What does "enough" mean to you?

[Car-Guy]

When you get to the point you can confidently tell the boss to take this job and shove it.

Then, wait a few more years (known as the one more year(s) syndrome, which is more contagious around here than the flu) and tell him/her.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

If you like buying properties why stop? I suspect you would probably need to explore other hobbies and find one you enjoyed more in order to stop, otherwise you would be bored.

 

[Hermit]

I got my first job in engineering at 35. Graduated at 36. I wasn't quite ready to think about retirement at 37.

I did start saving serious money at about 41 when the little ones came along.

 

[HadEnuff]

Enough money, or enough bull$hit?

 

[travelover]

Enough money, or enough bull$hit?

I think the quote is, "You have a money bucket in one hand and a bullsh!t bucket in the other. When both are full, you are done".

 

[jollystomper]

To the OP, at 37 there is now way I could have known what "enough" was. I was still young enough to be getting raises and promotions on a regular basis, I enjoyed by job, including the travel component which at times was more than 50%, and I was not sure the house or location we lived it was where we wanted to stay.

However, over time, time became more important than money. I started seeing that a larger house in most cases meant more time and effort. While I liked my job, seeing what the cost of getting further promotions was did not seem worth it. Being very LBYM but living comfortably, we were already saving/investing at a high rate so raises did not matter much more.

Yes, we did look at what our desired retirement expenses would be, and from that came up with a "target" for FI - but we reached that while I was still mostly having fun at the job and time was not yet that important. But now, a few years later, I prefer to use my time as I wish, and being able to afford the things that we want without having to choose to work probably means that I am at the "enough" level.

So, as others have said, it is not just about money, a number of of factors have to come into play to determine when one has had "enough". My work "B.S." bucket is hardly full. I am not running from that, I am running towards more personal time freedom.

 

[Curmudgeon]

Whatever I had in my account when Megacorp downsized me was the 'right number' for me.

 

[Luck_Club]

To the OP, at 37 there is now way I could have known what "enough" was. I was still young enough to be getting raises and promotions on a regular basis, I enjoyed by job, including the travel component which at times was more than 50%, and I was not sure the house or location we lived it was where we wanted to stay.

While I liked my job, seeing what the cost of getting further promotions did not seem worth it.

This was and is a big factor for me. Incremental increases in income appear to be less and less. If I was still seeing big leaps in income every year or two I might continue. But how I see it I've peaked. So I keep a careful eye on the BS bucket, so I know when to dump it before it gets all over my shoes.

 

[racy]

I had enough when my job at mega corp began to require making trips to China and having conference calls with them on their time ... my time 10PM. I remember having a beer, floating on a lounge chair in our lake after a grueling day at work and realized "I don't have to do this anymore". 37 years of 401k contributions plus a company pension helped, but wasn't the deciding factor.

 

[Lawrence of Suburbia]

I think the quote is, "You have a money bucket in one hand and a bullsh!t bucket in the other. When both are full, you are done".

Sadly, my money bucket is not quite full ...

 

[retiringby50]

I'm not retired yet, but for me, it won't be a number... I think the number originally was $3 million in non-real estate monies, but I won't get there before I retire. I already know when I'm retiring because it'll be based on our company's retirement benefits... it's when I qualify for retiree medical benefits and eligible to withdraw from pension plan.

Based on what we have (or will have by then), and the numbers run by the financial planner, our only child may end up with $3 million when we're dead, to which I said, "Oh, she doesn't need that much money!" which means we may get to spend more than we think. That was also one driver of retiring as soon as we can.

 

[W2R]

Greetings,

I'm 37 years old, married, no children (but we will likely have one child within a year or two). I have real estate investments that produce approximately $85,000 of taxable income per year after business deductions. I live in the Great Lakes region, so aside from high taxes it's a low cost of living relative to most metropolitan areas. Intellectually I know that I could survive for the rest of my life on this amount of cash flow. I find myself pursuing the purchase of more and more rental property with the sole intent of increasing my eventual "retirement income." I live a lot like a retired person right now, but I'm always thinking that more is better and thus continue to buy.

If more is always better, then, sadly, you will never have enough.

For those who have already retired, what was your "enough" number? How did you settle on that,

I approached it backwards. I wanted to retire on 11/7/2009 (the first day I qualified to officially retire with benefits), and decided that whatever I had on that date would have to be enough. Then I worked like crazy and lived like a student trying to save all I could by that date.

and how did you reign in the inevitable temptation to increase your passive income--even if you didn't really need it to live comfortably? I don't care about fancy cars or other status symbols, but I do have an unnatural obsession with passive income (e.g. the more the better).

Well, like I said, I was living like a student for years in advance trying to prepare for retirement. By the time I retired, I was used to a certain lifestyle and that was enough. But I have more income than that, so I am trying to learn how to spend more.

What is "enough" for you? Any advice on how to slow down?

I'm always saying this on the forum, but I don't know if others can relate to it at all or not:
Meditate, look inwards, search within yourself for hours each week to discover what you really, really want. And then to the extent that you can afford it, buy/experience that which you really, really want. Don't waste your time and money on the rest.

For me this led to a feeling of contentment and "enough". Hope this helps.

 

[GravitySucks]

When people started calling me eccentric instead of mad.

 

[CardsFan]

I had enough when my job at mega corp began to require making trips to China and having conference calls with them on their time ... my time 10PM.

I had the same experience late in my career, but it actually was a positive! In my case I could mostly schedule the trips around my schedule, they were a defined duration (one week to 10 days) and had a defined purpose (contract negotiation or technical presentation). I enjoyed the people, and the fact I was, mostly, treated very well.

When I retired, I actually told my boss that I would consider coming back to make these kinds of trips, but I was tired of the day to day project management and artificial deadlines.

To the OP: IMHO you should stay the course for a while. DW has a cousin that started in RE as a sideline (storage, then apartments). Eventually it became the full time job. They have since retired and sold everything, and cruise about 100 days a year.

 

[HadEnuff]

Sadly, my money bucket is not quite full ...

Well, that's normal. The bull$h!t bucket normally fills up first.

 

[flintnational]

The plan - We had several Pre-FIRE goals. Financially we had a range for our assets, X to Y. We had an age target of 55. I also had career goals I wanted to achieve.

The actual - We retired at 53 at the low end of our range, but with some pension funds that were not included in our planning. I achieved my career goals by 46 and began downsizing the j*b.

Edit to add: Our savings range was based on our then budget adjusted for retirement, less taxes more travel, and inflation.

 

[calmloki]

I invented goals and created emergencies to keep things interesting. You are ahead of where we were, but we pushed all the money we could at the rental mortgages. Maybe dumb as the common wisdom with real estate is OPM, other people's money. Common wisdom wasn't, as when real estate crashed it made no difference to us as the rents kept rolling in and we were pretty much free and clear and without worries. We've mostly done small multis and one of my goals was to own as many units as I had years. Achieved that, but also found that 53 units was busier than I wanted to be. 40 was about the sweet spot for being in good touch with my tenants and having a mellow time as a landlord/maintenance person.

In my later 60s now and have downsized to 37 units and have a man doing the vast majority of the work, but that comes with its own stresses. We could sell them all and live very comfortably for the rest of our days on what we've amassed, and I'd sorta like that - but am not sure I trust dollars or the stock market or -face it- anything different. Personal decision, but I agree - 37? - you have a lot of deals to make and places to change and improve yet!

 

[kcowan]

I had enough when my job at mega corp began to require making trips to China and having conference calls with them on their time ... my time 10PM. I remember having a beer, floating on a lounge chair in our lake after a grueling day at work and realized "I don't have to do this anymore". 37 years of 401k contributions plus a company pension helped, but wasn't the deciding factor.

Yes I had a job with an operation on the east coast and 2 subs in Manila and KL. The communications was always before and after hours. Initially it was a bit of a rush but eventually it got old.

 

[Luck_Club]

I invented goals and created emergencies to keep things interesting. You are ahead of where we were, but we pushed all the money we could at the rental mortgages. Maybe dumb as the common wisdom with real estate is OPM, other people's money. Common wisdom wasn't, as when real estate crashed it made no difference to us as the rents kept rolling in and we were pretty much free and clear and without worries. We've mostly done small multis and one of my goals was to own as many units as I had years. Achieved that, but also found that 53 units was busier than I wanted to be. 40 was about the sweet spot for being in good touch with my tenants and having a mellow time as a landlord/maintenance person.

In my later 60s now and have downsized to 37 units and have a man doing the vast majority of the work, but that comes with its own stresses. We could sell them all and live very comfortably for the rest of our days on what we've amassed, and I'd sorta like that - but am not sure I trust dollars or the stock market or -face it- anything different. Personal decision, but I agree - 37? - you have a lot of deals to make and places to change and improve yet!

Nice job amassing a very impressive portfolio. I agree 100% about the trust in the market issue. It is so hard to buy a 4-5% yield, with no leverage and risks that are beyond your control, after investing in rentals.

 

[YVRRocketSurgery]

Not retired (46, married, no kids, and about 4 years to retirement) but wanted to comment: Goals, risk tolerance, lifestyle.

My enough number is based on current spend combined with estimated spend to support our lofty retirement goals (travel) for both of us combined. It gives me peace of mind that I don't have to depend on the missus hitting her numbers for whatever reason, yet, if she does, I can comfortably have a lower withdraw rate if she does hit her numbers. I don't feel the need to grow my passive income beyond my target because I'm hopefully optimistic that the missus will hit her numbers. And we live a somewhat basic but fairly comfortable lifestyle already so any surplus on my numbers that doesn't need to go to our combined spend would likely more than be enough to cover any quirky material wants (within reason). Growing it further will also bump me up against some taxation and government benefits issues.

 

[augam]

Greetings,

I'm 37 years old, married, no children (but we will likely have one child within a year or two). I have real estate investments that produce approximately $85,000 of taxable income per year after business deductions. I live in the Great Lakes region, so aside from high taxes it's a low cost of living relative to most metropolitan areas. Intellectually I know that I could survive for the rest of my life on this amount of cash flow. I find myself pursuing the purchase of more and more rental property with the sole intent of increasing my eventual "retirement income." I live a lot like a retired person right now, but I'm always thinking that more is better and thus continue to buy.

For those who have already retired, what was your "enough" number? How did you settle on that, and how did you reign in the inevitable temptation to increase your passive income--even if you didn't really need it to live comfortably? I don't care about fancy cars or other status symbols, but I do have an unnatural obsession with passive income (e.g. the more the better).

What is "enough" for you? Any advice on how to slow down?

Excellent Thread.

Subscribed and looking forward to the responses.

 

[Hermit]

Nice job amassing a very impressive portfolio. I agree 100% about the trust in the market issue. It is so hard to buy a 4-5% yield, with no leverage and risks that are beyond your control, after investing in rentals.

I tried a rental for a few years. It wasn't for me. I couldn't leave well enough alone on the rental house. After spending the entire summer the year my daughter was born fixing up the rental, I sold it. It just was not worth my time when compared to spending time with my family. That was 27 years ago. I'm happy to report that I did OK without rentals.

 

[cooch96]

Using Firecalc with an 80% chance of success, $700k is enough with no mortgage. So my goal is to get $700k and then ask for additional vacation from megacorp, perhaps even a sabbatical of sorts. I suspect there’s nearly a 10% chance this will earn me an immediate dismissal. At which point I will accrue unemployment benefits and pad my retirement with a scintilla of luxury.
Hopefully, DW would continue to work, which would cover most of the basics and further fund luxury experiences.

 

[RobLJ]

The potential munchkin on the way changes and complicates the question a lot, since there are the additional expenses during K-12, then the issue of college and healthcare. So I would continue to accumulate your real estate empire until you reach a margin of safety that will get you through launching the Munchkin in the world on his/her own.

In my case, at 56 (3 years ago) I ran the numbers and realized that we had enough to make it safely but on a budget that was "comfortable." I had the option of working part-time and DW wanted to continue to work, so we moved to Reno, closer to both sons. In the process, the net worth has increased about 40%, leaving a huge margin of safety and allowing a yearly expenditure (at the 4% SWR) considerably more than we expect to spend, so DW is retiring at the end of next month. I'll continue to work part-time online for half of my former salary and will be happy to do so for at least another two years, since it reduces the withdrawal rate below 2.5%. Afterwards and before SS kicks in, for about 2-3 years I may withdraw 6-6.5%, but only for a few years. After SS kicks in the withdrawal rate diminishes to a safe rate.

 

[socca]

The decision to "retire" is not all about me and my desires. There are people who are grateful that I continue to work (although part-time self-employed is an entirely different world than full-time W2 or 1099 work). These people include family members / co-owners who eagerly gobble up the purely passive income generated by our assets, and non-family members who make a living using our assets. As long as the work is mildly intellectually stimulating and only occasionally aggravating, I'll stay in the saddle regardless of my net worth and/or income. My Dad is still working as he approaches 80 and my paternal Grandfather worked in the family biz until his death; I may follow in their footsteps.