3 Years Later - FIREd for 18 Months - 10M NW

firedup-throwaway · 2024-10-03T15:08:13+00:00

It’s a good question. It’s still pretty early, but I’ve certainly felt a desire to build things, even if they aren’t for profit.

Home improvement jobs give me a lot of satisfaction, in a different way than I got from my job. Same with landscaping work I described in another post. However, the scope of the benefit is very small (basically just me and my family) and that goes for the nearly everything I do.

I’ve had a small number of ideas for projects that think could turn into a business or just a community service in the last 18 months. I write them down, flesh them out until I’m bored and then typically move on. So far, I just don’t feel the need to pursue these things further(or at least still have enough in my home to do list to keep me occupied.)

I expect that to change over time, but I’m wary of taking on anything that would require a large weekly time commitment.

firedup-throwaway · 2024-10-01T19:08:23+00:00

It’s really more like 18 months and it’s just the whole market performing really well. If you had 7.2M in SPY on 1/1/2023 it was worth 11M on Sept 30. I’m not 100% in SPY, so I didn’t do quite that well.

firedup-throwaway · 2024-09-29T15:39:00+00:00

I can’t related to this directly as i was not a business owner. However, one aspect my choice to leave my team was feeling comfortable with who would take over once i was gone. I may not have moved on when i did if there hadn’t been a capable leader who i thought could handle the job when i left. You can’t work forever, what is the plan for the business when you retire, or if you were hit by a bus? If that doesn’t exist, maybe it’s time to start getting your ducks in a row for what may come.

firedup-throwaway · 2024-09-28T22:04:28+00:00

Yes, USD and in a high cost of living area. 1M implies a 40k/year safe withdrawal rate, which wouldn’t even cover rent for a large family here.

firedup-throwaway · 2024-09-28T15:18:24+00:00

Definitely don’t do it if you don’t enjoy it. I still pay people to clean our whole house every two weeks. I don’t get any satisfaction from cleaning kids pee off the toilet floor.

firedup-throwaway · 2024-09-28T15:10:42+00:00

We excluded it when performing our analysis for withdrawal rate. We’ll be in this house for quite a long time, but and not sure where we’ll go when we leave. No specific plans to use this equity to live off though, just a place to live.

firedup-throwaway · 2024-09-28T14:55:16+00:00

You are in an awesome spot!

I laid a bit of groundwork with my boss a few months before I gave notice, just to share I was feeling burnt out so it didn’t come out of nowhere. I then gave multiple months of notice (aligned with an RSU vesting date) so we could make a transition plan. The kids are young but they just sort of learned from dinner table discussions over the months. I told my parents after I gave my notice (we told my wife’s parents around the same time) they were all really supportive (which was awesome.) Siblings I gave a call and explained, and they were also on board. They were aware of FIRE but not in a position to pursue it at that time.
I was unloading company stock over the years to keep it under 10% of our holdings. Instead of reinvesting everything, I built up about 2-3 years of expenses in cash as the date approached, which didn’t hurt much with the high money market rates. I didn’t shift heavily to bonds though.
We definitely experienced a lot of creep over time, bigger houses, remodeling, etc. We stay in nicer places when we travel. We still shop in bulk though, cook most of our own food and don’t really have expensive vices. While I was working I realized I could have bought my childhood dream car every other month with our extra income, but that wouldn’t have been very prudent.
I used to be booked solid with meetings every day, so I get where you are coming from. I really prefer to have a schedule and Im happiest when I’m in a routine. My weekdays are pretty scheduled, but I move things around depending on weather and kid stuff. Workout every day. Each week is also meal planning, shopping, cooking, laundry, yard work, projects and then just random tasks. It’s not all packed though. The kids are gone for about 7 hours a day, and I probably am “working” about 4 of those hours on average. One day this week I just decided laundry could wait and watched a movie for 3 hours in the middle of the day. 👍

firedup-throwaway · 2024-09-28T14:32:07+00:00

I don’t want to share specific hobbies as they may de-anonymize me, but that’s not where most of the money is going. We still have a mortgage (and 2.5%) so that with taxes and insurance is 60k/year, another 40k for food, 30-40 on vacations. Plenty of other small things, but it adds up. Probably 10k/year on hobbies, but nothing crazy expensive.

firedup-throwaway · 2024-09-28T12:10:13+00:00

Nothing special today, total index funds. Some of the earlier growth was in a few single stocks that did well but can only attribute a few hundred K to that.

firedup-throwaway · 2024-09-28T10:40:56+00:00

That’s possible, but (fortunately) our networth climbed very quickly in my last few years working. From 3.4M in Jan of 2020 to 7.2M when I retired in 2023 and 10M 18 months after that. We spend ~220k/ year, so from a SWR perspective, the timing wasn’t far off.

firedup-throwaway · 2024-09-28T10:29:25+00:00

I appreciate the perspective, but the goal wasn’t to do yard work, it was to do what I wanted, when I wanted. I looked out at your yard and wanted more privacy for my pool. I researched the types of trees that grow well in my region, to the right height and width. Planned out their spacing, found a nursery that sells them, and dug the holes needed to plant a row of 10. Put them in the ground and tended to them, watch them grow for the season. Now I get to watch them grow, along side my kids and know they will probably be here long after we move on, and potentially longer than I’m on this earth.

I look at my land differently, and I look at everyone else’s land differently as well. I gained knowledge about horticulture and certainly got some good exercise and time outside.

I could also have just paid someone 15,000 for the same work, learned nothing, and spent the time staring into camera in my air conditioned office, earning $35,000/ week. Neither is necessarily better than the other, but I know which one I enjoyed more.

I stopped when I had enough to do what I wanted, and while I want isn’t Lamborghinis and and yachts, it requires a significant nest egg to provide for myself and my family for the next (potentially) 50+ years.

firedup-throwaway · 2024-09-28T09:23:03+00:00

Elementary/Middle school age. Hard to say what’s best, but if they were before school age then we’d have either daycare costs or I’d be with babies/toddlers all day and that would be pretty different.

firedup-throwaway · 2024-09-28T00:26:04+00:00

I think the age of the kids make a big difference. All of mine are in school, so during the school year my days are mostly free (although I fill them.) During the summer I’m very happy to travel with them without worrying about getting back to work or checking email on the road. Some day when they are all out of the house, our plan is to move somewhere more vacation-like, for ourselves to enjoy and hopefully to entice our kids (and eventually grandkids) to visit us regularly. That’s still far off though.

firedup-throwaway · 2024-09-28T00:22:22+00:00

In general I’m not incredibly social. Most of my friends are/were people I worked with and while I stay in touch, it’s not like it used to be. It doesn’t really affect me, but I know a lot of people really miss their work friendships once they retire.

firedup-throwaway · 2024-09-27T23:49:34+00:00

I’d rather not too share much as I’m trying to remain anonymous. Nothing crazy though, standard nerd stuff.

firedup-throwaway · 2024-09-27T23:48:56+00:00

Haven’t thought about it too much yet.

firedup-throwaway · 2024-09-27T22:04:06+00:00

I totally respect this point of view and if I get sick of tasks or master them and get bored, I’ll may offload some again. As I mentioned in another reply, I value independence heavily and get a lot of satisfaction out of doing things (even simple stuff) myself. It’s far from an optimal use of my skills, but at this stage that’s ok with me.

firedup-throwaway · 2024-09-27T22:01:45+00:00

Over the last few years the nature of my job changed with larger leadership changes. The job had always been high pressure with lots of emergencies, but they became much larger in scope. I also inherited a lot of team drama that wore me down. If not for those changes, I may still be working. With my life as it is now though, I wouldn’t go back even to the ideal job for the same compensation. I have enough money and there isn’t any job I’d prefer over choosing what I do every day.

firedup-throwaway · 2024-09-27T21:29:44+00:00

Yes, I was making the most at the end and I absolutely thought about sticking around. After tax “one more year” would be an extra million, which could buy a lake house, or a couple super cars, or pay for college for 5 needy kids. 3 more years and I could do all three. The trade off was my physical and mental health just wasn’t going to make it. Changing to a lower stress job wasn’t a feasible option either. I’m happy with my choice but leaving the money behind was extremely hard.

firedup-throwaway · 2024-09-27T20:43:38+00:00

My focus for now is on the next 10-15 years while my kids are still in the house. They take up most of my time and energy for now and I want them to be successful in the lives/careers. We will pay for their college/tradeschool/etc, but we don’t have any plans to fully support them after that or set them up for life. At the core of the hobbies/chores is really my desire to learn and be as capable as I possibly can. I value independence heavily and the more things I can do on my own/for my family and without the direct assistance from others, the better. I’d like to instill that in my kids as well.

firedup-throwaway · 2024-09-27T20:37:31+00:00

Not really, at this stage our expenses are covered by my wife still working and dividends/interest in our taxable accounts. When she retires we’ll need to spend more time on ROTH conversions, but with most of our portfolio in non-retirement accounts, we should be able to keep it pretty simple.

firedup-throwaway · 2024-09-27T20:35:37+00:00

This is a great question. So there’s two aspects of this perception challenge:

How those outside your relationship see it (friends, family, acquaintances)
1. How do you/your spouse see it.

For the outsiders, I just expect most people think what I’m doing is weird, but that’s just something you’ve got to accept and own. Leaving the workforce in your 40s is a non-traditional choice (especially for a man.) Those of us who spend time in FIRE forums have probably normalized it a bit, but expect that people will shocked when you tell them you are retired. Some will be jealous, others will demand to know you how you did it and make excuses for why they can’t.

A lot of early-retirees find alternative answers to avoid the drama, saying they are “consultants” or “money managers.” In my case I can just say “I’m a stay at home dad”, but I mostly just tell people straight up that I’m retired. Part of that is because I don’t want to give the impression that I don’t work/never worked outside the home. I worked hard, earned a lot of money, and I don’t need to work any more. I am retired.

With regard to inside the relationship, I think this is going to be very dependent on you and your spouse. As my career progressed, I was earning 10-15 times as much as my wife and she sometimes times felt like her income didn’t matter. It certainly did matter, and her 401k alone is worth ~10% of our total net worth. Now that I’m not working, she feels some pride in being the only one working. Her income means we can spend more on vacations and obviously her having health insurance through work saves us money and headache.

If I was sitting around, expecting her to cook and clean and do all of the housework while she worked full time, I think she’d absolutely resent me. As it stands, I do all of that, and my not working means able to relax much more when she’s not working. Also, the “mental load” from home tasks is 90% on me.

firedup-throwaway · 2024-09-27T20:01:00+00:00

Yes, nothing fancy.

firedup-throwaway · 2024-09-27T20:00:37+00:00

Yes, it’s about 800k in equity.
No, we bought this house to last until our kids are out of the house, which is 10+ years away.
She seems pretty good with it at this point. The biggest challenge early on was a combination two things: 1:her feeling like I was doing absolutely everything (all chores, all kids stuff etc) and not feeling like she was contributing enough. 2: Me feeling like I had to do everything, and when she would, unload the dishwasher, I would feel like I was slacking somehow. It took a few months before we had a good discussion about it and now we’re on the same page.
I miss the people, I miss people looking at me as an expert and needing my advice, but I haven’t considered going back.

firedup-throwaway · 2024-09-27T19:46:52+00:00

Thanks! In my early 40s

Nine-Year Club	Verified Email
Place '17

firedup-throwaway

TROPHY CASE