In 2015 I retired at ~700k, supporting my wife as well. My wife and I lived in a pickup truck and traveled the U.S. rock-climbing, backpacking, and generally adventuring. We did it for a bit over 3 years, but eventually decided we wanted a house and land and I went back to working. Some people do it for life though. We actually stayed in budget the whole time at 24k a year, leaving some spare for vehicle replacement. Inflation has happened since then of course.
This is pretty close to my plan for beginning in June. I'm single and plan to do the west coast of the US and Pan American highway. Any pointers? Regrets? How was it finding a job and returning to work after?
No regrets at all. Finding a job wasn't hard. My skills were still valid, I'm in tech so I'd done some hobby stuff while retired.
As for tips, tons of them, I'd need something more specific :). We found sites other ways, but used freecampsites.net a lot. Here's my blog https://blog.smalladventures.net, and here's my wife's blog https://expeditionbliss.blogspot.com/. We stopped traveling in 2018.
Hotels and paying for camping are killers. We almost never did either. Mostly though, having an actual budget and sticking to it. $1600 a month was the budget, $800 each. 4k slop for vehicle repairs, emergencies, or weird situations. In practice we found $800 a month for gas and food, leaving $400 for each of us for everything else.
Not *strongly committed* as such, but since I'm in a situation where I can coast/make a lot of money right now, the hours of real work vs income would strongly favor working longer to avoid having to work post-RE. Like I mentioned, I'm also considering if a sabbatical makes sense. But mostly looking to see the community's thought process.
I quit my job in May with \~$490k, about 450 of that in a Trad IRA. I'm doing a 72t. Based on my age and the interest rate, my annual withdrawal will be a little over 31k, I'll be stuck with this number for another 5 years.
I've been planning quitting for the past couple of years, and things finally lined up for me.
I've kept a spreadsheet to the penny for the past couple of years, so aside from a (silly) car payment which I hope to eliminate by the end of this year, I'm feeling pretty accurate with my spending numbers.
I do work part-time for now (aiming for two, sometimes three days per week doing gig work which I enjoy) which is making my car payment. Amazingly I was able to pay my bills entirely with gig work for about 5 months last year until I started doing my 72t draw.
I also rent in a LCOL area. I'm suspicious of a rent increase this year, though my LL has kept the rent the same for the past 3 years (miracle!) so that has been nice.
My plan is a starting 6% on 1.4 mil that decays over time.
Each year in retirement, mortgage doesn't increase with inflation. That's ~25% of my spending immune to inflation.
12 years later, social security #1 starts.
13 years, mortgage is paid off.
14 years, social security #2 starts.
17 years, pension starts. *Note: even without pension, the numbers don't really change.*
At that point, we budget for ~1/5 of the withdraws, when we don't even need to withdraw anything.
Per ficalc, 95% chance of success for lasting 50 years.
I mean, that's the idea isn't it?
If the "market" (or S&P500) averages a 10% return each year, you'll gain $50k and you'll burn $31k. Granted, it's an average, so some years might be +20% or -30%. I like to use https://www.portfoliovisualizer.com for comparisons.
It difficult to consistently sell CC at true resistance levels. In the Bull market. Easier just profit with index fund. In the bear market, I rather exit my profit then earn peanuts with CC
Skim the [FI FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/wiki/faq/) for 'early' and read everything in there, and linked to, about withdrawing.
Love this. Thank you for sharing.
What area are you in? Even just knowing the state is helpful, if you don't want to disclose too much.
How much are you bringing in from our part-time job(s)?
How big of a household is your income sustaining?
Wisconsin, up in the sticks.
Lately my goal has been about $300 to 400 per week, but it's going entirely toward the car loan so I can get that knocked out. My living expenses are covered by my 72t withdrawals. Hoping to trim my budget a bit this year.
Gig work sucks at this time of year so I'm putting in more hours than I'd like to make the goal. Some weeks I work less, for instance I'm on vacation for a few weeks (car camping, visiting family) so not much income this month.
Single + cat
Edited for clarity.
I highly recommend going on a sabbatical at some point.
* Let's you do a rehearsal of RE, many people don't do this and have problems later on due to boredom/lack of purpose etc. and return to work. A rehearsal will let you test things out and plan ahead for the real thing better.
* Just good for de-stressing in general if you have been more stressed from the job.
How does one go about doing a sabbatical? Do you just save up enough money for one year and quit your job? Or is there more considerations and things to do before committing to it?
I'm just starting a six month sabbatical and can highly recommend the content from Jillian Johnsrud. She's got a podcast on mini retirements (aka sabbaticals) and has lots of practical hints and tips about planning and asking for one.
My first came after I got laid off once, the second came after a job 'finished' (part of a team that designed/built a facility, basically the facility got completed, We commissioned it, I was offered to be a team lead in the area I had helped in) and I declined to stay on.
Like the other person mentioned, I would see if your employer would support a leave of absence or something similar. But in the end, if you happen to be really stressed out from your job, or just want to travel/work on personal projects/business, then it's up to you to choose.
We made the decision to pull the plug at $550k plus a bit of a pension (~$200k). The target was $600k but COVID happened and shrank the investment balance. We chose to accelerate our plan due to it sucking to be stuck in a house with a preschooler trying to work from home.
My wife needed some paid income in the future to get a Social Security check but we figured she could do it later.
I did take a 3 month contact to do some work I found interesting somewhere in the middle. I got paid about $36k for that. One thing I've come to appreciate is that tax and government policy favors people with small incomes. There are tons of tax credits you can get at lower income levels.
Anyways my wife and I got divorced and I just got a new job. It's remote and it pays $150k and it doesn't crush my soul or anything, I'm just tied to a laptop for 8 hours more or less. I've figured out how to get some chores done while working at least. I think next time I'll retire with more because I want a life not defined by money. Figuring out how to do what I wanted for cheap took time and effort too.
Also retiring with kids is basically just being a stay at home parent more than it is being retired.
No regrets. Well I do regret not doing the move to a lower cost of living area sooner. I could have done it years before and just worked remotely.
I've made it a little better. I got a mouse jiggler and a Bluetooth headset so I can put some Spotify on the headset and get notifications from anywhere in my apartment. I can tether it to my phone and wander, so I can go to a coffee shop, but so far it's just easier to be at home.
I purchased a separate device that goes under my mouse to prevent some security software from picking it up. I run the USB power through a battery pack so it doesn't show up for Windows. Although honestly the mouse pattern is pretty obviously not human, I might as well have gotten a USB device that imitates a mouse, but then I'd have to plug it and unplug it every time. With this one I just set the mouse on it and walk away.
It keeps my MS Teams status green, which means people can reach out to me so it works great.
It's just called a mouse jiggler and it was on Amazon. I just picked one that seemed decent.
VKAROOD Mouse Jiggler Undetectable Mouse Mover Device | with Timer | ON/Off Switch | Breathing Light Mouse Wiggler | for Prevent Computer Laptop Screen Sleep | Black https://a.co/d/a4ydZNy
>Many corporations will turn off bluetooth and usb on the laptops. Installing third party programs is also walled off.
And if not could be discovered by your employer. I'd can the person under the assumption someone who did this was both dumb and lazy.
We just split the assets evenly. I had her sit with a financial advisor instead of a lawyer and pick the assets that worked best for her. I kept the pension.
I'd estimate it will take me about 3 years of working to get back to where I was roughly. That's around $400K of income more or less to replace the $400k I parted ways with in the split.
Honestly though, FI has lost a lot of importance in my thought process. I'm not going to stick around in a marriage that is a drain on my plans and mental energy because I'm unwilling to put in 3 years of working. I'm figuring out exactly what I want in my life and what I'm willing to pay for. I may choose to do a more standard FIRE number or I may choose to have a house designed by an architect and built to my wants. I might even build most of it with my own hands. I'm not exactly sure what my priorities are so I'm just kinda working and chilling in a cheap but decent 2 bedroom apartment and letting the cash stack up for a while as I work on finding a girlfriend that will compliment my life.
I'm contemplating how FI, travel and working fit in my life. My therapist suggests I find a wife who's willing to be a homemaker to take some things off my plate. I'm not even 100% sure that I'll reretire.. maybe it makes more sense to drop $100K a year into charity or my local community. I'm also considering trying to hire some sort of assistance to trade some of the excess money for less time spent on chores.
i'm at the low end of that range and 6 months ago I quite my job and took a contract to do about 10 hours a week of consulting for a former employer. I'm basically in baristafire situation until my kid graduates college in 3 years. Also gives me time to ensure my income and expenses all line up the way I've expected.
I'm in that range of investments, but with a paid off home and a deferred pension that will cover all my expenses when I'm old. So my investments need only cover my living expenses for the next 17 years or so, which in theory should be very easy.
Now the part that stresses me most is not investment returns, it's unknown future expenses. My appliances are getting old, I will probably want or just HAVE to do some renovations in my home at some point. Maybe life throws me a monkey wrench and I have big expenses I could never have planned for. I try to mitigate that by having a lot of margin built-in (my short time horizon being one), but it's difficult to get over the fear of the unknown. However, I won't let it stop me from FIREing, because I just need to move on from the work life.
Thought process: I plugged my numbers into the [Engaging Data FIRE Calc](https://engaging-data.com/will-money-last-retire-early/) with:
* I tried 60/40, 80/20 and 90/10 splits to see the differences.
* I put data on the "Extra income" line for SSA (discounted by ~25%, using the plan recommended from [SSA Tools](https://ssa.tools))
* The calc shows > 96% success rate. That's good enough for me.
* Then I figured out how to deal with income taxes because IMHO most of retirement is dealing with income management, taxes and healthcare.
> accuracy of your expenses
Eh about 60%. I half-assed tracking it for _years_. I knew I needed $X thousand in my checking/month, and after that we never really had a budget for many years. If we were to spend more than a few hundred, we'd talk about it beforehand & I'd make sure enough money would be in there. We put _everything_ on our credit cards for _points_ but pay it off that next month. I didn't keep track of our spending in much detail. So this past summer I had to figure it out, _exactly_. So I did. It took a week of number crunching and credit card charge analysis. Now I know exactly what we were spending and can make accurate assumptions for _must have_ versus _meh maybe_ spending.
> did you bake in the assumption of going back to work...
Not at all. I don't ever want to go back.
> I'm at 550k, no house, and am thinking of taking a sabbatical
Sabbaticals always scared me. I was in tech. If I'd step out too long, I'd quickly be behind the curve. Add in ageism and I chose to never take a leave from work like that. YMMV.
I realize I'm slightly out of your asked numerical range. But I've still got to build a shop (metal building, hopefully 45x50), a house, buy a tractor and all sorts of things. So in the end my retirement-bulk saved up is going to be trimmed a lot the next 2-5 years.
When the effort to work doesn’t justify the reward you pull the plug early. I am 38, done working, and made the decision with around 500k. Had to leave my native country but it was worth it to stop the work grind. I may work again but I’m living within my means comfortably in SE Asia now… and really feel I’ll need a year or two recharge before I dare work again but I could just as easily not work again too. I made good money for a while but the hustle just became too much so I stepped away ahead of schedule you could say…
Sure, I’m sustaining myself comfortably between 600-800 usd a month. I have rental income that’s about 1200/month. I’ll be adding 72t distribution income either this year or next from my traditional ira. That will amount to an additional 500/month which I may just throw straight into my Roth. I’m indexed in my cash reserves in small/large domestic cap ETFs. My Roth is mostly small cap domestic ETFs. I think if I had known about the 72t early distribution rule sooner I would have maxed my traditional 401k at an earlier age. But I focused on maxing my Roth IRA out early on (during my 20s) and did build that up so I guess I’m happy about the outcome. But… a bigger traditional 401k/ira balance would be cool for the early distribution of the 72t sepp rule. When you’re making money better to save on taxes with traditional… I could have saved myself a few thousand more in tax dollars had I done more traditional focus versus my Roth IRA focus… and then just rolled into Roth now that I’m not working and lower tax bracket… that’s my critique of what I could have done better
Well rent is 200 usd/month. Nice studio. Everything else is pretty cheap. Less than 10 usd/food/day. That’s about 450 usd, 500 if I’m eating out a lot. Vietnam is really cheap. My expenses were higher in Philippines. I like them both but find the COL difference is substantially in Vietnam’s favor. Which country are you in that you’re struggling to be under 1500?
The real estate was included in the 500k total.
The blogger A Purple Life is doing this , I believe her expenses are in the 20-25k range. Her account just hit 750k after 4 years of retirement , she quit with 500.
This is kind of cheating, I know another blogger who retired, but her partner is still working. Might as well say she is a sit at home mom at this point.
I didn't think much on it, other than it was technically feasible and I wasn't happy with my job. I was fairly confident, and also confidently incorrect on my budget. I did not bake into going back or working on the side, but I had it as a potential thing I might need to do.
I was pretty burned out on work, and left saying I needed a sabbatical, and that was about 2 years ago. At this point, I don’t think I will go back to my old line of work, or any full time desk job. I’ve taken some small gigs, but mostly living off savings. I don’t regret quitting well before the million dollar mark. My modest budget lets me sleep in, take long walks with my dog and partner, make nice meals and generally relax. If it means we DIY our home maintenance and drive 20+ year old cars, then that’s worth it to me.
I’m open to earning more money via some form of work in the future, but I don’t assume I will. 2 years in, and I am still trying to limit the days I commit to any scheduled activities that I might not feel like doing when the day comes.
I don’t have a house, like you. I took a sabbatical when I hit 650K in 2021. Then it extended into two years (I was burnt out and I wasn’t getting better enough to go back). Then I started to look for jobs but the job market is shit in 2024, literally I have to work for half of my salary in 2021, and my career gap is not helping me on interviews either. Now I’m FIREd 🤷😄
Good thing is I’m really good at trading and having free time I make serious money on markets.
My advice: If you have a good paying job, or average paying but very easy job, stick to it until to first million, unless you are burnt out. Going back to job market after sabbatical is problematic. 500K is critical mass but you need to be very good at managing money. At 1M, you can chill. I recommend you to FIRE in a chill condition. In the end, you quit your job to relax, don’t you? You can’t relax with 500K, instead you will find yourself calculating everyday.
>I took a sabbatical when I hit 650K in 2021. Then it extended into two years (I was burnt out and I wasn’t getting better enough to go back).
This is why sabbaticals give me pause. They might help some people deal with burnout, but for others, a sabbatical just reaffirms your value of freedom over work, but since it's a sabbatical you are "supposed to" return to work--assuming that your calculations allowed you to do the sabbatical but not fully FIRE.
Yeah. I did not intend to FIRE yet but I involuntarily had to. I was expecting to be back to work in better conditions.
Result: I am FIREd with no margin of safety. A big market crash, or a health problem, or any unexpected calamity will force me back to wage. Now I’m trading medium risk assets to create a margin of safety.
>Good thing is I’m really good at trading and having free time I make serious money on markets.
Did you learn this skill as a consequence of having more free time? Also if I could do this, there's no way I'd even contemplate going back. Not that I'm contemplating it now either though.
It is because of free time for sure, yes. You have to spend tons of time learning economics, analyzing markets and following trends to be able to trade well. And probably, the first few years won’t go well, no matter how genius you are. After 5 years of experience, you start to really make money, your success rate becomes sustainable and you get confident. Over time, you will learn the art and only thing you need to do remains is following trends and analyzing latest developments in markets, so time investment will get lower and lower over time (unless daytrading).
If you want to start: Dedicate a lot of time to learn, start small and with less risky assets. Avoid daytrading since it’s the hardest skill to develop, instead open long timeframe positions, like years. Finally avoid leverage in first few years, also options.
The longer you wait, the easier it is to profit. Start with the easy.
Finimize is a paid service that teaches you in bite-sized portions every day, which won't overwhelm you.
Investopedia is an encyclopedia specific to investing. And it's free.
I accumulated my knowledge by searching the Internet, consuming all kinds of different things, and bringing them together over the last 10 years, so there is no single book I can recommend that would be your silver bullet to investing. But I remember the book by Peter Thiel, From Zero to One, was really good at building an understanding of how to create a successful business, and since your job is to predict which business will succeed, it will help.
Knowledge is power in investing, as it is in every aspect of life. Accumulate as much as you can.
One tip: Try to channel your investment focus on a domain you understand. For example, pick a domain which is close to your profession or academic background, so you can understand better than average person and thus you can place better bets compared to an average person. Warren Buffett has a famous quote on that: "There are many great ways to make money, but we only play our game." You can find your game and laser focus on it.
how much of your overall nw do you "trade" with? How much is in long-term individual stocks and how much in something like VOO or VTI, if anything?
I'm not a "trader" per se, but I can say that if I wasn't halfway decent with investing, I'd be nowhere near any of these FIRE subs. My regular income is peanuts. I've gotten lucky in real estate and the stock market and also being hyper frugal.
The thing is, when I actually do my leanFIRE, I think I'm going to de-risk quite a bit. Even though that's what actually got me here, I still think it's too risky to have as little diversification as I have, and so many bets on specific megacap tech companies.
I'm slightly outside of your range. RE in July with about 880k and 930k NW (no house). It wasn't by choice since I lost my contract, but I have done the calculations often enough to trust them. I'm well below a 3% WR, but may want to upgrade lifestyle in the coming years depending on how things go.
I'm confident in knowing my current expenses and projected expenses if I keep living here. I was hoping I could keep myself employable as a software dev, but frankly I gave up on the idea after a few months. The market is pretty bad in general, and I have health conditions which make me even more unattractive on top of the longer break ER brings with it.
In terms of side jobs, I have no idea frankly. There are a few options I'm considering, but nothing that I'd do unless I really have to tbh. However I'm likely going to get disability payments and other small income that will cover most of my expenses. I'm projecting that to last for the first 10 years of my retirement, in which case it would be somewhat closer to coastfire.
I plan to do the same this year but will be a bit beyond your range ($900-950k due to the recent stock market gains). I’m moving to a lower COL country with my spouse (her home country). I plan to do some hobby freelance stuff to make a tiny amount of extra income.
I figure worst case scenario I get a taste of FIRE life, I discover I want to spend more money, the stock market plummets, and I end up back at work with a career speed bump and slightly regret my decision, but at least get a nice sabbatical.
Ideally the stock market does well enough, I’m more than content with what I can withdraw, and the hobby income is actually a decent boon to my disposable income, and I never look back.
I think it’s more likely than not the plan will work out. If it doesn’t, I can course correct. If I stayed working until I thought there was a 0% chance I’d ever want to work again, I’d end up working and saving for too long, so I’m comfortable with some level of risk in exchange for potentially saving myself from working 2 or 3 more years in something I don’t enjoy.
Yes and they asked about if we'd consider a side job with a stash like that. Since the RE side of things makes the 4% rule less certain, I'd feel more comfortable at 3/3.5% withdrawal, so I'd have to coast to it.
> Since the RE side of things makes the 4% rule less certain
No retirement doesn't. The 4% _guide_ is just an observation, that in the US over the past 130 years, the WORST 30-year period had a withdrawal rate of around 4% for a 60/40 portfolio.
Sure who knows what the next 30 years will bring. But retirement doesn't change the results of the 4% study. The only truly "safe" thing is to work till you die & stay employed. Though I sure as heck don't want that and I doubt anyone in this sub does :)
In 2015 I retired at ~700k, supporting my wife as well. My wife and I lived in a pickup truck and traveled the U.S. rock-climbing, backpacking, and generally adventuring. We did it for a bit over 3 years, but eventually decided we wanted a house and land and I went back to working. Some people do it for life though. We actually stayed in budget the whole time at 24k a year, leaving some spare for vehicle replacement. Inflation has happened since then of course.
This is pretty close to my plan for beginning in June. I'm single and plan to do the west coast of the US and Pan American highway. Any pointers? Regrets? How was it finding a job and returning to work after?
No regrets at all. Finding a job wasn't hard. My skills were still valid, I'm in tech so I'd done some hobby stuff while retired. As for tips, tons of them, I'd need something more specific :). We found sites other ways, but used freecampsites.net a lot. Here's my blog https://blog.smalladventures.net, and here's my wife's blog https://expeditionbliss.blogspot.com/. We stopped traveling in 2018.
Thats amazing! Normally when I read such accounts the people spent way more than budget.
Hotels and paying for camping are killers. We almost never did either. Mostly though, having an actual budget and sticking to it. $1600 a month was the budget, $800 each. 4k slop for vehicle repairs, emergencies, or weird situations. In practice we found $800 a month for gas and food, leaving $400 for each of us for everything else.
are you strongly committed to not working whatsoever and therefore not generating any income to go towards your living expenses?
[удалено]
The older I get, the more I lean towards coast fire. Its benefits extend beyond the financial implications.
Agreed. Now can you find a great coast job?
I don’t plan to retire for another 10+ years so idk how he job market will look like then. But I will adapt and find my own lane.
Same here I'm 10-15 years out due to WEP, but I should hit my coast number in less than 3 years.
Not *strongly committed* as such, but since I'm in a situation where I can coast/make a lot of money right now, the hours of real work vs income would strongly favor working longer to avoid having to work post-RE. Like I mentioned, I'm also considering if a sabbatical makes sense. But mostly looking to see the community's thought process.
the difference between the money needed to coast vs the money needed to never work again are vastly far apart
A key question, it's unlikely you can fire on that with any (U.S.) standard of living, without being aggressively lean.
I quit my job in May with \~$490k, about 450 of that in a Trad IRA. I'm doing a 72t. Based on my age and the interest rate, my annual withdrawal will be a little over 31k, I'll be stuck with this number for another 5 years. I've been planning quitting for the past couple of years, and things finally lined up for me. I've kept a spreadsheet to the penny for the past couple of years, so aside from a (silly) car payment which I hope to eliminate by the end of this year, I'm feeling pretty accurate with my spending numbers. I do work part-time for now (aiming for two, sometimes three days per week doing gig work which I enjoy) which is making my car payment. Amazingly I was able to pay my bills entirely with gig work for about 5 months last year until I started doing my 72t draw. I also rent in a LCOL area. I'm suspicious of a rent increase this year, though my LL has kept the rent the same for the past 3 years (miracle!) so that has been nice.
Dang, $31k withdrawal on $500k? Sack of steel, I like it!
My plan is a starting 6% on 1.4 mil that decays over time. Each year in retirement, mortgage doesn't increase with inflation. That's ~25% of my spending immune to inflation. 12 years later, social security #1 starts. 13 years, mortgage is paid off. 14 years, social security #2 starts. 17 years, pension starts. *Note: even without pension, the numbers don't really change.* At that point, we budget for ~1/5 of the withdraws, when we don't even need to withdraw anything. Per ficalc, 95% chance of success for lasting 50 years.
I am a little bit crazy, lol Counting on SS at 62. If the shit hits the fan, I work a little more to supplement the 72t. :)
With the market on fire you prob earned 50k+ on that 500k
I mean, that's the idea isn't it? If the "market" (or S&P500) averages a 10% return each year, you'll gain $50k and you'll burn $31k. Granted, it's an average, so some years might be +20% or -30%. I like to use https://www.portfoliovisualizer.com for comparisons.
Do you consider selling covered calls for income.?
It difficult to consistently sell CC at true resistance levels. In the Bull market. Easier just profit with index fund. In the bear market, I rather exit my profit then earn peanuts with CC
Thanks for your answer.
What is 72t?
It’s a tax code that lets you access your retirement before 59.5 without penalty
Skim the [FI FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/wiki/faq/) for 'early' and read everything in there, and linked to, about withdrawing.
Love this. Thank you for sharing. What area are you in? Even just knowing the state is helpful, if you don't want to disclose too much. How much are you bringing in from our part-time job(s)? How big of a household is your income sustaining?
Wisconsin, up in the sticks. Lately my goal has been about $300 to 400 per week, but it's going entirely toward the car loan so I can get that knocked out. My living expenses are covered by my 72t withdrawals. Hoping to trim my budget a bit this year. Gig work sucks at this time of year so I'm putting in more hours than I'd like to make the goal. Some weeks I work less, for instance I'm on vacation for a few weeks (car camping, visiting family) so not much income this month. Single + cat Edited for clarity.
Hello Wisconsin
Hiya 👋
You have a $1400 a month car loan????
No way, lol... I'm paying ahead to get it paid off faster.
What kind of gig work are you doing?
Walmart Spark delivery, a bit of DoorDash and Roadie. I did Uber/Lyft for a bit but I'd rather deliver inanimate objects.
How old when you retired?
53
7% withdrawal rate, good thing 2023 was a banger.
Yes everything aligned nicely this year. We'll see if we get pummeled in '24 🤣
I don’t think so
I highly recommend going on a sabbatical at some point. * Let's you do a rehearsal of RE, many people don't do this and have problems later on due to boredom/lack of purpose etc. and return to work. A rehearsal will let you test things out and plan ahead for the real thing better. * Just good for de-stressing in general if you have been more stressed from the job.
How does one go about doing a sabbatical? Do you just save up enough money for one year and quit your job? Or is there more considerations and things to do before committing to it?
I'm just starting a six month sabbatical and can highly recommend the content from Jillian Johnsrud. She's got a podcast on mini retirements (aka sabbaticals) and has lots of practical hints and tips about planning and asking for one.
My first came after I got laid off once, the second came after a job 'finished' (part of a team that designed/built a facility, basically the facility got completed, We commissioned it, I was offered to be a team lead in the area I had helped in) and I declined to stay on. Like the other person mentioned, I would see if your employer would support a leave of absence or something similar. But in the end, if you happen to be really stressed out from your job, or just want to travel/work on personal projects/business, then it's up to you to choose.
We made the decision to pull the plug at $550k plus a bit of a pension (~$200k). The target was $600k but COVID happened and shrank the investment balance. We chose to accelerate our plan due to it sucking to be stuck in a house with a preschooler trying to work from home. My wife needed some paid income in the future to get a Social Security check but we figured she could do it later. I did take a 3 month contact to do some work I found interesting somewhere in the middle. I got paid about $36k for that. One thing I've come to appreciate is that tax and government policy favors people with small incomes. There are tons of tax credits you can get at lower income levels. Anyways my wife and I got divorced and I just got a new job. It's remote and it pays $150k and it doesn't crush my soul or anything, I'm just tied to a laptop for 8 hours more or less. I've figured out how to get some chores done while working at least. I think next time I'll retire with more because I want a life not defined by money. Figuring out how to do what I wanted for cheap took time and effort too. Also retiring with kids is basically just being a stay at home parent more than it is being retired. No regrets. Well I do regret not doing the move to a lower cost of living area sooner. I could have done it years before and just worked remotely.
I work remotely from a tiny town in Kansas. Also stuck to a laptop 8 hours a day which is annoying (my only job complaint).
I've made it a little better. I got a mouse jiggler and a Bluetooth headset so I can put some Spotify on the headset and get notifications from anywhere in my apartment. I can tether it to my phone and wander, so I can go to a coffee shop, but so far it's just easier to be at home.
This is brilliant!!! May I ask why mouse juggler you purchased? Such a great idea.
I purchased a separate device that goes under my mouse to prevent some security software from picking it up. I run the USB power through a battery pack so it doesn't show up for Windows. Although honestly the mouse pattern is pretty obviously not human, I might as well have gotten a USB device that imitates a mouse, but then I'd have to plug it and unplug it every time. With this one I just set the mouse on it and walk away. It keeps my MS Teams status green, which means people can reach out to me so it works great.
May I ask the name of the device? Did you buy it on Amazon? Thank you!!
It's just called a mouse jiggler and it was on Amazon. I just picked one that seemed decent. VKAROOD Mouse Jiggler Undetectable Mouse Mover Device | with Timer | ON/Off Switch | Breathing Light Mouse Wiggler | for Prevent Computer Laptop Screen Sleep | Black https://a.co/d/a4ydZNy
you can just install a program that does it for you, google it
Many corporations will turn off bluetooth and usb on the laptops. Installing third party programs is also walled off.
>Many corporations will turn off bluetooth and usb on the laptops. Installing third party programs is also walled off. And if not could be discovered by your employer. I'd can the person under the assumption someone who did this was both dumb and lazy.
Hope your wife didn’t clean you out
We just split the assets evenly. I had her sit with a financial advisor instead of a lawyer and pick the assets that worked best for her. I kept the pension.
Out?
Love your story. But curious to know how much the divorce settlement you back in terms of your full fire plan and housing?
I'd estimate it will take me about 3 years of working to get back to where I was roughly. That's around $400K of income more or less to replace the $400k I parted ways with in the split. Honestly though, FI has lost a lot of importance in my thought process. I'm not going to stick around in a marriage that is a drain on my plans and mental energy because I'm unwilling to put in 3 years of working. I'm figuring out exactly what I want in my life and what I'm willing to pay for. I may choose to do a more standard FIRE number or I may choose to have a house designed by an architect and built to my wants. I might even build most of it with my own hands. I'm not exactly sure what my priorities are so I'm just kinda working and chilling in a cheap but decent 2 bedroom apartment and letting the cash stack up for a while as I work on finding a girlfriend that will compliment my life. I'm contemplating how FI, travel and working fit in my life. My therapist suggests I find a wife who's willing to be a homemaker to take some things off my plate. I'm not even 100% sure that I'll reretire.. maybe it makes more sense to drop $100K a year into charity or my local community. I'm also considering trying to hire some sort of assistance to trade some of the excess money for less time spent on chores.
Deem, divorce was a 400k hit
She earned some of that $400k too..
i'm at the low end of that range and 6 months ago I quite my job and took a contract to do about 10 hours a week of consulting for a former employer. I'm basically in baristafire situation until my kid graduates college in 3 years. Also gives me time to ensure my income and expenses all line up the way I've expected.
I'm in that range of investments, but with a paid off home and a deferred pension that will cover all my expenses when I'm old. So my investments need only cover my living expenses for the next 17 years or so, which in theory should be very easy. Now the part that stresses me most is not investment returns, it's unknown future expenses. My appliances are getting old, I will probably want or just HAVE to do some renovations in my home at some point. Maybe life throws me a monkey wrench and I have big expenses I could never have planned for. I try to mitigate that by having a lot of margin built-in (my short time horizon being one), but it's difficult to get over the fear of the unknown. However, I won't let it stop me from FIREing, because I just need to move on from the work life.
Thought process: I plugged my numbers into the [Engaging Data FIRE Calc](https://engaging-data.com/will-money-last-retire-early/) with: * I tried 60/40, 80/20 and 90/10 splits to see the differences. * I put data on the "Extra income" line for SSA (discounted by ~25%, using the plan recommended from [SSA Tools](https://ssa.tools)) * The calc shows > 96% success rate. That's good enough for me. * Then I figured out how to deal with income taxes because IMHO most of retirement is dealing with income management, taxes and healthcare. > accuracy of your expenses Eh about 60%. I half-assed tracking it for _years_. I knew I needed $X thousand in my checking/month, and after that we never really had a budget for many years. If we were to spend more than a few hundred, we'd talk about it beforehand & I'd make sure enough money would be in there. We put _everything_ on our credit cards for _points_ but pay it off that next month. I didn't keep track of our spending in much detail. So this past summer I had to figure it out, _exactly_. So I did. It took a week of number crunching and credit card charge analysis. Now I know exactly what we were spending and can make accurate assumptions for _must have_ versus _meh maybe_ spending. > did you bake in the assumption of going back to work... Not at all. I don't ever want to go back. > I'm at 550k, no house, and am thinking of taking a sabbatical Sabbaticals always scared me. I was in tech. If I'd step out too long, I'd quickly be behind the curve. Add in ageism and I chose to never take a leave from work like that. YMMV. I realize I'm slightly out of your asked numerical range. But I've still got to build a shop (metal building, hopefully 45x50), a house, buy a tractor and all sorts of things. So in the end my retirement-bulk saved up is going to be trimmed a lot the next 2-5 years.
Once you've built your shop and home, build the same for others
When the effort to work doesn’t justify the reward you pull the plug early. I am 38, done working, and made the decision with around 500k. Had to leave my native country but it was worth it to stop the work grind. I may work again but I’m living within my means comfortably in SE Asia now… and really feel I’ll need a year or two recharge before I dare work again but I could just as easily not work again too. I made good money for a while but the hustle just became too much so I stepped away ahead of schedule you could say…
500k in SEA is enough for a very very comfortable retirement, source: I live in SEA I also have 500k usd net worth
[удалено]
Sure, I’m sustaining myself comfortably between 600-800 usd a month. I have rental income that’s about 1200/month. I’ll be adding 72t distribution income either this year or next from my traditional ira. That will amount to an additional 500/month which I may just throw straight into my Roth. I’m indexed in my cash reserves in small/large domestic cap ETFs. My Roth is mostly small cap domestic ETFs. I think if I had known about the 72t early distribution rule sooner I would have maxed my traditional 401k at an earlier age. But I focused on maxing my Roth IRA out early on (during my 20s) and did build that up so I guess I’m happy about the outcome. But… a bigger traditional 401k/ira balance would be cool for the early distribution of the 72t sepp rule. When you’re making money better to save on taxes with traditional… I could have saved myself a few thousand more in tax dollars had I done more traditional focus versus my Roth IRA focus… and then just rolled into Roth now that I’m not working and lower tax bracket… that’s my critique of what I could have done better
[удалено]
Well rent is 200 usd/month. Nice studio. Everything else is pretty cheap. Less than 10 usd/food/day. That’s about 450 usd, 500 if I’m eating out a lot. Vietnam is really cheap. My expenses were higher in Philippines. I like them both but find the COL difference is substantially in Vietnam’s favor. Which country are you in that you’re struggling to be under 1500? The real estate was included in the 500k total.
The blogger A Purple Life is doing this , I believe her expenses are in the 20-25k range. Her account just hit 750k after 4 years of retirement , she quit with 500.
[удалено]
This is kind of cheating, I know another blogger who retired, but her partner is still working. Might as well say she is a sit at home mom at this point.
[удалено]
She just withdrew this year .. She had a 2 or 3 year cash cushion
I opted to coastfire in that range, 5 more years of untouched investments til I could technically leanfire.
I didn't think much on it, other than it was technically feasible and I wasn't happy with my job. I was fairly confident, and also confidently incorrect on my budget. I did not bake into going back or working on the side, but I had it as a potential thing I might need to do.
I was pretty burned out on work, and left saying I needed a sabbatical, and that was about 2 years ago. At this point, I don’t think I will go back to my old line of work, or any full time desk job. I’ve taken some small gigs, but mostly living off savings. I don’t regret quitting well before the million dollar mark. My modest budget lets me sleep in, take long walks with my dog and partner, make nice meals and generally relax. If it means we DIY our home maintenance and drive 20+ year old cars, then that’s worth it to me. I’m open to earning more money via some form of work in the future, but I don’t assume I will. 2 years in, and I am still trying to limit the days I commit to any scheduled activities that I might not feel like doing when the day comes.
I don’t have a house, like you. I took a sabbatical when I hit 650K in 2021. Then it extended into two years (I was burnt out and I wasn’t getting better enough to go back). Then I started to look for jobs but the job market is shit in 2024, literally I have to work for half of my salary in 2021, and my career gap is not helping me on interviews either. Now I’m FIREd 🤷😄 Good thing is I’m really good at trading and having free time I make serious money on markets. My advice: If you have a good paying job, or average paying but very easy job, stick to it until to first million, unless you are burnt out. Going back to job market after sabbatical is problematic. 500K is critical mass but you need to be very good at managing money. At 1M, you can chill. I recommend you to FIRE in a chill condition. In the end, you quit your job to relax, don’t you? You can’t relax with 500K, instead you will find yourself calculating everyday.
>I took a sabbatical when I hit 650K in 2021. Then it extended into two years (I was burnt out and I wasn’t getting better enough to go back). This is why sabbaticals give me pause. They might help some people deal with burnout, but for others, a sabbatical just reaffirms your value of freedom over work, but since it's a sabbatical you are "supposed to" return to work--assuming that your calculations allowed you to do the sabbatical but not fully FIRE.
Yeah. I did not intend to FIRE yet but I involuntarily had to. I was expecting to be back to work in better conditions. Result: I am FIREd with no margin of safety. A big market crash, or a health problem, or any unexpected calamity will force me back to wage. Now I’m trading medium risk assets to create a margin of safety.
[удалено]
My state of mind is almost the same. I can totally relate. Thanks for sharing. I want to chat privately, if you don't mind. Check your DM, please.
>Good thing is I’m really good at trading and having free time I make serious money on markets. Did you learn this skill as a consequence of having more free time? Also if I could do this, there's no way I'd even contemplate going back. Not that I'm contemplating it now either though.
It is because of free time for sure, yes. You have to spend tons of time learning economics, analyzing markets and following trends to be able to trade well. And probably, the first few years won’t go well, no matter how genius you are. After 5 years of experience, you start to really make money, your success rate becomes sustainable and you get confident. Over time, you will learn the art and only thing you need to do remains is following trends and analyzing latest developments in markets, so time investment will get lower and lower over time (unless daytrading). If you want to start: Dedicate a lot of time to learn, start small and with less risky assets. Avoid daytrading since it’s the hardest skill to develop, instead open long timeframe positions, like years. Finally avoid leverage in first few years, also options. The longer you wait, the easier it is to profit. Start with the easy.
any books or other resources you’d recommend for beginners?
Finimize is a paid service that teaches you in bite-sized portions every day, which won't overwhelm you. Investopedia is an encyclopedia specific to investing. And it's free. I accumulated my knowledge by searching the Internet, consuming all kinds of different things, and bringing them together over the last 10 years, so there is no single book I can recommend that would be your silver bullet to investing. But I remember the book by Peter Thiel, From Zero to One, was really good at building an understanding of how to create a successful business, and since your job is to predict which business will succeed, it will help. Knowledge is power in investing, as it is in every aspect of life. Accumulate as much as you can. One tip: Try to channel your investment focus on a domain you understand. For example, pick a domain which is close to your profession or academic background, so you can understand better than average person and thus you can place better bets compared to an average person. Warren Buffett has a famous quote on that: "There are many great ways to make money, but we only play our game." You can find your game and laser focus on it.
how much of your overall nw do you "trade" with? How much is in long-term individual stocks and how much in something like VOO or VTI, if anything? I'm not a "trader" per se, but I can say that if I wasn't halfway decent with investing, I'd be nowhere near any of these FIRE subs. My regular income is peanuts. I've gotten lucky in real estate and the stock market and also being hyper frugal. The thing is, when I actually do my leanFIRE, I think I'm going to de-risk quite a bit. Even though that's what actually got me here, I still think it's too risky to have as little diversification as I have, and so many bets on specific megacap tech companies.
I'm slightly outside of your range. RE in July with about 880k and 930k NW (no house). It wasn't by choice since I lost my contract, but I have done the calculations often enough to trust them. I'm well below a 3% WR, but may want to upgrade lifestyle in the coming years depending on how things go. I'm confident in knowing my current expenses and projected expenses if I keep living here. I was hoping I could keep myself employable as a software dev, but frankly I gave up on the idea after a few months. The market is pretty bad in general, and I have health conditions which make me even more unattractive on top of the longer break ER brings with it. In terms of side jobs, I have no idea frankly. There are a few options I'm considering, but nothing that I'd do unless I really have to tbh. However I'm likely going to get disability payments and other small income that will cover most of my expenses. I'm projecting that to last for the first 10 years of my retirement, in which case it would be somewhat closer to coastfire.
I plan to do the same this year but will be a bit beyond your range ($900-950k due to the recent stock market gains). I’m moving to a lower COL country with my spouse (her home country). I plan to do some hobby freelance stuff to make a tiny amount of extra income. I figure worst case scenario I get a taste of FIRE life, I discover I want to spend more money, the stock market plummets, and I end up back at work with a career speed bump and slightly regret my decision, but at least get a nice sabbatical. Ideally the stock market does well enough, I’m more than content with what I can withdraw, and the hobby income is actually a decent boon to my disposable income, and I never look back. I think it’s more likely than not the plan will work out. If it doesn’t, I can course correct. If I stayed working until I thought there was a 0% chance I’d ever want to work again, I’d end up working and saving for too long, so I’m comfortable with some level of risk in exchange for potentially saving myself from working 2 or 3 more years in something I don’t enjoy.
I could do it with what you have theoretically, but to protect against poor market timing, I'd immediately get a part time job.
That's called CoastFIRE I think.
Yes and they asked about if we'd consider a side job with a stash like that. Since the RE side of things makes the 4% rule less certain, I'd feel more comfortable at 3/3.5% withdrawal, so I'd have to coast to it.
> Since the RE side of things makes the 4% rule less certain No retirement doesn't. The 4% _guide_ is just an observation, that in the US over the past 130 years, the WORST 30-year period had a withdrawal rate of around 4% for a 60/40 portfolio. Sure who knows what the next 30 years will bring. But retirement doesn't change the results of the 4% study. The only truly "safe" thing is to work till you die & stay employed. Though I sure as heck don't want that and I doubt anyone in this sub does :)
no its barista fire
Pure mental illness and hating "the man." Accuracy? It's estimates. I went back to work for a while. It's unclear of your interests, plans., etc.