idledancer
Dryer sheet aficionado
- Joined
- Jun 22, 2019
- Messages
- 28
Long time ER.org learner/lurker here. DW and I are in our 30s and have been working towards FIRE since the great recession. No kids, no debt. Long story short a small company I worked for years ago (and had equity in) was aquired for a tidy sum by a megacorp, and that event has accellerated (and inflated) our retirement plan. We've been sitting on the money for awhile but I think I'm to call it done.
Like many here, we're a LBYM couple. We've never spent more than $50k in a year, but our bogleheady portfolio will support 3-4x that at ~2%. DW stopped working last year because we don’t need her salary and we couldn’t enjoy the perks of my job together with her work schedule. Even still, she wants me to leave so we can start living a new life of freedom. I'm not worried about getting bored in retirement; I have hobbies that I love and could spend all day doing. I don’t like working, but...
In my current position I make ~$500k a year. Even with our substantial net worth that's a weighty set of golden handcuffs. If my job was stressful I'd have been gone long ago. And it was very stressful for a long time, which is why I was working hard towards FIRE, but it isn’t anymore. What I do isn't important, but it's a low stress position in a high stress industry. I like most everyone I regularly speak to and most of my job is just being available in case they want to ask me something. They rarely do anymore. My biggest stressor was that someone might figure out I'm useless and fire me, but that isn't exactly a negative anymore.
I know this is a nice problem to have. I didn't foresee this situation. My path for FIRE was to span decades; my job would be a miserable slog the entire time and I’d quit the moment I hit my number. Now we've far exceeded our FIRE number, but I have this great job and I feel dumb for wanting to leave. I worry that retirement won’t work out for some reason and that I’ll want to work again and I won't find a job like this again.
What would you do if you had more than enough, but made an unreasonable amount of money and didn’t dislike your job beyond the time it took? Stay? Leave? Something in the middle? What haven't I thought of?
Like many here, we're a LBYM couple. We've never spent more than $50k in a year, but our bogleheady portfolio will support 3-4x that at ~2%. DW stopped working last year because we don’t need her salary and we couldn’t enjoy the perks of my job together with her work schedule. Even still, she wants me to leave so we can start living a new life of freedom. I'm not worried about getting bored in retirement; I have hobbies that I love and could spend all day doing. I don’t like working, but...
In my current position I make ~$500k a year. Even with our substantial net worth that's a weighty set of golden handcuffs. If my job was stressful I'd have been gone long ago. And it was very stressful for a long time, which is why I was working hard towards FIRE, but it isn’t anymore. What I do isn't important, but it's a low stress position in a high stress industry. I like most everyone I regularly speak to and most of my job is just being available in case they want to ask me something. They rarely do anymore. My biggest stressor was that someone might figure out I'm useless and fire me, but that isn't exactly a negative anymore.
I know this is a nice problem to have. I didn't foresee this situation. My path for FIRE was to span decades; my job would be a miserable slog the entire time and I’d quit the moment I hit my number. Now we've far exceeded our FIRE number, but I have this great job and I feel dumb for wanting to leave. I worry that retirement won’t work out for some reason and that I’ll want to work again and I won't find a job like this again.
What would you do if you had more than enough, but made an unreasonable amount of money and didn’t dislike your job beyond the time it took? Stay? Leave? Something in the middle? What haven't I thought of?