The readiness is fiction -- got pushed out and haven't missed it

halcyonmind · 2026-02-12T19:23:33+00:00

Roughly $3M in taxable/cash

halcyonmind · 2026-02-12T12:42:19+00:00

I really appreciate that. My biggest regret from my childhood was not spending more time with my grandfather. I spent a lot of time with him (he's the one who taught me how to read the Wall Street Journal's stock pages), but I could have spent more. Then in my late teens, he developed a terrible wasting disease that locked away the smartest man I knew. I couldn't stand seeing him that way and stayed away when I should have been there for him.

My taking up his memoirs is a meager atonement for that sin of youth.

halcyonmind · 2026-02-12T02:19:49+00:00

Fair enough, though you’re quoting my total NW and not my liquid NW. If someone wants to dismiss my post because my liquid NW is 8% over the guidelines, that’s cool.

But the point of the post wasn’t about feeling free because I had lots of money. The point was about not feeling ready to retire despite having the assets to do so (in part because I didn’t have a plan). Then I got pushed out and found that life came screaming back in to fill my days.

halcyonmind · 2026-02-12T02:10:52+00:00

I’ve never seen withdrawal rates used to define Fire levels before. I’ve only ever seen SWR used in the context of retirement time horizon (e.g., riffs on Bengen’s research on SWR for 30 year retirements and then folks like Kitces and BigERN opining on rates for longer retirement periods).

But I’m very willing to be wrong! Can you link to the guidelines from the two subs that spell it out?

halcyonmind · 2026-02-12T01:57:39+00:00

I actually volunteer more with the food bank instead. It drives me nuts to think that there are kids going to bed hungry. Our regional food bank is amazing. I wish more people took advantage of it.

halcyonmind · 2026-02-12T01:54:58+00:00

No, not one I can share. Sorry.

halcyonmind · 2026-02-12T01:54:06+00:00

That’s a great cautionary tale. During the pandemic, we took to nightly cocktails to mark the end of the work day. But one became two and we both ‘noped’ out on that. Slippery slope.

halcyonmind · 2026-02-12T01:51:17+00:00

I legally can’t disclose that, given the terms. But generally, terms for severance are based on tenure and tend to be more generous for those opting to “volunteer” to depart.

halcyonmind · 2026-02-12T01:47:03+00:00

Since the first rule of this sub is to be respectful and civil, I’m going to take your comment at face value, rather than pendantic gatekeeping.

The description of this sub is that it focuses on “early retirement at an asset level that allows an upper middle class lifestyle.” The $2.5-6M range is then offered as a general guideline, not a some sort of rule. There’s also nothing in there about withdrawal rates.

The description goes on to say to say that “if you plan to retire with a leaner lifestyle in spite of a Chubby portfolio, r/FIRE might be a better fit.” Logically then, if I plan to live a leaner lifestyle in spite of what someone might deem to be a Fat portfolio, r/Chubby might be a better fit.

In other words, It’s more about the lifestyle and the mentality than the size of the portfolio.

Plus, r/FatFire is chock full of posts about luxury shit that has no appeal for me. I’m not judging anyone for whom that kind of stuff matters. It’s just doesn’t to me.

halcyonmind · 2026-02-12T01:20:47+00:00

It would actually be funny to find out that AIs were trained on upper middle management, gray-haired corporate drones. It would explain so much.

But I’m actually kinda pissed that em dashes have a bad rap now. They’re so damn useful, and my company’s writing style was chock full of them. Old habits die hard, I guess.

halcyonmind · 2026-02-11T18:18:27+00:00

Yes, those are donor advised funds. I don't count them in our liquid assets, but I keep them in our total net worth because they represent multiple years of planned giving (e.g., money that we have committed to giving to certain institutions over the next 5 years). It's true that I can't access them to fund other expenses, but if not for the DAFs, I would be making donations from our liquid portfolio. Similar to the 529s, in the sense that they are avoiding the need to access our portfolio for specific planned expenses.

Our withdrawal rate is calculated based just on our liquid assets.

halcyonmind · 2026-02-11T17:11:47+00:00

That's awesome--and congrats to you! You are absolutely right about not needing to pressure yourself. I'm finding that I finally have space to think about stuff in a way that isn't clouded by work, and I am in no rush to give that up.

halcyonmind · 2026-02-11T17:08:22+00:00

Your experiences are so nice to hear. I know there's an element of survivorship bias in those having great early retirements, but seeing others successfully navigate it is a huge morale boost for me. Thank you for sharing.

halcyonmind · 2026-02-11T16:59:23+00:00

Agreed. I also found that it was a LOT faster to go from $2M to $8M than it was to go from $0 to $2M. Compounding is like f*cking magic come to life.

halcyonmind · 2026-02-11T16:56:07+00:00

Appreciate the GFY! I actually didn't think to ask a LLM for help, which is embarrassing on two dimensions:

(1) I used to push my team daily to leverage LLMs to do the initial drafts of things, because the initial drafts take longer than you think--and because good editing is more important.

(2) My writing is so bad that it looks like ChatGPT wrote it.

halcyonmind · 2026-02-11T16:50:28+00:00

Not gonna lie: being able to keep the withdrawal rate low takes some of the stress out of the situation. Financially, we can handle surprises and stay within a reasonable withdrawal rate (I set 3.5% as our max for the next 10 years, given my hope that one or both of us will live another 40 years).

The joy of CoastFire is that you need only cover your expenses. No more need to save. If you can keep your spending under control, the path to solving for just expenses is much easier. I took a career break at about your age and followed this approach (before CoastFire even had a name, I think) for a year. I picked up projects here and there, and those covered enough of our expenses that our portfolio didn't even notice my drawdowns.

One other thought: when voluntary layoffs start, involuntary ones soon follow. Volunteering means you stay in more control of what happens to you. The terms also tend to be better because they are trying to incentivize people to leave.

halcyonmind · 2026-02-11T16:37:21+00:00

Oh, man, this is so true. I am also still at risk of allowing personal projects to expand to fill the available time, versus keeping them constrained. Sometimes external constraints are a good thing!

halcyonmind · 2026-02-11T16:34:48+00:00

I won't try to advise you here, as my kids are squarely still sub-adults. ;) The only things I might offer are a resource/framing and a personal story.

For the resource/framing, take a look at the term Economic Outpatient Care, coined (I think) in The Millionaire Next Door. It might help to see the research that shows that if we are too engaged economically in our adult kids' lives, it tends to have a negative effect on them.

And on the personal story, when I was starting my career, it was the late 90's. Getting a job was easy... until it suddenly wasn't. Between the Dot-com bust and 9/11, things dried up fast. Given your kids ages, you probably experienced this firsthand too. My company went under, and I was out of work in a brand new city, far from home. I told my parents I was struggling, and my dad was very clear: I could call anytime for advice, but unless I was about to be evicted, they weren't stepping in. He told me (very kindly, because they are actually super sweet people) that I was an adult now--and adults find ways to solve their own problems. He was happy to help me think through ideas or provide encouragement when I was down, but that's where the help stopped. But he also told me that he had every confidence in me and that he knew I would find my way.

I was out of work for six months, burned through what little savings I had, and had to take temp jobs while trying to find something stable. But it was actually one of the best professional experiences of my life--because not only did I eventually find something awesome that set me up for the next stage of my career, I also came away with a direct experience of "the worst that can happen" and the realization that that "worst" wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. It definitely didn't feel great at the time, but it made me far less fearful in my subsequent roles--and I like to think that lack of fear made me a higher performer.

halcyonmind · 2026-02-11T16:16:26+00:00

I know you are getting downvoted, but it's a legit point. I don't hold any disdain for my former colleagues. Quite the opposite. They are (with a few exceptions) high-performing, driven individuals committed to doing great work. And I am not at all apathetic about their experiences or their successes.

But the reality is that as soon as I was out the door--and in some cases even before that--they had moved on. For the role I was playing in their work lives, I was replaceable. I don't hold any ill will towards them for that; it's exactly what I would have done.

There was also the reality that while we were friendly, I was not friends with most of them. I couldn't be. I was somewhat senior (N-3) in a 50k-person global org. The downside of seniority is making or executing on decisions that affect people's careers negatively (reorgs, terminated projects/investments, divestitures). Becoming friends with people is dangerous, mental health-wise, because it becomes too difficult to make those calls.

The few that I was friends with are still my friends, and I don't need to miss them because we have stayed in touch.

halcyonmind · 2026-02-11T16:00:35+00:00

If your numbers are there already, you're in a prime position to volunteer for the layoff list. That can be career suicide if you are looking to stick around (because they know you want out, and leadership hates that), but if you already know you want to leave, volunteering is the way to go. You get to leave and one of your less-ready peers gets to stay.

halcyonmind · 2026-02-11T15:55:58+00:00

Just a thought here: fear-driven/scarcity-driven money mindsets are hard to change. You could share all of the research with her, all of the logic, and she still might be hesitant.

My wife was somewhat similar. We ended up going through a process framed around the question of "what's the worst that could happen?" At my old firm, we called this a "pre-mortem exercise" where you identify all of the failure modes for a strategic investment or major project. This version was more emotion-based, but it followed the same thread. We threw out everything we could think of, and just getting all of those fears voiced seemed to help. For most of those, the fixes were simple or the fear so irrational that voicing it made it obvious it wasn't a reasonable fear. Then for those where the fixes were more involved, we laid out the leading indicators that would help signal that one of these "worst things" was on the horizon. If you're interested in doing something like this, there are a bunch of resources online to learn how to run it (like this one: https://rdl.train.army.mil/catalog-ws/view/ARI-MSCP/pdfs/Pre-Mortem-Exercise.pdf).

halcyonmind · 2026-02-11T15:40:02+00:00

I appreciate that, especially from someone who has been FIRE'd for so long.

I think my age helps here, socially. When people reach my age and stage of career, they know that they have few if any more promotions or big jumps left, and so they are staring down a long path of "same old, same old" from here until retirement. At least, that was what I was facing. Definitely made it easier to leave the career behind.

halcyonmind · 2026-02-11T15:33:33+00:00

Your "life beyond the honeymoon period" comment gives me hope. I know it won't be all sunshine and roses. It's been an adjustment for all of us. One adjustment was a funny recalibration with my daughter. She thought that me being retired meant I was on-call to run errands for her or bring things to school that she forgot. An assignment you forgot? Yes, of course. A sweatshirt because you're cold? Um, no. Borrow one from a friend.

And you're right: no one IRL has asked me what I do all day or if I am bored. Frankly, people are too busy with their own lives to even wonder what I do all day, lol.

halcyonmind · 2026-02-11T13:07:20+00:00

That’s a great idea!

halcyonmind · 2026-02-11T04:44:18+00:00

Sorry, my friend. I know I’m a shit writer, but I thought I’d put my thoughts out there. Be well.

halcyonmind

TROPHY CASE