Fifteen minutes of early retirement fame

REWahoo

REWahoo

Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give
Joined
Jun 30, 2002
Messages
50,032
Location
Texas: No Country for Old Men
Thanks for the link. It certainly require discipline of saving and investing to pull it through.
 
I like the picture of Buffett in the cute little orange frame. :)

It sounds like the wife isn't totally on board with the plan though.
 
Very impressive! Wow. I wonder if he is a member? If he isn't, he should be!

I do wish they had given some general indication of how much his attorney wife was making during the accumulation phase, and how much she brought into the marriage. All that aside, they are being wise with their money and LBYM'ing and I would love to hear more from them about that.
 
Wow, that could be my story almost exactly. I finished college and law school by age 23 as well (though never practiced law). Never made more than $100k (or even close to it!).

The kid thing hits home. Even if I have to return to work at some point in my 40's or 50's when the kids are grown and out of the house, it'll be okay. I'm enjoying time with my kids while they are still young. I don't think I'll ever regret that.
 
W2R said:
Very impressive! Wow. I wonder if he is a member? If he isn't, he should be!

I do wish they had given some general indication of how much his attorney wife was making during the accumulation phase, and how much she brought into the marriage. All that aside, they are being wise with their money and LBYM'ing and I would love to hear more from them about that.
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I agree, brushing over his wife's contribution during the accumulation phase undermines his story IMO. I too never made more than $100K and retired at 36 with a 7-figure portfolio. Woohoo! But wait, my wife contributed significantly to that portfolio. Combined, our income always was in the 6-figure range.
 
Nice story, the point of which is that "it can be done by normal people". True it sounds like his wife may want to go back to work but at the same time she's fully on board with him being the SAHD. So it will probably work for them.
 
FIREd said:
I agree, brushing over his wife's contribution during the accumulation phase undermines his story IMO. I too never made more than $100K and retired at 36 with a 7-figure portfolio. Woohoo! But wait, my wife contributed significantly to that portfolio. Combined, our income always was in the 6-figure range.
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But talking about the wife also making money wouldn't make the "retire in your 30's story as interesting! :D

I was interviewed by an editor at CNBC for a big show they were doing on "redefining retirement" or something like that. We got to a certain point in the interview and then she said "Hey, I believe you, but your story won't sell. Your wife is still working and some will say "you're just a stay at home dad" and not retired for financially independent". That was the end of the interview. Hey, no biggie, I'm still early retired AND a stay at home dad (although I'm out and about as much as I stay at home). :flowers:


For the guy shown at the link in the OP's post, I imagine they asked the guy about his finances and the impact of his wife working later on. He probably said something like "hey, we have enough to never work again; here's what we spend, here's how much we can withdraw from our investments". That's too complicated to fit in a 3 minute video.
 
FUEGO said:
But talking about the wife also making money wouldn't make the "retire in your 30's story as interesting! :D

I was interviewed by an editor at CNBC for a big show they were doing on "redefining retirement" or something like that. We got to a certain point in the interview and then she said "Hey, I believe you, but your story won't sell. Your wife is still working and some will say "you're just a stay at home dad" and not retired for financially independent". That was the end of the interview. Hey, no biggie, I'm still early retired AND a stay at home dad (although I'm out and about as much as I stay at home). :flowers:
Click to expand...

Having a spouse with a half-decent job really makes it difficult to claim retirement or financial independence status, unless you are super rich. In fact, I am often reminded that the only status I can claim is that of "kept man" as if I played no part in my ability to retire early.
 
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I don't really get that idea that a working spouse means you aren't retired. I work. My husband is retired. Is it only ER that doesn't count? (Hubby is 62). He's filling the role of SAHD... not to mention gardener, contractor/handyman, personal assistant... (Our kids are school age.) But he's retired and would be doing those things (except the PA) if I was retired also.

Is it the SAHD thing that negates the term retired? In the article linked in the OP - the wife isn't working.

Fuego, FIREd - you guys are retired because you can AFFORD to never work again.
 
FIREd said:
Having a spouse with a half-decent job really makes it difficult to claim retirement or financial independence status, unless you are super rich. In fact, I am often reminded that the only status I can claim is that of "kept man" as if I played no part in my ability to stay to retire early.
Click to expand...

Wow, you let somebody un-retire you and then let them appoint you a "kept man"? :D
 
rodi said:
Is it the SAHD thing that negates the term retired? In the article linked in the OP - the wife isn't working.

Fuego, FIREd - you guys are retired because you can AFFORD to never work again.
Click to expand...

I'm not up to speed on the latest orthodoxy with respect to the definition of "retired". I thought it meant "not working" and describes someone who has left a career (at the very least).

The "SAHD" part answers the "what do you do all day" question.
 
Does the spouse in Orlando share his commitment to ER or just support his choice, for now? Not clear in the article.
 
FUEGO said:
Wow, you let somebody un-retire you and then let them appoint you a "kept man"? :D
Click to expand...

I don't care about the label enough to do something foolish about it, like getting a job. :) But I also don't have to convince readers that I am FIRE'd. So the label that people choose to put on me is inconsequential. But I think that all young ER bloggers have had a run-in with the retirement police at one point or another.
 
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rodi said:
I don't really get that idea that a working spouse means you aren't retired. I work. My husband is retired. Is it only ER that doesn't count?
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I think it's more a matter that when one spouse is working, the retired spouse has a safety net and can FIRE on a much smaller portfolio. They no longer need to worry about bad tail events (bad sequence of stock returns, expensive medical treatments, and before ACA being turned down for health insurance on the individual market).

If my wife continued to work, I'd be willing to FIRE with a portfolio maybe 50-75% our current size.
 
As an individual, I think it depends on how close you are cutting it once you lose the benefits provided by the spouse. E.g., if I lose health insurance provided by the wife, can I still FIRE when I increase the health care budget by 200-300% to account for higher premiums and greater out-of-pocket maximum?

Hypothetically, if my WR had to increase above 3.5% I would not say I was FI without my wife. But this is a tricky game to play because many expenses are infrequent/unpredictable but costly and need to be amortized to a yearly rate for SWR calculations.
 
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FUEGO said:
I'm not up to speed on the latest orthodoxy with respect to the definition of "retired". I thought it meant "not working" and describes someone who has left a career (at the very least).

The "SAHD" part answers the "what do you do all day" question.
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Retired means not doing or required to do labor for ones daily bread. If a stay at home Dad is anything like what I read on here, it is very similar to 1950s stay at home mothers. They worked, and worked plenty, just not for a paycheck or for social security credits.

And, if the situation no longer pleases either party to the marriage, there can be a divorce in which the currently non cash earning partner can take a variable share of the surplus and current earnings of the currently earning partner.

Unless the modern working woman and breadwinner is a lot harder than the typical 50s male breadwinner, in case the home partner should become disabled or otherwise unable to contribute, that partner is not on his or her way to sleeping under a bridge. If the earning partner does not see it that way, the courts will, I would imagine even if he stay at home member is male.

When some single man or woman quits their job, their position, security, and power is quite different from that of a stay-home man or woman who quits. To me, what they have done is change job descriptions and bosses, and if the earning partner is very successful, perhaps improved their security position.

Ha
 
So... since my husband is doing the bulk of the kid-schlepping - when I retire will he still be considered a SAHD, and not retired?

I don't get it.

Our finances are joined. But he would be retired whether I was in the picture or not.
 
FUEGO said:
Then are you truly FI?
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Interesting question. In my case there are two factors that come into play.

1) Because of our past working histories and our current jobs, the impact of DW's continuing to work on our retirement income is much greater than mine. My SS benefit is pretty well set, but hers increases pretty dramatically with several more years of work. In addition, as a late career Fed, she can qualify for a pension if she hangs in there for several more years, my current position has no pension options. Lastly, also because she is a Fed, there is the chance to hang onto her healthcare benefits as a bridge to Medicare - not available to me.

2) We have discussed the fact that we could BOTH retire NOW, if we were willing to have the standard of living that we enjoyed when I was teaching and she had various part time jobs. If she and I continue to work until she can collect the suite of benefits that come with reaching the magic numbers associated with Fed employment, we can enjoy a standard of living that is higher than what we enjoy now. But, the reality is that this is largely dependent on HER employment, not mine. If I retire and she continues to work, the reality is that we still will have a standard of living that is at least as high as our current one.

The risk is that something happens to her and I end up with a lower standard of living - but I would be perfectly happy with that in exchange for the freedom to enjoy life now. DW also realizes that this is just the way the numbers work because of the choices we made when we were raising kids and the luck of the draw when it came to trying to get employed in DC. She got the Fed job, I ended up at a non-profit. It could easily have turned out the other way.
 
I have several months yet to get my story straight, to find a proper "label" to appease the nosey masses when I no longer work come this Fall. My wife is going to keep working for the foreseeable future so I am sure there will be whispered utterances of "kept man" and other such things.

Screw it, I think I'm going with "retired" and enjoy the resulting angst it will generate.
 
Since nuance is apparently not popular, I have a suggestion. Everyone is retired. Certainly welfare recipients are retired. Almost everyone today gets some sugar from Uncle, so we are all retired. The guy in front of Trader Joe with his hand out is retired. The psychotic that just passed my building raving about something is certainly retired. After all, his keep such as it is along with his meds are given to him without anything that I can see being required, other than that he do nothing for money.

Work is so yesterday!

Ha
 
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