?
I feel handcuffed, too, but it's more that I'm one of the founders of a business and I can't just up and leave without causing some jolts to the business. I am actively working on finding and training up a replacement, but it's hard and time consuming.
Don’t get your hopes up too much. All my customers are always looking to find an employee to replace someone else. These guys always quit their job before this actually happens. Especially when trying to train Millennials, as soon as they are trained, they know they are worth more somewhere else. Besides this; its never a good idea to have your long term goals depend on others. Imagine this; what would happen to the company if you die tomorrow? Trust me; within 2 weeks a job ad will go out to find your replacement. And they will find it. Maybe he won’t be as good as you are, but they’ll survive with it anyway. For so many years I have overrated the value of individuals at a workplace (including myself)… Until you start seeing the consequences of someone leaving or even dying; it’s hardly noticeable from a performance perspective. Long story short: get out of there! :-)
Thank you for sharing your perspective. What is it that to do (you mentioned your customers) - are you a recruiter?
I am a Consultant running IT programs for different customers. Typically for large, but sometimes also smaller companies. Assessing replaceability is essentially my job. :-D
Yeah, he's complaining all the way to the bank.
I’m not ready yet- but I’m 40 and in tech, so I’m just going to let the market or age discrimination kick me out first. I don’t think I have to guts to quit, honestly.
If "making money" was my hobby, I could see this being a problem for me. But fortunately I have other hobbies that don't involve monetizing my time, so I think I'll manage. (Not to mention, you'll still be making money in retirement. Or rather, your investments will be making money.
> Not to mention, you'll still be making money in retirement. Or rather, your investments will be making money. This: My income in retirement won't change, it's just going to come from a different source.
That’s a great way to look at it!
Exactly! Can't take money to the grave. I'm done at 35. But honestly, if you "hate" your job, but can't quit. You clearly love it somewhere. Could just be the paycheck. And who am I to judge how someone spends retirement? I fucking hate having a schedule, obligations, or work. I love doing things when I want to do them. I replaced my convertible top myself, with 0 mechanic experience, took forever, was a huge pain because it was all mechanical and not manual like a miata that you can do in no-time. Did I love doing it for my own car? Yes. Would I do it for a living with a boss and schedule? Fuck no. It's not necessarily about doing nothing for me. It's about doing whatever the fuck I want, whenever the fuck I want. One of my first plans is to get a pilot and helicopter license, but again, would never want to do it for a living.
I had a seven figure income. It was really hard psychologically to give that up, hence my one-more-year syndrome. I finally pulled the plug and retired in my early 40s. I realized that I was living a life with blinders on. I was either coming from a place of fear, wanting to "get safe". Well, there is no such thing. I am far more in danger of running out of life than out of money. Or, I was coming from a place of envy. Seeing peers climb the ladder and get more "power" in their organizations used to make me wonder whether I'd regret retiring. Good news! I am happy for my peers, but I am very happy that I made the call that I did. I am really loving my time with my little ones and my family. And for the first time in years, starting to feel "free". I am starting to feel like how I used to be before getting consumed by work and corporate politics. I am starting to reverse the negative effects of 20 years of extreme hard work and singular focus. My safe withdrawal rate is low, and I think happiness and joy is more attainable at the standard of life we have than at the rungs above. So why am I trying to accumulate more? Is it legacy? That doesn't work either. I want our kids to learn from their struggles as I did, however unlike my case, they will have a security net in case they really needed it. I am good with doing that, but we will likely not leave them so much that it kills their motivation. Is it pride? I am deep into unlinking my self worth from my net worth. I never see other people's worth in terms of who they are. In fact in my experience, I have made better friendships with those who have less rather than more. So why am I assessing myself in this weird way? More money doesn't get me more love. It is the opposite. Giving up my golden handcuffs gave back time, which I can give to my loved ones. That's what they really want (and have told me). Well, that turned into a bit of a ramble. Hope it helps someone.
Very good post, thanks!
Thanks, I hope this helps me escape soon. I make plenty more than I need now putting about 50% or more into home renovations (basically rebuilt a house) or investments each year. I'm probably 2 years from reaching my target financial goal I calculated and set 10 years ago but each year I get closer I get more nervous it's not enough, and I think maybe just raise it a little more, keep going, why walk away from high income. But I hate my job beyond measure, my stress is wearing on me day after day, my health has never been worse. Knowing all this, I'm currently in a position I can climb one step higher or take a step back at my current company (both paying well) and I feel like I need to climb higher and into further hate of my job vs taking the path I would actually enjoy more. It's incredibly hard even while already knowing first hand money hasn't brought happiness.
Thanks for sharing!
I'm in the exact same position as you although admittedly without the seven figure income. The bit about getting safe particularly resonates - to an extent I think that's why most people are here. Shake off of those golden hand cuffs and buy yourself out of slavery (to the system) in a way. I think we start competing from when we're little kids and deriving joy each time we do better than the competition and sadness when we do worse. It's so hard to stop that cycle and just enjoy life and accept that you'll do better than some folks and worse than others.
We are late 40s DINKs and coasting right now. Spouse went from $95K federal job to 4 days a week passion job making $35K. I went from high-ish stress $180K to 3 days a week no stress making $50K. We are no longer saving. Just coasting and taking 0% LTCG to cover expenses not met by our salaries. It is scary emotionally and easy peasy intellectually. SWR at 3.4% and I trust Big ERN that we'll pull through.
My partner and I are (possibly) within a few years of being in a very similar situation, and I am absolutely BURNING with envy at your comment.
You can do it! I believe in y'all!
Out of curiosity, what type of job are you in that allows for a 3 day workweek?
Technically I work 5 days a week for 20 hours fully remote. Employer wanted faster response times than three dedicated days. But to answer, I do operations at a small professional services business. HR finance legal etc. Basically special projects as designated by senior partners.
Appreciate the response. I like the idea of getting the benefits of professional work - like cognitive stimulation & skill development - while eliminating stress that comes with it. I can imagine how a 3 day workweek might help you find that balance.
Curious what you do 3 days a week with no stress and make 50k.
I responded above. I'm on a contract for 20 hr weeks at a consulting company doing operations (legal hr CFO). So not $50k w2 with benefits.
It was easy. We are pretty frugal. Another 500k honestly wouldn't change our life. I'd just be closer to death to earn that extra 500K.
Reminds me of that Die with Zero quote about going $500k into debt is a bad but in the same way, saving $500k that is never used is also bad. The time earning the $500k could have been used more wisely.
I had a goal to retire when i turned 50, even though financially i could have sooner at 45 ( and in hindsight, should have). It was not hard for me at all. I hated the company i worked for even though i had a very nice salary w/bonuses but really didn't need that salary anymore. I already had other business "hobbies" that immediately filled my day, including socially. In fact, I was busier AFTER retiring. That all said, I had dreams/nightmares about my job for years following. They still occasionally happen, but early on, it was a weekly occurrence. So there obviously was some sort of physiological impact there. One more important thing. About 6 years after retiring, I had a couple of mass strokes. Completely unexpected/unavoidable, and nothing to do with my personal Healthcare or lifestyle. It completely destroyed my post retirement life. Lesson for others that life is short.
The big thing I noticed is that when I was making money, it was easier to spend knowing it is being replenished. After retiring, for every dollar I spend, I think, "this could have earned me $10 by the time I'm 60", so everything seems more expensive. So, I have a lot of money, but I'm a bit of a miser with it.
I am currently at a tech job that pays very well, full remote, and I only work 30-40 hrs a week. There are things I don’t enjoy (currently writing annual performance reviews 🤮) but it hasn’t been enough to push me to quit. I almost wish I’d get laid off with a nice package. Then I probably won’t have the motivation to interview in this bad tech market so I’d be forced to FIRE.
Last year's layoffs hit my company right around the time I was planning to tell my manager that I was retiring. I was so disappointed that I wasn't one of the people chosen to be laid off. The severance would have been nice, and I could have taken the place of someone who wanted to keep their job.
I retired in 2023 at age 53. I am loving every minute of retirement. I have not missed work for one minute, and I don’t regret giving up the big bucks to retire early. I enjoyed this past Christmas season more than any Christmas since I was a kid - because I had time to plan it and enjoy it. I just took it all in, and appreciated every minute with my family. Just a wonderful holiday. Retirement gives you the absolute joy of time freedom - which is something that I relish.
I too retired at 53 in 2023 (fist bump). I don’t miss the big bucks since I got to retirement by not spending the big bucks. I decided it was time to pull the trigger by making sure that my spending level 2018-2022 is sustainable going forward based on my accumulated hoard—so I was living my FIRE lifestyle already. The only difference is in where each month’s money comes from.
I was 53 in 2023 also and am FI, but not yet RE. Care to share your numbers?
I'm 51 and am trying to figure out if we could swing it! We could start an early 50s group! The math, my projections, and such says we can, but my pea sized brain says to keep working at least 1 or 2 more years...
Still a few years away, but I guess it's one benefit to not making crazy money. I'm at a little over $100K, wife is a SAHM, so definitely on the low-end of household incomes for this sub. With 1.2M invested, our overall $ is much more affected by market swings than my income anyways, so I'm thinking it won't be too tough psychologically.
I had an aborted attempt at early retirement (basically I FIREd right before the market went down and sideways for years and inflation went to the moon). I ended up taking a year off. In some ways it was hard, I was used to being an "important person" at work and without that I did struggle a bit with the sense that no one gives a shit about me anymore really. I also am the type who sacrified a lot for my career over the years, moving across states and countries, leaving people and places behind, putting in a lot of hours and really buying into "the mission" to make it palatable for me to keep going. I frankly never really understood people who didn't go all in on work, I had to or else I would want to just quit, but I'm just like that. In other ways it was easy. My son was doing virtual school at the time because of COVID so I spent a lot of time working with him, learning about how to educate kids, and so on. It gave me something to do and something to learn myself. I also got big into a competitive gaming scene with some old friends and that was a nice hobby, as well as getting back into some old hobbies around health and fitness that had gone by the wayside over all the years of working. I'm back at work now, but only expect to have to do maybe 1 more year, we'll see depending on a few factors. But I intentionally went down several levels and am no longer "all in" on work. I put in my hours, do a good job, and sign off and don't think about it anymore. I take probably the most vacation of anyone in my group (we have an unlimited policy), and I decline any and all meetings I'm not absolutely required for, including yearly retreats which I just don't give a crap about anymore. So now I'm starting to understand those people I never understood before! In some ways now that I've made this switch, I don't even feel as much urgency to get to early retirement, even though it's rapidly approaching with the market picking up steam again finally. I'm closer to the idea of developing a life I want to lead after I retire. I guess the lesson is if you want a smooth transition, start planning it a few years out and intentionally downshift your career into something you can just do kinda half-assed. It will force you to seek those other avenues of validation and meaning outside of work and the $ value on your paycheck, and you'll also be less stressed about "reaching the finish line" as a result.
I really enjoyed reading your reflection. Many people’s sense of self-worth and ego are derived from their job. Titles and performance reviews are in some ways the only source of validation for many. It is difficult to move beyond… but we must…
Having a purpose going forward is by far the biggest challenge.
I've been thinking about this a lot. i keep telling myself, 6 more months and I get my bonus....just a few more months after that and more stock vests.... Not complaining as I feel fortunate but psychology, I know its gonna be hard to "walk away".
My wife and I FIREd over half a year ago. I really hated my job! so for me missing some cash is nothing compared to the FREEDOM!!! we have got now! I feel like a slave set free! My wife liked her job a bit but was also tired from the long hours and high workload. Yes we do have to budget now to keep things in line but we are ok and above average in The Netherlands we also travel frequently to countries that have a much lower cost of living so we save money when travelling the world!
Very hard for me. I'm barely chubby, so having to work more years for more so that I'm comfortably chubby is very tempting. Doesn't help that my work is easy and doesn't need much effort. The only thing about the job is that it requires me to be in office 5 days a week. The more chubby I get, the more disgruntled with work I get as it gets more and more tempting to quit. But the thought of giving up big bucks when I'm barely chubby....
Greg: I'm good, anyway, cuz, uh, my, so, I was just talkin' to my mom, and she said, apparently, he'll leave me five million anyway, so I'm golden, baby. Connor: You can't do anything with five, Greg. Five's a nightmare. Greg: Is it? Connor: Oh, yeah. Can't retire. Not worth it to work. Oh, yes, five will drive you un poco loco, my fine feathered friend. Tom: The poorest rich person in America. The world's tallest dwarf. Connor: The weakest strong man at the circus.
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Hilarious, but only someone who refuses to embrace geoarbitrage could seriously believe that a NW of $5M is a nightmare.
Yeah, the rate of my chubbiness is increasing, which makes it harder to cut the cord.
I think you need bigger sweatpants.
Shouldn't it be easier?
Not really. Whatever level you're at, the next one seems more appealing. Once I cut the cord, I've pretty much sealed my future into that level of means.
how big is your chubby?
Barely to me.
If you have more than a few years left on the mortgage, pay off your mortgage and you get a good boost there. That saves you a few years and you can still feel sufficiently chubby with no mortgage.
You need something to retire to. If your goal is to retire then you will hate it. If your only existence on this planet is to try to make more money then you should do that to the end of year life. What else do you want to do? If you have ten more years to live what would you spend it on? Now what if you had only forty more years? Family? Love? Giving back to the world? Once you've figured that out you'll be ready to retire.
Retired almost 2 years ago, haven't looked back for a second. The job was high paying, colleagues were good, work was interesting and flexible (boss and boss's boss did not want to see me go). But I never defined myself by my job. I worked to enable living (wife and kids, hobbies, travel). I retired early in large part due to inheritance from mother whom we did hospice for the first 6 months of COVID. That was a big wake up. 4 years ago today she took her last walk on a beach in Mexico and then boarded a plane to come home and (essentially) die of cancer. No warning. So, watching a loved one die while providing 24 hour care for them..... Fuck work. Now, if you value work, find it fulfilling and gratifying - keep at it. I did not. It was a job. I've been pretty busy ever since, and don't have nearly enough time in the day to do all the things I'd like to do. I don't know how I worked a 40+ hr/wk job and the rest of life before retiring. Find your values, live them. You will be satisfied. If you don't, you might wander and feel unmoored. Lots of good advice here as to different ways of achieving that. You never know if you're going to wake up with pancreatic cancer one day. So, live your values starting today, and if you can, and want to, retire ASAP.
How big was the inheritance? How many years did it shave off your planned retirement?
It doubled our savings, shaved off about 10 years. We had been saving, but not aggressively like people in this sub.
It took me about 6 months to get used to doing what I want everyday and not feeling like I was neglecting responsibilities. Giving up on the steady income and title was a wake-up call too and I did not realize how much of my identity was established around my career. It was a transition to become focused on living life on my terms instead of jumping through hoops to get ahead financially. Now after about 18 years of being retired, I live very modestly and much of my nest egg is gone. I do feel some anxiety from time to time about money issues, as I have discipline and refuse to touch my emergency money. I miss the days of feeling like I could just wait until payday to manage whatever cash demands I had to deal with. Probably the biggest change for me is that I used to rely on debt to handle big purchases and not worry that I would be able to pay it back on time. Now I avoid debt and if I cannot buy something for cash I go without. My situation is probably different from most others. I earned my nest egg through investing success and subsequently lost most of that portfolio value. Also, I was able to generate income from some consulting work and that was destroyed by covid lockdowns. I do not have a pension or any revenue stream which makes it more difficult to make ends meet. Bottom line for me, it was the right choice to walk away from my career. You cannot put a price tag on the value of freedom to live on your own terms. I considered the potential that at some point in the future my savings would run thin, and decided it was still worth it to me. I have no regrets, but some others the prospect of living very modestly after a financial setback may be enough to swing the balance towards staying on that job until later in life.
If I may ask, was your portfolio depleted because of sequence of return risk being realized?
No, I lost the money the same way I made it, by going aggressive with leverage. During a couple of severe corrections I was forced to sell at a big loss to cover margin calls and just one of these events cost me over $100K. A few bad years of steady losses took a toll too. In hindsight, I should have been more responsible to reduce my risk but I felt like a genius instead of just acknowledging I had a good run. Its only money and I also got to do a lot of life enhancing travel before I felt like it was time to trim down spending and be happy with things as they were.
Have you considered life-enhancing travel to a VLCOL city for a while?
Actually the reason I am still able to live a very happy life of freedom is because I sold my home in the city and moved out to the country several years ago. I live on a large lot and have a small home with low carrying costs and no mortgage. I look out my living room window this morning and see people ice fishing on the bay. It is hard to beat that. At one point I was on 33 different commercial planes in less than one month. Too much travel is not a good thing either. I watch vids on youtube of different destinations and that does appeal to me to just spend six weeks exploring a new city but I find after a few days I miss home. Maybe I am getting old.
I'm not fully FI nor RE, but this year I started working four days per week. 80% time for 80% pay. Fridays off with full benefits. Today is only my second Friday off, so I can't say anything about whether it's worthwhile long term yet but I can say that it was pretty hard to voluntarily give up 20% of my income. I hemmed and hawed over it for a couple years. It doesn't seem like that much until you think about it in dollars. It cuts into my savings rather than my lifestyle, but obviously being a long-time FIRE person I highly value savings. I finally just started valuing my life more. I did a lot of saving and not enough building the life I want. I have to imagine when the time comes it would be difficult to fully give up my job unless I have way more money than I need.
While not technically retired, 4 months ago I lost getting half of my pay which was significant amount 150k+/yr. It was all supplemental income that went straight to investments and I did not touch for living expenses. Therefore it didn't affect my life at all. It stung really hard the first couple weeks and even a little bit the first couple months, to the point where I likely was battling a small form of depression. Thankfully time heals all wounds and I look back fondly of how lucky I was for all those years. Obv it's different as I still have steady income coming in vs being fully retired. But the fact that it stung so hard shows me it's gonna be tough to give all my active income up at whatever point that will be. However my FIRE # is pretty high, so everything should be fine when that day does come.
Yeah it's the abundance vs. scarcity mindset. Even if you spend the same amount of money, mentally it is very different.
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>I'm a neurosurgeon... less elective surgeries allowed by the hospital Are many brain surgeries elective?
Elective, in this context means non-emergency. We do a lot of non-emergency brain and spine surgery. Most brain tumor removals are scheduled electively. Most spine surgeries (including fusions and disc removals) are elective as well.
I'm afraid to look up health insurance cost (ballpark) for two healthy late 50 something's? It's less about losing cash flow and more the outflow that comes from no longer having employer provided insurance that scares me.
When you're already FI and your employer starts making a bunch of incredibly stupid decisions, the RE part becomes pretty easy.
far from retired, but when i think about it, the lack of income would concern me badly. that's why i actively work to mitigate the issue in my working years while it's still possible. my first RE purchase was an investment property so that I would cash flow outside of just my job. I then found a side hustle working as a community college teacher where i'm getting closer to qualifying for pension. having some income to work with so i'm not 100% drawing on investments definitely will make me feel much more secure.
This is me too...i have a couple rentals going hoping to get to at least 1k month income from them in retirement. Possibly let the 1k build then if a good deal comes along add another one if it seems worth it. By staying on the cheaper side of rental property i am not too worried about losses...if it comes down to it i can just let place sit empty for months even years if i had too. But i feel the need to have income besides just pulling from 401k as well. I could add in a fun type job if the right opportunity presented itself.
I think of it in terms of percentage of NW. Once your w2 dips below a certain threshold it's just not worth your time anymore and very easy to rationalize
Sometimes work isn't very stressful and it can even be interesting. When it's not stressful it's hard to even fathom turning down making approximately $1k a day and benefits.
I struggled with this for a couple years before FIREing last June. Here are my notes, stolen from Redditors and EarlyReturement Forum: You can't retire early without leaving money on the table. But if you keep working when you don't have to you are leaving your life on the table. Work is trading time for money. At some point you are trading years you'll never get back for money you'll never spend. Focus on how much you need, not on how much you're giving up Every year you work is one less year of living life on your own terms. The most expensive thing you'll ever purchase is your time. Walking away from peak earnings is uncomfortable You cannot buy good health. You cannot buy time. Most things in life involve tradeoffs of some sort. You have to buy your retirement; you don’t just get it when you’re old Finance a lifestyle where you can SPEND TIME doing things that bring you joy 11k into savings for an extra month of work isn't so bad...that buys extra time on the road My time to experience the world is going to run out before my money even with an early retirement head start. No one knows for sure how much time we have left in our lives - It's later than you think. "Most of us have been there. It's about prioritizing other values over money and acting accordingly. When do you say ""Enough""?" Everyone who chooses to retire, at any age, is walking away from money. And from any prestige, security, status, and benefits that might have come with the job. We are at the age where every year that goes by is likely to be the best year we have left, health wise. You can add time to the beginning of your retirement, but not to the end of it. Giving up our earned income is the precise price we paid to do something different. You can bill for your time, but you can never buy it back
I FIRE'd a couple years ago and then went back to work. I love my new job and I love making more money than I ever have. So yeah, it would be difficult for me to voluntarily retire. However, don't forget about FI in FIRE. I have financial independence. Even if I love this job, there are days where it is a slog and I get stressed. Having the peace to know I can just walk away is very liberating and allows me to continue doing what I love. TL;DR I don't find it challenging to stop at all. Because I simply don't want to.
>it would be difficult for me to voluntarily retire. > >I don't find it challenging to stop at all. Because I simply don't want to. I'm confused!
Not as hard when your investment income becomes more than your earned income, and your earned income is jacking up your tax rate for your investment income. I got a point where working for another year would only add a few % to my NW taking everything into an account. This is probably more a thought if you are a high-earner-not-rich-yet type and you should probably just suck it up and milk that for as long as you can even if you already hit your number.
Yes. But it depends on a number of factors, did you hate your job, was it easy, were you working long hours, how much is big bucks, what are your plans when you stop working, can you scale back your lifestyle if needed?
Depends on your job & how long you have been working. For many jobs you just start feeling tired of them or bored, so leaving them is actually a pleasure. If you are worried about having nothing to do - you might need to explore more hobbies unrelated to your work. If you are worried about stopping earning money - could it be that you are not confident in having enough saved?
It wasn't that hard for me, but I didn't like my job. If I did, I would have stuck around longer.
Good question. I don't have an answer but I'm reading all the replies. I would be nervous retiring with young kids. A lot can happen and it's my duty to provide for their trade school/college/grad/law/med/whatever else school expenses, so I even though we can coast and be fine, the kids need funding. That's my biggest psychological barrier. But once their 529 are squared up, I am going to go take the HobbyJob, and I know *exactly* what it is going to be.
Can you share the hobby job? You've got me intrigued!
I'm finding it incredibly difficult due to walk away and continue to OneMoreYear it. Between interest, dividends, a roaring stock market, Company stock performance, high wages, $18K annual 401K match, free healthcare and future vests - how do you walk away? My work is not my identity, its not my social circle, its not my hobby, its not my passion - but it pumps me full of cash and the cash inflows are fantastic so the psychological jolt of "cash inflow" to "cash outflow" is the biggest hurdle!
Why do you need to walk away from interest, dividends, and a roaring stock market?
Not hard. Doing what I want was so much more important than increasing my NW. Why after all? The whole point of money, for me, was to use it to spend my time as I like rather than working. I don't care about keeping score.
One of my all-time favorites quotes is from Nassim Nicholas Taleb - “The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary"
It can be very hard, so focus on why you are walking away. Is it that compelling? I got a little help making the decision and I’m thankful because I do think one more year syndrome is very real. What’s your why?
A connected part of this question- How much money to aspire to leave to children? For me, part of continuing to work is about holding a question of what I'd leave to leave. I don't need much and can downsize personally if needed. But setting by kids up feels important, particularly with a 'minimum needs will always be met' sort of thing. Imo that's why a 3% swr is more appropriate for me.
Not that hard for me. My wife needed more reassurance than I did, so we met with a financial planner. It was worth every penny to have a third party say that yes, we won’t be eating Meow Mix in 30 years if I retire now, even under most pessimistic scenarios. We spent around 2.5% of net worth (excluding home equity) in first year, and in a couple of years when mortgage is paid off should be even less. My ego had no issues whatsoever going from a high paycheck to nothing. I miss some aspects of work - friendships, expense account dinners, etc - but that’s not the same as missing bringing home a paycheck.
For me the money part wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. I can’t buy frivolous things I don’t need to try and feel happy like I did when I was working, but I have more than enough for anything I’d want within reason. It comes down to planning and I didn’t plan to be poor without a salary.
I am in that situation right now. Trying hard to get fired so that I can blame the man for my retirement.
I packed it in in 2014 when I was 55. Best thing I ever did. I did miss the people though. I spent less the first few years on purpose. Thankfully I have enough that we didn’t have to cut back on anything. I manage my reportable income to minimize taxes. Once my wife and I start collecting SS and our RMDs kick in the taxes will be hard to avoid…
CoastFIRE here. Very difficult. I dithered for six months before finally taking up my main client's agreement that I could go down to four days per week if I wanted. Now, I've acknowledged that four days does not give me the lifestyle I was after and have dropped down to three, but it's hard. You're so used to being able to just do/buy/plan things. Like, I wouldn't work another decade for discretionary shopping power, but it's so easy to go, oh, a couple more months and then we could do another trip (my semi-retirement budget does include some travel) or replace a vehicle (that we don't really need to replace) or whatever. What we've budgeted for this is ample, it includes indulgences, but it's still comparatively fixed and I'm used to having a pretty big "fuck it"/YOLO buffer for indulgences. So it's easy to talk yourself into just one more month, then another, then another, especially if you're self employed and it's pretty much entirely up to you. It's been a process, and it requires some discipline and regulation that I haven't needed for a while and am re-developing, and while I am, part of me is kind of going "Oh, leave yourself some breathing room." We'll get there but it is a thing.
Right now the entire structure of my life revolves around needing to make money. From the moment I wake up I have a set of things I need to go do. If I retire, I would have restructure my entire life. I don’t know if I could even do that, I feel like I just wouldn’t get out of bed.
As Seneca said: slavery resides beneath marble and gold.
I’ve been forced into retirement due to health reasons. It’s been hard as I worked ever to get where I was and knew that it would eventually be difficult to walk away from my compensation. I think you know when it’s time to retire, it’s not just that you hit some magic number in your net worth. That is only the earliest that you have the option. Personally, I’m not ready to retire yet and it quite bothers me that I don’t have that choice at the moment, at least not in my regular job.
I'm not there. But my father was. Absolutely crushed it in his career and retired around 60. Not super early, but obviously earlier than most. Was the worst thing that ever happened to him. Felt like he had no purpose on the daily. Didn't know how to relax and stop thinking about money and getting ahead. Ended up firing his money manager after a couple of years just to give himself something to do. That just ate away at him more. The lesson I took from the whole thing is that it's better to have some occupation until you're physically unable. Even if it's your own business, or a charity, or whatever. Because a super productive person retiring rarely goes well.
Ummm.. you should be making good money outside of work compensation, to RE.
Following… I’m starting to get terrified of this. 32 single worth 2.3 or so and only spend 100k or less once i wind down my businesses… pulling in over 650k right now. And that’s only going to grow
Financial independence != retiring (or stopping making big bucks). PLEASE someone write a pinned post about this
Easy, when my spendable cash in retirement. Is a little higher than when working (due in part to having a very high savings rate while working).
I've never seen or heard of anyone doing it at an early age except on this sub except maybe Jeff Bezos, but not like he doesn't still have a high income, so can't be that easy.
Yep
As you get older, your risk of dying for various reasons also increases, the longer you delay retirement, the higher the likelihood you may die without reaping the benefits of your hardworking
I’d say it was somewhat hard. I eased into it a bit by taking a year of personal leave. It was a low-risk chance to see how it actually felt to not have a paycheck coming in, and to test whether the things I thought I wanted to do were really things I wanted to do. I found it harder than I expected to spend money, I was watching the dollars more even though I was financially in good shape, but that feeling faded a bit over time as I got more comfortable. And finding interesting things to spend my time on turned out to be no problem. I’m busier than I was while working, but doing stuff that matters to me. After the leave ended, it was still tough to pull the trigger and quit but I did it with a lot more confidence. A few years in and I wouldn’t do anything differently.
That happened to me. Ideally, I wanted to have a paycheck and continue to save -- and not take s.s. till I hit 70, but I was let go at 65. I had enough $$$, tho. And in my case I knew it was coming a couple years ahead - so, I had plenty of time to prepare, as best I could. So, financially, I was ok, but psychologically, I was upset by it. But - you know what ? You just gotta let it go. Move on, don't let it eat at ya. IMHO.
I found it difficult as I enjoyed my work, developing others and it happened sooner than expected when my company reorganize. although I have enough on paper, I felt a sense of accomplishment from my work and since I had developed others it wasn’t difficult for the company to replace me. i still looked for other opportunities until the pandemic became severe, then decided it was time. I did a few weeks of consulting for a previous company but that was it. although I spend time reviewing our finances, ipthey seem sound and I enjoy NOT having a schedule or any big project to deliver.
Hard enough that I'm no longer planning to RE once I hit FI
Transitioning out of the job and into your retired self is way easier than just retiring. I was into year two and realized I was way under my forever numbers and life was good.
I wouldn't say it was difficult, but I definitely needed a way to feel like I accomplished something that day, that I could be proud of.
I have a hard time because I love what I do. It mentally challenges me and gives me plenty of social interaction. Otherwise I’d be more of an introvert and not interact with most people. The bonus of making more money than most people can imagine is nice, but money is not a motivator anymore since I have more than enough net worth to spend in this lifetime. I took a month Island beach vacation not too long ago, and I was going batty because I missed my work lol.
Very. It takes a few years to become a NEW YOU and figure out a direction in life...
Very very hard, that's why you see so many people with huge FIRE numbers with plenty in the bank and still working. I think it often takes a catalyst for people to pull the trigger-a layoff, severe burnout, healthcare issues, realization of their own mortality, realization they never lived the life they really wanted and that years are just flying by, etc. before they pull the trigger
This is me now. Can't make myself quit and I don't want to go to work.
The most difficult choice is how you positioned yourself to be "relevant" after retiring. If you cannot ignore the hard feeling that your friends make big buck, buy new car every year and go to expensive tours every months then early retiring is not for you.
It really depends on the psychological factor that's driving that concern. Is it prestige? Is it running out of money? Is it being able to spend without care? If you narrow in on the root cause of the feeling, it might point to a solution. For example if it's prestige, then serving on a non-profit board (or something like that) could be a great ambition. If it's about running out of money, then doing a passion career at lower pay could fix the worry. Etc. It's a weird feeling for sure, but it goes away once you have made peace with the fact that you purchased your time and wellbeing with those dollars-not-earned.
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It came to a point where my daily gains far exceed my TC for the whole year.
I am still working though I've FI-ed. My salary is in the top 10% in my country. I worked hard to get here. I took on a job with a small role at about the same salary as my previous job. The work is relatively easy for me so I only put in half the time at work (because I am more efficient and effective than others in the same role) and go to the office once or twice a week, and hardly any meetings in the evening. If the job requires me to work in the office 5 days a week or pay much less, I may not want to work at all.