Celebrating my 1st year of FIRE

[papadad111]

And if it's not to much trouble, please mention how much fortune you started with. That's where my biggest fear is; running out of money. Who wants to look for work in their 80's?

One of the money challenges is that we did not have a good feel for our expenses post FIRE. We had lived abroad for a couple decades due to work and only back in USA for a year or two here and there. So it has been hard to figure out exactly what a baseline would cost when moving back to USA.

That fact brought some nervousness. A year into retirement and a year living back in USA, we have a better feel for our general expenses.

My overall assumption on annual expenses was not far off , at least based on this past year, but the categories are totally different from what I expected it would be here and more like apples and oranges to what and how we spent while living abroad. Eg. Health insurance here is lots more...but we gave up house help/Nanny/Maid.

We are also much less indulging now - less access to the stuff and less need to offset hard work and challenging environment by treating ourselves.

I think that reduced lifestyle remains until we get the real hang of costs here and refine our drawdown plans.

I anticipate withdraw rate to be 3.5% for a fully loaded budget . That includes travel and new toys but could drop to the Spartan budget and reduce the WR to 3%.

Having small side hustles that include benefit of health insurance really helps reduce our near term WR thus reducing Sequence of Returns risk, at least in theory.

 

[YVRRocketSurgery]

As I get closer to my targeted retirement day in just over 5 years, I'm quite interested to learn about the transition period just into retirement so I can start preparing. I really appreciate the insights and experiences shared in a thread like this.

It's nice seeing different stories because everyone has their own preferences and it's nice to be able to pick out info that seems more relevant to you situation and likes/dislikes.

 

[Backdraft57]

As I get closer to my targeted retirement day in just over 5 years, I'm quite interested to learn about the transition period just into retirement so I can start preparing. I really appreciate the insights and experiences shared in a thread like this.



It's nice seeing different stories because everyone has their own preferences and it's nice to be able to pick out info that seems more relevant to you situation and likes/dislikes.

I agree! I have 20 work days left and have been reading here for over a year. For a while I thought I might be loosing my mind, then I read that someone else went through the same thing. I laid on my side the other night and wept like a baby for 10-15 minutes about leaving the fire service. Next morning all was well. Without reading the stories here I would have thought myself wacko.


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[papadad111]

Best to you both. Welcome here all the time. Intelligence and rationality are the norm here I've found ...


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[papadad111]

Actually, no, I'm older than you and this first year of retirement was one of the busiest of my life (in fact, friends make fun of how busy I say I am in retirement!).

I think it depends on your personality, as I've never understood those "what do you do all day/what do you do with your time" concerns. My experience is the result of a number of factors. First, retired, I don't run around and pack 10 things into one day like I used to (no wonder I was always stressed/angry/rushed). Now, it's at most one or two things. Second, what's been enormously helpful is that I never stopped calendaring my time. This inadvertently provided structure that so many new retirees are afraid of losing. For larger projects, I had calendared them for the next five years after retiring. This helped to stay on track to get the important things done I wanted to get done after retirement. I also have a deal with myself to do at least one productive thing per day, even if it's only going to the gym. I didn't do any of this consciously, but only recently realized how it solved the "time" problem organically.

Another thing that helped me was reading several books on simplicity, where I didn't just downsize or simplify, but examined the choices I'd made to this point that each item I was looking at signified. This was very helpful (although I didn't know it at the time) in my closing the door on my old life pre-retirement and looking forward to creating something exciting and new (like mentoring youth, which I start next month).

I think you just have to find your way. I've read the transition period can take up to three or four years, that it's different for each person, that it's never a perfect process, and that regardless, it's important to enjoy each phase of retirement (transition, active, slower, and non-active). The idea of retirement is, after all, a relatively new concept in history and we are lucky enough to be able to experience it!

Good comments. We are continuing to simplify bit by bit. It's a process in and of itself. I find we are less worried about stuff now days.... Its not what makes us happy. Keep us posted on mentoring youth. Insightful and to me a real life joy that I never had time for when working.


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